iSean

a new study out the other day reveals that more and more teachers are using computers, but that most are using them merely for administrative tasks . . . and, that is not surprising to me at all. i found the following snippet very interesting: InformationWeek > More Teachers Use Tech For Administration Than Actually Teach With It

Only 54 percent of respondents said they integrate computers into their daily curriculum, and more than 61 percent of teachers said they don’t have enough computers in their classrooms. More than half of teachers believe there should be one computer for each student, and nearly one third say there should be one computer for every five students, according to the third annual survey.
“In the feedback we have received, teachers have told us that when they have three or four students sharing one computer, then they start chitchatting about other things and they’re not really focused on getting their work done,” Rother said in an interview Monday. “If a school can bring in some wireless carts and teachers can check the carts out for their schedule, so the entire class can be online together, it makes class management that much easier and makes it appear that the ratio is better.”

you know, i heard many rumblings complaining about providing laptops for every student when that conversation was had here in michigan because many people feel we’ve spent more than enough on new technologies already. however, this article reveals that teachers believe that we really do need 1-to-1 computing to use technology more effectively. hmmm . . . listen to teachers or listen to state congressmen decide on funding for schools? is it really hard to figure out where my allegiance lies? ;~)

another segment of the article briefly mentions that elementary school teachers are more likely to use computers and that they are more likely to have access to computers. that surprises the heck out of me since i often hear how the high schools tend to get the newer technologies first and then the middle schools with the elementary schools last in line. so, i found that observation to be quite revealing.

More than 85 percent of teachers said they are well trained on Internet, word processing and e-mail software, but 27 percent have little or no training on integrating computers into instruction.

this is fairly discerning to me. i want my students to have the basics, but i’d really, really rather spend my time helping my students to learn how to go about integrating technology in the curriculum. i hope other ed tech professors have been on this bandwagon for some time now and we’ll hopefully see this trend start to turn around and shift to what we’re teaching. fingers crossed.

i intend to use blogging as a tool for communicating with my students, but also for my students to communicate with each other. i will likely de-emphasize the internet discussion forum and shift more attention to the use of blog, though i’ll still use the phpBB discussion forum. for what it’s worth, i considered using edublogs for blogging, but they discourage teachers using it with students. so, i am going to use blogsome, which uses WordPress just like this blog. it’s also free. this blog entry is my attempt to think out loud as i weight the plusses and minuses.

phpBB forums strengths:
this is a controlled environment. i can see every post/comment made by my students in one place. it’s efficient, convenient and effective. when i want to grade the value of the various contributions, the forum administration tools provide me with tools to quickly evaluate individual students. i can edit any comments made (e.g., to correct a spelling error or to delete a double submission). i can poll my students easily. i can make class announcements in a timely manner as all participating students will check the forum throughout the week. i can easily add images and make links and tie content into the weekly objectives. i also add avatars (photos of my students) so that i “see” each student every time they comment (as do the other students). if students forget passwords, they can easily have it reset (i can’t look it up, but tools exist to change it). i can also customize the look and feel of the forums.

phpBB forum disadvantages:
i don’t really have much to complain about. i have to keep group size to around 8 - 10 students at most because otherwise, i think people participating later in the week tend to feel that the contributions they want to make have already been hashed out. compared to Blackboard, which my university provides for me, the phpBB forums are light-years ahead, so any disadvantages should be viewed in light of this revelation.

blogging strengths:
blogging is becoming quite the rage and i think keeping a journal can be a good way to reflect back on content that you’ve learned while in school, but it can also be used while teaching to continue improving. blogs are more permanent than discussion forums. blogging can be as formal or informal as the author chooses. blogs are open to the world, so anyone can read it and add comments and/or feedback.

blogging disadvantages:
blogs are open to the world, so anyone can read it. ;~) yeah, i added this under strengths and weaknesses and it is both. i worry about having my students write in an open environment. i’ll encourage my students to create their blog anonymously and to not reveal private information (e.g., contact information, names, etc.). that’s good enough for me. blogs are spread out and each student has a unique URL, which can make it difficult to locate. in the past, students have lost passwords or login information and had to recreate new blogs, so their contributions to the course get spread out.

while there is much more, this is the gist of where i am in viewing these tools. my solution is to use phpBB forums and blogsome for blogging. i will try and pose more controversial subjects/questions in the forum and more personal content in the blog-o-sphere (e.g., how would you handle this scenario in your classroom . . . ; or please comment on this article). classes start this coming Monday so i suppose i’ll settle on my happy medium by then. ;~)

am i missing anything crucial in my thinking? feel free to comment or email me.

now this is a story worth writing about. i think this is a preview into the future and i couldn’t be happier.

VAIL, Ariz. — Students at Empire High School here started class this year with no textbooks, but it wasn’t because of a funding crisis.

Instead, the school issued iBooks — laptop computers made by Apple Computer — to each of its 340 students, becoming one of the first U.S. public schools to shun printed textbooks.

what a great forward looking school. obviously, the vast majority of schools are nowhere close to being ready to do this, but i also think many schools could get ready fairly quickly if they knew it was coming. i thought it was encouraging to read that the rest of the district is traditional with textbooks and yet this iBook school has a waiting list of students wanting to get in. and, kudos to the district for choosing Apple’s iBooks. ;~)

the article talks about how the classrooms are paperless, which is something i try and do as well. the one thing i don’t do electronically is the textbook i use. in fact, i wrote the textbook and i am stuck using it in paper form from the publisher even though i have the PDFs of all 12 or 13 chapters. i earn 50 cents a copy on this textbook and i would love to make nothing if i could give the content away; although, my contract does not allow me to do that, nor can i make a competing textbook. i’ve learned lessons the hard way this first time. but, enough about that, this school has dropped using all textbooks and the teachers now find many resources online. what a terrific way to prepare students better for their future of trying to evaluate materials found online and seeing how materials found online can be productive. i hope we hear more from this school as they progress through the school year. i’d love to hear the progress they make along with the barriers they encounter.

google news customization

Originally uploaded by atticmooses.

my internet start page is news.google.com. i like to run through the various headlines from time to time during the day and Google’s news gives me access to tens of thousands of sources. Great!

but, what about that specialized news that doesn’t often fit into the generic headlines that Google supplies? have no fear, google has got your back. the news is customizable. you can have as many special categories as you’d like. i set up many customized news searches. in the image enclosed (you may have to click it to see a close up version), you can see two of the categories that i am using: computers & schools; and, internet & teach. any current news articles that contain the two specified words will appear in my search results. it’s as simple as it looks. try it out. ;~)

US schookids run amok on internet | The Register

It all began last Autumn when the education authority supplied around 600 Apple iBook laptops to students at the high school. Naturally, they came complete with net-access-limiting filtering programme, and snooping software allowing the powers that be to see just what their charges were up to.
The administrators had not, however, reckoned on the sheer determination and machiavellian cunning of the students. They quickly found the admin password allowing unrestricted internet access - not by a keystoke logging black op or extracting it from the IT manager at the point of a gun - but rather because it was taped to the back of every machine.
Unsurprisingly, the miscreants immediately ran amok online, surfing with impunity and indulging in that most forbidden of fruits - iChat.

i am at a loss for words here. these students “stole” a password that administrators were stupid enough to tape to each student’s iBook??? and, the students downloaded iChat and now face potential felony charges. i think this is an example of gross negligence by administrators. they dropped the ball and now they’re trying to pass the buck! you know, i could live with the students getting into trouble for breaking the acceptable use policy and facing detention or loss of the use of technology, but a felony? oooh boy, this is silly. the school should chalk this up to a learning experience and . . . then they should actually learn from it.

and, i know that the article might not be telling me everything, but i think i get the gist: 1) passwords were ignorantly supplied to students, 2) students used passwords to access the web unlimitedly, and 3) they were caught. is it more complicated than i am seeing?

i think this is just a sign of the times in which we now live. kids are flocking to the technology world and the adults are trying to grasp hold of the various concepts. kids experiment with little regard for consequences and adults are pretty much failing to even experiment, let alone jump on board beyond the cursory levels. this creates a huge disconnect between generations. and, what the older generations do not understand, they fear. iChat is a wonderful communications tool. i use iChat AV and i can have live video chats with anyone around the world and the video is shown in full motion (30 frames/second). it’s awesome and it’s free (the kids downloaded a free app that comes standard on the machines they were using). iChat was used on CNN recently to talk with a guy in japan (from his home computer) and i think they plan to use it more. what a wonderful solution for communicating on the very cheap with anyone. ah well, i am sure this will play out better than it sounds right now.

every now and then i am going to try and post the thinking that i do as i try and make changes to my own teaching and this is a quick example.

so, the semester is fast approaching. i think i’ll have two online classes this upcoming semester and i have yet to decide on the tools i’ll use to help manage my class. i’d appreciate hearing from others (either via comments or email) as to your recommendations. i have used phpBB forums in the past and even tried paring it up with postnuke. and, i have tried blogger.com for my students.

i ended up dropping postnuke within about 2 weeks because my students were having far too much trouble with the university login and password and my phpBB forum login and password and the postnuke login and password. i have now asked them to use the same login and password for phpBB forums that they use for the university (actually, i just recommend it . . . not all choose to do so). i could go with postnuke again, but it’s not really designed for classroom.

i am now trying to decide between moodle and tikiwiki. this is where i’d appreciate some help. if you have thoughts, please share them with me. i’ll greatly appreciate your efforts. i like playing around with moodle, but i really like the phpBB forums better than moodle’s implementation. i know i could still use my forum and just ignore the forums in moodle, but that’s an extra hassle. tikiwiki is intriguing, but i’ve never played with it and i am not sure how it can be an improvement over moodle or other tools. i have installed a test tikiwiki site, but i have yet to play with it beyond a cursory effort.

JD and Ellie watching waves

Originally uploaded by atticmooses.

I joined a new photo storage and sharing site a while back and forgot about it. Well, I was reading internet news today and came across a tutorial for using Flickr. I was surprised to see that I already had an account. So, I decided to test it out. In fact, I am posting this blog entry from within the Flickr website.

Further, I was able to download a photo uploading tool to use inside of iPhoto — iPhoto is the application I use on my Mac to store and organize all of my digital photos. The uploading tool makes it extremely easy to resize and upload any photos I want to share. Further, the tool allows me to add titles, comments, and even searching terms to each image or batch process all photos at once.

I have to say that I am quite impressed with the ease of sharing photos once you put in a small amount of legwork up front. Then again, I can already see one thing I’d fix . . . This blog entry does not have a section that allows me to choose the categories for which this blog entry applies, so I’ll have to visit my blog and add that. But, that’s minor compared to the ease of everything else. And, I should have a neat little photo of my children enjoying the ocean at Carolina Beach this summer.


Edit: My first attempt said it failed and I tried again. The second attempt worked. I then visited my blog and both attempts had worked. I deleted one and that solved that, but I guess that’s why Flickr is still in beta. heh heh.