iSean

for several weeks now, i have been exploring the notion of creating a textbook for the undergraduate educational technology courses i teach. let me amend that . . . the textbook we use in the 40 sections of this course taught here each year was written by 4 of the instructors — me included. we wrote a textbook that is very affordable and meets our needs almost perfectly. we’re on the second edition and are beginning to think about a third addition and have also been contacted by the publisher about taking our textbook national. that’s all well and good; however, even at the lower cost the textbook still runs close to $30. and, the publication/production process is fairly involved. the publisher likes to print 1000 copies or more (i forget the exact number). we made our first edition and immediately started working on edition #2, which we were able to implement after using edition 1 for just one semester. this is when i learned about the bookstore business and just publishing in general.

apparently, our bookstore had bought a lot of extra copies and the publisher made a lot of extra copies. in other words, when we came out with edition #2 a semester later, a lot of folks lost money. our ability to produce a new edition annually is almost a hindrance — and, in the educational technology field, there are topics changing continually. having a textbook that can respond to the timeliness of the field is important, but so is being able to correct errors based on professional and student feedback. i make 50 cents a copy on the current textbook, which factored out to a loss of $20 last semester (i am hoping that the number is positive at the end of the year). i lose money based on the time i spent on this project. i mention to this to help illustrate the fact that i am not doing the textbook to make money; rather, i want to provide a resources that is relevant and beneficial to the class we teach.

so, that brings me to something i have been toying with for several weeks now — a wikitextbook or wikitext. i first came across the notion from this website: education bridges & also wikitextbook, which are collaborative efforts at making educational textbooks. perhaps this is what i should just contribute towards and that would be that??? on the other hand, i have a textbook that needs to get updated soon or i need to start a wikitext soon. i have been installing various wiki software packages from phpwiki to tikiwiki. the management of a wiki is still very, very new to me so i am spending a lot of time trying to read about the plusses and minuses of various wiki engines. i am also spending a lot of time installing and playing with administration tools on the wikis that i do install.

from what i’ve seen of wikis, i have trouble conceptualizing a textbook that would be useful to other instructors. a wiki tends to have a “page” that is edited and perfected by the community for each individual topic. so, i want to have a unit where my ed tech class places our attention on distance learning in the k-12 classroom. a wiki would be set up to have a page devoted to each specific category, but not the whole chapter that i currently can assign to my students. at least this is the limitation i am hitting in my mind.

so, with a wikitext, would i just go through the various pages and try and pull together all that apply to the unit i am teaching and just provide my students with a whole list of related, but not connected wiki entries for them to read to help understand the topic? that seems discombobulated to me.

on the other hand, finding a way to have ‘chapters’ instead of individual ‘pages’ might work, if that is possible with a wiki. then again, the more we decide what those chapters are, the less appealing we make the text for many users. for example, i might want to teach a chapter on issues in educational technology. another person might have a different conceptualization of the issues that i include and might add many others. so now, i am assigning only parts of the chapter to my students, but maybe i want some of those other issues included in another chapter.

as you can see, this is something that many folks should be discussing. unfortunately, my blog doesn’t yet have the traffic to generate the interest in this project that i’d like, so i’ll keep plugging along and staying up late trying to find a solution that can grow into the future. i realize many folks are having these discussions, but at worst, my efforts can just get integrated into their efforts when they finally figure out what direction they’ll take.

i recently came across a web-based word processor. it’s located at writely.com and is currently in beta testing. i fiddled around with it the other day and i was impressed. now, don’t get me wrong, this thing is far, far from MS Word. however, it can open Word files and it can save files to the Word format. but, that’s not what impressed me the most. the most impressive thing is that this is the first application software online that hasn’t felt like it’s online.

writely is quick to respond to commands and tasks. as i play with writely, i am constantly thinking about how web 2.0 is going to differ from web 1.0 that most of us use most of the time. this application, which is online, appears to be a part of the future of the web. writely appears to be a slimmed down version of MS Word that a user can access from anywhere they have internet access. i worked on a document 2 weeks ago, and here i just logged in and there’s my file. exactly as i left it. and, something Word can’t do — save as PDF. Mac users have had this for a long time now, but this is a nice addition to word processing on the PC side of the aisle. this thing has support for RTF and can even do find and replace. you can insert color-coded comments. add table functions . . . and, even use this to write and publish blog entries.

what’s the implication for schools? i know that my own kids do not need to be learning MS Word in elementary school. why not have the school save a lot of money and use something like writely where the kids can get the gist of using a word processor while the schools save tons and tons of money? i don’t know what this will eventually cost, but it’s free right now. my guess is that there will always be a free version and that some users will choose to upgrade to a paid version for increased functionality. in any regard, this is something work keeping an eye on.

Link to Richmond.com article

Henrico County soon will embark upon the most extensive study of a school-based laptop computer program ever undertaken in the United States.

The county’s School Board last week unanimously approved the first phase of a two-and-a-half year study of its high school laptop program. Noted technology and education research expert and Columbia University professor emeritus Dr. Dale Mann of New York-based Interactive, Inc. will oversee the study, which will begin Feb. 1.
. . .
Mann said the focus of his study would be to determine not only whether the laptops help improve student test scores but also to gauge how effective they are at helping students learn. He also wants to determine how frequently teachers use the laptops during classroom instruction.

“We want to know, Is this thing working? How is it working? And for whom is it working? And how do we know?” Mann said.

They still don’t get it. My guess is that the evidence will reveal that the laptops did not contribute to a significant improvement in learning. There will be qualitative data revealed to show that students were excited to have the laptops and that parents liked them as well. Many students will explain that they used the computers for extra-curricular activities (e.g., chatting with friends). Teachers will even say that the laptops were a good idea and that they integrated the laptops into their teaching. Attendance might be up (and, that is a good thing), but test scores are not going to move much, if at all. Teachers will receive training to help learn how to integrate technology, so they may actually use the technology more in their teaching, but the fact that we put more effort into helping the teachers use the technology could be time we could have spent to provide other professional development to those teachers . . . so, some improvements could just be the result of the extra effort we put into working with teachers; not the laptops themselves, eh?

However, the question not being asked is whether or not we value teaching our students how to become literate with regard to technology and with regard to the massive amount of information on the Internet. Every state has a No Child Left Behind test. Not one of these tests assesses these literacy skills, but I would argue that being able to navigate information online and find relevant and unbiased information are skills that are increasingly becoming as important as many of the skills that NCLB testing measures, particularly for life behind the k-12 experience. If we aren’t testing skills on the NCLB tests, then we aren’t going to spend time teaching those skills; however, these laptops initiatives will undoubtedly force schools to cover this material as part of the ubiquitious computing learning experience. These kids will benefit from having had this experience, but the evaluation in this study doesn’t appear to have the resources in place to reach this conclusion. That’s a shame.

the Michigan Association of Computer Users in Learning is an organization dedicated to promoting good technology integration into our schools. well, MACUL holds an ed tech conference (conference link here) each year in either detroit or grand rapids. this year, it’s in grand rapids (convention center). they attract thousand of folks from around the state and even around the country. the conference typically has 3 days worth of presentations in various categories and they also bring in some national leaders in the field of ed tech. a few years ago, my friends from the university of kansas did a few large sessions and it was nice to show them around grand valley state university as well.

well, i recently learned that i had 2 presentations accepted. one is with my wife and pertains to software we developed to help students with disabilities. however, the presentation i am most excited about is one titled, “Online Class Discussions Made Easy.” i plan to teach participants how to create phpBB discussion forums as well as blog sites like this. and, i intend to do it all in an hour. should be hustle-bustle of activity, but i think i can pack it all in. if you’re in the area or planning to attend, make sure you stop by and say hello. i present on Friday, March 10 at 11:30 AM.

This year, I added video tutorials and video segments to my online classes as a way to add extra value to online teaching. These clips are often similar in style to what you might find at atomic learning. Other video clips I made present lecture segments with visual aides, etc. That being said, I want to discuss how I do this in this blog entry since I haven’t addressed this here yet. I am making my tenure portfolio right now and this is actually a little segment I am am working on for the portfolio, which should be more polished than my blog entry (it’s a paperless e-portfolio, btw).

Creating the video clips for my classes is not easy. First, I had to explore many different tools. I even tried taking my miniDV camera and pointing it at my screen, which was less than ideal. Finally, I found a screen capturing with video tool called Snapz Pro X (link to their website). This is a tool that only works on the Macintosh platform, but that’s fine with me. This tool allows me to capture my screen and what I am doing on it (here’s a demo of screen movie-capturing from the Ambrosia website).

I also needed to add audio. I purchased a professional quality microphone. I had to buy a USB adapter so that it would work with my computer. The first time I tried it, the audio was extremely low to the point that I could only hear it muffled if I turned my volume on my computer all the way up. I finally figured out that I needed an amplifier (that’s what professional mics need, I suppose). I bought an amplifier and hooked it all up and my audio woes were over.

When I record myself on film, I am no longer using Snapz Pro X because I am not on my computer screen; I am sitting in front of it. To do this, I use my iSight camera and an application called iMovie. When just recording podcasts, I use an application called GarageBand. For what it’s worth, a podcast is just an audio file (e.g., a recorded lecture, but the link explains much more — from wikipedia) that a person makes — in this case, me.

When I get all of my movies made, they are in a Quicktime format. Quicktime is a common video format, but not everybody has the Quicktime plugins installed. So, I convert my video to Flash using an application called Sorenson Squeeze Pro. Flash allows me to compress the file size and also to compress the image size displayed, which also helps conserve file size. Flash uses less bandwidth and that makes for a better end-user experience. Further, Flash is already installed on every major browser that you will find these days, so students do not have to do anything special in order to view the files.

Your suggestions are welcomed. ;~)

I did try using Tegrity, which is a service offered by my university. I enjoyed the experience, but I had reasons for sticking to my video solution. Mainly, the Tegrity sessions were a bit more formal. By that I mean that I felt that I had to be on my game as I had a audience of IT folks who were there to help me . . . so I really didn’t want to mess up. And, the Tegrity sessions have to be scheduled. I often divide my days up into various tasks and I don’t stick to any one task longer than an hour if I can help it. So, when I hit time for a break from one activity, I like being able to jump into podcasting for a bit and then table things for later. I can’t do this with Tegrity. Anyway, I used PowerPoint slides with my Tegrity session and this worked just swell, but much of what I do with my video is demonstrating various applications and talking about some of the classroom uses of these various technology solutions without touching PowerPoint. And, PP is ideal for Tegrity. But, the bottom line is that it’s just easier for me to sit at home and record when I had time rather than scheduling time to use the university’s equipment. I may have to work a bit harder, but this trade-off is worth it. I know that a few students had trouble viewing the Tegrity sessions, but I just referred them to IT, which is not a luxury I have when students have issues with the videos I create. Then again, the only complaint has come from dial-up users and it wasn’t that the videos didn’t work (Flash video); rather, it was just the download time. I strongly encourage my students to use a campus computer or to find broadband before viewing video segments of any particular session containing them.

okay, 2 blog posts in one day . . . i think that means i am procrastinating on my other tasks. ;~)

i just wanted to mention that i am once again going to use phpBB forums in my online teaching; however, i am setting up an all new site for the forum and the customization is taking quite a bit of time. and, there’s the little things that i have to problem solve as i get things up and running. for example, i like to add avatars to every account. during the first day of classes, i’ll take photos of every student and then go in and physically attach the photo to their account — this photo is called the avatar. well, i went to add an avatar to my own account and i was unsuccessful. i tried a few different way and checked settings on the new forum versus the old one. nothing worked.

so, i moved on to smilies. i added a smiley (emoticons) package to the site because my students tend to like being able to express emotions easily because words can often leave the wrong impression. well, all 40 emoticons i added failed to show up. i had to delete each smiley individually. i’d click to delete one and be taken to another webpage. i then had to navigate back to the list of smilies and delete the next one that was messed up. this kind of thing takes considerable time. and, i tried it twice because i wanted to make sure i didn’t make an error the first time — and, i did make some adjustments first. same results. i had to delete each one manually. aauuugh!

so, i head off to the phpBB support forums. the first thing they tell you is not to ask a question until you’ve conducted a search of old messages to see if your question/issue has already been addressed. i knew i my issue was not new. i did a search and read through a few of the results and then i noticed one response ask the poster if they had turned on permissions to the appropriate folder where images are stored. i immediately knew that this must be my problem. i opened transmit (my FTP tool — best available, fwiw — on a Mac) and navigated to my site and chose, “Get information” on the Images folder. sure enough, the permissions were not set correctly. i changed them and went back to test things out.

everything worked just swell. whew!

so, here’s how the new forums will look this semester:

well, i find myself up for tenure, with classes starting, and an application for the teaching with technology award that i’ve been nominated for all due in the next week. that doesn’t leave a lot of time for blogging, but i did want to discuss blogging.

as i wrote earlier, i used blogsome last semester. it turned out to be decent, but not good. a few too many students had “issues” to the point that i will not be using blogsome again. the thing i really liked about blogsome is that it used WordPress, which is what my blog that you’re viewing uses to power it. and, blogsome make this available for free and no ads. it looked like a pretty good deal going in. oh well.

i am now torn between using blogger.com (google’s blogging tool that is widely used) or trying something new yet again. i just discovered, blogsource, which is free tool that has a better look and feel than blogger.com. here’s what blogsource says about themselves:

a simple, free blogging service for everyone. Our goal is to provide a creative blog community that is powerful yet easy to use, so even our first time bloggers can feel at home. To this end, we continually add and refine features based on your requests.

i set up a sample blog at blogsource . . . here, but as you can see, there appears to be a bug. not a good sign when i am trying to decide on a tool to assign for my students. my gut tells me that i have no choice and that blogger.com is it; however, my heart wants to provide a neater tool for my students. decisions, decisions. hmmm.