iSean

so, my experience with the knowledge tree is now done and was quite a fun experience. but, now i have some free time to focus on some projects that were on the back burner. and, perhaps my number 1 project is a wiki based textbook for educational technology (preservice teachers). in fact, i will be presenting on wikitextbooks early next year and hope to have a draft to show off at that time. i have spoken with other instructors who will use this textbook and they helped me conceptualize the project. my vision was to have many folks contributing, but i don’t think that will be the case as much as i had hoped. one of the things i won’t do is just open the writing process to anyone. since we’re writing this textbook to meet Michigan ed tech standards (closely aligned to the national standards, fwiw), i want to have some control. i am probably not using the wiki nature of the tool to the best of its abilities, but i have liked the look and feel of wikitextbooks that i’ve perused thus far. one of the first items that our little group decided was whether to write a textbook that could be read from beginning to end (similar to most textbooks now) or whether we would stick to topics. the group thought that topics would be best and that each instructor could piece together various topics to form assigned readings. this is much easier than writing a textbook, but it also loses some of the cohesion that can be had when a formal chapter is written. somehow i need to find a bit of a happy medium. i am also considering scrapping the wiki altogether and just using the book module in Drupal; though, that sure wouldn’t bode well for my presentation on wikitextbooks, eh? ;~)

so, i think i will take a few weeks to view many textbooks and to try and get a better sense of why i want to use a wiki over Drupal (or visa versa) and then choose the best took. i think i want students to have the ability to print the book that is online in case they want a hard copy (perhaps using Lulu.com, which is a cheap way to publish books — perhaps under $10 for a textbook).

please note that the image above shows a screen shot from Lulu.com when i selected a 200 page book that is perfectly bound like many books you find on bookshelves. compare this price ($8.54) to just about any textbook that is published by a publisher and you can immediately see the benefit of using this service over traditional companies. and, students wouldn’t have to get a printed version, but they should probably have the option available. unfortunately, i still get students who don’t own a computer and have to rely on campus computer labs for classwork. i am not sure that printing from a wiki environment would be easy, but that’s something i need to explore. same with the Drupal book option. there’s much to learn, but i am full steam ahead.

Technorati Tags: drupal, education, online learning, wikitext

wow, i think i’ve taught an online class for about 15 straight semesters now and i just realized i won’t be teaching one next semester. i coordinate a program and was scheduled to teach 2 online sections of our undergraduate educational technology program as my teaching load in the winter. however, a colleague of mine is taking his sabbatical and i was asked to cover the master’s thesis students. i have enough students that they’ll count as a section. i am also teaching a special education technology course that meets on 3 weekends (not originally planned — saving my wife from taking it as an overload). so, i had to find replacements for my 2 online sections. what a weird feeling it will be to not be online and to not teach the course i coordinate. on the other hand, i think i can finally take some time to update what i do online.

i also plan to put a huge effort into finishing my (our?) wiki textbook for educational technology. i plan to start using that wiki textbook for the program i coordinate starting in May, so i’ll have my work cut out for me. i hope others join in making the textbook. also, i am going to be presenting on this wiki-based textbook at the MACUL conference in the middle of March.

i have been using Drupal as my online teaching tool this semester. it’s worked very, very well. much better than i anticipated when i started. i was fortunate enough to hook up with folks who are very involved in making DrupalED.org with one of the key guys now working at my institution. they have a listserv that was invaluable as i set things up. but now, after having used Drupal for a semester, i better know how i want to set things up in the future. i’ll now have nearly 5 months to really get things set up so that my online learning environment is fully customized to my teaching style and to optimize things for my students. and hopefully the grade book module for Drupal will be ready by May so that i won’t need Blackboard for anything. that would be nice. and i’ll reiterate that i don’t hate Blackboard; rather, i like providing an example for future teachers on how to teach with technology by using tools that are open source and free . . . just in case they don’t have a school sponsored tool (e.g., Blackboard). but i do think Blackboard has some limitations that make it less appealing to me.

so, i hope the american citizens have a happy thanksgiving. i am off to Kansas for some turkey and pumpkin pie. ;~)

Technorati Tags: Blackboard, drupal, wiki, wikitext, online learning

my article on the Australian journal The Knowledge Tree is now available. you can read (or listen to) the article here — and feel free to discuss the article in the comments section. i am pleased with the results, but this article started with a different direction entirely. in fact, i originally wanted to talk about using blogs (like this one) to help shape learner dispositions. the resulting article still has a focus on student dispositions, but i narrowed the focus to those things that individual instructors can do with preservice and inservice teachers to help shape future behavior. specifically, the article looks at the use of modeling and the use of reflection and how blogs and other technologies can play a central role in these processes. please visit and join in the fun. also, there will be a live conversation with my wife (co-author) and me on the 27th of November (28th in Australia). more information can be found on the Elluminate Live website here.

i want to provide a snippet from an early draft of the article — keep in mind that this was a draft and not near completion; in fact, it was soon cut. but this snippet shows a direction i started to go and it’s something i want to explore more in the future. the paragraph in front of this one discusses the difficulty educators have in bridging the gap between research and practice and how new strategies might be warranted. so, here’s the snippet:

The dissemination of research findings to practitioners in a palatable, useful manner has been addressed by professionals in the field (insert cite here) as well as the organizations that oversee institutes of higher education. Currently, most research is disseminated to teachers in the form of research articles published in peer-reviewed journals or presentations made at national or state conferences. Often, researchers will make the effort to summarize descriptions of interventions, programs, or approaches and their findings for publication in practitioner-based journals. Unfortunately, most practicing teachers feel a disconnect with research published in peer-reviewed journals. In fact, peer-reviewed research is considered less trustworthy by teachers than is gaining information from peers and acquiring information during inservice trainings (Landrum, Cook, Tankersley, and Fitzgerald, 2002). Additionally, the demands placed on teacher time and budget cuts, prohibits teachers from attending conferences and reading widely in peer-reviewed of practitioner journals. One purpose of this article is to explore alternative methods for disseminating research results and best practices to educators who currently have limited time and opportunity to take advantage of traditional methods but are concerned about using best available, proven practices with regard to technology in education. A second, related purpose is to discuss how this sharing of information can impact the dispositions of preservice teachers.

i was going to discuss how ed tech blogs should start to see themselves as the vehicle for change in education. i wanted to explore whether blogs (e.g., ed tech) might be more trustworthy that peer reviewed journals and i had some evidence that this is the case. perhaps another article some day, but for now i’ll just explore this personally on my blog.

Technorati Tags: blogging, blogs, dispositions, education, knowledge tree, modeling, scholarship, reflection

whether you think there is too much hype over web 2.0 or not, the fact is that there are some neat web-based applications that are emerging and have been emerging. i have been very busy with work and an article I was writing that I haven’t been posting much here lately. hopefully i am back on track now.

anyway, i came across a blog site last month that listed many web-based applications that are alternatives to desktop office applications. i bookmarked it using listmixer (my favorite social bookmarking site — even though i am not social about it; it keeps me synced between machines for websites i want to come back to) about a month ago and am just now getting around to reading it, but figured i’d share it since it is a continuation of some thinking i started on this blog earlier this year with regard to writely as an Microsoft Word replacement. here’s the link: http://www.solutionwatch.com/515/back-to-school-with-the-class-of-web-20-part-2/

Technorati Tags: education, web 2.0, web-based applications, spreadsheets, word processing