iSean

i don’t think i’ll typically talk about a Firefox extension, but i’ve found one that i particularly like and that i think has a nice role to play in education. the extension is called Firedoodle and it can turn any webpage into a virtual whiteboard. and, if you create an account with the firedoodle site, you can save any webpage you’ve marked so that your “doodles” are there the next time you visit. this is nice by itself, but this isn’t all. you can also mark your place on long pages. so, if i am reading an interesting article on one of the many online journals now in existence but i know i won’t finish, i can use firedoodle to mark my place and then easily return and continue some time in the future. not only that, but i could add markers in many places throughout an article — e.g., important segments of text that i want to revisit, etc.

as i explore how best to present an online textbook (e.g., wiki-based, drupal, etc.) i have been troubled that students in the online world can’t highlight text and make notations like those students who have a paper-based textbook. this plugin appears to bridge this gap. i know i can’t require students to use Firefox browsers or to have this plugin installed, but i can certainly encourage it and promote it, which i think i’ll do.

my big concern with Firedoodle is that they save your information to their servers. i am leery of web 2.0 startups as i don’t trust them to be around in the long term and i’d fear losing all of my highlighted and manipulated text, etc. hmmm.

i also have Zotero plugin installed. Zotero is really made for educators and helps educators with citation of information found on webpages. it also allows the user to store PDFs, files, images, links, and webpages, but it doesn’t turn the pages/files into whiteboards; rather, any notes the user adds are external to the page/file. i think the reason i haven’t really started using this is that i am scared that a bunch of PDFs and other files being stored in the Firefox infrastructure would bog the browser down. perhaps someone who has played with it more can comment on whether it’s at all disabling.

in any regard, both tools are now free and they both provide little demonstration videos on their sites.

Technorati Tags: plugins, firefox, zotero, students, teachers, firedoodle, web 2.0

i spent the latter part of this week at the MACUL conference in Detroit. i had a presentation on wiki-based textbooks. i have been disappointed at MACUL the past two times i’ve gone. this is a technology in education conference and i have had spotty internet connectivity both times. last year, they placed me in a large room off of the beaten path. their wireless network just didn’t reach me. i suppose i wasn’t the only person who complained because this year i received a letter explaining that speakers would have their own wireless network so we wouldn’t have to share bandwidth with the conference attendees. great, i thought. well i arrived to do my presentation and went to the speaker room to request access to the special wireless network. the volunteers in there looked at me quizzically. finally they tracked down a techie-guy who explained that there was no special network after all. doh.

my internet-based presentation had to run on the regular network. and, it was SSLLLLLOOOOOWWWWWWWW. i’d click a link to demonstrate something (e.g., Lulu.com) and i ended up just describing what folks should be seeing if the internet was working. many links appeared just as i finished and was ready to move on and many never appeared at all. very crummy. i don’t think my presentation suffered too much because of it, but it certainly left a bad taste in my mouth and i am sure the technology-laden session would have benefited by having working technology.

i did have a chance to catch up with some of my peers around Michigan, which is always nice. i am in my 7th year living in Michigan and i am finally feeling like i belong here. i even met some new folks who teach ed tech at other universities here in michigan. in fact, one professor even offered to donate much content related to the NETS that could be worked into the wiki-based textbook i am working on. if it happens, i’ll identify the individual and give him much credit and thanks. stay tuned.

Technorati Tags: MACUL, wikitextbook, puppy, textbook, wiki

last year, i complained that the International Society for Technology in Education’s National Educational Technology Standards were dated. that’s ISTE’s NETS to those of you who closely follow educational technology. well, apparently i wasn’t the only person who felt this way as the NETS is currently being refreshed. the NETS for students is already in draft format and feedback is being sought by March 31. that’s soon, but it’s not too late to have your voice heard. i plan on inviting my ed tech colleagues (about 6 of us at GVSU) to a meeting in a few weeks to discuss the NETS*S. fortunately, ISTE makes this easy as they’ve developed a website called the NETS REFRESH TOOLKIT. even if you can’t get a group of folks together, you owe it to yourself to grab the files in the toolkit and educate yourself on what ISTE is going to recommend for k-12 students with regard to technology. the toolkit also includes links to survey that a person can take in lieu of holding a meeting. this isn’t the time to be passive; get active and help shape the future right now.

Technorati Tags: ed tech, ISTE, NETS, students, technology in education, teachers

the MACUL Conference — the Michigan Association of Computer Users in Learning — is coming up and i’ve been accepted as a presenter. My presentation occurs on March 15 (a Thursday) at 4:00 PM and is titled, “Wiki, Wiki, Wiki . . . Textbook!” i can’t find my notes of what i submitted, so i’ll have to wait and read the description in the conference manual. but i believe i am going to talking about the wiki-based textbook i am writing with others for the ed tech course our preservice educators take here at GVSU and explaining how to set up a wiki for textbook writing — the nuts and bolts, if i am remembering correctly.

i am going to put my agenda and notes into a wiki just like i said i wasn’t ready to do in blog entry just a month ago. doh! my concerns back then were that i feared things would get changed prior to when i used my materials. this time around, i will make a wiki and just keep it private until i present. if someone wants to borrow it or modify after i use it then i’ll have no problem. a win-win, eh?

it’s a bit funny that i am presenting on a wiki-based textbook when i have seriously been considering taking all of my materials thus far and moving them from the wiki and using Drupal instead. i originally liked how the wiki allowed such an ease of connecting various different content together. but, the non-linear navigation inherent in the wiki makes it much more difficult for an instructor to assign readings and for author’s to write a meaningful narrative. there’s something to be said of a linear document and Drupal has a core module called Book. just like a wiki, many users can work together to write and create content. one of the appealing aspects of the Drupal book is the following:

You can also let users generate a printer-friendly display of a book page and all its subsections. They do this by selecting the link for printer-friendly version at the bottom of any book page.

as much as i like to push a paperless classroom, the truth of the matter is that not everyone wants to always get online to read a textbook. some people might want a paper copy that they can highlight and annotate, etc. the Drupal solution would allow students to print the textbook using an online printer like Lulu.com for under $10. it’s not free, but is certainly appealing versus the cost of the average college textbook these days. and this model has no 30% markup by the bookstores.

but, i need to continue my work in the wiki and act enthusiastic at least until after MACUL. ;~)

if you’re going to MACUL, i hope you can stop by and say hello.

Technorati Tags: drupal, MACUL, Lulu.com, wiki, wikitext