I am taking a blog vacation until the spring semester starts on May 5th (or 7th) — that Monday. I’ll then try and get back to a twice a week schedule. I am currently upgrading all of my tools to the latest versions — e.g., Drupal, phpBB, etc. i have much customization to do and then there will be much testing to ensure that things work the way i hope.
this is the last full week of classes at GVSU and i am bombarded with theses from students trying to wrap the semester up. nothing new there, but i have neglected my blog. blogs are an interesting development the past many years. my family blog started in about 2000; though, i didn’t call it a blog at the time . . . it was called our journal back then. i used HTML to update entries. 2000 is when our first child was born, so most entries were required to include photos to keep grandparents happy. i eventually (later 2001ish) moved from HTML to postnuke or phpnuke (a CMS tool) and continued the “blog” running. once blogging took off, i decided to convert my family journal to a blog, but i kept it in the tool i was using . . . mostly because i didn’t understand MySQL stuff enough to export the database and import it into a new tool. actually, i still don’t. but i finally moved it all to Wordpress and i’ve spent the past 1.5 years trying to copy-and-paste old entries from HTML and from the CMS into Wordpress. i think i only have about a year gap left to transfer. it’s one of those back-burner projects that always comes after everything else. we update our family blog about once a month these days. a little more when bigger things happen. but the blog serves a purpose and the audience is consistent and fairly static.
this blog, however, serves an entirely different purpose. sometimes i tend to forget why i started this blog and i often feel like it’s a chore to do. on the other hand, writing for the blog forces me to try and follow the ed tech blogging community to see what’s going on, so i still enjoy the blog as a motivation for staying active. but, i thought it would be nice to evaluate my blog up to this point nearly 2 years after i started it. in my second post here i wrote, “i will use this blog to help trace my steps as i try and improve my online teaching and as i test out new tools along the way.” if i look back, i can clearly see many blog entries that highlight tools i’ve tried and strategies i’ve used in my online teaching. i have had a fairly light semester this semester with a weekend class (Jan./Feb.) and thesis students, so i haven’t had much to experiment with lately. in a few weeks, our spring/summer semester starts and i will be back in the saddle as i am scheduled to teach an online undergrad ed tech course and a 2 week long grad course in ed tech. i plan to upgrade to the new phpBB 3.0 forums, which you can see here; though, the beta has been out since January (beta 5) and there’s no sign of the final release, so i have to decide whether to use a near finished beta (#5) if i don’t hear anything in the next 2 weeks. i am also going to upgrade my course to the latest Drupal (5.1), so i have new tools to learn. as i finish more preparations for the course, i want to come back and explain some of the curricular changes that i am going to try in my undergraduate course. i have much to say, but i just didn’t have the best semester to write about the kinds of things that were the reason for making this blog in the first place. hopefully that’s about to change. whew! ;~)
i don’t know about you, but i have fiddled with e-books in the past and i never got past the fiddling. i really tried to like the experience, but it just took too much trying. and, there’s a reason they never really took off; most people agree with my assessment; though, not because it’s my assessment. heh.
well, e-paper is taking small steps towards becoming more common in our lives. i just came across an article that describes on e-paper manufacturer (E Ink) and how they have increased production of their parts from tens of thousands 9 months ago to millions today. before i explain more, i’ll share a sample photo:
one of the companies who buy the parts from E Ink is Sony. from the article:
Among those products are Sony’s Reader tablet, whose black-and-white displays can be read in bright sunlight or a dimly lit room from almost any angle — just like paper — without traditional back-lit screens that chew up power.
While the displays are becoming more flexible and conserve power, they face other limitations such as working only in monochrome and failing to display video — areas critical to attracting advertisers and consumers to the technology.
personally, i think that’s promising. the textbook i use in one of my classes is all black and white, so that’s no biggie. and, the textbook also can’t display video. of course, for the price i am guessing one would pay to use e-paper, these things better be upgraded soon, eh? then again, if they can achieve color and video then they could be the death of LCDs. hmmm, perhaps time to buy some stock. ;~)
well, the annual education week Technology Counts report is out. they have evaluated every state and reported on each state’s “grades” for technology in education. not surprisingly, Michigan received a grade of C. as you get into the specifics, they report that Michigan actually does a good job of using technology, but that we are particularly poor in providing access to technology and that we don’t have the capacity to use technology. what does that mean you ask? well, they basically looked to see what kinds of standards and requirements we have. we only have teacher standards at the State level. but we lack administrator standards, initial certification requirements, initial admin license requirements, teacher recertification requirements, and admin recertification requirements. this earned us a D in capacity.
Access was another area of weakness. only 41.5% of classrooms here have a computer in the classroom. that’s pretty pathetic in 2007. and, 78% of students can access computers in a library or media center. that’s still very disheartening to me. i guess i am surprised we could get a D+ for access when more than 1/2 of students in the state don’t even have computers in their classroom.
we do well with regard to using technology . . . at least at the State level. we have student standards (based on the NETS) for using technology, we have a virtual school established, and we offer computer-based assessments. we lack a State test for students with regard to technology (only 4 states have this, fwiw) — so we get an A-. what this survey fails to recognize is that Michigan requires all students in K-12 to have an online educational experience before they graduate. that’s a big step for a state and Michigan is at the front of this initiative. unfortunately, this isn’t part of the test.
Michigan has about the worst economy in the nation, so i don’t see our technology access improving too quickly. but it’s nice to see that we’re not at the bottom of the barrel even though our economy is. hmmm.
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