iSean

back on October of 2006 I wrote about the Blackboard and Desire2Learn patent dispute — Blackboard had gone after Desire2Learn in court over a copyright infringement. Blackboard is the largest provider of online learning management systems (LMSs) or online course management services (CMSs) and Desire2Learn is a similar company on a much smaller scale. a jury in Texas this past Friday gave the first step of the battle to Blackboard. this is more of an FYI since the article linked explains what happened beyond my headline. this is crummy, but D2L still has their patent pending, so there’s that.

43folders has an interesting post today by a math teacher who is desperately trying to integrate technology into her teaching yet she is encountering barrier after barrier. for example:

I have found it increasingly annoying to hear from on high that we need to integrate more technology in our classroom, yet most new teachers and old teachers are still using old standbys because we don’t have the time to use and troubleshoot our way through technology. Making worksheets by copying and pasting by hand. Building test questions from book programs that only work on PCs or OS 9 on macs. Wanting to use videos from the internet only to find they are blocked. Wanting to post information to a website or build my own website to find that FTP is blocked or that online-services are clunky, restrictive, and cumbersome. Granted that I am lucky enough to have a computer, a projector, and an ELMO (video camera hookup to a projector.) But for the love of turtles! It seems that the industry ignores us!

this certainly reflects what i’ve experienced from teachers who take my graduate courses. i know going into these courses that the teachers who are enrolled are already the teachers who are using and trying to use technology in their teaching. the teachers in our master’s program are in it to learn how to overcome some of these barriers. the bottom line is that it’s not easy to do and one of the main reasons we use technology is to improve upon what we do without using technology. if technology adds complications and, more importantly, time to a task then it’s very hard to justify. the teachers i work with can justify it because they want to succeed and be a role model. sometimes the legwork in the beginning can save much time over the long haul and that’s okay as well. but when districts hamper the progress technology-using teachers are trying to achieve then that’s problematic. and districts do hamper progress as this teacher writes:

A lot of my issues stem from the limitations (or invisible limitations) of my districts computer policies. I can’t control my district IT, I can whine at them, write them letters, request things and so forth but if that is going to take time away from me making sure next day’s lesson is done and useful-forget it!

i realize schools have to deal with viruses (at least if they are using PCs), security, and safety and all of that jazz, but far too often the model for technology is one that starts from the perspective that blocking and locking content, access, and features out is best until someone can justify why something is useful or necessary. teachers just don’t have the time to have these battles. i use my own website for many of my online classes. often, teachers have to work with their district to allow my website content to be viewable on school computers. this isn’t because i have anything that is questionable; rather, this is because of the mindset that it’s all bad until proven otherwise.

but back to the math teacher who wrote the article . . . she is finding ways to integrate technology into her teaching and she is having to do much of the work at home. why is that? it’s because most schools don’t value technology and even when they do they don’t have a comprehensive plan with regard to technology. technology isn’t tested on NCLB tests and that makes it hard to go above and beyond what districts are already spending on technology in their annual budgets. it’s a shame, really. the math teacher points out that many solutions are offered in the comments section of the article she wrote and that some suggestions are really worthwhile. but the fact remains that the onus for integrating technology and overcoming the district barriers is on the teacher. that’s a recipe for ensuring that only a select few teachers will use technology beyond a token lesson here or there.

Technorati Tags: ed tech, technology integration, barriers, students, teachers, technology in education

i was just checking out arstechnica and came across an article discussing a new report out about the “Google generation.” the report looks at kids born in 1993, so they’d be about 14 - 15 now. these are kids who have grown up only knowing a word on the Internet and Google searches, etc. this report can be downloaded as a PDF here and is sponsored by the British Library and the Joint Information Systems Committee. and while the report finds these kids are more competent at using technology, they still have poor information literacy skills just like the generation before them. one of the neat findings is that kids today are no more impatient and no more in need of instant gratification than previous students. if nothing else, it’s nice to have a little snapshot about current teens and technology.

some folks in the blogging community are buzzing about the Adobe Learning Summit where Adobe apparently made it clear that they want to be players in eLearning. Ellen Wagner of Adobe even has a white paper (PDF, 199kb) where she describes Adobe role and vision in eLearning. i think the white paper is worth a read. let me first say that my sense of big corporations who jump on the eLearning bandwagon is that they tend to be behind the times when it comes to eLearning. you look at one of the biggest players, Blackboard (Bb), and it’s probably much easier to find critics than fans. my problem with Blackboard is that i can EASILY find similar tools from the open source community that are better than Blackboard in just about every aspect of their product. on the other hand, i have never been a big fan of software that tries to be everything for everyone. i never liked my browser to be everything (e.g., Netscape had the browser, email, calendar and all that jazz in some versions); rather, i wanted a browser to specialize in browsing and an email application to specialize in perfecting my email experience and i could pick the best apps for each task. so Bb being a jack of all trades never appealed to me. I get my content management from Drupal and my community forums from phpBB and Wordpress is great for blogging, etc . . . life is good. but part of this issue of being everything is that Bb is missing out on much of what is currently available. our students are big into Facebook and YouTube and Flickr and tools like this, yet these aren’t a part of Bb at all. Instead Bb is slowing adding new services (e.g., blogging) that are implemented poorly and can only really be used for class and not carried with the student once the class ends. yuck! but, for many instructors a tool like Bb does make it easier to shift to online learning so kudos to Bb for that.

back to Adobe . . . the Adobe corporation clearly has their pulse on the market. early in the white paper, they discuss YouTube and text messages and IMs and even smart phones. Adobe is a big player in the technology field; however, they haven’t traditionally been players in education — at least not with an eye on education even though they’ve had products used in education. the white paper does a good job of describing the eLearning market — we are a market after all. if we weren’t a market to be served then the business community would not deliver products to be bought. Adobe clearly has to see a way to benefit and make money before they jump in, so the white paper describe this market. of course, Adobe does not restrict their market to K-12 or even K-college; rather, they also identify the kinds of e-Learning that corporations engage in (e.g., they cite up to 40% of corporate education being offered via eLearning).

the white paper makes a case that Flash Professional is the number 1 application in eLearning. perhaps i’ve not paid attention well, but i learned to use Flash back in the 90s and i still have yet to actually use it in my teaching and i teach almost exclusively online these days. it’s far, far too cumbersome and time consuming for use in individual lessons, that’s for sure. but i digress. clearly, the biggest Adobe application in education is Adobe Acrobat and the Adobe Reader for creating and viewing PDFs. for the especially geeky (myself included) Adobe Dreamweaver is certainly near the top of the list, but most eTeachers are not using Dreamweaver, nor will they ever. most instructors are relegated to Bb-like tools. and Adobe recognizes the importance of Learning Management Systems (LMSs). Adobe is not making a decision to add a competitor in the LMS market . . . instead, Adobe wants to extend the LMS and online learning experience with their tools (remember BASF — “we don’t make the products you buy; we make the products you buy better”). i think this is a wise decision, but they don’t need to hear it from me as they’ve no doubt spent a lot of time trying to find their place in eLearning. i think their focus on making “just-in-time access” to online learning and e-Materials is a step in the right direction. i like that they want to extend rich and engaging learning experiences. i will patiently wait to see how this is carried out.

(moments later) if you explore the Adobe eLearning website you can get a feel for what they are working on. for example, i just mentioned that they want to help extend current tools like LMSs — Adobe already has a LMS Integration tool that fits into Bb, which allows for using the LMS to set up meetings. i checked out the PDF describing this tool and it looks just like a typical Bb add-on that will never get used and is more of a tool for an audience that does not yet exist — a solution looking for a problem. i hope this is not the direction Adobe is going with their eLearning focus. i generally like the Adobe applications that i use (e.g., Dreamweaver, Photoshop, Acrobat, Flash, and Fireworks), so my hope is that the eLearning solutions that emerge are congruent with the products that Adobe has used to make their name and/or that Adobe is looking at web 2.0-like solutions (see, for e.g., Google’s online applications).

Technorati Tags: Blackboard, online learning, ed tech, Adobe, eLearning, learning, technology in education

i largely avoided linux for the vast majority of its history. i tried it on an old Mac at one point and quickly abandoned ship as it wasn’t ready for prime time. but, when Parallels for Mac came out and i upgraded to a Macbook last year, i purchased Parallels and quickly installed Ubuntu, which is an open source linux build that just happens to come with other open source solutions preinstalled. i have to say that i was amazed at how mature this operating system is. it really is ready to be used by the masses. the next version is out in 15 days and the snippets i have read lead me to believe that anyone who can get this OS installed is ready to use it . . . obviously, the getting it installed part is the hard part. using the OS is a breeze once it’s installed. and, Ubuntu does some things better than Windows and Mac OSs. at the very least, i hope some folks reading this (all 2 of you) give Ubuntu 7.10 a test drive. you might just be amazed enough to consider it over the more costly solutions. i’d love to see the elementary school where my children attend switch to Edubuntu. but, i doubt it’ll happen any time soon. they’re none too happy to spend big $$$ on Windows.

Technorati Tags: open source, linux, Ubuntu, edubuntu

well, earlier yesterday Google released the next web-app to their set of office apps and it’s presentation software . . . named appropriately: Presentation. Here’s the snippet Google writes in their own intro:

Starting today, presentations — whether imported from existing files or created using the new slide editor — are listed alongside documents and spreadsheets in the Google Docs document list. They can be edited, shared, and published using the familiar Google Docs interface, with several collaborators working on a slide deck simultaneously, in real time. When it’s time to present, participants can simply click a link to follow along as the presenter takes the audience through the slideshow. Participants are connected through Google Talk and can chat about the presentation as they’re watching.

i have been playing with Spresent in my classes and i even have my students using spresent this week; however, i fiddled with Google’s Presentation and I am impressed. I added a photo from my computer to a slide and then decided i wanted it on another slide. i right-clicked the photo and cut it. i went to the next slide and chose paste and the photo appeared on the next slide. worked like a charm. now granted, this is a web-based application so it’s not yet a PowerPoint killer, but it also does things that PowerPoint can’t do. the collaboration tool that goes along with the this app is fantastic. i am sure this has a great use for my online teaching, but i don’t yet have synchronized sessions so the live collaboration piece is not high on my list, but i could certainly see how folks could be working on a presentation together and using the live chat built into this app.

and, like i always do with these free web-based apps . . . i certainly hope this new set of office applications gives some schools cause for consideration. i have no clue why any grade school would be trying to justify purchasing Microsoft Office for their computers when stuff like OpenOffice and/or these web-based solutions exist. Much money could be saved with little inconvenience to teachers and students.

hard to beat free and that’s how much Presentation is.

Technorati Tags: Google, Google Presentation, OpenOffice, spresent

i am a big fan of open source tools. i like the whole open source movement . . . mostly because i am in education and acquiring the funds for expensive commercial applications is not always possible. supporting open source, on the other hand, ensures that quality products are available for all of us. but how do you know whether an open source product can work for you? for one, you first need to figure out what needs you have. if you know what you need then you can seek solutions. but merely reading about various tools is not enough to make a big decision as to whether the tool is going to work. you could download the tool(s) and test it on a computer or on a server. downloading products to your computer is easy. if you want to test the open source browser called Firefox then you download and install and you’re up and running in a matter of minutes. easy.

but what about web-based open source tools? even if you can create a database and download and then upload the files, there is a lot of time involved in doing this. i updated a family photo gallery the other day and even on broadband, i bet it took me about 20 minutes to get all of the new files for Menalto’s Gallery uploaded on top of my current installation. there’s no way i’d take that time just to test drive a potential tool. fortunately, there are solutions. the one i’d recommend is called OpenSourceCMS and it’s free to use. the website provides users with access to many of the most popular open source tools that are web-based (which means that they most likely require a MySQL database). here’s an example of their menu where i’ve opened the folder showing the open source e-Learning tools:

if you click on Moodle, for example, you are presented with an information page about Moodle. the page provides readers with direct links to the test a Moodle site’s Front Page and Admin Login. the login information is also supplied:
Username- admin
Password- demo

once you login, you can have near full administrative access to really test the behind the scenes goings-on for each tool. they also provide a plethora of user feedback to help you save time and learn from others. neat tool and well worth exploring the next time you have a problem and want to try seeking an open source solution.

Technorati Tags: CMS, ed tech, open source, technology in education

i wrote about coComment when it first came out more than a year ago here. i tried it and ended up not using it because of some technical difficulties (see this post), but i haven’t forgotten about it. well, i just learned that coComment has version 2.0 being released on Monday. oh, what is it you ask . . . well, from their website:

coComment helps you

• track all comments you make on blogs and other comment enabled platforms
• track the comment based conversations you are involved in, as well as those you want to follow as an observer

Keep track of your web based comments and conversations. You don’t need a blog to find this service useful! As a registered user, whenever you leave a comment on a compatible platform (see here for the ever growing list of platforms we support) coComment will automatically begin tracking the resulting conversation stream - updating you whenever someone adds a follow up comment. If you don’t make a comment, you can still have coComment track a comment stream if you are interested in following the discussion as a reader.

it’s just a great way to keep track of all of the various comments you make, wherever you make them (e.g., blogs, youtube, etc.) or even comments on blogs that you don’t participate in, but just prefer to follow. it’s a great concept. perhaps it’s time to give it another try?

Technorati Tags: blog, blogging, coComment

i have an assignment in my undergraduate education technology course that has my students using Technorati to find other educational technology related blogs. my students are supposed to find a blog entry and read it and then add a comment to the blog site. of course, i then need to visit every single comment to see what my students wrote and i will inevitably read the blog entry. i also check the other comments to see if a conversation develops and to see if the blog author has engaged in a dialog with my students. overwhelmingly, my students will write a thoughtful response and that’s that. No response back from the original blogger. I should add a caveat, some of my students find older blog entries and I can see how a blogger might tend to ignore an entry they wrote many months ago. fine. but many of my students are finding very current stuff and still being ignored. i don’t think busy bloggers need to respond to every comment, but i think the strength of the blogging tool is that it allows for a certain level of interactivity. if you are not trying to build this interactivity then i wonder why you blog in the first place — merely sharing information perhaps? and, i realize i may not understand the ins-and-outs of a busy blog as i rarely get more than 5 or so comments for any blog entry i add; however, most of the blogs my students found have just a few comments as well. perhaps i checked in too quickly. the responses were due on a Sunday and I checked things out 3 days later on a Wednesday. i’ll give my peers the benefit of the doubt this time, but i have my eyes on you mr. blogging community. ;~)

Technorati Tags: blogging, blogs, ed tech, students, technology in education

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. ;~)

Technorati Tags: e-paper, e-books, E Ink, textbook