iSean

the International Society for Technology in Education released new National Educational Technology Standards for students last summer as seen here:

new standards for teachers will emerge early this summer. the previous NETS-S and NETS-T were very similar. i participated in dialog sessions and in providing feedback on the new teacher standards and there will be some overlap with the student model above, but the whole model is going to be much more individualized to teachers this time around. that being said, i want to address an observation that i made when i was sitting in the MACUL session on NETS with the deputy CEO of ISTE 2 months ago. we began by going around the room introducing ourselves and came to a woman sitting off to the side. she explained that she was filling in at the last minute for another teacher who had wanted to attend MACUL and couldn’t make it. this woman is a school teacher. she had never heard of the NETS and had no idea they were being refreshed. she described how overwhelmed she feels with standards — she reeled off the names of a few she knows that they follow, etc.

this woman ended up joining my group and helping to provide feedback. our group consisted of two education professors and technology director for a k-12 school along with this high school teacher. she didn’t contribute much, but i was struck by how new these educational technology standards were to this teacher. this is a teacher who ended up going to a technology conference for educators and she didn’t even realize there were technology standards. it’s easy to forget that these teachers exist or even that this teacher represents the vast majority of teachers out there. i teach graduate students who are getting a master’s in educational technology so of course they are aware of the standards and these tend to be the teachers i interact with the most . . . but what about the other master’s programs? they don’t have a required technology course.

i coordinate the undergraduate program and i integrate the NETS-T into the core of the curriculum as these standards drive the curricular decisions i make. i make sure i explain this to my students and to make them aware of the NETS-S and their responsibility for meeting these standards in their future classrooms. unfortunately, most of my students are at least a year or 2 away from student teaching and then they won’t have a teaching job until the year after that. fat chance they’ll remember the ISTE NETS.

i wonder what ISTE is doing to better position the NETS so that K-12 schools are meeting the standards that are posted and linked in detail above. it would be great if NCLB suddenly found an interest in technology standards and even if they incorporated components (e.g., information literacy skills) into the annual testing, etc., but it is not happening any time soon. so i wonder out loud whether ISTE even has an initiative to promote the NETS in place — outside of NCLB, how do we promote the importance of the NETS-S? what’s our plan of action?

i am always on the lookout for tools that I can use in my teaching. i recently had a colleague make a very neat YouTube style video using Sony Vegas. . . but it’s only for PC users. technically I have a PC on my Mac, but I’d have to start up and select the XP partition. that’s fine and my Mac literally becomes a PC. unfortunately, i have all of the files and websites on my Mac side that I’d want to use. so, I’d have to transfer everything over and then restart into the PC just to make a screencast. yuck.

well i just came across a neat new app for Mac user called ScreenFlow. wow! this is a terrific application for screen and podcasting. i can run a Keynote or PowerPoint presentation and have it recorded while recording myself talking about the presentation content. Later I can show the presentation and the video of me at the same time or switch back and forth or only use the audio, etc. — there’s much more it can do and many neat editing features. It only works in the latest version of the Mac OS because it takes advantage of the features built into the OS including Core Animation, QuickLook, Spotlight, QTKit, Quartz Composer, OpenGL, Core Data, etc. Using the OS allows the app to be very lightweight and still very powerful. i am going to try and make something for this semester and perhaps i can post a sample here just for kicks. stay tuned.

so i attended the Michigan Association of Computer Users in Learning (MACUL) conference this week. i had 2 presentations and they went just swell. but the fun for me was attending a session by the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) Deputy CEO Leslie Conery. she held a session for an hour and a half to discuss the new draft of the NETS for teachers. These standards are set to be released this June, but they are seeking feedback right now. much of the session was devoted to small group work to look through the proposed standards and provide constructive feedback. our little group made some suggestions for organizing the standards better and for improving some of the wording of the indicators for various standards. the ISTE bigwigs will be gathering together next week for a few days to go over all of the feedback they’ve received to develop the final version of the standards. i would love to have been in involved in that process just to have a few days to devote to these new standards, but it’s sort of late in the game to think about it a week before it happens {sigh}. i regret not forcing myself to spend more time in evaluating the draft. in any regard, i am excited about the changes to the NETS. in July of 2006 i posted about hoping to see the NETS get “refreshed” so now that it’s happening i really appreciate being able to be a part of the process even if i will miss the nitty gritty next week. i gave feedback to the developers last month when i found the draft of the NETS for teachers and then again at the session yesterday, but now that i have spent more time with the draft i am seeing other changes and recommendations i’d like to make . . . and i am running out of time. doh. if you’re interested in seeing the current draft of the NETS for teachers, you can find it on this website and you can provide feedback before the group meets next week at this website.

one of the biggest barriers to technology integration into the classroom by k-12 teachers is the lack of time. i am experiencing it right now myself. i decided to take an overload section of a course and I also took 8 thesis students on top of that. egads!! what was i thinking (or not)? classes are going well, but my free time is dwindling. i used to love adding to my blog because i was spending time reading other blogs and keeping abreast of the happenings in the field, etc. Now my blog seems like a burden. and this is what happens with regard to using technology in the classroom for some teachers. i wish i had answers for this, but i don’t.

i have my students each post stuff to their own blog. i also have them find other ed tech professionals who keep a blog and my students are to read and respond (and maybe even participate in a dialog with these other professionals). this activity goes well, but the physical act of managing 70 students commenting on 70 blogs is extremely time consuming. i have my students use a code name (e.g., tom205) if they want and then they post the URL to their comment and the name they used. so, to manage this i am using now free NetNewWire — one of the most popular RSS readers on any platform even though it only works on a Mac. i had to enter all 70 student blog addresses into my reader. i then have to check each entry to find the link to the blog where they commented. inevitably, some of the students will post their URL wrong where they commented (e.g., http://blogger.com/add_comment) and i’ll have to contact them to find out the actual URL. i try to and respond to every single student, particularly if the other ed tech professional does not respond to the comment my student left. while i think this is a valuable assignment and gives my students to hear other voices in the field beside my voice, i also recognize that this is eating up my time. i have 7 discussion groups for my students using phpBB forums. here we are just 6 weeks in and look at the number of posts I’ve had to read thus far and a preview of just a screenshot from one discussion to see how my forum looks:

i am approaching 2000 posts and I have very thoughtful students who put much effort into our class discussions. just for the heck of it, i pretended to print just one group discussion on 1 of our two topics this week — it was about open source software. the print preview was 23 pages. keep in mind that i have 7 groups and there were 2 discussion questions. my point is that teaching can get overwhelming and this is true at every level of teaching particularly for teachers who are new to the field and just starting out. so, technology can quickly take a back seat and then these new teachers start forming habits that do not include using technologies and eventually it gets harder and harder to shift these practices to teaching with technology. i wish i had answers for this, but right now i am wearing a life jacket myself. doh.

one key, i think, is to help students realize that technology can save time in the long run even if it takes more time in the short run. sure, we might be struggling to keep our head above water this year, but every little bit we can do to save time in the future is time gained in the future. ooh, i see a new version of WordPress is now available and i am encouraged to update right now. that update might be just what i need to help keep my site that much more secure in te future. off to do it now. ;~)

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.

i just came across an article titled, “The Best Web 2.0 Applications For Education — 2007” and i looked the list over and checked out some of the apps. i like to think i am fairly on top of technologies that can be beneficial in the classroom yet i hadn’t heard of any of these tools. and that has me thinking . . . is it worth it for a teacher/educator to invest time using one of these tools in teaching and learning? i have no doubt that some of these tools can be beneficial for a teacher and a learner; however, that’s not my concern. i would be worried that i’d put a lot of time into a tool OR that my students would start a project and the tool would evaporate — go away. it’s one thing to use Google tools or some other more mainstream developer’s tools because they have a lot of funding behind them and there is little chance that the tool would be gone in an instant. but many of these other tools may not last. is it worth the risk to invest time and energies into them???

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 have written previously about how i am less than enthusiastic about e-Portfolios in higher education. frankly, i think the great benefits of e-Portfolios are to the programs that adopt their use, but that the students see very little benefit. i’ve heard anecdotal information about how preservice educators can use these portfolios in the hiring process, but there is no research confirming that this is often the case. you can visit electronicportfolios.com and see how cumbersome it is to develop an e-Portfolio.

in any regard, this is the background that bring me up to this past week. apparently there are folks in my department who are looking at switching the portfolio that our students currently complete from a paper portfolio to an e-Portfolio. as i mentioned previous, i saw no value in having my students in my classes develop an e-Portfolio if later in the program they would have to switch back to a paper portfolio. apparently higher level discussions have started and e-Portfolios are being considered. i was asked to talk with a woman who was visiting to help our College of Education find a way to switch to e-Portfolios last week. She wanted to know what i use for my e-Portfolios. i explained that i don’t do them, but that i would strongly consider using WordPress (a blogging tool). the committee was intrigued by this option and i have been asked to join the committee later this month to explore the viability of this option. i have to admit, i was asked to call into this meeting last week without knowing what they were discussing and only learned the topic while i was on the phone. i haven’t fully thought through the idea of blogging an e-Portfolio, but as the woman talked about how they wanted something that students could continue to use after they graduate and all that jazz, the blog option just popped into the forefront of my thinking.

i am still not thrilled with the notion of requiring an e-Portfolio, but if our whole program is going to buy in then i suppose i should be front and center helping to make the implementation go smoothly.

Technorati Tags: portfolios, blogging, blogs, e_portfolios

well, i applied to do a sabbatical a year from now and i have passed the first round already. the personnel committee unanimously supported my proposal. faculty vote comes monday and then it’s on to divisional and through the channels. i wrote months ago about wanting to do research in Europe, but i couldn’t get anything off of the ground. my wife certainly did. she also applied for a sabbatical and has contacts in Italy, Paris, Amsterdam and even in Prague. i had nothing. so i decided to switch my focus to a non location specific project. i am going to be writing a Wiki-based textbook.

i previously wrote about wikitextbooks as far back as early 2006 here (Feb.) and here (Jan.). i tried hard to get a wikitextbook off of the ground and running, but i just did’t have the time. i now might have the time to get the infrastructure in place and even a decent version up and running. i have given it a lot of thought since my initial efforts. i have explored current wikitextbook projects that are in the works. one thing i’ve noticed about other projects is that they’ve been in the works for a long time. wikitextbooks are very similar to open source software, yet open source software seems to be having better success at getting projects up and running. in my sabbatical proposal, i explore why this is and why a wiki like Wikipedia can realize incredible success while wikitextbooks cannot. i don’t think the wikipedia model can work on a wikitextbook and my model will be a modified version of what Wikipedia uses. of course this won’t make wiki purists very happy, but they can stick to their guns and not see a wikitextbook realized all they want. heh.

my proposal takes the position that textbooks should be accessible to all students. an electronic version of a textbook can be much more accessible than a paper version. the Center for Applied Special Technology (CAST) is dedicated to Universal Design in Learning (UDL) and UDL is all about making instruction and content accessible to all students. Cast describes UDL as:

* Multiple means of representation, to give learners various ways of acquiring information and knowledge,
* Multiple means of expression, to provide learners alternatives for demonstrating what they know,
* Multiple means of engagement, to tap into learners’ interests, offer appropriate challenges, and increase motivation.

UDL is at the heart of my proposal. personally, i think all textbooks should be provided in electronic format so that all students can more easily access the content. if a blind student wanted to use a screen reader then that could happen with an e-version. if a student with a learning disability wanted to listen then the same tools could apply for that. a student with low vision might just want the font size increased, etc. one textbook can be designed to work with all students instead of the paper model that has to be special made for some students. bleh.

i’ll be talking more about my proposal as it makes it way through the channels. if ultimately accepted then i can start work as soon as possible so i’ll rely on the few folks who read my blog to give me some feedback on various directions i’ve chosen. exciting times ahead . . .

Technorati Tags: CAST, ed tech, open source, textbook, universal design, wiki, wikitextbook