iSean

i have finally made a sample of what Quicktime 7 looks like using an enhanced podcast (video images added to the audio). in a previous blog entry, i mentioned that i was creating enhanced podcasts this semester for my students and Chris Conway asked for a sample, so that’s where this blog entry comes in. this is a very small file at 228 KB. i will provide a link to the file for anyone who wants to fiddle with it. here’s how it looks:

Click here to download the file (228 KB) — you might need to right-click and save the file to your computer first.

make sure you fiddle with the chapters (click on the Enhanced Podcast box on the lower right side of the QT interface).

Tags: Quicktime, podcast, enhanced podcast, videocast, m4b

our college of education was successful in our recent bid for accreditation from the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE). this accreditation process occurs every 6 years, so we are now safe until 2012 or so. that being said, one of the items we were told to focus on in the future is the concept of student dispositions. NCATE provides their own definition for dispositions as, “the values, commitments, and professional ethics that influence behaviors towards students, families, colleagues, and communities and affect student learning, motivation, and development as well as the educator’s own professional growth” (NCATE 2000 Standards: March 31, 2000, p. 31).

so, the question for a preservice education program is how you assess and improve student dispositions. and, are some students more predisposed to becoming teachers? this is an issue that our college of education will be tackling in the future. on a more personal level,  i am curios to explore ways that individual instructors can assess and change student dispositions. further, i want to explore how technology can be used to facilitate this process. i have to admit, i haven’t made dispositions a very prominent part of my teaching previously . . . maybe a bit indirectly, but certainly not overtly. i think it’s important when teaching preservice educators that we not only teach, but get our students thinking about our teaching.

delving more into this issue of dispositions . . . i want to provide my students with knowledge and skills that they can take with them and hopefully use in the future when they have their own classroom. of course, this is probably a common goal for most teachers. but, we all know that there is a huge difference between having this knowledge and then actually using it. i can have assessments in my class that force students to demonstrate their understanding of a concept or skill, etc., but can i really know that the student is changing his/her disposition towards the future and not just quickly fulfilling my requirement? i am stuck at this point.

i recently saw some research by Katz (1991 or 92) that explained how kids who receive early formal reading instruction and are required to do drill and practice to help become successful readers actually end up not being as disposed to be readers. in other words, this research indicated that trying to change a learners dispositions can actually be counter intuitive. you want to teach kids the skills they need to read, but there is a fine line between using those skills to actually read early and between having that instruction undermine the process. this is quickly becoming a heady-type discussion and i can lose track of where i am going with it quite easily. i’ll focus the rest of this entry on a specific example and how i see technology being used.

i want to help bridge the gap between research and practice. i haven’t searched the literature, but i am sure folks have various strategies with most not being very successful given the status quo, which is a large gap still existing. anyway, i want my students to learn to investigate hypotheses and search through literature. i want my students use summative and formative evaluation in their own teaching. how does this happen you ask? i think i need to demonstrate that i am doing this when i teach — i want to be a role model. everyone has heard the old saying that people tend to teach the way they were taught. if true, then i need to be much more overt in how i am teaching; i need to continue to teach well, but i have to be more in tune with how i am teaching and share that. when i make an online session, i need to start demonstrating how i developed that lesson and each component in it. i can use technology to provide screen shots of various stages in the development of the content. maybe instead of a screen shot i just briefly provide a snippet in a sidebar that helps to explain why i picked this external article. or, i can use technology to help demonstrate how i searched Google to find supplementary resources and how i searched the literature in my field to find research on any given topic to get a better grasp of the subject. perhaps every lesson i teach should have a follow up podcast where i talk about teaching that lesson? if a lesson is not going well, i need to help my students understand why i am making changes midstream (formative evaluation) and how i might teach this lesson differently in the future (using summative evaluation). this is going to take a lot of effort to provide my instruction but to also provide a look into the behind the scenes of my instruction, but i think it will be worth it. i think i owe it to my students (preservice teachers) to provide a model of what i hope they can become. i don’t know that this will change dispositions, but don’t i owe it to my students to make this effort? if you teach preservice educators, how are you assessing student dispositions and what do you do to make positive changes?

Tags: student dispositions, NCATE, accreditation, teaching, learning

i coordinate the undergraduate ed tech course at a public university in michigan with over 22,000 students. the students who take our ED 205 Computers in Education course are all studying to become teachers and the course covers the ISTE NETS standards. we have over 450 students a semester taking our class, which turns out to be about 20 or so sections a semester. i tend to teach 2 or 3 sections per semester. we have 3 full time affiliate professors who each teach 4 sections. in fact, one of our affiliates finished her PhD and is off to a full time tenure-track position. so, if you know anyone interested in her position, it’s open.

i end up having to hire about 6 (+/-) adjunct instructors each semester. and, i realize that adjunct instructors are not paid as well as i’d like. instead of having each adjunct recreate the wheel, i try and provide curricular materials to all instructors. even if i wasn’t doing it to be nice, i would do it just to ensure that our students are getting the same key course objectives regardless of the section they end up taking. so, i have a secret website that is password protected where PowerPoint files are provided that supplement the textbook chapters. the website also has lab activities that instructors can assign to help meet course objectives. finally, i place curricular materials that supplement everything else just in case an instructor wants to study something more in-depth. nobody is forced to use any of these materials; however, i encourage them to be used.

well, the labs that were a part of the program when i started were fairly diverse and they do meet the NETS. that being said, we’ve been slow as a group to update the labs. individual instructors change a lab here and there and add a lab to take advantage of current trends in technology. the past few years, i’ve had a lab that was focused on web 2.0 issues. but, this one lab was covered in one week. i am thinking of creating a web 2.0 series of labs that cover 1/2 of the class. i won’t call it web 2.0 in title, but the labs will focus on technologies that take advantage of web 2.0 features. i think we could change our digital photography lab that we currently have and add a feature to the lab where students upload photos to Flickr and use tags, etc. Rather than learning about MS Excel, perhaps the students could try Google’s spreadsheet. Personally, i dropped the spreadsheet lab from my class a while ago and made it a part of another Office-type lab, but i still have that component and what we do would work just swell in Google’s spreadsheet. i could also see students mashing up Google’s maps (or, another online service).

the thought of making this shift is exciting, but i have to ensure that i meet the NETS standards as they are written . . . or do i? perhaps i think my students would be better served to focus on one standard much more than others (e.g., demonstrate continual growth in technology knowledge and skills to stay abreast of current and emerging technologies). is it fair for my students to spend a disproportionate amount of time on this component as compared to other universities? the NETS standards were written many years ago; though, most of the standards are worded generically enough to grow with the times (so, that’s a plus, eh?). but, knowing what i know about technology in education and from working with graduate students (read: current teachers), i think some of the examples provided to meet various standards are really not as relevant in current educational settings. this PDF provides exemplary examples of how to meet the NETS with regard to social studies and here’s an example that i think is dated:

In small groups, brainstorm and record in Inspiration (Rapid Fire mode) answers to the question “Where Do I Live?”

Label the elements of the resulting Inspiration/Kidspiration diagram with the social studies standards.

i could easily see using Google maps and mash up technology to improve upon this example. then again, if we try and move beyond ISTE then how do we know that what we are valuing is what the field would want? moreover, do i even have the authority to change our course objectives without a vote from the faculty? the answer to that is NO. that being said, the course could just loosely cover material that we think is outdated to make room for the new stuff. obviously, that’s the dilemma that i’ll be wrestling with in the near future. fortunately, the top-level NETS are malleable enough to accommodate the changes that i think are necessary.

Tags: ISTE, NETS, standards, web 2.0, Google, teaching, ed tech

I am off to Kansas for a wedding, class reunion, and just the general enjoyment of 98 degree heat ; however, I will return to blogging on the 4th. I want to discuss my use the editing tools built into Microsoft Word. I also plan to start developing Quicktime 7 video enhanced podcasts now that my university has finally upgraded to QT 7, which supports chapters. I plan to offer Quicktime movies and Flash movies and see which version my students prefer.

I also have a lot of data from this past spring semester (I surveyed my students weekly) and I plan to share some of the preliminary findings on class discussion forums versus blogging. Stay tuned.

it’s about time. Google has finally come through with a beta version of a web-based calendar system. Google’s Calendar is free, just like their other services, but it’s still in the beta stages (then again, isn’t every Google tool in perpetual beta?).

i like 2 things about this calendar system, in particular and i’ll describe these two things in this blog, but the tool has much more than i’ll discuss. it’s worth visiting and learning more on your own.

the main thing that makes this web-based calendar worthwhile is that it offers the ability to collaborate amongst many users. in my program, we share a lot of technology equipment between the 20 sections or so we teach of our ed tech course each semester. for example, we have digital video cameras, digital still cameras, handheld computers, and more and scheduling can be a nightmare. we have been using email for the most part to try and get things scheduled, but a person who decides to change dates never had a place to go and make that change quickly or to even look for open dates and let others know the previous scheduled day is now available. Google’s calendar is easy to use and share and it’s easy to allow many users to view your calendar. so, we should easily be able to implement this tool in our workflow.

the other feature i really like with Google’s calendar is that it appears to integrate well with iCal. i just tested it and imported 2 of my iCal calendars and they showed up moments later in Google’s calendar. very nice.

it doesn’t work great with Safari, but it’s working for me as i fiddle right now, but Firefox is supported. i have high hopes for this web-application.

Tags: google, calendar, iCal

i like to read a lot of blog sites. occasionally, i even post comments on other blog sites. and, i often forget where i post comments. if the author happens to respond i may never know. now, some bloggers will come back to my blog and comment and that allows a dialogue to take place. but, i wonder how many dialogues i’ve allowed to flounder away? well, this is how i go about introducing coComment — a free tool to track your comments on various blogging sites. i have a little bookmarklet that i click just before i submit my comments and then my comments are recorded and tracked on the coComment site as well. i can visit the coComment site and login to see where i’ve posted and to see if follow up discussions ensued. here’s the snippet from the coComment site:

When you comment on a blog, coComment keeps a copy of your message on a special page – called "your conversations" – that allows you to quickly see your comment and where it was posted, with a link to the original site.

moreover, i can also have my comments from elsewhere appear right here on my blog, which you can view right now off to the top-right. i should be able to customize it in the future, but coComment is still in the very early beta-testing phases. in fact, you need a secret code to sign up right now. i was lucky enough to find a bunch of invitation codes posted on another blog, so i don’t have any i can give away at this time. but, as the tool develops more, i imagine the site will open up. and, if you really want to try it, you might just have luck emailing the folks at coComment and asking. cheers!

Technorati Tags: coComment, blog, ed tech

well, it looks like the wikitext is off and running. my core team of professors who teach the same course i teach are all on board. we’re scheduled to meet and discuss how this might best work and how this can be an improvement over our current textbook (which i helped write, fwiw). i am going to spend some time explaining how the wiki works and how folks can contribute to our project.

one of the instructors asked me why we don’t just start with wikibooks. that’s a valid question, but i think our immediate efforts are sort of selfish. we want a textbook that meets our teaching objectives. the State of Michigan has standards that will be unique to Michigan schools. then again, our standards differ from the national ISTE (NETS-T) standards very little. so, we’ll donate our efforts to wikibooks when we’re satisfied. but, i want to be able to mess up along the way and not worry about the world community misinterpreting our progress and veering us off in a different direction. i want to try content and let it sit for 2 weeks and then replace it completely if it doesn’t fit. wikipedia doesn’t seem like a collaboration as much as it is many individuals trying to independently come together and produce quality work and i want our wiki to be more of a team project. i guess what i am saying is that i don’t want to be completely responsible to the world just yet. i do want to let MACUL members know that we’re starting this project because other university instructors in Michigan could potentially benefit from our version of the text and they might choose to help, which would be nice.

there are just so many little steps that keep creeping up that i am sure this project will not move as quickly as i had hoped. on top of that, our college of education is undergoing major discussions for restructuring in our university. this restructuring effort could have major implications for the computers in education course i teach . . . and, thus the wikitext. that being said, i am committed to making this project work.

in other news, i just upgraded to WordPress 2.0. this is quite a nice upgrade. i was nervous because the upgrade notes indicated that i shouldn’t upgrade if i had altered themes and/or installed any plugins. i have done both. i backed up prior to the upgrade, but i quickly realized that nothing was ruined upon upgrading. whew!

Technorati Tags: wikitext, mediawiki, ed tech

Link to Richmond.com article

Henrico County soon will embark upon the most extensive study of a school-based laptop computer program ever undertaken in the United States.

The county’s School Board last week unanimously approved the first phase of a two-and-a-half year study of its high school laptop program. Noted technology and education research expert and Columbia University professor emeritus Dr. Dale Mann of New York-based Interactive, Inc. will oversee the study, which will begin Feb. 1.
. . .
Mann said the focus of his study would be to determine not only whether the laptops help improve student test scores but also to gauge how effective they are at helping students learn. He also wants to determine how frequently teachers use the laptops during classroom instruction.

“We want to know, Is this thing working? How is it working? And for whom is it working? And how do we know?” Mann said.

They still don’t get it. My guess is that the evidence will reveal that the laptops did not contribute to a significant improvement in learning. There will be qualitative data revealed to show that students were excited to have the laptops and that parents liked them as well. Many students will explain that they used the computers for extra-curricular activities (e.g., chatting with friends). Teachers will even say that the laptops were a good idea and that they integrated the laptops into their teaching. Attendance might be up (and, that is a good thing), but test scores are not going to move much, if at all. Teachers will receive training to help learn how to integrate technology, so they may actually use the technology more in their teaching, but the fact that we put more effort into helping the teachers use the technology could be time we could have spent to provide other professional development to those teachers . . . so, some improvements could just be the result of the extra effort we put into working with teachers; not the laptops themselves, eh?

However, the question not being asked is whether or not we value teaching our students how to become literate with regard to technology and with regard to the massive amount of information on the Internet. Every state has a No Child Left Behind test. Not one of these tests assesses these literacy skills, but I would argue that being able to navigate information online and find relevant and unbiased information are skills that are increasingly becoming as important as many of the skills that NCLB testing measures, particularly for life behind the k-12 experience. If we aren’t testing skills on the NCLB tests, then we aren’t going to spend time teaching those skills; however, these laptops initiatives will undoubtedly force schools to cover this material as part of the ubiquitious computing learning experience. These kids will benefit from having had this experience, but the evaluation in this study doesn’t appear to have the resources in place to reach this conclusion. That’s a shame.

the Michigan Association of Computer Users in Learning is an organization dedicated to promoting good technology integration into our schools. well, MACUL holds an ed tech conference (conference link here) each year in either detroit or grand rapids. this year, it’s in grand rapids (convention center). they attract thousand of folks from around the state and even around the country. the conference typically has 3 days worth of presentations in various categories and they also bring in some national leaders in the field of ed tech. a few years ago, my friends from the university of kansas did a few large sessions and it was nice to show them around grand valley state university as well.

well, i recently learned that i had 2 presentations accepted. one is with my wife and pertains to software we developed to help students with disabilities. however, the presentation i am most excited about is one titled, “Online Class Discussions Made Easy.” i plan to teach participants how to create phpBB discussion forums as well as blog sites like this. and, i intend to do it all in an hour. should be hustle-bustle of activity, but i think i can pack it all in. if you’re in the area or planning to attend, make sure you stop by and say hello. i present on Friday, March 10 at 11:30 AM.

i got back from boston this week where i was attending the Annual Human Research Protection Programs Conference since i am now on our institution’s IRB. next week is finals, so this blog will be slow for the next week, i’d guess. stay tuned. thanks.