iSean

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

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.

Technorati Tags: ed tech, edweek.org, NETS, Technology Counts, students, teachers, technology, Michigan

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

i have been hearing more and more stories about people who are using virtual reality in their teaching. now, when i use the phrase, ‘virtual reality’ i used to immediately think about about a person putting on a VR helmet and a glove with sensors all over — the helmet would contain the virtual word and your eyes were covered so you could only see the VR world inside the helmet on the screen. while that technology is still emerging and being developed, it’s not something that is even remotely close to being common in any classroom. that being said, there is a VR world that is much closer to being realized — Second Life. Second Life is something I first heard about from my buddy Robert. Second Life is a 3-D virtual world entirely built and owned by its residents. i am now a resident.

i should clarify, i think i am a resident. i have created an account and updated my appearance for my avatar. but i have not paid any money as i am content to use the free version for now. the virtual environment is free to use, but i am sure there are perks when you start spending real $$$. i believe you need to spend $$$ to make money in this world. and money is used. for example, many people have their own houses and other inventory items, etc. and that brings me to my first experience.

Second Life starts you on a tutorial island which i completed fairly rapidly. actually, i jumped in a car at the end and sort of drove off of a bridge. the car tipped sideways and got stuck. i couldn’t get out and the car wouldn’t move, so i gave up and quit. i came back a few days later and i was automatically on another land/island with a lot of people around. i started bumping people, but everyone ignored me at first. then, someone saw my name “Jayhawk” and asked if i’d went to the University of Kansas (i had) and he explained that he had gone there as well. come to find out, this guy was 67 years old. he found out i was a newbie and offered me some documents to help me get going. he then added me as a friend and i did likewise — figuring the jayhawk family was good enough for me. all good. he wanted to show me his complex that he just built/purchased, so i allowed myself to be transported. this guy had an elaborate office building complex. and, i soon found out that he ran his own consulting business delivering speeches about changing attitudes. people actually use Second Life for business purposes. hmmm. this guy had a few rooms full of chairs and he could actually get folks there and then speak into a microphone and the real people could hear him do his real job in this virtual environment. amazing. well, it’s amazing until i realize that this guy is seeing me as a potential customer. that’s when i decide to end my second session . . . again stuck. doh! heh.

this guy wanted to continue his spiel so i took about 5 - 6 days off. i then logged in and quickly dropped him from my friend list and made sure he couldn’t see when i was logged in. whew! safe again. i made some island greeting point my home since i have $250 to my name and i am sure land costs well above that. in S.L. you can fly, which is pretty cool. so i took off and just headed in one direction flying. after a few minutes, i crashed. apparently you can buy airspace above your dwelling and property and block it off from regular folk like me. so, i headed back to land to walk around. i swear i landed in a XXX zone because there were scantily clad women pictures posted everywhere. i entered a building and it was clearly about sex — like a strip club. i wondered if people were really playing these parts or whether this was some sort of creation by one person using bot characters, etc. hmmm. i wondered whether people paid to watch their avatars (read: cartoons) do things that . . . never mind, i didn’t want to know and i quickly left. i then encountered a casino with nobody in it. yet, i could walk up to a table and gamble if i wanted — i didn’t. interesting, but i again left and kept flying. i eventually came to a neat house with open doors. i went in and nobody was home. i decided to make myself at home and fiddle around. it was pretty nice.

i don’t see the education application in my own experiences thus far, but i am not really looking yet as i am just trying to figure out how to best navigate the environment. i do know that one of our students at GVSU has created a museum (she’s an art teacher) and she’s placed paintings in this museum. her students can go into the museum and click on a painting. the painting will tell all about itself and help the kids learn more about the art. the teacher can cater the message being heard to help meet the course objectives, etc. that’s something that appears to be ideal for this environment. i am sure i will figure out much more in the near future. but, i am really trying to pace myself. i think i’ll make this my sunday evening experiment and that’s it. ;~)

Technorati Tags: Virtual Reality, Second Life

while i don’t like talking about my blog because that seems so vain, i also realize that my blog is part of my teaching and i like to document much about my teaching on the blog . . . so a blog-related post is sometimes okay, especially when the talk involved something in my blog breaking.

i recently upgraded my blog to WordPress 2.1. i have upgraded just fine since version 1.x many times with no problem. unfortunately, this time around my custom theme didn’t like the upgrade. actually, the blog worked just swell after upgrading, but my side menu where i had a list of the blogs that i visit and all that jazz was showing a database error. i couldn’t fix the code, but i could delete the offending code — except that i was left with no links to the sites i visit and all that. that wasn’t worth it to me so i decided to upgrade my theme.

i read not too long ago about a neat new feature in Drupal 5.0 where the user can customize the current theme’s colors to suit their preferences (and customizable content as well on some themes like http://www.google.com/ig). i fiddled with this on a demo somewhere and it was pretty neat using the eye dropper and all that to change colors. i searched a bit more and found the same type theme available for WordPress 2.1. so here it is. if you click the Options link far above, you too can customize the theme here. and who said that web 2.0 was worthless? ;~)

i learned much about virtual reality recently and i’ll want to write things up, but i’ll have to wait until i have more time as i am teaching a long weekend class this weekend.

Technorati Tags: drupal, wordpress, blog, blogging

i was excited when Apple released Keynote. Keynote is much like PowerPoint, but it also has a more professional look and feel. i jumped on board and started using it; however, in the back of my mind it just didn’t feel too new. so, i jumped off of the bandwagon shortly thereafter. instead, i have found just using the internet to be much more powerful and more natural. the topics that i typically would have used PowerPoint or Keynote for are most likely related to technology in some way and i often needed to get online to demonstrate this or that . . . why not start online and make the materials available to anyone? while i used Dreamweaver to make my presentations, i recently discovered another way — a wiki.

Donna DesRoches and Rob Wall did a presentation using a wiki last year and i just discovered it from Alec Couros who is doing something very similar. the wiki can be present as you walk the audience through your presentation and then the wiki remains for when the audience returns home (or gets online on the spot and follows along). or, could they log into and make changes while you are up there presenting? eek. while i am intrigued by the thought of using a wiki for a presentation — particularly because i am doing a presentation at the MACUL conference (Detroit) next month on wikis and textbooks — i am still not sure i can see this model into the future.

i note that Alec thought about using the materials on the DesRoches / Wall wiki and decided he didn’t want to “mess with their stuff” and that he wanted “control over his own work.” this is where i am getting hung up on things. i don’t know the protocol for using someone else’s personal wiki that is public. if i can create an account and make changes, will my changes still be there next month when i give my presentation or will the administrator revert to the version prior to my edits/revisions? will someone else come along and make changes before my presentation for their own needs? i don’t mind asking someone else if i can borrow their content for my own wiki, but i probably wouldn’t customize someone else’s wiki for my own needs. and, if i was really preparing for a presentation, i’d probably not want someone messing with my content either. hmmm. i like this model as a way to present and share information, but think i need to see it mature a bit before it becomes a PowerPoint killer . . . thoughts?

Technorati Tags: keynote, PowerPoint, wiki

email is important for just about anyone who works in an online world. many of us consider many email applications before settling on the best of the bunch but often a solution lacking all of what we’d want. the browser is another important application for internet geeks (e.g., is there really a choice beyond Firefox?). but for me, two of the more important uses of my computer are for scheduling needs and for my to do lists. i am a Macintosh user, so i am pretty happy with iCal — it comes free with the Mac OS. unfortunately, iCal is not great for a person who has to sync calendars with others and for a person who often uses lab computers, etc. so i switched to Google’s calendars back in April of ‘06. at the time, i noted that Google worked well with iCal. i was wrong. while Google’s calendar can import iCal calendars, it’s not a two way street and thus it is worthless to even try it. so i gave up on iCal. i missed the quickness of using iCal when i am on my main computer. i can make quick edits and additions when using iCal that take a bit longer on Google’s calendars. and Google is fast. however, i recently discovered Spanning Sync (SS). SS is a tool that will work on your Mac to automatically (or manually) sync Google’s calendars with your iCal calendars and visa versa. they have a demo here and it looks just beautiful. i have grabbed the public beta but unfortunately i just discovered that the DIGG effect is in full force. this little application had made the digg front page and the servers at SS couldn’t handle the load, so they closed down their beta offering for now. shucks. on the other hand, i find it interesting that the application will reside on your computer, yet it uses the SS servers to perform the sync. imagine the amount of data that SS will have access to (insert evil laugh here). ;~)

as far as my to do list . . . i’ll have to save that for another day, but suffice to say i’ve moved beyond a simple text document and i am still searching for the ideal solution.

Technorati Tags: iCal, calendar, scheduling, digg, Google, Spanning Sync