iSean

my university recently started subscribing to the Chronicles of Higher Education. i’d never really read it, but i figured i’d check it out. it’s a bit cumbersome to visit the library and go through the login stuff, but at least the end result is a duplicate of the actual Chronicle website. when i want to read the op-ed pieces in the NY Times, i have to use LexisNexis. it’s interface is less appealing. i have to search for the title or the author of the piece i seek and then i can read the op-ed pieces that are reserved for NY Times select subscribers. then again, i could always pay for the select service. but, back to my topic . . .

in the Chronicles yesterday, there was an article about ‘Students Lack of Information Literacy.” i have talked about this before, but it’s nice to see a large organization addressing this issue. apparently ETS has developed a new test designed to measure students’ information literacy and computer savviness. the test is called the ICT Literacy Assessment Core Level. with a name like that, it’s bound to catch on quickly. [/sarcasm]

ETS ran a pilot study on 3000 college students and 800 high school students and found:

According to the preliminary report, only 13 percent of the test-takers were information literate. ETS set what company officials described as a rough, unofficial information-literacy bar using information from a variety of sources, including the Association of College and Research Libraries.

obviously, the result are pretty pathetic, but what do we expect? not a single state test that is required under No Child Left Behind is testing information literacy skills. why would a school spend valuable resources and time trying to promote these skills if a portion of their funding is going to be based on NCLB testing results? even if it’s the right thing to do and will help students in the long run, school administrators are really in a bind.

i applaud ETS for trying. i am 100% behind their efforts to start measuring information literacy skills. that being said, i also realize that changes to NCLB are going to have to happen first . . . and our students continue to miss out.

and, to provide you a little snippet for those who don’t subscribe, here is a finding that was labeled as “good” by ETS: Students generally recognized that Web sites whose addresses end in .edu or .gov were less likely to contain biased material than those with addresses ending in .com.

and here is a finding that was labeled as “bad” by ETS: Students were generally poor at identifying biased Web content.

this is right in line with an activity that i do with my students, unfortunately. i wish ETS all the luck in the world as they try and get this new test to catch on with educational institutions and states.

Technorati Tags: education, information literacy, NCLB, Chronicles of Higher Education

i have been a little slow here lately. that’s because i am busy working on an article for the Knowledge Tree journal. i’ll talk more about my article soon and it is due pretty soon. for the time being i’ll just let you in on the subject . . . i am looking at how technology (e.g., blogs) can be used to help change student dispositions (read: future behaviors). the article is due when i go to bed Sunday night and today i decided to simplify some things and shape up the organization. i will provide a link as soon as i can. stay tuned.

Technorati Tags: blogging, teachers, knowledge tree, dispositions

i have been fiddling with Google’s writely lately. i signed up before Google bought writely, but i wanted to see how Google was coming into play now that they’ve had the site for about a half of a year. my initial review is here. in fact, you can see my initial writely document with a quick update at this link. you won’t see the interface of writely, but you can see the document.

the biggest influence i notice from Google is that writely now has tagging enabled. if you are a blogger yourself, you know all about tagging. i think much of my traffic shows up because of the tags i use at the end of each blog post (via technorati, of course). Macintosh computers have tagging built in, though i think tagging is still something more likely to be used by geeks than the general public. but, wow is tagging powerful. everything i do with regard to an ED 205 course i teach is tagged each semester like this: 205_063. the 063 tells me it’s from 2006 and the 3rd semester (1st is winter, 2nd is spring/summer, and 3rd is fall). i also use tags for the content (e.g., digital divide). i can search for digital divide tags that also include 205_063 or from last semester 205_062. i no longer have to use folders like i used to do. i just make a dated folder every few weeks and drop everything on my desktop into the folder and move it out of the way. i can hit command-space bar and type a tag or two and have any file(s) in about 2 - 3 seconds. that’s power.

well, writely now has tagging built in (click to view larger version):

no more messy folders. if you use Gmail, you have an idea how this can play out. i have thousands of emails in gmail, but no folders. i can quickly search and narrow down emails i am seeking. writely appears headed in a similar direction. writely has more . . . for example, you can easily use writely to write blog entries and even save writely files straight to a blog:

i think writely is shaping up to be a nice cheap alternative to MS Office. i sure hope schools are able to find a way to save money and use something like writely. then again, how long will writely remain free? (sigh)

Technorati Tags: blogging, Google, writely.com, Word, word processing, writely

this semester, i have been using podcasting even more than previous semesters. i have also been using podcasts and video enhanced podcasts this semester (using ProfCast for the video enhanced versions). i place the video enhanced versions on my .Mac site with iWeb. however, when I use a plain audio podcast, i have been making an mp3 version and a smaller iTunes version and giving my students an option to download either one. i survey my students weekly and the results (see below — click image to view larger version) indicate that most choose to listen to the mp3 even though most have downloaded iTunes to view my video enhanced podcasts. i find this strange.

okay, i just met with a student in one of my online sections as i was writing this. i showed him the results above and asked him which version he listened to. he said he listened to the mp3 version. i asked if he had iTunes on his computer. he did. he said that he listened to the mp3 version because he knew what to expect from it. the iTunes version had an extension of m4a and that was new to him. he wasn’t sure if it would just open automatically in iTunes or whether he’d have to figure out how to get it to play in iTunes. i am glad i asked. frankly, i don’t know how this works on a PC. perhaps someone can fill me in if you’ve downloaded an m4a (iTunes) audio file or podcast previously. that way i can better explain it in the future.

Technorati Tags: iTunes, mp3, podcast, profcast, iWeb

this isn’t really ed tech, but it’s geeky enough that i had to point it out. i have been using a custom google page as my starting point on the internet. on this page, i have Digg headlines; NY TImes headlines; Wired News; Stock Market; Weather; Sports Illustrated; Inside Higher Ed; my Gmail account; etc. on this front page. i have a 23″ display so it all fits nicely. i have thought about adding more, but stuff that falls below the main screen tends to get ignored as i don’t like scrolling.

well, Google has added a new feature borrowed from tabbed browsing. they added the ability to use tabs on this customized page. i just added a new tab that i titled “ed tech” — obviously, i placed ed tech feeds on this page. the Google pages make it easy to add RSS feeds as content on the custom pages. i added, “Stephen’s Web ~ by Stephen Downes ~ OLDaily RSS 2.0” which contains hundreds of various ed tech blogs. i added a bunch of other RSS feeds as well. pretty nifty to have it all on one page. sure, i get it all using NetNewsWire (an RSS / Atom news reader that’s really good), but that’s a completely different application and sometimes i get stuck in the web browser.

just quickly, since i am touting something from Google, i figured i’d explain how i use my gmail account . . . my university uses Groupwise (no link; it’s crummy). i use a few different computers (my laptop and desktop). well, my sent mail often gets lost. if i send something on my desktop, i rarely can find it on my laptop even though all machines are using IMAP with everything stored on the server. well, with Thunderbird you can have every email you send also automatically blind carbon copied to any email address you choose. i do this to my gmail account and then use a filter to have every email from me labeled as such and removed from the main inbox into it’s own little hideaway. anytime i want to see my sent mail from any computer, it’s easily accessible.

Technorati Tags: Google, NetNewsWire, email, Thunderbird, RSS

i was reading an article today by Landrum, Cook, Tankersley, and Fitzgerald (2002) in which they argue that current teachers find their teaching peers and information they receive in inservice trainings to be more trustworthy than information obtained in peer reviewed journals. isn’t that amazing to read? the teacher down the hall is more trustworthy than The Journal of Research on Technology in Education. obviously, there is a long standing gap between research and practice in education so this finding is right in line with what i probably would have guessed. but this gets me wondering whether blogs are helpful or harmful when they enter this mix.

let me explain . . . a blog tends to be written FAR less professionally than a research article; the blog is more personable (similar to the effect that some voters voted for bush because they saw him as a person they could sit down with and have a beer). most folks who blog are doing so to entertain and/or inform an audience and most bloggers want a large audience or even a growing audience. when i blog, i try and write for everyone who is interested in educational technology topics. on the other hand, when i write professionally i have certain parameters that i know i need to abide by to even be considered for publication. when i blog, i can write in the first person narrative and that helps to create an author who is a real person and not some abstract “researcher” who exists in the peer-reviewed world. surely that is much more valuable to a typical practicing teacher. they can read my blog and read about my experiences with this tool or that strategy and hopefully learn from what i have to say and hopefully they can relate to the problems and issues i encounter so that my chosen solutions are more meaningful. this down to earth nature is true of the vast majority of educational technology related blogs. i don’t dispute that. blogs might be more effective than a peer-reviewed article when it comes to influencing practicing teachers.

then again, i just did a few searches using online educational databases through my university library. i find nothing about the value of blogs in educational research. does anyone else view this as a problem? the ed tech blogging community is growing rapidly by the day. the Stephen Downes RSS feed i subscribe to has hundreds and hundreds of ed tech related blogs being disseminated to all interested parties. so we end up with blogger X writing something about the value of a tool (e.g., blogs) and another blogger will pick up on that point and use it to build a case that makes a new point. in very short time, the blogging community is citing each other and the “knowledge” of the community is growing (i use that term “knowledge” very loosely). but, how do we assess the value of that “research” if none of that information has gone through the peer review process. and, the ed tech blogging community is far too large for the vast majority of what is being written to be considered any kind of peer review process. it’s not. sure, some of the most widely read blogs will undergo some level of review, but it’s still not typically the same rigor that a blind review process can provide.

so, the issue i pursue is whether blogs in a scholarship role are a positive or a negative.

to be continued . . .

Technorati Tags: education, research, online learning, blogging, scholarship, peer-review

okay, it’s not often that i get off-topic, but i have to make an exception. apple announced yesterday that they are now selling movies through their iTunes store. i’ve checked it out and i think this is doomed. here’s why:

1. movies are not DVD quality. they are 640 x 480, to boot.
2. movies cannot be burned to a DVD.
3. each movie is going to be a Gigabyte or more, so many users won’t have the room to build a library.
4. downloads take more than an hour on DSL and are impossible on dial-up.
5. the price is barely better than many of these same movies on DVD at Best Buy or Walmart.

personally, i would have considered the idea if apple had gotten into the movie rental business (ala netflix), but for the price of a movie, i can have 2 movies mailed to my house and return them and do that again many times in a month — same price. sure, i don’t keep the movies, but most movies i watch are only worth watching once.

i predict a failure here.

but, i think the new iTunes is really nice. And, the iPod shuffle is quite neat. that’s what we’re giving my son for his birthday in a few weeks.

Technorati Tags: iTunes, Movies, iPod

two posts in one day . . . sorry about that. but, the creative guy just turned me on to ecto. this is the killer app i was looking for in a blog editor. i get to test it for 21 days, but i have a feeling that they’ll have my $20 by the end of the day.

they make a windows version as well, but the Mac version is definitely made for the Mac. it has all of the features i wrote about below. this is it. i need to test how adding an image works — how about wilt chamberlain when he played at Kansas?

whew!

Technorati Tags: ecto, blogging, wordpress

one of the things that i’ve not enjoyed about blogging is the tool i have been using. i have been using Qumana, which is available for Macs and PCs. I use a Mac. Qumana has been in beta since i started using it earlier this year. i guess i had forgotten that until i noticed that version 3 was released yesterday. i’ve used it long enough to know that i don’t want to pay for it so that got me looking for a replacement. to be fair to Qumana, i appreciate that they make a Mac application and a PC application. my guess is that they built Qumana using Java. i don’t particularly like Java apps. selecting text is more cumbersome and some keystrokes that i am used to don’t work. the environment is just slower in response to my typing, etc. the little things added up and realizing i was going to have to pay finally pushed me over the edge.

i fiddled with Bleezer. this is also available for Macs and PCs. i can tell from the interface that this app is also not Mac native. probably Java again??? i think i actually like Bleezer over Qumana, so if nothing else, i’ll come back and play with Bleezer before i return to Qumana.

i am currently testing out MacJournal version 4. something tells me this isn’t a native blogging tool, but it is clearly written for Macs and the spellchecking works just like in MS Word (with the red underline). i had to customize the toolbar just to get it ready to use as a blog editor. i also can’t find an easy way to add tags to a blog entry, which is something that Qumana and Bleezer do with ease. i added “keywords” so we’ll see what that does. the other thing that is easy with Qumana and Bleezer is the ability to make my entry have a category. i don’t see categories with MacJournal. hmmm. i don’t think i’ve found my solution just yet. i’ll keep fiddling with this tool (15 day trial), but also searching for the killer Mac blog editor on the side.

aha, i just went to send this to my blog and a little window popped up that allowed me to choose the categories i wanted. that’s a bonus. but, i had to manually add the tags below. that’s crummy.

Tags: qumana, bleezer, macjournal, blogging, wordpress, macintosh

so, i teach 2 online classes that have 24 students; though, both classes were missing a student last week (one on wednesday and one on thursday). that’s 23 students/class if you’re keeping track at home.

in both classes, i had students log into my drupal site and sign up and post a message. both times, a screen came up and said that i was locked out for a few minutes because my site was using too much of the CPU.

23 users? compared to most websites on the internet i am extremely small time, yet i overloaded the CPU?

i guess i am just a bit shocked!

i have been extremely happy with bluehost up to this point, but this just seems a bit pathetic to me. 23 users on my site and i am shut down. having 30 GB of space and fantastico and cPanel and all of that jazz is great, but there comes a point when just being able to access the stuff you have online is even more important and that’s while i am teaching.

bluehost made changes in the last month or so that have caused the errors i am getting. and, i also realize they quickly added a new account for heavy users, but i have two small classes . . . $20/month for an educator with 2 small classes is a bit steep considering i pay $6.95/month now. thank gosh my students are online and that they login at different times; however, i am looking ahead to the date of my midterm and i am worried that they’ll all want to access my drupal site where the class content is located and i’ll get overloaded again. this is the kind of thing that never entered my thinking when choosing an online host. i still have an account with iPowerWeb, but i kept getting database errors with my drupal installation on their site. i do use them for my phpBB installation and it’s gone well. perhaps i’ll figure out how to get drupal installed there and leave bluehost for just my blog. my blog doesn’t get too much traffic. ;~)

Tags: bluehost, drupal, overloaded, teaching, online, hosting