Technology in Education - Assessing our Schools - Part 1

Technology continues to change rapidly and it is imperative that educators and administrators are aware of the potential technology has to offer our schools in the 21st century. Technology can and should play a bigger part in bettering the delivery and administration of education to our children. These changes can only take place when people take an active interest in their school community and when leaders create an atmosphere where staff are encouraged to take risks and create initiatives. In order to propose the implementation of an effective technology plan, I will first examine the size of the school population and the systems available to teachers and students, as these areas play a key role in the decisions made when servicing our school community. Then I will look at the educational facilities and programs at our school in order to analyze the success of existing information technology incentives. The policies and vision of the school will be reviewed to assess where the school is headed, then the role of Information Technology (IT) personnel and other staff will be examined to see how technology is supported and applied in the classroom. Lastly, possible programs which enhance the technology experience among students and staff will be considered.

Shekou International School (SIS) has grown rapidly during the 5 years we have worked in China. When we arrived, there were less than 200 students and high school was just taking it’s first steps. The first class to graduate was in 2006. The school opened a second campus in 2007 for middle school and high school, and another building is presently under construction to house a growing preK-5 program. In total, the school services over 600 students across 2 campuses and will continue to grow in coming years. Technology was a consideration in design and construction of both new facilities, but the focus of this paper will be mainly the middle school (MS) and high school (HS) campus at which I work.

Here are some facts about our school’s technology infrastructure. At the MS/HS campus, there are about 320 computers (15 of them are desktops, the remainder are laptops). There is one Lenovo laptop for every two MS students. The laptops are integrated into their courses and are not allowed to be taken home. In HS, all students are assigned their own DELL laptop which they take home every day. There are 7 fixed LCD projectors, 3 floating LCD projectors, and 2 Instructional White Boards. The entire school is wireless, unlike  the elementary (ES) campus. At the ES campus, there about 200 desktop computers and every teacher (ES-HS) is assigned their own laptop. The ES has 3 computer labs, and each classroom teacher has between 3-6 desktop computers in their room. There is one IT teacher and one network administrator at each campus.

After interviewing our network administrator, I learned that the MS/HS network has a capacity of 4 TB and uses a hardware filter to control incoming information. It can serve over 500 clients, so it should serve our campus for another few years. It is a Bell server, which is not his favorite choice, as he believes an IBM or HP model would run more efficiently. This is an area I know nothing about, and I do not envy any administrator who has to learn or take time to research such issues. I am sure many administrators make such decisions based on the expertise of those around them. All the more reason to ensure your staff is knowledgeable and up to date on these topics. Nonetheless, I was told cost was the reason we are using the present system over another. This system operates at 1 GB per second and at the data points or plug in points, it runs at 100 MB per second, which is also very good from what I can tell from using it, and I am told it is plenty. Our wireless units are high capacity and service all the classrooms in the school and we use an Microsoft exchange server internally that is set up for Outlook at school and web-mail outside of school.

In terms of software, SIS uses Microsoft products and pays for all of them. This is important to note since illegal copies are available on the black market and it can be very tempting to use. All additional applications are payed for but there are not too many to mention all; some include Adobe Photo-shop Elements 4, Hot Potatoes, Inspiration, and some Geometry Sketchpad programs in math.  Our technology support coordinator thinks open source is great, but admits he has not used it much and believes many aspects of it are not as convenient as they might be in purchased systems. Also, the latter has support which is not available in the same way as with open source systems. This, however, is no longer the case as there is support for systems like Redhat or Moodle from what I can tell online, and of course, there is a fee for such services. For administrative purposes, we started using a Filemaker Pro program named Denbigh which is an administrative tool used to record student information, scheduling, tracking attendance, and writing report cards. The program is being adapted to meet the school’s needs and is still being perfected. It is one area that I would consider moving to open source software like Moodle, but this will be discussed more below.

The use of online tools has become more popular at our school and the convenience of them is being recognized by more and more staff and students. The only drawback we have might have would be the connection speeds but the school was given the option to use a dedicated server through Hong Kong which made things a little better. At home, however, the Chinese lines can be slower and a little more particular about the sites we can visit so we get the odd site blockages. Many HS students are familiar with using proxies so can find a way around that. One favorite blocked site in China as of late had been YouTube. We can sometimes access it at school, but rarely at home. If a teacher was hoping to use a site for a lesson  science, math or history , then it could call for a change in plans.

Using programs like Google Docs, Zoho or Wikispaces has been very effective. Students created their portfolios in Zoho and used them in parent-student conferencing to great applause from parents. Wikis were linked, assignments uploaded, and videos shown from YouTube (which worked that day) and it was very impressive. It’s a sure sign that parents welcome the effective use of these applications for learning. Overall, the use of these applications has only been loosely coordinated, as was the case with the portfolios, but there is plenty of room to create a plan for how teachers might share or learn about the use of tech in the classroom. Coordinating such a tech plan will also be discussed below.

Another area that was discussed in the reading and in my past blog postings was the use of technology policies, and creating safe environments for our students. Our school policy states explicitly that school rules of behaviour apply and that use of the school network is a privilege and not and right so that these privileges can be revoked if abused. In the high school, technology is used continuously given we are a laptop school. However, students are offered limited to no training on their laptops when they arrive, so they are most often unsure about appropriate use of computers, email, and other programs or forms of correspondence. This also means there is little effective training about the dangers or risks that are posed by being part of online communities. There is some education by teachers on these subjects but it is not fully coordinated.

Internet safety and online bullying are discussed in MS and HS Life Skills courses and research skills are taught in class with the assistance of the librarian, but it is not part of a shared vision, or part of the curriculum. These skills and topics are mostly add-ons to programs as the need arises. If students have been members of our school community for many years, then these skills have become more developed with the help of teachers who have integrated technology into their program.  Having access to laptops in middle school means when students transfer to high school they are more adept and have already acquired some of the skills needed to function effectively in an online environment or with computer applications. I believe a plan that addresses the lack of computer skills and the use of technology applications in unit plans, other than Word or PowerPoint, needs to be developed with the leadership of the administrative team, the assistance of the IT teachers and other staff. Developing a plan, adding these elements to the curriculum, and reviewing the plan often would address many of these issues.

Scratch Project!

This was a lot of work.  I will add to this comment shortly, but I really just wanted to share the hours I put into it with you. I hope it’s interesting enough. It works!

Learn more about this project

Well, I am back to add to this posting!

Scratch became, as have all the little applications I have been learning about here, a little bit of an obsession. I think it may be my personality. I like to get things working in a way that satisfies a vision I create, so I try to fulfill that vision when working with a program like Scratch. My goal with the program was to create a game that students would use to review concepts in Art; specifically, elements of design. I chose pictures that accurately depicted the concepts, then created words that are to be moved to the correct image.  It turned out okay, but I believe there is still room for improvement. I will mention some things I liked, disliked, and then comment on how useful such a program might be in the classroom.

Firstly, I thought the program was fun to play with. MIT has clearly taken time to create a program that is simple enough for students to figure out with a fairly reasonable time commitment. The fact that they don’t require you to use any code language is excellent, and the tab pull menus were very simple to use.  Once you created one Sprite, that being the Scratch name for a game character, it was easy to create others. I did not immediately notice that you could copy one Sprite and then simply edit its look, movements, or commands, but once I saw that, it made things easier. The program definitely draws on your spatial reasoning, and the program constantly lets you know where things are using basic x-y coordinates. This too was helpful. The process of adding commands and deleting was good, and it made you think about the purpose and steps of the game you were creating. It constantly forced me to think about the cause and effect of commands produced, and it forced y me to think in both a linear-sequential format, but without eliminating the global vision or overall purpose of the game.  It was also a great tool for anyone seeking to understand or appreciate how complex coding for any advanced graphics system must be.

Secondly, in the dislikes or difficulties category, creating the game really did take me a long time given the final product, and I could see many people (read: students) getting a little obsessed about the whole thing (or is that just me?). On the other hand, there will be those who will become bored or frustrated with it. I don’t know how much time students would need to figure out the program, or how structured a lesson would be required for them to learn the basics, but most likely they would need some direct teaching time. Some difficulties or improvements that I would request include the ability to delete functions without having to remove whole blocks from the repeat controls.  I did not like having to move out entire blocks of commands from a repeat block and then only being able to remove the bottom portion of the block. It made for a lot of dragging about.

Another difficulty I had, and I am sure there must be a way to overcome it, was that each Sprite had to have different keys associated with it to move it. It would be great if I was able to command each Sprite individually by clicking on it and then using the arrow keys to move it. Instead, what I had to do was use different keys for each Sprite motion. I think this may get a little confusing for people, but maybe I missed how to solve this.

One last thing I could not figure out, was how to stop the scoring. It seems you can continue to add points to your score by moving the Sprites over the images. This too I am sure can be solved, but I was not able to figure it out.

So, is this a useful program for students? Well, if you want students to develop their abilities to plan a concept and execute it in a linear-sequential form, then it’s perfect. The game forces students to consider every input, to problem solve, and to understand how each command requires more inputs and controls to achieve the reaction you want. This does, however, require some time to do. If your goal is to create a review of specific ideas in a unit, the time to create the game may not meet the standards you are trying to achieve. Overall, I do believe someone should be teaching the processing skills such a game offers to students. This also justifies for me the need for tech classes in schools. Total integration of tech into the curriculum is not the way to go. If students honed some of the skills such a game has to offer in a tech class, I am sure teachers would be happy to plan a unit together with a tech teacher so that gaming could be brought into other classes.

Gaming is a great way for students to learn many new skills, and it is a medium that educators need to examine and evaluate. Given my experience with interactive media like Wii games, there is a lot of potential to use gaming in the classroom. We must ask why companies are not encouraged to create games that educators might use. There must be a profit in it somewhere. Or, given the profits already made by companies like Nintendo, you would think they would be willing to break even on some products for the benefit of expanding a market and getting access to schools. Of course, there is an ethical issue there, but don’t most schools already cow-tow to companies like Coke or Pepsico to get revenue? So, why not games?

Let’s keep this discussion open.

Online Safety and Security in Educational use of Technology

Interestingly, I was having a discussion about internet safety and security with a coworker the other night before tackling the Chapter 7 reading. She is a teacher and a parent and her husband is one of our IT people. We were discussing how much students can access online given the school’s laptop program. She stated that even though they as parents are savvy with tech and know how to monitor their children, the kids can still work their way around onlookers. Our questions became: So what are the kids with parents who are not savvy doing online? Schools can install blocking technologies, but what about home or outside use?

The issue of protecting students is a real concern and administrators need to ensure their networks are safe and school data is well protected, and that students are educated in appropriate use of technology. Students need to learn how to ensure data is correct, or that there are predators to be wary of. This requires a holistic and integrated approach with technology course offerings and integration of these ideas into daily lessons whether Life Skills, Mathematics or Social Studies. Many of the regulatory mechanisms or agencies that assist in limiting access are lacking (or skewed) for schools overseas. For this reason it is important for our schools to have IT personnel that are from the home country and from the host country. The expat IT instructor’s role focuses more on working with teachers and students as well as with the host country IT staff to ensure such safety needs are met.

Our school does not block social networking or chat sites, so it is incumbent upon teachers to monitor students directly in their classes. We have a hard filter but it runs with little configuration, thus most things get through or are accessible. This does pose a problem at times as there is some inappropriate use, but we track this and limit access to particular students as needed. With training, education, diligence, and consistent implementation by teachers, students use these sites a lot less. In fact, I find that the grade 10, 11 and 12 students use programs like IM much less than lower grades, and if they do, they use them much more appropriately for communication purposes. I believe they just get bored with it, or are too busy to bother.

The “Five Steps to Avoiding Copyright Problems” is a simple outline for any school. It is really an issue that can be overcome through consistent education and application at all levels of the school. My art students use sites like flickr so I reviewed the intent of Creative Commons licensing. I review the policies with students so they understand the appropriate use of images shared online, and how to share or limit access to their own. Music is another issue, and given the use of music in presentations, I notice there is less consideration of copyright guidelines by teachers and students, but I am not sure why. It is an area that needs to be addressed.

I find it most interesting that all people believe filters are important for schools. Our school filtering is unfortunately quite limited and we are told it is the nature of working in the China. We receive a large amount of junk email despite having exchange server and software filters set to high. Yet, as part of education to parents, I would recommend they purchase filters for home use if available, but it is important they monitor use.

Our school does have an acceptable use policy and students are educated about acceptable use, but I know not all students quite get it. I know if they were to complete a survey about what is appropriate or not, they would score fairly well at higher grades but not at the lower grades. On the other hand, I don’t think students understand what sites they should not be using while at school. Streaming video at lunch is one example. There are often complaints about lost bandwidth because students are downloading or streaming. Any thorough education about this is really only an individual teacher initiative. It will be something I recommend we investigate and review. With regards to this, I wrote an acceptable use policy intended for use at our school and I shared it with our IT instructor who used portions of it.

As for setting goals, this is an important process for the whole school. This is the part that requires the most input and buy in. Once the goals and uses are established, deciding what to avoid becomes a little easier. A step by step procedure that involves student, teacher, parent, and administration, and that is well communicated to all parties is a great start. All parties need to be educated in the process of how to use resources properly and with respect.

The biggest problem we have, as stated in other parts of his blog, is that we do not have designated computer classes at any level. All computer tech classes are integrated into regular classes. I have always believed this to be insufficient and that students should have computer classes. It is the best way to ensure computer education. Other teachers would be expected to collaborate with the IT teacher to integrate units of study with technologies. It’s an obvious way to enhance access while allowing students time to work on a variety of integrated projects.

The survey about what is deemed illegal is particularly noteworthy given our international environment. I touched on it above, but in the international system, we are well aware that file sharing and downloading is made even easier due to a lack of restrictions in many host nations. It is an issue that arises regularly in trade discussions between many nations; namely, curtailing piracy in all its forms. It’s rampant where we live and it would be hard to deny that all of us here have not been involved in supporting it. Mr Warlick’s “Student and Teacher Information Code of Ethics” would be worth sharing and applying (p.148)

The questions or concerns an administrator might have in when looking at implementing the use of technologies is also interesting. There are many valid concerns about risks to students, but again, it must be said that there is a great deal of freedom in the use of technologies in the international school circuit. The concern maybe should be that the risks are often not as carefully considered as they could be. On the other hand, when parents see the portfolios, blogs, and wikis that students create for classes, they are more than impressed and do have a real sense of pride in their children’s abilities to use such modern tools. It alone justifies our efforts, and we have shown they improve learning. It is still very much incumbent upon us to make sure the safety concerns are addressed despite there being strict guidelines. (p.149)

If parents do in fact see the school as the primary line of learning and defense, then we must have informational nights highlighting the ways in which we are accomplishing this. This must build on empowering parents with the knowledge about the use of technologies, how they support learning, and how the can be limited or controlled in the home. Strategies for what to be aware of and how to ensure they know what their children are doing online are crucial. This is an area of failing for too many of our parents and schools need to help. A great many simply do not understand their role in limiting and monitoring online activities. Not having visited GetNetWise before, it was easy to see that it’s a great resource for schools and parents. It could be as simple as starting with a link to it on a school website. (p.150)

Our school, for example, filters using hardware on the network, but little has been done to state which sites to filter. What this means is students have access to pretty much everything. If you can believe it, even many popular gaming or video streaming sites. A younger teaching colleague thought this pretty funny as according to him, his last school filtered hundreds of sites to prevent unnecessary streaming or play online. He also stated this simply meant someone was not taking the time to list sites the hardware should block. The bottom line is that students can access and use a variety of materials, and it means that yes, we receive spam. Hey look! One just entered my inbox. Do I need fat burning pills? This has always been my sorest point. That being, our exchange server is based in the school, but the access feed is via a Chinese host and it seems they do not filter spam.

As for posting images of students online, once again, international schools consistently do not apply similar policies as institutions in our home countries. There is a greater desire here to use technology and less of a concern about having images online. Many teachers may use private or invite only settings when creating things like wikis or blogs, but in some cases projects are made public. I do not know too many international schools that have a privacy act to protect students. This was one benefit of using pay programs like Voicethreads. It allowed a great deal of safety and control over who had access to the site.

IM has been a problem for our school, mostly for the younger students. I find that kids who have had laptops for a few years lose interest and only use it as needed. If kids have been around a few years, then by grade 10 it starts to fade and by grade 11 and 12 there are only a few who will waste time chatting about nothing in particular. When using Microsoft bundles of software, as far as I know, it is impossible to eliminate things like MSN as they are integral parts of the bundle and can’t be removed. Again, in this case, I would rather students have it, get bored with it, and learn how to use it effectively. Oh, and as I wrote this, I received another email offering me a cheap Ph.D. online. Sigh.

The concern about using or publishing on Flickr is no different. The discussion about access to sites is prevalent, but blocking a site like flickr does not make sense to me. It is exactly the sort of site we want kids to learn how to use appropriately, with caution, and with an understanding of Creative Commons practices. There are many other sites worth blocking before Flickr. Nonetheless, it’s imperative to have the discussion and to make decisions about where to direct energies. For example, as big as Myspace was, it’s now replaced by Facebook. That might explain the downturn experienced by Myspace mentioned in the reading. Kids use it constantly here and our Life Skills teacher does lessons using adult male teachers to show how easy students can be fooled into “making friends” online. It’s a great lesson for students to see how quickly they can be fooled when they see their new online “friend”(teacher) walk in the door.

As a future administrator, the questions and concerns raised in these sections are of great importance. Especially given that administrators may not have large organizations enforcing strict policies for schools when it comes to technology use, as is the case in the international sphere. It is clear there are many policy ideas available, but it requires administrators and IT personnel to know the issues, create policies, educate teachers, students and parents, and ensure that measures are being taken to ensure that learning is effective and that students learn how to be responsible agents in the very real global online community.

Leadership and New Tools in Education Technology

The readings in chapter 6 and 7 both make one thing very clear. It is stated in the introduction to chapter 6. Namely, that administrators today need to be leaders in moving methods of education forward by ensuring teachers learn how to integrate new technologies into the classroom. I can’t agree more with the statement: “If administrators want to make change happen, they must have a vision for the future.” (p. 119) It emphasizes a leadership and a pedagogic vision. All schools must have this vision, whether with regards to learning or to creating policies that will ensure safety and efficacy in learning though the use of new technologies.

It is hard to argue with success, and the goals outlined by Microsoft are not a bad starting point and are worth restating. A vision defining a school’s goals in the development of our youth should necessarily include: individual excellence, organizational skills, courage, results(goal-oriented), strategic skills, operating skills.
Once you have a vision, however created, whether with staff or as a larger community, it is important to communicate that vision (p. 120). This vision must be communicated to staff, parents and students to create buy in and it must be restated on a regular basis to ensure all understand this vision.

Implementing a vision also necessarily requires the criteria established by this reading. That is: create consensus on a vision on how it works within existing frameworks, agree on goals for use and align all goals, evaluate current infrastructure to see how they will meet the goals, identify instructional strategies for integrating tech, create a timetable, develop a budget, establish milestones and determine how to measure progress and growth in learning, plan for evaluation and goals. This follows the script outlined by Microsoft’s vision.

It is clear that administrators with interesting success stories in the use of technology have set clear expectations for themselves and their staff. I find it interesting that in the examples, the administrators modeled the behavior and use of technology that is expected from the staff and the students. Whether the use of wikis or blogs, administrators took time to communicate with families, staff, and students via media other than simple emails.

The 12 reasons for administrators to use a blog are reason enough to causes anyone to want one but I don’t believe I need to restate them all. I will, however, mention a favorite, that being number 12 which considers “Replacing the school Web site.” The reason I like this is that all the information that would be static for too long a time, like on many school web sites, can be made active through a blog or wiki which is dynamic and changing. It sounds scary, but the reality is that small amounts of information or updates on a regular basis keep a site interesting. If someone posts two to three times a week, or even a small thing once a day, the school becomes an organism that is dynamic, changing and growing, and it encourages people to visit often to see what’s new.

It is agreed that administrators do not always recognise the benefits of tech, but it is not hard to make a case for its benefits. I believe any admin worth their weight would want to explore and learn at least the basics. Many of the tech tools out there are not only useful, but are fun and any curious mind would seek to play and find the benefits. At least I sure hope this is the case As stated in the reading, surrounding oneself with innovators is one important step to developing this mindset (p. 128).

Another strong point made is that leadership starts at the top. This is very true. Any district or admin that promote an idea and works positively in promoting it through training, will see success. It is a point worth reminding administrators of; they are leaders and must embrace this mentality.

Jumping off the rails to other sections, tools like Blackboard are familiar to me, and I find it sufficient, but rather clumsy at times. Moodle I was not familiar with, and of course I tool a little time to sign up and play. This is one of the most interesting “problems”  I have with this course. I spend a great deal of time diverted from readings, signing up for new accounts, and playing with technology. It’s really quite inspiring actually and has created a lot of food for discussion and thought in coming years and jobs.

Implementing new ideas is exciting, but all things considered, the costs of switching to a new system are something I have never had to weigh. If it were a district decision, then maybe some pilot projects could be created at schools to see how things work. On the other hand, parents often dislike having their kids being part of experiments with new ideas, but if convinced of the potential benefits and very unlikely negative effects on learning, it is likely to be a non-issue. In fact, I am sure that the use of new technologies could easily be sold to a community as innovative and forward thinking. Keeping the community involved and informed through the use of these technologies would itself create some excitement.

Further to the idea of implementing new ideas, as an administrator, I would be very keen to see what open source applications could be used to run an entire school site. It would simply require ensuring that there is staff buy in and a willingness to learn. Given the positives cited in the article, it sounds like it should be no problem. The biggest problem one I could foresee is not networks, but internet access. In the case of international schools, since many exist in regions where accessing information or sites online may vary from month to month, problems have arisen. For example, last year one teacher was unable to access their class blogs when a site was blocked. Another example is that Youtube has been blocked here for over a month given the release of a video regarding Tibet. Its use has become intermittent at best since. These problems are not small, but it simply means you need to know your environment and it does not mean all has been lost, or blocked.

Back to the issue of cost and deciding what systems to implement. The mention of open source and things like Linux makes me wonder about the use of such programs in the future. They can only improve. My husband has a little used IBM and he has mentioned trying Linux. I believe I may encourage him to do so and we can both learn a little more about it and what’s available out there. It will be interesting to ask other administrators about the way they evaluate their infrastructure and decide on implementation, use and how they measure the benefits to student learning. Our own IT person has some interesting comments to make which I will save for my paper and another discussion. See you in chapter 7.

Web 2.0 New Schools and New Tools

Web 2.0 – New Tools, New Schools

Having finally worked through chapter 3 of New Tools, New Schools, I would like to highlight a few ideas that struck me. It took me a while to get through the chapter because with every application mentioned that I was not familiar with, I felt that at the very least I had to look it up and maybe even try it! This was fun, but slowed me down a little, but I must admit I have added a few things to my repertoire of online tools.

One of the underlying current that stems from the reviewing of various Web 2.0 applications, is that there will be a major effect on how we learn and socialize. I couldn’t agree more with Steven Downes comments that the use of these technologies is a Social revolution. Any software company whose earnings are based on selling these tools will have to be very creative to survive the changes by learning to adapt to the needs of people and organizations. Participation and collaboration in the act of creating ideas, learning, and sharing ideas with variety of new media has created new social spaces and redefined social networking. I believe we have only seen the beginning. Education is arguably well placed to be in the thick of this change and schools will need to steadily incorporate and adjust to the needs and changes students are experiencing every day.

Not having read the world is flat by Friedman, I came to realize that the flattening concept makes. In some ways it reminds me of the social leveling attempts made by communism in history. This is, however, way more powerful and exciting as it involves free flow of information and ideas rather than leveling of classes. Technologies have the power to level playing fields assuming people have access to them. It broadens the base for creativity and the dissemination and sharing of ideas and information which are at the foundation of this change. It will pervade all levels of society. It is actually somewhat sad and laughable to see governments in some countries trying to control and limit this process. A social revolution is definitely what is occurring and it will be interesting to see the effects in all countries, but especially those that limit open discussion of ideas.

It is also very true that the open source revolution is a great thing for everyone, not excluding institutions like schools. As I mentioned in the previous blog, the prohibitive costs of things like Adobe, or other, programs causes administrators and students alike to seek alternatives. As a future administrator, I would encourage my IT people to find open source programs for as many things as possible. This would require creativity and coordination, but it is not that difficult to do. The school to which we are moving is using Google Apps for administrative purposes and this applies to an entire university campus, not just the school.

It makes me wonder about things like Apple or Microsoft which rely so heavily on proprietary applications. A coworker of mine is always busily trying to find ways around his iphone applications. He is a great source of open source software. On the other hand, I know he spends a lot of time looking for it too, but people share ideas fast these days and discussion groups, or twitters, on such topics must abound. Even using things like Yahoo Pipe (as recommended by Craig) would channel articles our way. One thing I did not realize was that open-source software was itself licensed to remain that way. There is no doubt that we will see great advancements in these programs and their use in schools.

Folksonomies. What a great term. They have truly made searching more interesting. Also, the statement by NCREL reminds me of a simple but important principle of learning. Namely, that it’s more important to know how to find and discern good information rather than having to memorize it all. This is so important to our modern learners. One reference to this is when students research a topic and come upon someone’s blog. Students are correctly taught these days that blogs, or any website, must be reviewed for its accuracy. The reading suggests that blogs with bad or innacurate information will likely be filtered out as the audience itself will act as a filter. There is some truth to this, and wikipedia even posts warning about questionable, uncited, or subjective postings, but overall, it is not hard to find questionable material. It is still important we give students the skills to keep asking questions about the validity of all the material they use in online, or even offline research.

As for social bookmarking, well, this is where I started to slow down in the reading. I immediately signed up for “delicious” to see how useful it would be. I do see it can be very powerful tool for groups or classes. I was able to find a few good links with a few fun searches and am planning to create a sharing site for some classes. Students are always sharing fun or useful sites with each other and this would be a great way to share with a whole group or class.

For free photo-editing, I downloanded gimp found it a great application. Our students have Photoshop Elements and it is great for my art classes, and it seems that gimp is an excellent way to avoid the costs of advanced programs. As for video applications, I am not totally aware of the varieties of sharing and editing softwares. I am familiar with Youtube mainly, but things like Video Furnace are new to me and it does not look like it’s free anymore from the website. I will have to make time to investigate the other programs a little more, like jumpcut.com, or eyespot.com or videoegg.com. We use Moviemaker and for advanced purposes, Adobe Premier, but the latter is again, costly for schools. I wonder what size of videos can be uploaded to these sites. If we use video cameras, video sizes are large so uploading and editing online would be rather slow is my guess. Especially from highly a firewalled country like…. Once again, I will have to research these myself, or even better, with students!

Once success story of online apps cited in the reading is ZOHO. Our school just completed student led conferences today and it went very well. Students all created portfolios in the wiki app of ZOHO and parents were all impressed by their work. ZOHO has many applications we take advantage of with few issues.

Some other favorites that I could see using in the class with students might also include Google Notebook. I loaded it too and can see immediately how this could be used while researching.

I don’t have enough experience with mashups but will be sure to play. This is the wonderful part of all these applications. There is an element of play that is involved and harnessing that for learning can be powerful and engaging.

Some of the problems in being at a laptop school makes deciding what program to use, what to allow, and how to use it a big issue. All the more policies and knowledgeable IT staff are important. For example, the use of IM arises for some teachers. Our school policy at this point is that using IM during class time is not allowed. Some students have learned the discipline and skills of working effectively with IM, while others are not able to focus on work with messages popping up. Teaching students to learn this balance takes time, but allowing students to communicate responsibly while working in class can have its benefits. It believe it is another facet of learning and practice.

Something like Google Educator is something I have never visited and will have to track for a while. It really is fun to see the many things to consider for our classes. Administrators have much to keep track of, let alone the IT people that recommend it to their schools or teachers. We are clearly on a new road though. From collaborative texts to Second Life. There is such creative potential. I have not figured out how to apply Second Life to my art class yet, but it will happen.

To return to the idea of a social revolution, there is no doubt it is upon us and education must embrace the change. As we consider the many new understandings about learning that come from brain research, we will have consider which applications will best apply student needs given different learning styles and contexts. As students learn and reflect on their own learning, they too will use and adapt their learning to best suit their needs. It all has the potential to expand learning, keep it interesting, and to create success for everyone involved.

I will see you in Chapter 6 of “New Tools, New Schools” where leadership will be the topic of the day.

RSS Feeds

After using the existing RSS feeds posted on my blog site, I noticed what I liked and did not like about the feeds. Firstly, the CNN Tech page is great. As a “tech” category, it is very broad and updates users with information on a variety of tech topics whether related to the environment, business or new ideas and uses of technologies in a variety of fields. This keeps the posting interesting for students and teachers. I am always encouraging students to stay up to date on news items in various fields.

Related to this, I recently added the BBC World news site and the UN News Centre site. My husband and I run the MUN club at the school and in both his and my classes, we draw on current events. All 3 sites, CNN, BBC and the UN, allow a glimpse of what’s going on in the world. I like the BBC news at is quite simply a different read than US sites and I like the different spin. The UN site on the other hand always takes a rather diplomatic tone or approach to things, again offering a different approach. I like the differences as it allows students to read about things from slightly different perspectives. Often Art projects can evolve from current events, or the different perspectives offered on these sites. It is a great way to encourage students how to use images and art to persuade viewers, or to make a statement about goings on in the world.

At the time of writing this, the CNN Tech feed is posting one story about endangered whales possibly making a rebound, and another about biodegradeable gum. Whales always sparks interest in a few students, and many students are not aware that gum is a huge problem given the mess it creates and costs of cleaning it up. Who knows what directions a student might take this in and Art class, or in any class relating current events. The gum article would be great in a Science class too as the source is tree bark.

As for the Smithsonian podcast feed on the page, well, it is not updating and presently it is not even loading. Unfortunate, but it shows some sites can more useful than others and require some use to see how they work, and some sites are just easier to visit directly to obtain material.

I am about to try some feeds using the iGoogle aggregator. Here you simply post a topic and it provides results from a variety of sources. I really like this idea and would like to know more about controlling RSS feeds. A little more research in this area will be needed.

Any advice is welcome.

Day 3-Better Learning with Sites and Sounds

The article “Better Learning with Site and Sounds” by Andy Guess is based on a study by Phil Ice. It affirms some of the experiences we have had at our school. Ice reported the positive outcomes of students using online software. The software allowed multiple users to work on one document simultaneously without having to send it to each other over email. These softwares also allowed media integration and thus encouraged the use of charts, images, video, or sound files. Students commented that they were allowed to express themselves more effectively by integrating these technologies into their presentation of information.

All our teachers in the MS and HS at our school have used a variety of online tools of this nature. All of these technologies are free source, while some allow greater access to different components of a technology given a pay for use option. One such example is Voicethreads; it allows for whole school access and privacy on a pay per students basis. Wikispaces was used extensively this year by my husband in his class, and the whole High school is developing portfolios in a Zoho wiki.

Zoho has many features and teachers have used them mixed reviews. The Notetaking option, for example, was reported to be excellent for sharing, but there were some internet, server, or wireless issues that created lag times if a whole class was working simultaneously. Students become easily frustrated by this sort of thing and were encouraged to learn some patience while things loaded. Sometimes it may just be a feature of students wanting that instant gratifications. Other teachers have also used Google Blogs for literature circle work.

The reaction from students about this format was positive and they were quick to play with programs to discover the program’s capabilities and limits. If there is one thing good software encourages, it’s discovery learning. Within minutes of writing and sharing notes, students had started uploading links to related sites, to media files, or placed photos in their documents. What I find interesting is that if this is the case at a post-secondary level as , then the format of researching, developing and writing large papers at the may be in for some changes. It will be interesting to see how professors, or institutions in general, respond to this shift in learning style.

One thing that the article noted was the use of direct audio comments in student work using Adobe. Ice commented that students were more likely to incorporate his suggestions when they referred to the audio files and followed along in their own work. It was also likely a lot easier for him to create than using the “Track Changes” mode in Word. Voicethread allows for audio comments and I have seen students react very positively to this. I have used various times for my art class for peer critiquing. I model it for students and they follow the model very well. Another excellent tool would be to create podcasts to comment on student work; I know one of our Biology teachers tried this and said that students responded well to his suggestions.

Here is an example of a Voicethread in which I and students comment on work after which they incorporate the suggestions to improve their work. You can click on the large arrow in the bottom right corner in the Voicethread to forward through many samples of student work.

Audio comments are something I find very useful in Art and would recommend anyone try. I created a Buzzword account thinking it had the audio comment feature but it does not. The program does however look and feel very professional. The unfortunate thing is that obtaining an any Adobe Acrobat Pro program containing the audio comment features is not cheap as Guess noted in the article. In my previous blog posting “Computers and Software,” I noted our school has Adobe Premier for editing video in a professional format but we only have 4 licenses as it is cost prohibitive. I checked online and the cost of Acrobat Pro for a single user at education prices is 229 USD! It would be the same problem with the site license I am sure. Namely, very professional, but not cheap. I once saw an interview with the CEO for Adobe on CNN and he made no apologies for the cost of their products stating they were intended for professional uses and were not simple freeware tools. We will see if they are able to maintain this stance with more free offerings online that will inevitably create adjustments in the marketing of such products.

I would totally agree with Ice’s comments that students respond more readily to the audio comments than to notes alone. I have experience this directly when leaving comments in student sketchbooks. I hope we see more audio features incorporated into online technologies in the future. This is something I will surely encourage other teachers to use if they can.

Computers and Software–Our schools

This post is a continuation on the Day 2 topic of computers and technology use in our school. To reiterate, our school has 2 campuses. One campus comprises the Elementary school and the other the Middle and High schools. The Elementary campus has 2 computers labs, and all classrooms have 2 or 3 computers. In total, I am told there are over 200 computers on that campus alone. That’s a 2:1 ratio of students to computers. They are all Dell computers with a few old Apples hiding in some classes. Teachers work with our IT teachers to unit plan and then coordinate when to work in the labs with an entire class. It works well and the labs are used frequently so the lower school children learn a great deal. There are technology specific benchmarks that teachers incorporate into their planning with the IT teacher.
At the MS and HS level, there are not computer labs, but in the MS there are 68 laptops which also makes a 2:1 computers for every student ratio. Teachers use a sign up model which requires some organization, as there is great demand to use the laptops. The IT department is presently researching a variety of mini PC’s so that the computer to student ratio can be changed to 1:1. The laptops will still be signed out by students and used in classes only. They are not taken home.
The High school on the other hand is a full fledged laptop environment with students using their machines in all classes for a good part of the class. This also means the MS and HS, which is housed in one building, is wireless throughout whereas the ES campus has wireless zones.
The IT staff comprises of IT teachers that specialize in teaching computers and using software for educational purposes. Their knowledge of hardware is good, but we also have nonteaching staff that are dedicated hardware specialists. They help organize, setup, monitor and troubleshoot the network and the computers. As there are two campuses there are two networks that run separately, but they are integrated for staff email and for sharing documents.
The school is presently using a Filemaker Pro system and Denbigh upon which to organize student information and reporting. This system is very good as it centralized all information, but as it is only the second year in use, there are still decisions being made about how best to use it. For email, there is an online Microsoft service so that we can access email from any computer. As for software packages, the school use Microsoft and Office packages which is supplied by Dell. Some computers in the library have Adobe Premier programs but as the cost of this is high, there are only a few packages installed. If students need training or assistance with using any of the programs, most teachers take time to make it part of the unit or lesson. If there is something new to be learned, the classroom teacher will coordinate with the IT teacher who will come and assist students in class. This has worked well, but generally, when new students arrive and receive laptops, there is a learning curve for them but with guidance and assistance, it is overcome and kids love learning to use them.
As for staff, I personally could not imagine working at a non-laptop school again. Use of technology has become such a big part of any work environment that student unable to use technologies, programs, or do research productively online will be at a big disadvantage. I would be a strong advocate of the use of computers and technologies in the classroom. It is no longer an issue of whether or not to do incorporate more technology in the classroom, it is an issue of securing funding to ensure it happens as soon as possible.
From here, I will be moving on to Day 3. See you there.

Freeware - Google Sketchup

We were asked to try a few online programs on a previous day. As an art teacher I looked for a variety of RSS art feeds, but the one item I found that interested me the most was a program from Google I had not previously discovered. It’s called Google Sketchup, and it’s a really cool design program.

It’s downloadable and has numerous online tutorials. It would be a great way for an art teacher to teach perspective and design, or it would be a great way for a physics teachers to have students create 3-d models of experiments. You can create everything from scratch, or you can download entire rooms and houses.

The program would require a specific lesson plan as the learning curve is extensive. I spent a lot of time trying it out and playing around with it.  In the end, I was able to design a house. It’s not complete, but I had fun! There are thousands of free objects to download, so I downloaded the Monroe Bar and some furniture. The windows can be made translucent and there are numerous colors and textures to use on all surfaces.

Once again, a really fun and interesting program, but it would require a very specific lesson to avoid frustration. Once students learned some basics and attained the learning objectives, they would love playing around with the program to create something on their own. Second Life users would like it too!

I was even able to upload “House” into Google Earth. It automatically placed it in Colorado. I created a Google Map of its location, but it only views in Google Earth. If you have the time, click on “View in Larger Map” and then “View in Google Earth.” The house should load and you can zoom in on it.

As far as programs go, this is a great one to look up if you are looking to make any sort of object drawings. Below are some pics of what you can do with the house.

View Larger Map

It even has transparent windows

Next, more on the IT workings in our school.

Back to work

Our school has been out on Spring Break. Part of this break involved the staff visiting an EARCOS Conference. It was held in Kota Kinabalu this year, so we were able to take advantage of a little time on the island of Borneo.

…and now, it’s time to get back to work.

Boys fishing at sunset

Villas in the sea

EDAD Friends