DiigoNotes – State Leaders on Open Source

• Source: State Leaders Weigh In on Open Source Assessment — THE Journal

  • State Leaders Weigh In on Open Source Assessment

    • By Scott Aronowitz
    • 03/29/10

  • Open source assessments have great potential for cost savings, collaboration, and standards adoption, but there are also some perception barriers that stand in the way of wider adoption

  • The report, entitled "A Report on Education Leaders’ Perceptions of Online Testing in an Open Source Environment,"

  • From among the 43 state leaders interviewed, the company divided respondents into three usage categories: those from states with widespread online administration of annual accountability assessments; those from states that have experimented with online testing, with limited participation; and those from states with limited or no experience yet with online testing. The 38 organization leaders were categorized by the organizations they represented: associations, coalitions, and foundations; state and national policy organizations; businesses and nonprofits active in education issues; and universities and research organizations.

  • Perceived benefits of open source assessment:

    • Potential cost savings based on absence of licensing fees;
    • Common formatting, data standards, and development standards improve/would improve adaptability and, subsequently, efficiency; and
    • Collaboration benefits, including shared resources, ideas, testing standards, and even risks.

  • Concerns about open source assessment:

    • Possible hidden costs, including maintenance, technical support (sometimes a cost when using an open source product), product development necessary to make modifications, and ongoing professional development for educators using original and modified versions;
    • Perception of security risks to both source code and content; and
    • The potential downsides to collaboration, including lack of leadership, lack of alignment in thinking among those recognized as experts for the purposes of development and modifications, and both inherent and unforeseeable inefficiencies.

  • The greater a state’s current investment in open source technology and its education leaders’ and educators’ awareness of what it offers, the greater the prevailing interest in increasing its use, in advancing its quality, and in becoming better educated about the technology and the content it propagates and has the potential to offer;

  • Education leaders need to be better educated about both the benefits and risks of open source technology and its related issues;

  • Quality, security, ease of use, and access to effective support are of far greater concern than cost savings to users and potential users of the technology;

  • Because effective evaluation of students’ comprehension, progress, and potential requires more complex and in-depth assessment, in order for the education community to embrace the technology for the long term, it must evolve to include more than multiple-choice and short answer options

  • Many of the prevailing issues surrounding the use of open source technology for assessment can be addressed with strong leadership, reliable structure, and a well organized approach.

  • The complete report…can be found here.

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

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TCEA Adopts GoogleApps for Education

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More districts and organizations are embracing GoogleApps for Education for use by students and staff alike. Earlier today, I was thrilled to learn of the Texas Computer Education Association’s (TCEA) adoption of GoogleApps for Education. Published Frequently Asked Question (FAQs) documents are well worth reviewing:

• GoogleApps for Education K-12 FAQ
• GoogleApps for Education Overview

In a short email exchange today, Lori Gracey (Executive Director, TCEA) shared the following:

We were running Microsoft Exchange 2003 on an outdated server and had started having problems with our email system hanging up every two or three days. So we knew that some change would have to be made. Matt investigated the options available to us, which pretty much boiled down, after some discussion, to upgrading the server and software to run the newest version of Exchange or going to Google. While we were very familiar and comfortable with Exchange here and found that it worked well for us in the office, it was not a great solution for the board members. 

Plus there was the major expense of a new 64-bit server and the software licensing, along with installation and upkeep time. When Matt found out that we could, as a non-profit educational entity, use the education version of Google at no charge and with very little effort on our end to make the switch, it was obvious what we needed to do. Scott Floyd [White Oak ISD] also talked with Matt about what his district had done with Google, and that was the icing on the cake. So, to bottom line this rather long paragraph, our reasons for going to Google were:

• Cost (free vs. approximately $10,100 for a new server and software)

• Ease of switch-over (Google did almost everything for us and had it up and running in no time at all)

• Ease of continued use (no support or maintenance required on our end)

• Ability to access the resources anywhere we go

• Collaboration tools for the board and staff

Coincidentally, Henry Thiele (Maine) shared some resources that are definitely worth reviewing:

Henry Thiele’s (Maine) Examples on the Use of GoogleApps for Education:

View Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ah2rg5tIEeE 

Published slide presentation: http://docs.google.com/a/maine207.org/present/view?id=dg76jc2d_3023jd…

Questions and Responses (click View): http://www.google.com/moderator/#15/e=501c&t=501c.40

Q&A Transcript: http://docs.google.com/View?id=ddv49vkt_55c7dt5vgw 

Maine Township Case Study: https://docs.google.com/fileview?id=0B5AOHQcS-cAeOTA3YjExYTEtZjg5NS00…

Pretty nifty. If you’re interested in GoogleApps for Education for your District, drop by the TCEA TEC-SIG Spring Meeting taking place April 22, 2010. That way, you can ask YOUR questions about why to adopt GoogleApps for Education for your organization of a panel.

More on the TEC-SIG Panel on GoogleApps for Education in Texas Schools online!

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Everything posted on Miguel Guhlin’s blogs/wikis are his personal opinion and do not necessarily represent the views of his employer(s) or its clients. Read Full Disclosure

Kevin Honeycutt in Texas

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TEC SIG Spring 2010 Meeting

With Featured Speaker Kevin Honeycutt

April 22 and 23

 

 

Registration Fee $50

Register online through April 19

 

Location:

Hilton Austin

500 E. 4th Street

Austin, TX 78701

 

The Hilton Austin is offering a discounted room rate of $129 for participants through April 1.

 

Make reservations online at the following link and use group code TEC.http://www1.hilton.com/en_US/hi/hotel/AUSCVHH-Hilton-Austin-Texas/index.do

 

Reservations can also be made by phone (512) 482-8000; use group code TEC.

 

 

AGENDA: (Draft as of 3/22/10)

THURSDAY General Session & Keynote: SALON C

• 8:00 Breakfast and Networking
• 8:30 Welcome and General Info
• 9:00  Intro of Keynote Speaker: Kevin Honeycutt
• 10:30-11:45 Breakout 1: Four Concurrent Sessions
• 11:45 Lunch & Voting for New Officers: Salon C
• 12:45 – 2:00 Breakout 2: Four Concurrent Sessions
• 2:15 – 3:30 Breakout 3: Four Concurrent Sessions
• 3:30 SALON C:  Closing

FRIDAY:

• 8:00 Breakfast and Networking
• 8:30 Welcome
• Announcement of new officers
• 9:00-12:00 TEA UPDATE

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Everything posted on Miguel Guhlin’s blogs/wikis are his personal opinion and do not necessarily represent the views of his employer(s) or its clients. Read Full Disclosure

DiigoNotes – Data Shows Lack of Technology in K-12 Classrooms

• View Source
  

  • National Speak Up Study Released on Capitol Hill: Data Shows Lack of Technology in K-12 Classrooms Limits Access to Educational Resources & Discourages Student Engagement

  • A national survey of more than 368,000 K-12 students, parents, teachers and administrators documents the increasingly significant digital disconnect between the values and aspirations of students about how technology can improve the learning process and student outcomes, and the practices of teachers and administrators who are less comfortable with using technology in the classroom.  The findings of the 2009 Speak Up Survey, conducted by Project Tomorrow

  • In response to this digital disconnect, according to the report, “K-12 students are increasingly taking responsibility for their own learning, defining their own education path through alternative sources, and feeling not just a right but a responsibility for creating personalized learning experiences.”

  • Significant findings illustrated within the research report include:
    • Schools place constraints on students’ use of social collaboration tools within the schools, and students are not waiting for schools to provide the tools for their use.
    • While students are actively developing social-based learning skills outside of school, many schools are not taking advantage of either the tools or the students’ knowledge about how to effectively use these tools within the classroom.
    • Students are leveraging a wide range of technology-enabled communications and collaboration tools to build a personalized network of experts to create a more relevant learning environment for themselves.
    • Only 20% of parents correlate social collaborative tools to student achievement; however 60% of parents value the districts’ websites as their top choice for driving student achievement.

  • “As a result of the acceptance by parents of the value of the school website, these portals have a significant potential to be the forum for enhanced home-to-school communications and collaborations with the inclusion of some of the Web 2.0 tools already used by the students and parents,” according to the report.

  • “If we are serious – and we are – about getting many more kids over a much higher bar, we have to transform our schools and empower teachers and students with the best possible technology of the day,” said Cator. “Learning from districts about how they are using technology at the school and classroom levels is incredibly important – as we see technology offering unique opportunities to invigorate and inspire teachers and students.”

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

DiigoNotes – Interesting Book on Teaching Writing

This is a book I need to read! I find the idea of frames instead of writing process intriguing. Unfortunately, I couldn’t download the podcast so will have to make time to play it online…I tried last week and fell asleep, but it was late at night after a long day! (smile)

Looking forward to it!

• Source: Texas in the house with Liz Stephens and Kerry Ballast on doing digital make-overs – TTT186 -02.10.10
  • Posted by Paul Allison on February 28th, 2010
  • On this episode of Teachers Teaching Teachers we were excited to have a conversation with Liz Stephens and Kerry Ballast about their new book, Using Technology to Improve Adolescent Writing: Digital Make-Overs for Writing Lessons.
  • 
  • Stephens and Ballast guide teachers in how to successfully implement technology for writing across the curriculum and create engaging lesson plans. They outline four frames of writing–inside writing, responsive writing, purposeful writing, and social action writing–and present student-centered and inquiry-based reading/writing lessons to connect real-world writing to content area standards. The result is a state-of the-art resource for helping teachers teach every student to write inside and outside of the classroom.

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

DiigoNotes – NWP in Central Texas

It’s amazing what’s going on around one and still remaining clueless…sigh. Fascinating stuff.

• Rising Star Liz Stephens : Home : Texas State University

  • Every summer, across the nation, teachers assemble on college campuses to learn the best ways to teach writing. These summer institutes are part of the National Writing Project, a professional development network of kindergarten through college teachers. For four weeks, these teachers demonstrate their classroom practices, stretch their own writing skills, and above all, learn from each other.

  • “We all believe in the model of teachers teaching teachers,” says Dr. Liz Stephens, director of the Central Texas Writing Project on the Texas State campus, one of 12 writing project sites statewide and 200 nationwide. All are on college and university campuses and are funded through a grant from the U.S. Department of Education.

  • When Stephens started the Central Texas Writing Project, there were only four National Writing Project sites in Texas. Directors of those four met at Texas State in 2002 to talk about how to expand the program in the state. “We had a map of Texas on the wall,” Stephens says, “and said, ‘Here are our four. Where else do we need sites?’ We picked out several colleges and universities, and we now have sites at just about all of them.”

  • Writing is evolving, Stephens says, especially among those she calls digital natives. “Take text language,” she says. “Is it a valid form of our vernacular or not? Is it something we should accept in colleges or not? It’s a form of speedwriting that has emerged from instant messaging and text messaging by the digital natives, young people who are very comfortable and savvy with technology. So now they’re growing up and going to college and they are using text language in their freshman comp classes and in their essays. New Zealand even accepts it in their high school exit exams.

  • “Faculty have mixed feelings,” she continues. “Some people think text language is outrageous and ridiculous. Others embrace it and think it’s just a shift in the way our language works.”

  • “Each teacher presents a virtual visit to his or her classroom,” Stephens says. “The teacher brings the lesson, and the rest of us write like the kids in that classroom would write. We’ll be writing as kindergarteners one day and seventh-graders the next day. Some of the high school teachers roll their eyes when they think about writing like a kindergartner and listening to a kindergarten teacher explain what happens in her classroom. But they are blown away by the end of the presentation. They’ll say things like ‘I didn’t know that you had to put two fingers between two words within a sentence to teach them that this is one word and this is another.’”

  • After completing the institute, participants become consultants for the National Writing Project. “They become teacher leaders,” Stephens says. “They do professional development workshops, mentoring, study groups, whatever a school district needs. They also teach young writers camps in the summer.”

  • “What I call the magic of it is that they become writers,” she says, “They’re already writers, of course, but they become aware of themselves as writers. So they’re as much writers as they are teachers and as much teachers as they are writers. I can’t tell you how many times a teacher has told me, ‘This changed my life.’ Teachers teaching teachers is empowering.”

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

One Board at a Time

“Good fences make good neighbors,” goes the old proverb and line out of Robert Frost’s poem. I’ve never understood it.  Does it mean the privacy afforded by the fence enables neighbors to keep to their own devices, free from scrutiny? I’ve never found THAT to be true. My neighbors seem to know what’s going on in my yard, as much as I know about their’s, fence or no fence. Does it means that the act of rebuilding the fence builds for greater camraderie? Hmm…I don’t care for my neighbor on the other side of the fence above. The family is too large, and there were roosters crowing one year until the Omniscient, Omnipotent Homeowner’s Association swooped down like a chicken hawk.

My fence–pictured above–needs mending and if I had the money, I’d have the powers that be tear it down and put up a new one, perhaps twice as tall to keep those nosy neighbors and their 4 legged critters out of my yard. But, I suspect that replacing a fence that’s been up for 8+ years may be expensive, and instead, I’m stuck doing the spot repairs, a fact my wife delights in. You know, the humor that comes from contemplating computer geeks doing repair work of any kind.

It’s now 7:32 PM on a Sunday evening, the sun is still shining and I’ve replaced the rotted cross-beam with a new one. Taking a fresh look at my fence, it’s showing its age. Replacing the rest of the beams, all rotting away as well, doesn’t seem as difficult as I’d imagined it. My dad’s hammer and saw clasped in my ten year old son’s hands, it may be that I spend next Saturday replacing all of them.

If only transforming education was as easy.

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Everything posted on Miguel Guhlin’s blogs/wikis are his personal opinion and do not necessarily represent the views of his employer(s) or its clients. Read Full Disclosure

Writing Workshop Videos

A few interesting videos on facilitating writing workshop…they are all from YouTube so be warned you may not have access to them if you’re at work. I’ve included a complete list of video URLs, though, in case you need to go through one of the many youtube video grabbers (be aware of copyright).

Writing Workshop Videos URLs:

• Creating Stamina – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y4KIcbOe5kQ
• How To Teach a Writing Workshop – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-xpr_–Tddw
• How to Start a Writing Class – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZ_sXJKiiSA
• Classroom Blogging as Writing Instruction – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nRmGmzSAJLA

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Everything posted on Miguel Guhlin’s blogs/wikis are his personal opinion and do not necessarily represent the views of his employer(s) or its clients. Read Full Disclosure

DiigoNotes – Exploring Inquiry as a Teaching Stance in the Writing Workshop

The following notes are made from an article–Exploring Inquiry as a Teaching Stance in the Writing Workshop authored by Katie Wood Ray–shared with me today by Angie Zapata at the Heart of Texas Writing Project Spring Conference. Ms. Zapata provided copies of the article to the folks present.

My notes on Ms. Ray’s article:

1. Preparing to launch a study of op-ed writing in a fifth-grade writing workshop, a teacher goes through newspapers looking for op-ed pieces by columnists who explore topics she thought might interest her students.
2. Instructional Frame for inquiry about writing:
1. Gather Texts – Teachers and students pull together writing students will do.
2. Set the Stage – Students are told they will be expected to finish a piece of writing that shows the influence of the study.
3. Immersion – Teacher/students spend time reading and getting to know the texts they’ll study, making notes of what they notice about how the texts are written, and reflecting about the process writers use to craft texts like the ones they are studying.
4. Close Study – The students–as a class–revisit the text, framing talk with the question: “What did we notice about how these texts are written?” Teacher and students work together to use specific language to say what they know about writing from this close study, developing curriculum as they go.
5. Writing under the Influence: Studnts (and often the teacher) finish pieces of writing that show the influence of the study in specific ways.
3. Focus work around an instructional frame for whole-class inquiry that would allow studying of a wide variety of genres along with writing issues other than genre, such as punctuation, and how to make illustrations work well with written texts.
4. Framing instruction in this way represents an essential stance to teaching and learning, an inquiry stance, characterized by the repositioning curriculum as the outcome of instruction rather than as the starting point.
5. Writing is used as a tool for learning and as a means to communicate that learning…inquiry stance is used to uncover curriculum about writing itself.
6. Reading Like Writers…when teachers immerse students in reading and studying the kind of writing they want them to do, they are actually teaching at two levels. They teach students about the particular genre or writing issue that is the focus of the study, but they also teach students to use a habit of mind that experience writers engage in…they teach them to read like writers.
7. This means noticing as an insider how things are written, learning to look at texts the way a mechanic looks at cars…to use the particular knowledge system of a writer.
8. When teachers teach writing without any writing attached to it, they end up teaching things that just aren’t true or at least they aren’t true all the time. Edgar Schuster calls these things “mythrules.”
9. Anyone who has moved from a delivery stance to an inquiry stance has stories to tell about having to reconsider the content of his or her teaching.
10. Writers…often purposefully exploit usage at so many turns as a way of creating voice in their texts.
11. When teachers give students a simple way to write something, not only are they not true to the product, they aren’t true to the process either.
12. Inquiry does not narrow our perspective; it gives us more understandings, questions, and possibilities than when we started.
13. In an inquiry stance, teachers help children explore these different alternatives for how to write something and then they let them do what writers really have to do–make decisions about how their pieces will go.
14. While students are getting that experience, they are grounded in the realities of real-world writing, both product and process.
15. Taking the inquiry out of the teaching would diminish students’ need to read and think like writers, and would most likely diminish their understanding as well.
16. “If students are to understand what is known, they need to simulate or recreate some of the inquiry by which the knowledge was created” (Wiggins and McTighe, 2001).
17. Before Revision, Vision. Writers write well, often even in first drafts, when tey have a clear vision for the kind of writing they will do.
18. When teachers work from an inquiry stance, they have decided that the model for the writing will come from the stack of gathered texts.
19. Students who are prepared to meet the demands of writing in a constantly-changing world…know writing is not static…they’ve learned how to learn about writing.

Great article and definitely worth reading in its entirety. These are the points that jumped out at me.

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Everything posted on Miguel Guhlin’s blogs/wikis are his personal opinion and do not necessarily represent the views of his employer(s) or its clients. Read Full Disclosure

Moodle Mayhem Podcast #1 – About #Moodle

Thanks to co-host Diana Benner, you can now find the Moodle Mayhem web site’s first podcast online.

     

Have a listen and be sure to visit the web site at http://bit.ly/moodlemayhem

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Flights of Fantasy – Heart of Texas Writing Project

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Today, I had the opportunity to listen to 3 presentations at the Heart of Texas Writing Project. Below are my notes for one of them entitled “Flights of Fantasy,” excellently facilitated by Angie Zapata, a graduate student and 3rd grade bilingual teacher in her 13th year.


Angie’s session was intriguing to me because it focused on a genre of writing that I often select from book store and library shelves for my own pleasure reading. Given the choice between reading fantasy or almost any other genre–with the exception of books about writing–I select fantasy. In fact, after returning to “home neighborhood” I made my way to the library and grabbed a few fantasy books off the shelf for reading!


Beginning the session with self reflection on the “What does Fantasy mean to you?” Angie certainly had me thinking about the elements of my favorite genre. The discussion moved on to a discussion of keywords like “Quest,” “Setting,” “Imagination,” and phrases like “Supernatural powers,” “characters.” I found the definition of a quest–offered by a session participant–particularly apt–A journey with a purpose. Angie shared an image similar to the following one:

There are various quests, including the salvation quest, the transportive quest, the object quest, and the transformational quest.


Angie, and fellow researchers, admitted their ignorance of fantasy, a genre they thought they understood and knew well. The stated goal of her agenda for the session was as follows:

• Explaining inquiry as a teaching stance in genre study.
• Examining one student’s use of writing to learn to read and write within genre.

“Is Fantasy,” Angie asked us, “worth studying?” That’s a question others had apparently raised. She went on to point out that in setting out to teach themselves about fantasy, they opened a Pandora’s Box of various fantasy types. They sought to build a collection of books that would meet the needs of children, adding a more realistic edge to our fantasy writing. I found this last point humorous but appreciated the “realistic edge” that must be present in any kind of writing. She also mentioned the importance of living within the genre…literally surrounding oneself with analysis and examples of fantasy.

Through this discussion, Angie regaled us with images of students, a video of a conversation between a teacher and the class discussing aspects of fantasy, a scattering of charts with language pertinent to fantasy. Even more fun was a student crouched on the floor, a spill of books–Angie characterized it as a “book flood”–flowing from a bookshelf made to look like the wardrobe out of C.S. Lewis’ “The Lion, the Witch and The Wardrobe.”

As I viewed Angie’s excellent presentation, I found myself nodding my head–not in sleep but excitement–at the wonderful possibilities available to these students in the third grade class. I mourned silently for the wasted opportunity my child had in third grade, filling out worksheet after worksheet in a large urban district.

Angie highlighted the importance of writing genres–before, during and after reading them–to keep the conversation going…talk is importance. Writers were able to take advantage of public spaces–large paper charts–to document what was shared during the conversations. More interesting, the students began to use the language on the charts…it appeared that they internalized it and the words began to emerge in their conversations.

During analysis, students can ask themselves:

1. What do you notice?
2. What features of fantasy does the young writer take up?
3. How might you respond to the writing during a conference?

There were other excellent points and I’m sure Ms. Zapata could have gone on for quite some time…and we would all have listened happily on.

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Legend_defender_fantasy_freecomputerdesktop_wallpaper_800.jpg

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Poetry Pass – Heart of Texas Writing Project

Today, I had the opportunity to listen to 3 presentations at the Heart of Texas Writing Project. Below are my notes for one of them entitled “Poetry Pass: Exploring Poetic Style,” facilitated by Lynn Masterson (University of Texas at Austin) and Julia Haug (McNeil High School, Roundrock, Tx).

Since teaching poetry is fun, especially for early writers and English as a second language learners, I always would make sure to work it in early on, building up to longer narrative pieces over time. In the presentation I had the good fortune to attend today, Lynn and Julia introduced me to Amy Buckner’s Notebook KnowHow: Strategies for the Writers Notebook.

Julia pointed out that it included real world application of how you make the transition from notebook writing to drafting to publication. The session facilitators were quick to point out that while colleagues have an idea about, or are in awe of, poetry, few know how to teach it. For struggling readers, writers working with poetry, you don’t have to deal with too much at once. Writing poetry allows you to focus on one feeling or image…we need to help people get away from the “scary poetry” idea (which I hadn’t encountered, but I could imagine that some would rather not explore poetry).

Part of the strategy, or activity, as Lynn pointed out, focused on a process of discussing a poet’s work who has always been loved by young readers–the work of e.e. cummings. The process below comes out of Notebook KnowHow, at least as I understood the gist of the presentation today at the Heart of Texas Writing Project Spring Conference.

Process for Working with Poems:

1. Enjoy the text. After every student has received a copy of a set of poems by the author, put their name at the top of the page, the workshop facilitator read the poem to the students. The instructions for the students are to “Listen and enjoy the text.”
2. Map the text. Now that students have heard the poems read to them, read it aloud to them again, this time with the students circling words that are “pulling, speaking to” them, that draw their eye or attention. “Write questions out” that you have.
3. Share text mapping. Now that students have had a chance to write on their sheet of paper with the poems printed on them, pass the sheet to someone else in the group (we were seated four to a table). Encourage others to write their observations on the poem.
4. Share text mapping again. Students pass the poem sheets again and discuss the pairing of the poems….
5. Reflect on comments. Papers are returned to their owners.Students are asked to reflect on the comments written on their own pieces of paper, left there by the others in the group. 
6. Debrief with the teacher. The teacher makes two columns on the chalkboard, identifying in the first column, the author and in the second, the Author’s Style. The Author Style Chart is something that can be put in the back of a student’s writing notebook and added to as students read different authors. Students can also emulate different author’s styles and develop a greater repertoire of styles to use in their own writing.

Reflections on the Session:

As I wrote quickly to keep up with the main points, I found that this approach would be helpful in a class of teaching poetry. One observation I have to share is that I was given 3 poems of cummings on one page. I quickly mixed the first two poems as being “together,” even though one was in the top left of the page, the other mid-way down on the far right, and the last being in the bottom left corner. I managed to make comments–funny enough–that connected the two poems together.

While having 3 poems on one page was helpful when doing style analysis, I didn’t have a clear understanding of what we were setting out to do. I’m sure this was my fault as a writing teacher gone from the classroom too long. Yet, I can’t help but wonder if a middle school learner is going to know that we’re doing style analysis and that’s why all 3 poems are on one page, or try to match the disparate poems together in his head, as I did. Of course, MS students are smarter than me these days! (Smile)

Thanks to Julia and Lynn for sharing their wisdom in regards to teaching poetry!

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Subversive in Our Midst

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There are days I wake up and wonder, “What if….” What if I had not been tapped on the shoulder to take the lead in campus, district and regional professional development opportunities in the use of technology in K-16 schools? What if, instead of using technology as a tool to transform teaching, learning and leading, I had chosen to pursue a career as a simple teacher of reading and writing in 5th grade and 6th grade classrooms?

In the last year, I have often reflected on my early choices and what to do as an educator. Today, I sat next to a young gentleman, perhaps a score of years younger than me, who was garnering ideas for teaching poetry in his 7th grade classroom. And, having taught poetry in middle school, I shared with him the wonder of Kenneth Koch’s Wishes, Lies and Dreams as well as Rose, Where Did You Get That Red? He was grateful, but I more so. This old dog, I said to myself, still knows some tricks about teaching writing.

Like a Rip Van Winkle, awakening from a long sleep–although I’d prefer to alter the story, changing a magical mead induced nap to a long sojourn among a country of technology wizards–I decided to investigate what other writers are doing. To accomplish that, I’ve signed up for the renamed New Jersey Writing Project now known as Abydos, agreed to collaborate on writing and technology workshop later this Spring, and decided to attend writing conferences I probably would have considered beneath notice.

Beneath notice because, like Rip Van Winkle, these writing conferences have changed little. Teachers still focus on writing with paper and pencil, making books with students that are filled with handwritten tales, and doing everything I would have considered cutting-edge in the teaching of writing years ago. 

A sprinkling of dust coats it all. Whether that coating is the besmirched lens of age, a patina of cynicism over my mind’s eye, or the sad reality of writing instruction today, it’s clear that the medium and the message are not in harmony. As the medium has advanced, the message remains the same. And, with regret, the joyful interaction of the two is a stolid, slow dance which lacks the beauty and enthusiasm that it once enjoyed.

As the ladies presenting the conference approached me today, I realized that my request of being able to podcast their session might not be well received. After asking the question, “May I podcast your session?” I could see the fear in their eyes and I realized that perhaps, I’d forgotten some simple courtesies. “In my circles,” I tried to share, “podcasting is better known.” But for them, I was suddenly an unknown quantity, a subversive with an audio recording device, a blogger who might take a lesson they’d hoped to share with a small classroom of writing devotees and broaden their reach to thousands. Simply, it was too much. “Does our Director know you are here?” As if I’d suddenly become a member of the Press, that group of venerated but sometimes hated individuals who can raise you up like the wheel of Fate, then cast you down into the cracks of the classroom floor.

The fault is mine, I know. I should have borne a Star of David on my t-shirt, a symbol of my outcast status…”Yes, I’m a blogger who is going to podcast your sessions today, not some subversive adversary who seeks to harass you. Your message will reach thousands, not just the few people in this room.”

I should have carried a card with me that stated who I was, where I would post the podcast, write the blog entry. I should have asked them to sign a release form, obtained clearance from the Director and the University hosting the event.

I should have done many things…instead, I sat in their workshop, a snake coiled, ready for the strike…waiting for the moment of attack. At least, that was how might have perceived me. The reality may be other than that. We didn’t talk and in those moments, I decided I would not explain.

“Nevermind,” I said to the workshop facilitator. “I’ll just take notes on your session. Thank you.” She chided me, “If only you’d let us know sooner.” As she stepped away, there was no handout left in front of me. I was invisible, singled out for careful treatment.

Am I complaining too much? Yes, of course I am. Next time we meet, I’ll be ready. I’ll have my “blogger press pass” ready, a card with my web site, and a smile ready to my lips. But I wonder still, is the journey back in time worth it? Isn’t it better to realize that you can’t go back, and just move forward, leaving those lost in yesterday, doing what was innovative yesterday, and leave them to inch forward? Colossal arrogance on the part of a subversive.

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Digitizing the Writing Workshop

A short time ago, I took notes on Troy Hicks’ Digital Tools book. However, reflecting on my own experiences today with writing workshop, colleague Diana Benner and I came up with a few thoughts about digitizing the writing workshop.

On April 10th, we’ll be sharing our ruminations with the Heart of Texas Writing Conference participants–which, by the way, has its first part tomorrow in Austin, Tx.

Some of the ideas that came up in the conversation, and my apologies for poor handwriting and poorly designed images:

This image below is my way of getting at the difference between digital tools and how they are used by teachers/facilitators to manage the writing workshop vs how they are used by students/writers.

The following is a description of my understanding of a matrix of tools and how they fit into the 4 main components of writing workshop, for example, using a digital audio recorder as the tech tool.

We’re also working on an article on the subject and the outline is here. Has anyone else done this work?

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Moodle Mayhem Session at TxDLA 2010

Today, I had the opportunity to share inflict some Moodle Mayhem on folks from around Texas! While you can find all the neat stuff we–including Patricia Holub, Diana Benner, Tonya Mills, Molly Valdez and I– shared online, I thought I’d immortalize the positive feedback!! Thanks to all the TxDLA 2010 Moodle Mayhem workshop participants!!

Title: Moodle Mayhem – Expanding Learning Opportunities in Urban Districts

The following questions were rated on a scale of 1 to 5, 5 being ‘Strongly Agree’ and 1 being ‘Strongly Disagree’.

The session was very useful: 5

Content was relevant and applicable to my needs: 5

The examples provided were sufficent.: 5

Appropriate media was used to illustrate the topic: 5

The program description for this session was accurate: 5

Speaker(s) was(were) knowledgeable about the topic: 5

Time was used efficiently: 5

Relevant supplemental materials were used: 5

Questions were answered appropriately: 5

This was an excellent session: 5

Sessions Strengths:

Good session, install, how to use, and learning concepts to deliver courses

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Converting SWF on Mac

Image Source: Evom, http://thelittleappfactory.com/media/evom/logo_256.png

Converting SWFs on a Macintosh has usually been difficult. The need to do so is made clear by applications like JingProject that, in their free version, only allow one to generate a Flash SWF file, unlike the MP4 file for the $15 annual recurring fee.

While SWFs are easy to post, sometimes your favorite presentation program–Keynote, Powerpoint, OpenOffice–won’t provide support for them. As a result, it’s important to have some way to convert them. Thanks to a tweet from Wes Fryer regarding HIS favorite list of Mac software, I learned about Evom. Evom is described in this way:

Evom makes archiving your favourite internet videos as easy as pressing a bookmark.

While allowing you to download YouTube videos does seem like an important feature, I thought I’d drop an SWF file on top of Evom and see what it did with that (I was hoping to embed my SWF video of a teacher bragging on how Moodle transformed his life and students, too) and was pleasantly surprised.  It converted the SWF to FLV without any problem!

But will it work with a Jing generated SWF? Here goes [trying it out now]….

Nope! Unfortunately, the conversion from a Jing-generated SWF to FLV on Mac using Evom did not work. However, it did work on other SWF files I tried it on. What the differences are, I’m not sure. Perhaps it will meet your needs….

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TxDLA 2010 – INTERACT

Below are my notes on Lamar Consolidated ISD’s presentation on INTERACT – Integrating Technology Realistically Among Classroom Teachers

October Smith, Lamar Consolidated ISD, Tx

Vision
Equip teachers to provide an engaging learning environment through technology.

We start with group collaboration…(Activity: Discuss with your neighbor staff development in your school/district. What is your most memorable training? What trainings are most effective? Do you receive follow-up for trainings? How often? Who is the presenter at your trainings? Where do you find the resources for the trainings?)

The most effective trainings are the ones that are hands-on.

About LCISD
Located south of Houston in Richmond/Rosenberg

• 21 elementary schools
• 3 middle schools
• 3 junior high schools
• 3 high schools
• 23,000+ students
• 2000+ teachrs

How we got started:
Technology Director+Dell representative
Fall of 2007 – the superintendent put together a committee and INTERACT was born
No College classes

Academy Development:
The executive director of curriculum made sure we focused on researched based instructional strategies and not just the technology. We developed a week long academy that focuses on Marzano’s Classroom Instruction that Works with technology integration.

Introduction
Focus on cooperative learning – informal group.
Were explicit about the use of Marzano’s strategies in the program

Activity: Take a moment and write a goal for staff development, either one that you will give or plan on attending.

Vendors
We presented the idea to both Dell and Apple.
Dell agreed to provide us with the tools needed to put on the Academy if we purchased from them for the next 2 years.

INTERACT 2009 Application Form

• They created a Google Form to receive applications for teachers to participate.
• When a teacher submitted a form, principals were immediately contacted so that they could fill out a technology referral for them.
• 130 applicants this year.
• At the end of the week, each teacher got $10K for participating in the Academy [Wow!]. This money came out of the State Technology Allotment. Since teachers know what they need for the classroom, the Superintendent thought they should be the best ones to spend it.
• $7000 was provided up front…make your wishlist.
• $1000 was spent on the laptop
• $2000 earned this by delivering professional development. The ones who were very shy, not tech-savvy…they were asked to just work with their team and show them activities. For the other ones, other training.

Purchasing Equipment

We use the majority of our tech allotment from the State to purchase the equipment. We know we are buying equal amounts of equipment for each campus THAT WILL BE USED. Teachers move their equipment with them if they change campuses–this is not the norm.

The Next Big Thing
All teachers are welcome to earn a laptop. You must attend the mini-camp and get your laptop before you are accepted into INTERACT. This has to be a classroom teacher.

After completing the Academy, participants have become leaders–even quiet ones–on their campus.

INTERACT is completely run through Moodle. Teachers have homework every night, participate and use the activities in the Moodle.

iPods are the number 1 item ordered. After that FLIP cameras…but the new iPod Nanos come with video camera. They are also buying interactive whiteboard ($3000 (unmounted) to $5000 (mounted)). Those are the main things. After that, it’s Student Response Systems. [Hodge-podge of equipment is being purchased].

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Podcast – Implementing Moodle – Lessons Learned

From Left to Right: Yolanda Columbus and Amber Icke

Listen to Yolanda and Amber

At the TxDLA 2010 Conference, I had a chance to listen to Amber Icke and Yolanda Columbus (pictured above) from Texas A&M share some of their lessons learned regarding Moodle Implementation. While much of the presentation was spent sharing the growth of the Moodle initiative, and the challenges they faced, I really enjoyed some of the take-aways. While I encourage you to listen to the whole presentation, here are some of take-aways that I wrote down from their presentation:

1. As a university, they decided to move from online lectures (narrated powerpoints) with exams offered in face to face settings to Moodle, although the transition wasn’t so direct (they used an intermediate product, SiteForum).
2. They tried to use Blackboard but switched back to Moodle.
3. They began with about 14 academic courses years ago and ended up with about 32 academic course in Spring 2010.
4. Challenge they faced was integrating Moodle into their existing projects
5. Virtual servers for Moodle did not work well for them
6. They had to more clearly define what constituted a site-wide emergency for Moodle implementation…if it wasn’t site-wide and failed to affect multiple students, it did not constitute an emergency.
7. Simultaneous Online exams on virtual servers (up to 180 plus logins) caused major problems until they switched to dedicated Moodle server running Red Hat Linux.
8. Educating users involved helping them understand the different between a Help Request (where something isn’t working and needs to be fixed) and a Project (a desire for a new feature that will be a project).
9. 30 minute response time for users was essential for their Help Support staff in responding to students.
10. Instead of Linking to content outside of the Moodle, it was important to place it as a Moodle Resource since it makes it easier to track resource usage when running reports.
11. Use Labels in Moodle to organize content.
12. Rather than use Single upload for documents, use advanced upload since you will always want to take advantage of multiple uploads.
13. When setting up True/False questions, don’t use the True/False question in Moodle. Instead, use Multiple Choice. Regrading is easier as multiple choice if you have to make an adjustment as to what is True/False
14. Take advantage of Random questions with quizzes/exams
15. Make sure to dedicate time for each employee on your Moodle support team to provide that support and work on Moodle.

Some of the impact for teaching:

1. Student generated activity reports
2. Allow for a variety of online assignments and activities
3. Customization can occur (using Moodle) as compared to other Course Management Systems
4. In-house college controlled rather than dependent on an outside vendor
5. Moodle allows us to provide the unique experience I want my students to have.
6. Course menus were customized for our use (using an existing Moodle module)
7. Documentation of standards and procedures is important.
8. Established advisory board
9. Point person to communicate between instructors/students and technical team

Creative application of Moodle in use at Texas A&M:

• Course management system usage
• Document repository
• Advising services
• Training
• easy web site
• Grant tracking
• Reservation system (e.g. rooms)

Listen to Yolanda and Amber

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Podcast – TxVSN It’s All in the Details

Texas Virtual School Network staffers shared an update on the Texas Virtual School network. You can download a PDF of their presentation online. There is a lot of great information in this presentation, so I encourage you to listen to the preso, not just view the PDF of the slideshow.

Listen to TxVSN.org Staffers

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Podcast – The Teacher Network (Txpod.org)

Panelists at TxDLA 2010 State Conference

Listen to Panelists on The Teacher Network

This is a podcast I recorded–although it ends abruptly since I had to step out–at TxDLA about an exciting new resource available to us all for online professional development.

At the TxDLA 2010, I found out about what may very well be an unknown resource in K-12 online professional development! The Teacher Network–a repository of hundreds of hours for faculty and staff–is….

The Network is an innovative way to connect to free, online professional development resources for career and technical education faculty, counselors and administrators. Search easily through hundreds of topics and teaching modules. It’s all in one free, easy to use site created by a partnership of community college professionals from across the state.

I encourage you to explore the Txpod.org web site, as it provides a rich collection of resources from around the world. While this resource is FREE TO USE, it was not free to create. However, we all get the benefit of what was created.

For example, consider the following SEARCH that I did–which the presenter modelled–sharing about Establishing and Managing Your Online Footprint.

When you click on the link, it takes you to the page (originating in Australia):

Note that you have access to the Slideshare preso, the audio of the file, and the transcript of the podcast! Great stuff to embed in your own Moodle or online course.

Listen to Panelists on The Teacher Network

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Podcast – Parent411 with Jenny Yim #moodle

Howdy! Just a quick note to mention that a new podcast featuring Jenny Yim (Northside ISD, San Antonio, Tx) and her discussion of Parent411 is featured online at Moodle Mayhem!

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Podcast – Wikified Schools Author @ssandifer

Buy the Book

Earlier today, I had the opportunity to chat with Stephanie Sandifer, author of Wikified Schools (view the wiki). It had been awhile since I saw Stephanie, as she is now a “new” mom and stay-at-home online instructor!! Stephanie shares some of her insights regarding wikis in schools.

Listen to Stephanie Sandifer

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Neural Forest for Administrators – Moodle

Image Source: http://webepoch.com/services/3d/braincells.jpg

Over at Intended Consequences, Tim Holt invites us all to craft 5-minute basic technology tutorials for administrators. While such an approach may tend to emphasize tools, I can see where Tim is headed (at least, I think I do).

I started a site called the Neural Forest for Administrators because I was noticing a distinct lack of knowledge by campus administrators on the basics of educational technology. The site is simply a series of blog entries that are designed to be very short, to the point, somewhere between Twitter and Blogs. 

 Here’s what Tim writes by way of explaining the structure for the Neural Forest for Administrators:

Each entry has four parts:

1.  What it is–essentially giving an overview of the topic. 

1. 2.  Why it is important–why do they need to know about it

2. 3.  How they can use it–How can a campus administrator use this technology on their campus?

3. 4.  Helpful links–links to further information, or the actual site. 

Each entry should be able to be read in less than 5 minutes or less.

So, here goes, just for fun:


What Is It?
If you want to establish an online presence for your school, one way of accomplish that is to use what is known as a course management system like “Moodle.” Moodle is a Course Management System (CMS), also known as a Learning Management System (LMS) or a Virtual Learning Environment (VLE). It is a free Web application that educators can use to create effective online learning sites.”


Why Is It Important?
Need to build an online community that enables dialogue with your parents? While there are many tools available, one such tool is Moodle. Moodle is one of several ways that you can facilitate learning activities, collect information, as well as facilitate online learning for K-12 or adult learners. Moodle, a course management system, can provide a solution that can be used to bridge the divide between school and home.


How Can You Use It?

Campus/district administrators also can use it as a way to direct book studies with their teacher teams or conduct electronic coffee meetings with parents and the community. Many school districts now use “parent portals” to facilitate access to grades, enable parents to pay their child’s cafeteria bill online, and so on, but those are low-level engagements that don’t get at the power of the story. 

One question we can ask is, How can teachers get out of the way and enable children to share their own stories and learn from each other? How about by using Moodle to facilitate learning conversations and online activities that are protected? Protected because students are behind a login and password.

Do you have any helpful links?

Below are a few links to get you thinking some more about using Moodle in your teaching, learning and leading situation:

• Moodle-izing Your Education Enterprise – an article about how Moodle can be used in K-12 schools.
• A series of articles written for Campus Administrators that reference Moodle, as well as other tools you could use to facilitate parent/community outreach:
  Five Essential Tech Tools for School Administrators (Part 3)
  As an administrator who uses technology in K-12 settings, I like the idea of using technology to R.E.A.C.H. out to parents and create opportunities for learning and dialogue.
  Five Essential Tech Tools for School Administrators (Part 2)
  In the second of a 3-part series on essential tools, we explore blogging. Of all the tools available, this one tool has the potential to bring about the most change in your learning and leading situation.
  Five Essential Tech Tools for Campus Administrators (Part 1)
  Many administrative tasks could be made easier with the use of technology; these are the five tasks I believe have the most potential to be enhanced by technology-related tools.

• Practical Moodle Tips for Technology Administrators – this article might be worth sharing with district technology staff who can help you get setup.

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DiigoNotes – Solving Algebra on Smartphones

• Education Week: Solving Algebra on Smartphones

  • Solving Algebra on Smartphones

  • Using her school-issued smartphone, Katie Denton, a junior at Dixon High School in Holly Ridge, N.C., reads the biographic profile of a student from another school that is also participating in a Project K-Nect math class.
    —Sara D. Davis for Education Week

  • Research shows that a project to use the devices as teaching tools in some N.C. districts has had a measurable impact on student achievement in math.

  • By Michelle R. Davis

  • Denton can use her school-issued smartphone to send instant messages to her teacher or classmates for help. She can use the same device to connect to the Internet and post an algebra question on a school math blog. Or she can watch student- or teacher-created videos demonstrating algebra concepts on her smartphone screen.

    Her math class is taking part in Project K-Nect, a grant-funded program that has adopted smartphones as teaching tools in some math classes in a handful of North Carolina school districts.

  • Research on the program has shown a measurable effect on students’ math achievement, and the organizers of Project K-Nect say students have driven the program to heights they never imagined.

  • The smartphones, made by the Bellevue, Wash.-based mobile-technology company HTC, are a step beyond cellphones, providing Internet access, video-camera technology, and instant-messaging options.

  • Before choosing the smartphone, Gross surveyed about 300 Washington-area high school students about the mobile technology they’d prefer to use. To his surprise, 90 percent chose the phone over other technologies he offered, including an iBook, a digital camera, or a Sony PSP, or portable play station.

  • Project K-Nect began with a 9th grade Algebra 1 course and has since expanded to include other courses, such as geometry, precalculus, and biology.

  • Students, some initially skeptical that a phone would help them do better in math, have been quick to embrace the idea of using the mobile device to learn, says Denton, who attends Dixon High School in the 24,000-student Onslow County, N.C., schools.

  • But Denton, who started in the program with Algebra 1 and has since taken geometry and is now taking Algebra 2 through Project K-Nect, says she and her classmates soon saw many advantages provided by the phone, particularly being able to get help at any hour and using instructional videos for assistance.

  • For some math classes, particularly Algebra 1, Project K-Nect had mathematicians at Drexel University in Philadelphia develop short animated video math problems that teachers can assign to students as homework or classwork.

  • Project K-Nect also has various blogs where students can post to request or give help. Students often videotape themselves solving problems to demonstrate techniques to their peers, and post them on the blogs, or sometimes videotape their struggles and ask for advice.

  • Some students have taken the technology a step further and created movies with graphics, student actors, and stories highlighting math. Particularly popular are student-created movies with a “CSI” theme in which the drama uses math to solve a crime. One student produced and posted a rap song on polynomials, which was ultimately posted to YouTube and spawned thousands of imitators, says Gross of Digital Millennial Consulting.

  • Because students are often helping their peers on the blogs and through instant messaging, they have to clarify just how they solved a problem, says Homer Spring, who teaches math at Dixon High.

    “They’re better able to articulate how they get their answers,” he says. “You never know anything quite as well until you have to teach it, so it drives it home better.”

  • Project K-Nect also features a rewards system. Students get points for various activities, including solving problems, helping other students online, or posting blog entries. Points give them access to different video games that can be loaded onto the smartphones, or allow them to download music or give them extra digital storage space, Gross says.

  • For teachers, a plus is that the smartphone allows them to track students’ actions with it; teachers can tell how long students spend on a particular problem, for example, and whether they’re posting questions and answers or communicating with classmates via instant messaging.

  • Gross says results from students’ experiences in 2007 found that all of the classes using smartphones in 9th grade Algebra 1 outperformed the other Algebra 1 classes at the school taught by the same teachers on the North Carolina end-of-course exam and on their final class grades.

  • Students need about four to six hours of training, he says.

    Some school districts that wanted to sign up didn’t have the necessary wireless networks in place, says Neill Kimrey, the director of instructional technology at the North Carolina education department, but were able to tap state money or federal Title I and E-rate funds to beef up their networks, he says.

  • Students at one school, for example, all pulled up algebra problems on their phones at the same time, causing them to crash, says Suzette S. Kliewer, a math teacher at Southwest High School in the Onslow County district, who has taught students through Project K-Nect for five semesters. But Kliewer says the few kinks that arose at her school were worked out quickly, either by students themselves or by on-site technical help from the district’s information-technology department.

  • teachers throughout the project had to make it clear that students were constantly being monitored on their phones. At any time, a teacher can see what a student is doing on his or her phone; using special software, the teacher can even take over the device or shut it down.

  • Students learn quickly that teachers are keeping track of their actions, says Spring, the Dixon High math teacher. He cites one student who was sending instant messages that had nothing to do with math to another student in the program until the wee hours of the morning. The following day, Spring placed a 12-page printout of the entire conversation on the student’s desk.

  • New teachers appear to have the most difficulty incorporating the smartphone into their teaching methods, he says.

    In addition, teachers have had to accustom themselves to being on call after typical school hours.

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Change in a Bottle @leadercamp

Image Source: http://www.gwoltal.myfastmail.com/files/Schooner%20in%20Bottle

“You can’t sail,” wrote author Louis L’Amour in Fair Blows the Wind, “on yesterday’s wind.” Leadership is tough because it often means encouraging others to do that which they don’t value or respect. Yet as my father would often say, “Nothing ventured, nothing gained.” Yet what happens when it seems you’re perfectly willing to make change but no one else is? What if it’s all for show, not unlike the schooner in a bottle? Then, it’s time to take “disturb your universe!”

Will Rogers always made me laugh when I read this quote, “Even if you are on the right track, you’ll get run over if you just sit there!”  Although not a nautical quote, it makes perfect sense for folks who are ready to bring about change but can’t get going because they’re stuck in grid lock.

It’s this kind of attitude about staying “fresh,” constantly looking out for the future that makes any educational organization successful in the present…constantly engaging the future:

“The computer industry learned the hard way that closed software systems—based on a framework of proprietary knowledge—did not fit the world they themselves had created. The organic world of open software and open systems was the true wave of the future. Higher education must learn from this.We must create open knowledge systems as the new framework for teaching and learning. “In this spirit, MIT has asked itself, in the words of T. S. Eliot, ‘Do I dare…Disturb the universe?’ “Our answer is yes. We call this project MIT OpenCourseWare (OCW). We see it as opening a new door to the powerful, democratizing, and transforming power of education.”

Read More

That’s why I was delighted to find out about two events taking place later this summer, one face to face and the other virtual. While I’ll share the face to face one as we get closer to the event, the virtual event is LeaderCamp 2010…

Effective educational leaders are the ones who make things happen. LeaderCamp will be a unique opportunity to connect with other leaders who are actively leading change and exploring how the world of school can be different. They collaborate with all levels of leadership and openly foster a culture of innovation in their organizations.

Everyone has something to share and the first ever LeaderCamp will be your opportunity to share your successes and tap into the successes of other leaders. Discuss tools and tactics, and uncover what’s worked and what hasn’t.

Save the Date! Thursday, June 24, 2010 

LeaderCamp 

• Is an ad-hoc gathering of educational leaders in an entirely online setting.

• Is born from the desire for educational leaders to learn and share in an open, collaborative environment. 

• Is a work in progress so we’re not exactly sure how everything is going to work.

• Is inspired by barcamp.org and unconference.net.

• Is on Twitter.

via Dangerously Irrelevant and Scott Elias

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URGENT ALERT – EdTech Funding

You know, in hard times, it doesn’t matter who you vote for, Education Technology funds get cut.

URGENT ALERT: Write Your Representative Today and Take Our Survey to Keep the Enhancing Education Through Technology Program Alive Next Year 

President Obama’s proposed budget for FY2011 eliminates funding for the Enhancing Education Through Technology (EETT) program, the sole direct federal educational technology funding resource, and proposes to consolidate education technology in its proposal for Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) reauthorization. In lieu of a separately funded ed tech program like EETT program, President Obama has proposed in vague terms to infuse technology throughout all federal education programs. We can’t let this happen.

That is why we are asking you to do two things:

• Write your Representatives today to fund the EETT program at $500 million in FY2011!

• Take our survey to tell us how you use technology in your classroom, school, or district. Your voice on this issue is vital to saving the Enhancing Education Through Technology Fund!

We can’t do this without your help! Please write your representative and take our survey today!

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Google Sites – Page Level Controls Coming Soon

One of the most disheartening things to have to do is turn down folks who want to modify content on my wiki. It’s forced me to have a wiki for publication–obviously, an easy way to publish data for me–and another wiki to use during conference presentations where people can share content.

As such, I’ve been looking at GoogleSites as an inexpensive replacement for hosting my wikified content. Unlike others, I’ve given up trying to host all my content in ONE place but rather, I am choosing to post content in a variety of locations. What I would also like to do is have page level controls. One example of this is the Moodle Mayhem, which at this point, I have to grant complete access for. That’s OK for the Mayhem site, but not for where I share my published writings.

So, I read this email posted to the Google Certified Teachers’ list:

I just checked with our Sites product manager, and I’ve got good news.  Though we don’t have page by page admin controls right now, we’re working on it.  Though I don’t have a launch dat…”it’s on the top of our list.”

If anything, I’m learning to make my data portable.

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Revisiting FERPA and GoogleApps – Good enough? (Updated 05/25/2010)

Google Kool-AidSource: GCT Files

 
Update 05/25/2010: Be sure to listen to the podcasts available at http://bit.ly/tecsig2010 which include GoogleApps for Education folks sharing their responses to tough questions! Well worth your time and help illuminate the issues discussed in this blog entry!


Over the last month or so, I’ve shared some of the concerns about using GoogleApps for Education. In spite of the worthy experience of participating in Google Teacher Academy for Administrators, questions remain. While I’m tempted to discount these questions after listening to so many testimonials at the GTAdmin in San Antonio, I do not want to for fear of failing to take into account their concerns.


At the GTAdmin, several questions were asked via Google Moderator, a great tool to use. One of those questions included the following regarding FERPA. Failure to answer the question posed in this blog raises the concern that confidentiality of student data would not be protected by GoogleApps for Education. Some have argued that this question isn’t worthy of consideration since any violations would be on the part of staff and students, rather than Google itself.

Answering the FERPA question is a key concern, and the statement “certain conditions apply (below link)” is not a comfortable one. Explain further the privacy issues specific to education head on. http://principals.wikispaces.com/legal“

Dr. Mark Wagner’s response is as follows:

Hi, Catherine. I just noticed the link to the actual regulations was broken… I fixed it so you can search for that specific language and read the conditions. It looks (to me) as if Google Apps fits the bill, given the agreement between the school and Google – and given Google’s already strict privacy policy.

In truth, it will matter little what the response is…for some school districts managers, no response will be “good enough” to empower them to transition from an expensive in-house system to an Google-based, free system. One response from a Texas district that such a response just wasn’t good enough…so they’ve made other plans.


There are many reasons for that–fear of losing control, the inertia of maintaining the status quo, having to do something different from what they are accustomed to. 


In the meantime, I found these questions and responses interesting as well:

Question: “You mentioned that Postini is free for Apps for Ed now. Will it continue to be free for those of us who have signed up for it already, or will they charge for everyone after that special deal is done?” Curt, Largo, fL  Response: As Dana mentioned, it will continue to be free. 🙂 Mark Wagner, Ph.D., Irvine, CA Question: As Dana mentioned, it will continue to be free. 🙂 Mark Wagner, Ph.D., Irvine, CA Response: For everyone else, here are the replies I gave @drsolis on Twitter: Apps are ALWAYS hosted on Google’s servers. Apps for your Domain lets you use & manage a few key tools under your own domain NAME. You can use your existing domain or a new one. There are pros and cons for each. You can buy a domain for $10 during the setup process with Google. Mark Wagner, Ph.D., Irvine, CA Question:  “Can you transfer/sync contents of Outlook calendar to Google calendar?” Eric S., New Milford, NJ   Response: Here’s some resources about calendar migration and Google Apps:http://www.google.com/support/a/bin/answer.py?hl=en&;answer=166207 Most likely, Google Sync will be your best option: http://www.google.com/support/calendar/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=89955 Question: “How do you setup Google Apps Education with LDAP?” Juan O, Austin TX  Response: Google Apps Help Site is a good resource for this: http://www.google.com/support/a Specifically: http://www.google.com/support/a/bin/topic.py?hl=en&topic=14580 You can also look into contracting a 3rd party to help you out with this from the Apps Marketplace — many offer an EDU discount: http://www.google.com/enterprise/marketplace/search?orderBy=rating&query=Education&;categoryId=13 And, this announcement from Dana Nguyen (referenced above) for MS Exchange migration: For those of you are still thinking about moving to Google Apps Education Edition, we just announced a new tool that drastically simplifies the migration from Microsoft Exchange. Checkout the blogpost here: http://googleenterprise.blogspot.com/2010/03/now-its-easy-switch-to-google-apps-from.html In the meantime….

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DiigoNotes – Harnessing the Power of Technologies to Manage Collaborative e-Learning

• Read Source
  • Authors: Maree V. Gosper, Margot A. McNeill and Karen Woo

    VOL. 24, No. 1, 167 – 186
  • Many universities have invested substantial resources in sophisticated, fully integrated campus-wide IT infrastructure, not only to meet existing educational requirements but also to provide opportunities for future innovation in learning and teaching. In establishing this infrastructure, it is not unusual for the focus of development activity to be on ensuring the robustness and security of the technology, often to the detriment of support for staff and students in using the technologies for learning and teaching purposes (Burnett & Meadmore, 2002). The introduction of web-based lecture technologies (WBLT) into universities has often reflected such a pattern.
  • WBLT refer to a range of technologies used for digitally recording face-to-face lectures for web delivery and are essentially a one-way medium of communication well suited to the delivery of lecture content in close to real time.
  • The technologies have had a rapid uptake at many universities in response to student demands for increased flexibility in combining their study, work and family commitments (Phillips et al., 2007).
  • Research on web-based lectures has tended to focus on the technology itself (Bittencourt & Carr 2001, Day et al. 2004) and had provided little insight to its effective use as a learning and teaching tool.
  • Data was collected from a variety of sources: two project team self-reflection exercises; observations through attendance at project team meetings (both face-to-face and online); a content review of project documentation; unstructured discussions with both project team and reference group members; and individual surveys of the project team members, institutional sponsors and the reference group members covering process, outcomes, products and communication.
  • Three factors were identified as critical to the success of the project (Carter, 2008):
    1. Team Dynamics—some team members were previously well acquainted, they all got on well together, they had complementary skill sets and a shared and strong commitment to the Project aims;
    2. Communication Mechanisms—there was a good mix of face-to-face (funded and unfunded), online (e.g., Live Classroom) and asynchronous (e.g., Moodle) discussions;
    3. Management/Leadership—there was a clearly articulated aim, a commitment to project management principles, a strong project leader, an experienced project manager and a good focus on outcomes/dissemination.
  • 1. Initiating the Project
  • Critical to the success of the project was availability of an experienced project manager.
  • Research undertaken to establish the determinants of successful projects (Kirschner et al., 2004) found that an overwhelming majority (97%) of the successful projects had an experienced project manager at the helm. Part of this experience involved recognizing the need to implement sound project management strategies, define roles and responsibilities, systematically monitor performance and finish in time and on budget.
  • From these clear project objectives, a realistic set of deliverables was articulated as part of the project proposal and this then drove much of the subsequent decision-making in the planning stage.
  • 2. Planning
  • As well as identifying project activities, timelines, milestones for delivery of outputs and critical stages for review, the team took particular care to plan for collaboration and dissemination activities.
  • All but one of the team members had worked with other members in various ways. In effect, this shortened the team’s orientation period that usually accompanies any team work project and allowed the team to move quickly into the work at hand in an efficient manner (Tuckman & Jensen, 1977).
  • key factor in planning for an effective team approach was the ability to budget for collaborative activities including travel, accommodation and refreshments.
  • Some of the successful strategies were:
  • to enable systematic reporting to maintain the profile of the project and its outcomes beyond the participating universities
  • Gaining sector level sponsorship
  • Selecting reference group members for their potential to contribute to the development of the project, as well as their capacity to disseminate findings across the sector. Members were invited to several face-to-face meetings as well as telephone and web conferences during the project and contributed feedback on various stages throughout;
  • Utilising networks that members of the project team had established with professional organizations
  • to provide opportunities for presentations and updates on progress and outcomes
  • Addressing capacity building imperatives through the inclusion of recommendations for policy, practice and professional development as outcomes;
  • Including discipline-based project teams undertaking action research in their own context in the research methodology to extend the project activities beyond the team and open further avenues of influence;
  • Selecting a project team from diverse locations which increased the opportunities available for presentations at local forums at no cost to the project.
  • a communication plan to disseminate the project’s findings to key stakeholders was developed. After each major data collection and analysis phase, the team wrote at least one conference or journal paper. This strategy proved effective in encouraging the documentation, analysis and synthesis at each stage and lead to a number of refereed conference papers and journal articles. It also heightened awareness in the sector, which led to members of the project team being invited to present at a number of universities and requests from other universities to use the survey instruments and project resources.
  • Due to the challenges of working across three time zones and the impracticalities (both cost and time) of regular face-to-face meeting, it was decided from the initial planning phase to employ technologies to facilitate communication.
  • A comprehensive communication strategy for maintaining contact in the dispersed environment was developed, making extensive use of online collaboration tools and a project team website created using Moodle.
  • The online collaboration tools, Elluminate and Wimba’s Live Classroom enabled the project team to conduct its regular meetings online. Both technologies were used at different times to support audio synchronous conversations and also enable the team to share project documents and digital resources using the virtual whiteboard. The synchronous nature on interactions added a human touch that can be missed with email.
  • The project team website became the project team’s virtual ‘head-office’.
  • The site was password protected and its access was limited to the team members, the reference group and the project evaluator. It provided a centralised place for tracking the project’s development and served as a repository for outputs. The site was used to store all project documentation; meeting agendas and minutes, periodic progress reports, publications, presentation slides, along with records of disseminations activities and project management processes. With team members being distributed across Australia, having an easily accessible, secure site for documents was essential.
  • Day-to-day communication was also channeled through the web site. The discussion forum had the capacity to deliver new postings to the members’ regular work-based email inboxes. This saved the team members from logging into the site regularly to check for updates. As such, it was instrumental in facilitating instant feedback and at the same time providing a central space for storing interactions between team members, keeping them transparent and also providing an ongoing record of decisions.
  • At first, the wiki was used for documenting all the formal and informal dissemination as part of the communication plan. This was proven to be effective because members were able to log in and add their latest activity at any time. Unlike a discussion forum or email list, the wiki kept all the activities in one page so the list was always readily available and version control issues were avoided. The wiki grew quickly and at the various stages of the project when reporting was required, the project manager was able to look at the wiki and get a complete list of the dissemination activities to date.
  • While the wiki was effective in capturing the dissemination activities, it was less successful when the team trialed it for collaborative authoring on publication drafts.
  • A separate public website was also established to include static information about the project plans, team members, progress against milestones and the publications.
  • Managing a collaborative project across four universities in three states required careful monitoring of both process and outcomes which was aided by the risk management approach adopted by the project team, another success factor identified in the literature (Kirschner et al., 2004).
  • The use of technologies to capture reflections and many of the project activities was invaluable in monitoring progress. The project team, evaluator and reference group all had full access to all the project documentation, record of discussions, minutes of meetings, research instruments, communications and dissemination plans and outputs that were lodged on the project team’s website. Each month a project report was sent to the team members, evaluator and reference group members, followed by an online meeting to discuss issues. Online meetings were recorded and made available to the evaluator, the reference group and team members through the website. Having access to both the outputs and a record of the process enabled everyone to keep in close touch with the project.
  • Based on project management stages, the key points to emerge include: Initiation
    • The project has clearly defined aims and outcomes aligned with strategic agendas; and
    • A diverse and experienced team has been chosen and works collaboratively to conceptualise and scope the project and its outcomes.

    Planning

    • Ways of measuring the success of the project are clearly stated as outcomes, with a realistic plan for achieving them;
    • The true implications of collaboration are factored into project plans, timelines and budgets;
    • Communication strategies have been developed to keep stakeholders informed and engaged; and
    • Strategies for effective and ongoing dissemination of outcomes are embedded in project activities.
  • Execution
    • Collaborative tools and processes for regular communication across the project team have been agreed;
    • A realistic timeline has been agreed with room to cater for the unexpected;
    • Flexibility has been built in to plans to allow for collaboration across diverse contexts, for example differences in the academic cycles of universities (semester dates, exams, ethics requirements); and
    • External stakeholders are kept informed of progress.

    Monitoring

    • Known risks to the success of the project have been identified and planned for;
    • Strategies are in place to proactively identify and manage unforeseen situations; and
    • Processes for monitoring progress have been agreed and critical points have been identified for formative feedback.

    Closure

    • Realistic timeframes have been factored in for finalizing administrative; arrangements and developing and fine tuning the project report and other the final report and other artifacts; and
    • Points for critical reflection have been built in to all stages of the project to enable lessons to be shared.
  • technologies played a major part in contributing to the success of this project: facilitating regular communication to support the synergies available when team members with diverse skills and perspectives combine their efforts; overcoming distance as a barrier to collaboration; maintaining communication with a wide range of stakeholders and capturing the day-to-day operations during the project.
  • Maree Gosper is the Director of Technologies in Learning and Teaching and a senior lecturer in the Learning and Teaching Centre, Macquarie University. She has a particular interest in the integration of technologies into the curriculum and academic practice, as well as the development of organisational capacity surrounding their use. E-Mail: maree.gosper@mq.edu.au

    Margot McNeill is a lecturer in Higher Education Development at Macquarie University’s Learning and Teaching Centre. Her research interests include educational technologies, curriculum design and innovative assessment practices. E-Mail: margot.mcneill@mq.edu.au

    Karen Woo is a program research and development officer at the Learning and Teaching Centre at Macquarie University with an interest in technologies in learning and teaching in higher education. E-Mail: karen.woo@mq.edu.au

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DiigoNotes – Project Managing Strategic e-Learning Development Processes in a Large, Campus-Based University

• Read Source
  • Mary-Helen Ward, Sandra West, Mary Peat and Susan Atkinson

    VOL. 24, No. 1, 21 – 42
  • The way that e-learning is managed at the university has been described in an earlier paper by Ellis, Jarkey, Mahoney, Peat & Sheely (2007): they detail how the play between the strategic direction of the university and the learning and teaching goals within the faculties determines the shape of e-learning that then supports student learning.
  • The purpose of this paper is to describe how project management principles are applied to support strategic project-based collaborations between e-learning specialists and small teams of academics to create learning activities that are aligned with the learning outcomes of students.
  • Project management principles are intrinsic to the approach used on these strategic projects. In brief, the process includes:
    • an extended application and planning period, in which committees of academics represent faculties and help to articulate and prioritise projects over a six-month period followed by a conceptual planning process lasting from three to seven months (involving a project manager and academic staff)
    • a project development process lasting up to nine months (involving project manager, academic staff and educational designer/s)
    • a learning and evaluation period during which the students experience the e-learning activities.
  • provide a shared experience that helps to foster teamwork, dissemination of ideas and networking of teaching practitioners both within and across faculties.
  • The traditionally understood role of ‘non-academic support staff’ is changing within the modern university (Housego, 2002).
  • Project managers work closely with academics, developing the pedagogical underpinning of each project, suggesting technical solutions and negotiating with the academic to determine project workload and establish realistic project time frames. The team’s educational designers continue to liaise closely with the academic as the project is developed, and the evaluation and consequent tweaking of resources after students have used them is built into the project’s scoping process.
  • It can be a challenge to create new teams with members who each have specialised knowledge, and who require a shared understanding of how their skills and strengths interact most effectively (Caplan, 2004, pp. 186-187).
  • uncertainty about roles in multidisciplinary e-learning teams; both disciplinary specialists and educational designers reported difficulty in understanding what the other team members’ roles might encompass. Discipline specialists viewed their own roles as including “’coming up with ideas to put online’, ‘showing the best way to teach content in my discipline’ and ‘fostering creativity in the team’
  • Educational designers saw their roles as “’to provide specific information and content’, ‘provide good examples’, ‘ensure that project outcomes are met’, ‘provide technical and educational expertise’, and as an ‘agent of change by promoting new ways of looking at old problems’”(p. 738).
  • It is expected that each representative will raise faculty awareness of current university e-learning strategies, support the dissemination of e-learning operational information (deadlines, events, etc.) and maintain their involvement with regular e-learning cluster and working group meetings
  • Academics initiate a project through an application (in conjunction with the faculty representative); they provide the academic content during the project development phase of the cycle; and they oversee the evaluation (in conjunction with the project manager and the cluster director).
  • The project manager is responsible for the quality assurance of the development processes. S/he prepares, organizes, ensures completion of and sometimes maintains 12-15 strategic projects within each cluster every year. Their first contact with the academic applicant will usually be as much as a year before the development phase is commenced, and on the basis of ongoing discussion in that period the project is shaped and its size and scope determined. The importance of documentary tools to ensure that all team members are as clear as possible about the scope and limits of the project are emphasised by Hurst and Thomas (2004) and once development has commenced it is the project manager who ensures that deadlines are being met and satisfactory progress is being made, according to the Letter of Agreement and scoping documentation. The project manager is responsible for all project documentation and reporting, including assembling and distribution of applications for ranking by the faculty representatives, and may sometimes be involved in evaluation of project outcomes and on-going maintenance of the resources created within the project’s development phase.
  • Educational designers are allocated to project teams on a contingent basis. Each semester the project managers negotiate the skills they require for each project in context of the available educational designers. For example, if a project requires substantial graphical work, an educational designer with expertise in graphic software packages will become part of the team.
  • A cluster director works closely with the faculty representatives to develop e-learning awareness and strategies within the cluster and with the Director of Sydney eLearning to ensure congruence with university-level strategy. S/he also works closely with the project managers, advising and consulting on the progress of both current and future projects. A cluster director’s experience in academic culture can be an especially useful aid in supporting a project manager when complex academic issues need to be resolved. They also play a key strategic role in their work with the faculty representatives on the selection of projects for the following year.
  • The purpose of the e-learning development cycle is to integrate innovative educational design into the curricular planning of faculties .The staged approach to the e-learning project management process allows it to extend over a two to three year period, but also to integrate with the teaching semesters of the University. Writing about the experience of incorporating eLearning into a university’s teaching, Alexander (2001) points out that “Teachers’ planning of learning experiences…is strongly underpinned by their thinking about what learning means.” (p. 244).
  • Stage 1: Project Selection
  • fostering and facilitation of nascent projects in the consultation process that takes place in the selection of the projects to be undertaken in the following year.
  • This extended period allows both academics and project managers to conceptualise the intended educational outcomes of the project in quite a detailed way. This is not to say that the project ‘s final form is always clear at this stage; this is usually decided once the educational designer becomes involved the following year. However, appropriate pedagogical principles, broad outcomes and curriculum design are often clarified in discussion during this period.

    
  • The selection process involves two formal written applications: the expression of interest and the formal application. Pro formas are provided for both of these, and academics are encouraged to submit drafts to the project manager and/or their faculty representative for comment.
    The expression of interest (usually no more than a page) asks the academic-in-charge for a brief description of what they would like assistance with and the aims of the project, the perceived benefits, and some details about the breadth of its application and which of the universities’ strategic teaching goals it addresses, along with any key timeframe issues. These preliminary proposals are discussed at a meeting of faculty representatives, the cluster director and the e-learning project manager.
  • Table 1: Details Sought in Final Application (Expression of Interest)

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    • Project title and description
    • Perceived benefits
    • Alignment with strategic e-learning objectives the university has identified
    • Alignment with university and/or faculty learning and teaching strategic plans
    • Resources required, other aid applied for, time and/or expertise faculty can devote
    • Listing of other issues that will assist in ranking, e.g., large classes, pre-existing resources
    • Date completed resource required
    • Additional information
  • From the time an academic makes their first enquiry, they are supported and assisted by their faculty representative and project manager, through ongoing discussions that help to shape the final application.
  • One common outcome of this part of the process is that academics report that they have become much more aware of the pedagogical basis for their teaching—what has been implicit in their transfer of disciplinary knowledge has now become explicit for them and for some has provided a language that is facilitating other discussions of learning and teaching matters within faculties.
  • Project selection is essentially a ‘bottom-up’ process: individuals are assisted to articulate their own teaching needs and align these with disciplinary pedagogical practice and university strategic policy, without pressure or involvement at the level of either faculty management or university management more widely (cf McMurray, 2001). The case that McMurray describes is one in which project management principles were used in a way that conflicted with the academic organisational culture; our choice has been to use them to support and foster teaching culture in faculties. Each e-learning project is generated by an academic, who is responsible for providing the academic content for the educational designer to create the resource. The autonomy of individual academics is not limited by this process—on the contrary they are supported to reach their self-defined teaching goals.
    
  • greater efforts are now made to be as transparent as possible about the process for allocating educational designers to teams, and the scoping document (discussed below) now includes very clear listings of the responsibility of each team member, along with the deadlines for content provision that are decided with academics as soon as the project has been approved for resource creation some months hence.
  • some projects are not effectively completed because of shifting academic interest and commitment.
  • “Sometimes the trick is simply to assign an initial responsibility, and then trade it off as necessary”
  • Stage 2: Project Development
  • Where projects have not been completed as planned it is commonly related either to the circumstances of the academic (change of employment or teaching allocation), or where a better solution than we were able to offer has been found (this frequently relates to advances in web-based technologies that we are not able to support).
  • Stage 3: Evaluation
  • Common evaluation questions for this stage of the process include:
    1. what were the main two or three things you learned in your course (your main course outcomes)?
    2. What was the relationship between the key outcomes of your course and the e-learning activities you engaged in?
    3. To what extent do you think the e-learning activities helped you understand the main outcomes of your course?
    4. How did you approach your e-learning activities in your course? What did you do and why?
  • Kenny (2004) suggests that “When independent professionals such as academics and teachers are involved in an innovative project, the project management process needs to support practices that enable professional growth and learning.” (p. 390).
  • There are two key risks for our e-learning projects: either that the project is not completed in time and thus may never be completed, or that it is completed but does not meet the original aims or desired outcomes.
  • Some factors that could allow this to happen are:
    • insufficient material/content
    • insufficient or untimely feedback, resulting in delays in finalising work
    • timelines not adhered to
    • misunderstanding of team members as to what is required from them
    • misunderstanding of team members as to what it is possible to achieve through a project
    • unanticipated technical complexity arising during the project.
  • risk is managed by:
    • conceptual planning: as detailed above, several months of discussion takes place between individual academics and e-learning staff before the project is articulated for peer review
    • consultation: committee of academic peers (the faculty representatives and cluster director) discuss each project at least twice before approval is given and hours are allotted
    • detailed planning, initially by the project manager and later by educational designers, with the academic-in-charge, leading to
    • documentation, including a clear scoping document, giving details of who is expected to do what when, followed by
    • close supervision of educational designers by project manager, time tracking of project and continuing discussion with academic-in-charge
    • flexibility as far as possible within and between cluster teams to meet unexpected contingencies.
  • Sample Project Plan for Project Period 1

    Task/Milestone	Time Frame	Brief Description of Task/Milestone	Responsibility
    Task 1	End April	PM* and ED** meet to discuss project	AiC*** and PM
    Milestone 1	Mid May	All content has been provided to PM & ED	AiC

  • Sample Risk Analysis for Project Period 1

    Time Frame	Milestone	Responsibility	Potential Risk	Likelihood	Potential Impact	Contingency
    Mid May	1. All content provided to ED	AiC***	Some content delayed	Med	High	Project scope may need to be reduced

  • Sample Communication Plan for Project Period 1

    Time Frame	Communication Mode	Present	Purpose
    Late April	Meeting	AiC***, ED**, PM*	Project planning
    Mid May	Meeting	AiC, ED, PM	Project initiation; review milestone 1
    Late May	Meeting	AiC, ED, PM	Review milestone 2
    Early June	email	From PM to AiC	Confirm progess and review completion date
    Late June	Meeting	AiC, ED, PM	Review milestones 3 and 4; Project review and sign-off of development phase
    * e-learning project manager ** educational designer *** academic-in-charge

  • • project managers submit a written fortnightly internal report on all cluster projects (read by the e-learning operations manager who is thus monitoring overall project progressions), which is available for later auditing and analysis
    • project managers also write a detailed report at the end of each project period, covering all issues that have arisen in the projects, which is used in external reporting
  • • letters of agreement and scoping documents formalise agreements about who will do what when – and also what will not be done in this project
    • educational designer sign-offs, which record agreement to the approach to be used in the project and lessen the risk of educational designers exceeding their brief.
  • The project manager and educational designer agree to and sign of on the approach that will be used to implement the project goals in the development and training phases of the project process.
  • The project management process has to be embedded within the organisational planning processes and in tune with the natural rhythms of the organisation. The support of senior management is important and can be demonstrated by the provision of adequate resources based on a thorough project scoping process prior to a decision to proceed. (403).
  • Mary-Helen Ward is the eLearning Project Manager for Sciences and Technology at the University of Sydney. E-Mail: mhward@usyd.edu.au

    Sandra West is an Associate Professor of Clinical Nursing at the University of Sydney, and also eLearning Cluster Director for Health Sciences, University of Sydney. E-Mail: swest@usyd.edu.au

    Mary Peat Mary Peat is the eLearning Cluster Director for Sciences and Technology at the University of Sydney. E-Mail: m.peat@usyd.edu.au

    Susan Atkinson is the eLearning Project Manager for Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences at the University of Sydney.he conception of the project and in the alignment of the project to the university’s policy framework. E-Mail: satk0541@usyd.edu.au

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Exploring the #Moodle Mayhem Concept

Image Designs: Moodle in Space by Tonya Mills (tmills0220@yahoo.com)

Joseph Thibault (Moodle Monthly) scooped me (great job, Joe! Thanks!) on this news earlier this week, but I was so tuckered out that it’s only Thursday of Spring Break to share what several of us have been working on!!

This past week (before Spring Break), I was having a conversation with Diana Benner–Co-Host of the upcoming Moodle Mayhem Podcast–and trying to explain what I had in mind for Moodle Mayhem, a new web site dedicated to concentrating and encouraging others to contribute, content.

Here’s the first draft of the overview drawing I made:

As I reflected on this drawing above (isn’t my printing terrible? handwriting is worse!), I decided to clarify it a bit more while eating Thai food at my favorite location this week…of course, in my notebook.

Second draft (click to see larger image):

Component #1 – Community of Learners wiki
As you can see from the second drawing,  I imagine a Community of Learners–that are also a part of the email list–sharing their Moodle courses, themes, and other nifty stuff. One of the ideas that concerned me is that even though I might be a part of the list, I had to find my own way to share Moodle courses. That’s why I’m hoping a wiki might offer email list members the opportunity to share their course content. I did hit a bit of a roadblock in this since I had hoped that my 87 gigs of GoogleSpace would be usable for that space, expanding my Sites account to more than the allowed 100 megs. Unfortunately, that is “in the works” for Google Sites but not yet available (per a Google staffer on the Google Certified Teacher email list).

Nevertheless, I think it’s pretty awesome to have folks who are chatting and sharing about Moodle issues to have a wiki they can fully edit and add content to under Creative Commons ShareAlike-NonCommercial-Attribution license.

Component #2 – Community of Problem-Solvers Email Group
I’ve already shared the rationale for the email group for Moodle, but it doesn’t hurt to re-visit it again. It’s a way for folks who are learning Moodle–my original concept was for Texas Moodlers, but why limit people?–to join together and share how they are using it. Sure, it IS one more listserv to be a part of but I recognize the value others place on having content arrive in their inbox rather than in GoogleReader. Kind of funny, isn’t it? I imagined Reader as the end-all place to access content, but RSS feeds and social networking have all but cut it out as the place to access content shared.

Component #3 – Knowledge Management
There are probably a million web sites that do this for Moodle–including Moodle.org itself–but none that have a particular focus that attracts me as an educator. As such, I’m interested in creating a one-stop shopping location for information about Moodle in education that is community-driven. Again, nothing original in this idea but I believe that the combination of the components will be helpful.

Finally, if nothing comes of this, I’m thrilled by the idea that I was able to set up complementary technologies to enhance the experience of Moodling educators I’ll be meeting when I share my district’s experiences in using Moodle in K-12 at the Texas Distance Learning Association State Conference, as well as at the TCEA MiniMoodleMoot taking place this summer.

TCEA MoodleMoot Conference – a conference dedicated to users, developers, and administrators of the very popular, open-source program called Moodle. Whether you’re a beginner just learning about the power of Moodle or an expert looking for the latest gizmo, this two-day conference will provide all of the answers you need.

Featuring an opening general session and four breakout workshops in five strands, the conference will focus on:

* Moodle for beginners

* Curricular applications

* Technical aspects

* Moodle 2.0

* Moodle in business and government

* Optional evening social activities will also be offered

Join us June 22-23, 2010 at the Radisson Hotel Fossil Creek in Fort Worth. The TCEA member price is $170 for both days; non-member is $200 and includes a free membership. Continental breakfast will be served each morning and beverages provided each afternoon. 

Even more exciting than the upcoming opportunities to capture people’s attention is the podcast series that Diana and I are planning out. We have some phenomenal guests already confirmed and eyeing other folks for conversations about certain topics that have been recently discussed. It will be fun to get Moodle objectors out in the open sharing their ideas, providing them with a platform to share their perspective on Moodle, while facilitating conversation about how Moodle can solve K-16 problems.

Anyways, that’s the idea behind Moodle Mayhem. Time will tell if it works out, but I hope you’ll join in. My next step–amidst the rush of Spring Break activities designed to relax (ha!)–is to invite all the email list members to be collaborators on the wiki to contribute content.

I hope you’ll check out the Moodle Mayhem web site at http://bit.ly/moodlemayhem or Join the Moodle Mayhem email group/list .

Please share this!

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Everything posted on Miguel Guhlin’s blogs/wikis are his personal opinion and do not necessarily represent the views of his employer(s) or its clients. Read Full Disclosure

Let It Be: PBL with Web-based Tools

The purposeful noise of the workshop continued on, even though my teacher voice didn’t echo in the corners of the classroom. It was a blessing to have students so engaged, without my direct instruction marring their learning experience. Yet, I felt an uneasiness, a desire to jump in and ensure that students were learning from me, that they acknowledged that their learning came from me…but as I began to open my mouth, I stopped and let it be…what they would learn through their work now was even more valuable than what they might learn trying to interpret what I thought I was saying about what they needed to know.

That paragraph above describes one of my experiences in understanding the value of student learning. Approaches like project-based learning, problem-based learning, and writing workshop have the potential to focus students and teachers on the process of learning, recognizing the value of “discovery” and self-directed learning.

Thanks to Mark Wagner and Google Certified Teachers for sharing their resources for Project-based Learning with free web-based tools….

Obviously, there’s a lot to explore. It was ages ago I facilitated Problem-based Learning Academies at the TCEA State Conference with colleagues Jennifer Faulkner (Alamo Heights ISD), Dr. Alice Owen (Irving ISD), and Lisa Hamm (Keller ISD), and I still find the PBL approach to be incredibly worthy of use in K-16 learning environments. The challenge is our attitudes towards using these approaches due to how work-intensive they are.

In a Skype conversation about instructional approaches that take more time (e.g. writing workshop), yield terrific results in testing situations, the problem is that we fail to see these as valid approaches for “test-prep.” In fact, those who use these approaches DO prepare students well for standardized tests, as well as the more important long-term learning goals. Yet, we discount these approaches because they are “not direct enough.” Somehow, they are perceived as being less “hands-on” for the teacher and less effective.

Sometimes, it is better to let learning “be.”

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Moodle Mayhem – Email Group

Over the last 2 years, I’ve been trying to get a better handle on using Moodle. One way that was helpful was to use Twitter and “throw questions” up into the air. Another way was to scour the Moodle.org forums. To some degree, those approaches worked. But when I chatted with people, especially those being introduced to Moodle, I found they were looking for something a bit more familiar like an email listserv.

To support that, I’ve started a email group for Moodle. While it’s targeted at Texas folks, it doesn’t have to be just for Texans…I mean, my first request for Moodle help was answered by Mary “moodlefairy” Cooch in the United Kingdom!

While I intend to share more about the vision of Moodle Mayhem web site in the future, it’s my goal that folks who join the list will also be able to edit/add content to the wiki as collaborators.

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Turn It In – Lesson Plan Tracking

A few years ago (quite a few), I noticed school districts were spending LOTS of money–in fact, I received an email last week offering a demo–buying web-based systems that allowed teachers to post their lesson plans. It boils down to accountability from the principal perspective, another indicator or metric to use when assessing performance. Another challenge aside from collecting lesson plans for review includes the actual logistics of tracking when whomever turned in their lesson plans. 

As a teacher, there was always the concern about whether lesson plans were turned in on Friday before 3:00 PM or Monday before 10:00 AM. There appeared to be a discernible stigma–entirely imaginary but no less a spur–for reluctant teachers who failed to get their lesson plans in on time. This is such a contentious issue, in fact, that teacher unions have managed to get lesson plans abolished altogether, which can sometimes push teachers to have–as Plugusin tweeted a short time ago–scripted lessons that any teacher, new or creatively oppressed, can implement in the Curriculum binder, whether electronic or 3-ring black monstrosity that rivals the Bible for the imperiousness of its commandments.

Since the invention of the wiki and its use in schools, it became a no-brainer from my perspective to encourage teachers and their campus administrators to use that as the place to post lesson plans.

Unfortunately, my encouragement incorrectly assumed these points:

1. Classroom teachers would be able to use the “obviously easy” wiki solution deployed for them.
2. Lesson plans should be public and available for anyone to review.
3. Campus administrators would learn how to use the resource and take advantage of it.
4. After a year of use, everyone would settle in and things would work out.

As you might guess, staff didn’t learn how to use the wiki solution. In fact, they couldn’t use it unless someone was on the campus helping them–like a Campus Instructional Technologist–which a lot of school sites just can’t afford. And, more importantly, not everyone felt comfortable putting their lesson plans “out there” for the world to see, but especially, their peers.

Now, with more finely-grained account management, wiki pages can be private and controlled. But is a wiki setup by the District, even one hosted by a web-based provider, going to work? It all depends on the will of the people and the support they get. In short, it’s about relationships.

I found Jared Reck’s (Google Certified Teacher) account of using the tools available for the job to accomplish lesson plan sharing/review worth reading. Here is his summation of the challenge:

Quick story – my district HAD its teachers print out and hand in on a weekly basis their lesson plans.  Plans are handed to a secretary every Friday, added to a huge pile, as she tries to somehow check off everyone that has handed them in as well as those who have not – then she files them away.  Repeat the next week.  There needed to be a change.

In response to this problem,  Reck is inspired to introduce his solution, not unlike other educators armed with the wiki that will eliminate paper lesson plan books:

I actually created a public GCal with links to each weeks submission forms.  I then had each teacher click the +Google chicklet so that this lesson plan submission calendar was added to their “Other” Calendar list.  The teachers just need to create their lesson plans in GDocs (either from scratch/template or upload) and then publish as a webpage (copying the URL) – then go to the Lesson Plan Submission Calendar – click the appropriate week and fill out the form (pasting the URL).  As the teachers entries come in, their names turn green and those that have not submitted remain red.  It has become so easy for our secretaries to police this process and also keep all lesson plans on file digitally as the colors simplify the process.  If a teacher has not turned in their lesson plan for the specified week, they can email them in one click (see column D of spreadsheet).

The admins. in my district are very excited to implement this process as we move forward with our Google Apps for Education.  It is a perfect application of the power GDocs and GCal can hold – not to mention a time saver for the secretaries that would be collecteing all of the hard copies every Friday.

Check it out and feel free to use it as you wish.

Regrettably, the link results in a message that states the owner has changed the sharing options.

Update 03/14/2010 – Link now works

But for those of you using GoogleApps for Education, is this a solution for handling the logistics of lesson plans being due?

What would you do?

Image Source:

http://geekyteacher.files.wordpress.com/2009/03/lessonplan.jpg

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DiigoNotes – The New Writing Pedagogy

• The New Writing Pedagogy

  • The New Writing Pedagogy

    Using social networking tools to keep up with student interests.

    By Angela Pascopella and Will Richardson

    November 2009
    

  • Because Cory was in a class that used social networking tools for writing—specifically Elgg, an open source media platform—other students, teachers, family members and even the general public were able to comment on his story.

  • A fifth-grade class at the Saugus (Calif.) Union School District is working on a writing assignment using social networking. The district is leading an ambitious plan to rethink writing instructions and pedagogy in the schools.

  • But as research is showing, students are flocking to online networks in droves, and they are doing a great deal of writing there already, some of it creative and thoughtful and inspiring, but much of it outside the traditional expectations of “good writing” that classrooms require.

  • change is spelled out clearly by the National Council of Teachers of English, which last year published “new literacies” for readers and writers in the 21st century. Among those literacies are the ability to “build relationships with others to pose and solve problems collaboratively and cross-culturally,” to “design and share information for global communities to meet a variety of purposes,” and to “create, critique, analyze, and evaluate multi-media texts.” Very little of that kind of work is possible to achieve without expanding the way we think about writing instruction in the context of online social tools.

  • According to a recent Pew Internet and American Life Project study, 85 percent of youths aged 12-17 engage at least occasionally in some form of electronic personal communication, which includes text messaging, sending e-mail or instant messages, or posting comments on social networking sites. In other words, our students aren’t waiting for us to teach them the ins and outs of writing in these digital spaces.

  • “Using online writing tools will allow students to write whenever and wherever they feel inspired, and to be able to speak to an audience that is larger and more important to them than the traditional classroom,” Childers says. “There is a reason why we should constantly be looking for ways to incorporate more innovative writing opportunities into our curriculum.”

  • Key to this rethinking process is articulating these shifts throughout the K12 curriculum, across all disciplines, as well as providing professional development opportunities for teachers to begin to explore writing in these online spaces as well.

    Freshmen at the Academy for Civic and Entrepreneurial Leadership in Fresno, Calif., take tips from social media strategist Peter Lang and his staff, who are helping the students set up their own Facebook pages and school blogs.

     

    “The shape of writing has changed,” agrees Troy Hicks, author of the recently released book The Digital Writing Workshop and assistant professor of English and director of the Chippewa River Writing Project at Central Michigan University. “Kids are now writing for real audiences and for real purposes, not just other kids in the class or the refrigerator door. And they are composing on computers and on phones in text and multimedia. These are substantial changes.”

  • Chris Sloan, an English teacher and media adviser at Judge Memorial Catholic High School, a college prep school in the Diocese of Salt Lake City, says students still need to be taught how to navigate online environments. Facebook and MySpace, for example, do a “good job” of connecting people socially, but they shouldn’t be the extent of students’ online presence, he says.

    “That is a big fear for me—that we are inadequately preparing our youth for the future,” he says. “I think that the kind of research, learning and jobs of the very near future will increasingly require people to collaborate from a distance.”

  • “Students need to be able to find sources, critically examine them and communicate effectively to the larger group,” he says. “My goal is to inspire students to better themselves as writers, but more importantly, as people.

  • “My students are writing things that they are passionate about and willing to stick with and do research on and talk to other students about,” he says. For example, one of his students wrote a blog post about abolishing school uniforms. “I don’t think he would have written it if he wrote for the school newspaper,” Allison explains. “So it’s like quasi-school. But it’s what he wants to write about. And he’ll get responses from kids in Boston and Utah.”

  • if we are going to live in a digital age, we have to reassess everything that we are teaching in schools to see if there is a digital component or vehicle that is available to utilize,” says Childers.

  • In these online spaces, students and educators write not just to communicate but to connect. Whereas publishing was once the end point in the writing process, it is now a midpoint, the place where the interaction with readers and subsequent conversations begin through comments on or revisions and linking. Sharing one’s writing with a potential global audience is a means to creating networks of learners who share an interest or passion. Their interactions can continue for a lifetime. But while this sharing creates all sorts of opportunities for students, it also creates a new level of complexity that requires they become adept at navigating a more transparent life online and at managing a much more distributed conversation that is carried on asynchronously in many different places. Figuring out how to help students manage those shifts is, in large measure, where schools are struggling right now.

  • That collaborative aspect is another important shift to consider, as the Web continues to facilitate more and more opportunities for people to create together. Tools such as AppJet’s EtherPad, a Web-based word processor that allows people to work together in real time, Diigo, a research tool and knowledge-sharing community, and wikis provide spaces for students to roll up their writing sleeves and create together—an act that, again, adds another layer of complexity to the writing process but one that most see as an important skill moving forward. That has implications for every teacher.

    “How can a math teacher ignore the collaborative potentials of having kids work in a Google spreadsheet?” Hicks asks. “That’s writing too. Collaboration on almost every level is just a part of the equation today.”

  • “Social media, as with all things public, present risks,” he says. “School leaders need to not only understand these risks but also to have a plan to mitigate them.” In Klein’s case, that means providing teachers with the tools necessary to maintain complete oversight of what’s occurring online, a “necessary step” for younger students who are being prepared to move into more public spaces online. It also means counseling teachers about the legal implications of inappropriate use and having a clear policy, which parents sign off on, that covers both in-school and out-of-school use of social tools.

  • In an August 2009 Wired article, Andrea Lunsford, professor of writing and rhetoric at Stanford University, offered her own research

  • Hicks believes that “inviting students to create, share, and respond to digital writing” such as blog posts, wiki pages, electronic portfolios, podcasts, and more means they are learning how to compose various texts, with different media, for audiences and purposes within and beyond classrooms. “Teaching with social media can help them learn more than just how to use technology,” Hicks says. “It can help them develop into critical and creative readers and writers as they learn how to communicate with other students, teachers, experts and outside audiences.”

    Angela Pascopella is senior editor, and Will Richardson is an author and educator who also blogs about teaching and learning at weblogg-ed.com.

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

DiigoNotes – Microsoft Ends War on Macintosh with Office 2011 – Yahoo! News

This has to be one of the many reasons Microsoft has been chastised for the games it plays….

• Microsoft Ends War on Macintosh with Office 2011 – Yahoo! News

  • Microsoft Ends War on Macintosh with Office 2011

  • David Coursey David Coursey – Thu Feb 11, 8:47 pm ET

  • The long war between Microsoft and Macintosh is almost over. It will end when Microsoft ships Office for Mac 2011, the release that ends Redmond’s decade-long attack on Apple computers in business.

  • Office 2011, due before the holidays, replaces the much-despised Entourage e-mail client and information manager with a real version of Microsoft Outlook created for Macintosh.

  • Intentionally crippled as a client for Exchange servers, Entourage was a sure way of keeping Macs from expanding their presence in businesses large enough to use Exchange and Outlook.

  • Critically, Entourage cannot import Outlook post office (.PST) files created on a Windows machine, making it impossible to easily move a user’s messages from Windows to Macintosh.

  • After a decade of crippling the Mac as a business computer, Microsoft is now embracing it. Or at least has decided there are enough Windows and Office users who also use Macs to make improved compatibility something now in Microsoft’s best interest.

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

DiigoNotes – The Digital Writing Workshop – Part 2

Considering that Troy Hicks not only left me out of his book (smile), but then had the temerity to not even send me a review copy (sniff…tears rolling down my cheek), I’m continuing my expose of the great ideas he has shared in it and that I want to remember when I give the book back to its owner. Review Part 1.

1. New media needs to be informed by what writing teachers know, precisely because writing teachers focus specifically on texts and how situated people (learn how to) use them to make things happen (Anne Wysocki)
2. MAPS = Mode, Audience, Purpose and Situation…add a second M for media.
1. Mode refers to the genre of the text, an essay, for instance. It helps us differentiate between particular subgenres.
2. Media refers to the way in which the text is presented: brochure vs digital story with images and narration.
3. Audience refers to the characteristics of those who are most likely to receive you work and what they value in good writing; the difference in expectations between writing an email to a friend as compared with your supervisor, for instance.
4. Purpose refers to the specific action that a writer aims to accomplish with a piece
5. Situation for the Writer: as writers, we each have particular strengths and weaknesses in terms of our work habits; this ranges from the genres we prefer to write in, to the type of environment we create for writing, to the technologies that we are comfortable composing with.
6. Situation of the writing: Particular writing tasks make demands of us…deadlines, genre expectations, the implementation of new media such as audio or video and those with whom we are collaborating can all influence how well we work.
3. ThisIBelieve assignment (Red Cedar Writing Project with Dawn Reed) – http://reedd504.edublogs.org
4. A digital writer constantly questions the ways in which a text is being produced–from the purpose and audience to whom she is writing, to the choice of technologies used to compose a text, to how that text is distributed–and MAPS helps writers make those decisions.
5. As a multimedia composing process, podcasting allows writers to use the power of tone and inflections, blending tracks and adjusting volume to create just the right effect. By inviting students to use their voice to bring life to a piece of writing, we can help them understand the ways in which oral and written language differ, thus broadening their repertoire of both writing and speaking strategies.
6. At a basic level, a digital writer can use an effect to “decorate” his digital story. In this manner, a particular piece of media (such as clip art) or effect (such as a transition) would be used to simply fill space or to fulfill a requirement of the assignment. Media or effects can be used to illustrate a digital story…a particular piece of media can be used to illuminate a point. By illustrating or illuminating the text in an appropriate manner, the digital writer employs multimedia for a maximum effect.
7. Creating digital videos–like photo-essays and podcasts–requires that writers begin the process with a clear sense of mode and purpose, as well as an understanding of what they need to learn about particular technologies in order to build their final projects…
8. As a digital writing teacher, it’s important to help your students understand how to create and manage their own spaces for digital writing. It is important for them to learn how to contribute to their own communities of digital writers, all the while learning how to create their own portfolios or participate in a wiki around a shared sense of topic and purpose.
9. Writers who post to the NWP E-Anthology are asked to tell readers whether they want their work to be “blessed,” “addressed,” or “pressed.”
10. Blogfolio = digital portfolio of writing created with a blog.
11. When creating a class anthology on a wiki, you are orchestrating the work of all the digital writers in your classroom. Unlike the print anthology, where a student has the potential to dash off a quick piece the day it is due, hand it to the editors, and then not have to participate fully in the writing community, the wiki makes the student’s work–both her individual writing as well as her responses given to others–more public…this type of consistent and recursive process of writing, responding, and revising leads students to become better writers. Unlike an anthology sitting on a shelf, a wiki is easily searchable so students can look up their peers’ work based on the particular person, a title they may remember, or simply a word.
12. Audio anthologies…creating an audio anthology helps strengthen the community in a digital writing workshop and holds students accountable.
13. The tools themselves should not be the focus of the assessment. Instead, we need to assess the quality of the information on those slides as well as the ways in which the entire slide show is designed, thus leading to an overall aesthetic effect.
14. It is that technology seems to be leading us forward to new forms of writing, but, as used by standardized testing programs, backward to the five-paragraph theme (Herrington and Moran, 2009).
15. Teaching in a digital writing workshop means that we teach students to compose using newer literacies and technologies, not that we simply use technology that assess traditional modes of writing and reply only to traditional measures such as having an obvious thesis statement with adequate supporting details.
16. Digital spaces complicate….
17. We ask students to create public digital writing personas at the same time they know that they are doing work for a grade…it is an act of identity formation, a twenty-first century skill [building a brand?] that students need to have as they represent themselves across a variety of online communities.
18. MAPS, primary tasks of formative assessment:
1. Mode and media: What genre am i attempting to write in and what medium (or media) will help me best convey my message?
2. Audience: Who is the intended audience? What other audiences might I reach, intentionally or unintentionally?
3. Purpose: What is my purpose? How does the broad choice of mode and media as well as specific choices about the topic, organization, and even words I use affect my purpose?
4. Situation for the writer and the writing: What do I know about this topic and the digital writing tool I hope to employ? How much time and training might I need to create this piece of digital writing?
19. Contrast, Repetition, Alignment, Proximity (CRAP) by Robin Williams
20. “Writing isn’t just scripting text anymore. Writing requires carefully and critically analyzing and selecting among multiple media elements.” (Why Teach Digital Writing)
21. Traits of effective digital writers (this is great!):
1. Determine what you already know and need to learn
2. Read the directions
3. Establish a purpose or a question you are trying to answer through your writing
4. Ask others if you do not understand what you are supposed to do.
5. Gather any tools, ideas, or materials you might need and determine how best to use them.
6. Provide a quiet, studious environment in which to think, read and write.
7. Establish appropriate and reasonable goals for the assignment, taking into consideration the demands of the text, your personal writing goals, and the time needed to write this particular text.
8. Identify the type of text or genre so you know how to write it.
9. Generate ideas using a range of strategies: these ideas involve not only the subject but strategies you will use to write it.
10. Select an appropriate digital writing tool…
11. Obey copyright laws.
12. Cite source
13. Create an appropriate file maanagement system
14. Develop outlines, storyboard, cluster maps or other appropriate texts, especially when creating multimedia texts, that provide an overview of the project so as to plan accordingly and gather digital resources
15. Choose digital writing tools that invite collaboration
16. Check what you write against the assignment and the question your are trying to answer
17. Check for understanding
18. Make connections between your writing and your own experience/knowledge
19. Ask questions to help you generate examples, details or connections
20. Find supporting details for the ideas you explore in your paper
21. Make notes and generate other possible approaches as you write.
22. Evaluate and revise
23. Illuminate the text by choosing multimedia, hyperlinks and other elements 
24. Incorporate elements of design
25. Incorporate feedback from others
26. Reflect on principles about digital writing.
22. Six Traits applied to digital writing – great chart included in the book.
23. There is no single technological solution that applies for every teacher, every course or every view of teaching. Quality teaching requires developing a nuanced understanding of the complex relationships between technology, content and pedagogy and using this understanding to develop appropriate, context-specific strategies and representations (Punya Mishra and Matt Koehler)
24. Technology is not an add-on or bag of tricks for writing teachers for the twenty-first century; instead technology and writing must be seen as intricately intertwined.

QUICK REFLECTION
I’ll be writing a reflection on this book later. In short, I really enjoyed this book (even more than another book from NWP where I got bogged down in theory and research at the beginning) because it was so eminently readable and didn’t throw too much at the reader…as a result, I’ve managed to finish reading Troy’s book!

Yet, applying it is a different story. As I look forward to Abydos training this summer, and review the Acts of Teaching book that is the tome for that 12 day session, I find the contrast between Troy’s work and AoT a bit tough to reconcile. Could we just throw out the chapter on publishing with paper books and focus on using wikis for the class anthology? Will one need to join the club to suggest the changes Troy has documented in his book?

I’ll be ordering copies of Troy’s book and sharing it with others. I highly recommend it.

Review Part 1.

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Skype in Schools – Adjust Your Sails!

A short two weeks ago, if that, Christian Long, Brian Lamb and I were trying to get a better understanding of Skype use in schools. One of the primary issues that was difficult to explain was, “If Skype is free for use, what school district would choose to NOT allow teachers to use it in their classrooms with students?” Why would districts pay for service they can get for free?

The only real objection would be if such usage would place the District or its users in a position of liability. You know, with so many wonderful tools, it’s easy to focus on the 2-3 that are banned. But are the reasons for banning those technologies actually valid? And, how often do school districts “change their mind?” Wouldn’t it be heartening to actually witness that kind of change, the kind of change where school districts change their policy in response to reality?

An objection that districts offer is that Skype allows un-logged chat. That is, if students use Skype on a computer and an inappropriate chat occurs, then there will be no log of that the District can refer to later during an investigation. Simply, the classroom teacher could delete his/her account, and maybe that log would be gone. Or, a student could have an account, login to Skype and have unauthorized chats with other people outside the supervision of a teacher.

Assuming you can overcome objections to the use of Skype–choosing to trust the teacher to monitor Skype use and model appropriate use of Skype to students, holding students accountable for inappropriate use without trying to block the “tool” that was used wrongly–some districts may bring up another objection.

If schools are considered a business, shouldn’t they pay for Skype use? Shouldn’t there be some kind of contract between schools and Skype to allow that use? Here’s how one Texas technology director put it:

How are your accounting for Skype’s Fair Use Policy which says “Subscriptions are for individual use only. Each subscription is to be used by one person only and is not to be shared with any other user(whether via a PBX, call centre, computer or any other means).”

Or are you a business partner that pays for SKype in the schools to provide instruction?

This is a wonderful challenge to the use of Skype in schools, isn’t it? One of the additional points made includes the following:

The main thing that strikes a chord with me in terms of fair use is that Skype does have Small and Large Business accounts.  These are purchased accounts.  So in relation to that, if the conversation is running through a business network, even if it is an individual teacher account and this action is condoned by the organization is that not making a loop hole in their marketing strategy to get businesses to pay for service.  

I have had teachers ask to use it, in classrooms.  I have denied this ability because of fair use and the points made below…now, before every tech director says “Ohhhh” We do have Adobe Connect in the district and a web-conference (same setup as skype) can be setup with anyone, anywhere with an internet connection.  So, I am not limiting the ability to have guests etc through electronic means in the classroom, I have just discouraged and not approved skype due to concerns related to copyright.  

This situation reminds me of when AVG first came out.  Everyone started using it because it was “Free” (the district I was in at the time was using it)  only to find out that we had to later remove it from all machines and pay for the service because we fell into the business category.  In my current district, we use AVG, but at a cost.  If skype is free and does not pose this same issue….then I am all for eliminating the costs of other products and going the “free” route. 

And, then, another point was made:

Skype is not the issue…But with the emphasis that I have placed on Copyright and Fair USe within the district, I want to be sure that we are in line legally.  Inferences and Asking for Forgiveness rather than Permission is not something our legal system appreciates and can get individuals in some sticky situations.

As we consider the arguments made in these multiple quotes above, they can be summarized in this way:

1. Skype use in schools should be disallowed because Skype itself does not address school use, although ample examples of Skype use in schools are featured in their blog. . .but such examples are not sufficient to justify schools who are trying to err on the side of caution.
2. Legal use of Skype by a school district is prohibited and if Technology Departments are going to model copyright and fair use, then it shouldn’t be allowed in schools.
3. For pay companies–like Adobe Connect–are equivalent to Skype in function but eliminate the uncertainty districts experience when using Skype.

Yet, are these arguments really on target? Are they “correct” or accurate to the reality of Skype? In truth, we can only know the answer to that question by contacting Skype and getting a ruling.

Scott Powers (Navasota ISD in Texas) made contact with Skype to clarify these issues. Scott wrote to Skype the following:

 “I have read on the Skype blog about the many examples of teachers using Skype in the classroom; connecting to authors, professionals, etc. Are there any issues related to fair use that would prevent teachers from using Skype in this way?”

The response from Skype’s C Songor was as follows:

Hello Scott, Thank you for contacting Skype Support. We are happy to hear that you are using Skype. We suggest you to check our Terms and Policies, and if you won’t violating these rules, you can use our services in this way. You can find it at http://www.skype.com/intl/en/legal/ Should you need more assistance, feel free to contact us again; we will be glad to help. 

Best regards, Csongor – Skype Support Skype Customer Support

Quotes:

End User License Agreement

• 2.1 License

• You are allowed to use the Skype Software at university or any other educational institution, subject to paragraph 4.4 below and in accordance with this Agreement and any applicable Additional Terms

• 4.4 Utilization of Your Computer: If Your use of the Skype Software is dependent upon the use of a processor and bandwidth owned or controlled by a third party, You acknowledge and agree that Your licence to use the Skype Software is subject to You obtaining consent from the relevant third party for such use. You represent and warrant that by accepting this Agreement and using the Skype Software, You have obtained such consent.

Simply, does this response mean educational institutions–including K-12–can use Skype in classrooms? The answer appears to be YES.

Some links to reflect on before ruling Skype use out:

• 50 Awesome Ways to Use Skype in the Classroom
• Use Skype with Students (Edutopia)
• Educational Use of Skype
• Skype in Education
• Using Skype in the Classroom
• Using Skype in the Classroom (Vicki Davis)
• Podcast on Educational Use of Skype
• The Many Roles of Skype in the Classroom (ISTE)

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Everything posted on Miguel Guhlin’s blogs/wikis are his personal opinion and do not necessarily represent the views of his employer(s) or its clients. Read Full Disclosure

MyNotes – The Digital Writing Workshop

Image Source: http://www.heinemann.com/products/E02674.aspx

Update: There’s a Part 2 to this blog entry.

The following are my notes on Troy Hicks‘ The Digital Writing Workshop, an engaging book about revamping the writing workshop with digital tools. Earlier this month, I shared my thoughts about revamping the Writing Workshop but, obviously, I had not seen Troy’s book.  And, reading it was a who’s who of folks I’ve interacted with via the blogosphere (whatever that is) over the last few years. Fascinating.

I have to admit, though, I feel a bit left out. The fault is mine no doubt. I started out a writing teacher teaching a la Atwell and Calkins and then went on to become an educational technologist. Reading these ideas again, but through the lens of technology has helped reinvigorate me in terms of writing. Peter Drucker wrote that 1 of the 3 answers for a second half of life was to start a second career. What joy it would be to start that career in writing, where I started so many years ago!! What a thrill! 

Here are some of the points that jumped out at me while I was reading Troy’s excellent discussion of digital writing workshop:

1. Core principles for writing workshop approach include:
1. student choice about topic and genre
2. active revision (constant feedback between peer and teacher)
3. author’s craft as a basis for instruction (through minilessons and conferences)
4. publication beyond classroom walls
5. broad visions of assessment that include both process and product
2. When we simply bring a traditional mind-set to literacy practices, and not a mind-set that understands new literacies into the process of digital writing, we cannot make the substantive changes to our teaching that need to happen in order to embrace the full potential of collaboration and design that digital writing offers.
3. This book connects the writing workshop approach with the integration of newer technologies such as blogs, wikis, social networks, podcasts, and digital stories.
4. “When writers write every day, they begin to compose even they are not composing. They enter a ‘constant state of composition'” (Donald Graves)
5. “Teach the writer, then the writing.”
6. Recent work through the National Writing Project’s (2006) Local Sites Research Initiative showed that students of teachers who had attended an NWP summer institute outperformed their peers in classes of teachers who had not attended a summer institute in all six traits of writing measured, save one, in which there was no difference.
7. Writing is an individual act mediated by the world around us, an act that we must be constantly conscious of while we engage in it.
8. Newer technologies and social norms are changing what it means to be literate.
9. Concept of being multiliterate means that we need to both teach linguistically diverse students and honor the languages and dialects that they bring while also introducing them to the larger discourse of schooling and the community. Also, it means teaching about visual, aural, spatial, gestural and other literacies that move beyond basic print texts.
10. We can no longer allow them [students] to write just stories and poems; we must teach them the forms of nonfiction writing as well, specifically that of writing on demand.
11. Today, students’ lives consist of a variety of information sources, and teachers need to understand how to teach students to best access, organize, and utilize that information.
12. Through the read/write web tools of social bookmarking and RSS, students can decide what information they want to come to them and how best to manage it.
13. National Writing Project semester long course on RSS readers, inquiry, blogging: http://youthplans.wikispaces.com/Curriculum
14. 4 questions are asked:
1. What are you passionate about and how do these interests fit with our big questions?
2. What voices or sources of information do you think are important to include in your search for answers?
3. How do you become an effective networker and get people with shared interests to value your voice online?
4. How can you use our social networks as personal learning sites that lead to social action?
15. Without a digital writing and networked spaces, certain types of dialogue may have been only possible in a single classroom or by doing a pen pal exchange. It would have lacked the immediacy that an authentic purpose and audience can bring to the task. 
16. “Being a blogger is about what young people do when they sit down to work at their computers. It is about creating a space in their lives to safely extend and explore their online voices with a group of peers, both at school, in another part of town, in another state, and around the world.” (Paul Allison)
17. Teachers often look for ways of fitting new technologies into classroom “business as usual.” Since educational ends are directed by curriculum, and technologies are often regarded by teachers as ‘mere’ tools, the task of integrating new tech into learning is often realized by adapting them to, or adding them onto, familiar routines.
18. This mind-set essentially nullifies any experience that the students have using technologies, such as blogs, in their own ways to connect with one another and create networks…it replicates traditional teacher-centered practices and keeps us from using the new technology in a manner that makes it a new literacy.
19. How does sharing, revising and publishing happen in twenty-first-century writing workshop? In blogs.
20. Teachers can help individual students share their ideas with a wider audience, trace, and build on their ideas over time, and present rough and final drafts of writing in an easily navigable site. Some teachers have helped their students create “blogfolios” of writing.
21. The bottom line is that digital writing tools such as blogs, wikis and collaborative word processors (e.g. GoogleDocs, iEtherpad) can enhance the writer’s workshop principle of good conferring, in which we allow the writer to do most of the talking and guide him to better writing through careful questionning and feedback.
22. When scaffolded as part of your writing workshop, you can teach students how to respond to each other online as well, potentially increasing both the quantity and quality of responses that they may have received before only in class.
23. “Blogging is not the same as traditional writing in that blogging invites writers to synthesize ideas and opens up conversations between writers through commenting on the posts of others and then incorporating those posts into one’s own writing. (Will Richardson)
24. When used as a writer’s notebook, a blog allows students the opportunity to live what Calkins calls their “writerly lives” online, sharing their initial ideas with others and opening them up for feedback.
25. Wikis lend themselves especially well to collaborative writing for a number of reasons. Wikis can grow and develop over time, with additional pages added as a writer (or class full of writers) finds new ways to share her work.
26. 3 different types of collaborative writing (Tori Haring-Smith (1994)):
1. serial writing – individuals add small parts to a large document like a report
2. compiled writing – writers add their own individual pieces into a collection, such as an anthology.
3. coauthored writing – blends the work of many writers into a unified voice 
27. By going to one main web site (docs.google.com), and logging in with a user name and password, students can gain access to all their documents as well as all the documents others have shared with them….just quick and easy access for our students to share their writing with us and each other.
28. Students and teachers can offer feedback in a variety of ways, including:
1. Inserting comments
2. striking through text
3. changing font color
4. highlighting text
29. tracking of revision history is another benefit.
30. We now have the possibility of recording audio and easily sharing it with students via email [Miguel’s note: or moodle, GoogleVoice, etc)
31. In Kathleen Blake Yancey’s 2008 presidential address (NCTE), she encouraged us to not think of students merely as writers, but instead think of them as composers. Multimedia authoring requires students to combine text, images, audio, and video in ways that rely on our traditional understandings of what it means to create good writing.

Well, there’s a lot of other exciting stuff that make the book worth buying! I’ll try to highlight some more stuff in the future, but I’m tuckered out right now! Great job, Troy!

Update: There’s a Part 2 to this blog entry.

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Everything posted on Miguel Guhlin’s blogs/wikis are his personal opinion and do not necessarily represent the views of his employer(s) or its clients. Read Full Disclosure

TechFiesta 2010 – San Antonio

An announcement for folks in and around San Antonio, Texas…my team is presenting at this conference on these topics.

Registration for Tech Fiesta is OPEN with pre-registration to hold your seat in a session.  We will have a keynote speaker, several Instructional, Technology, Business and Student sessions for you to choose from, exhibitors and door prizes.  See the site where information is updated daily.  Feel free to share information with your schools and link to our website at http://www.esc20.net/techfiesta.  

We will have something for everyone in the target audience including Business Managers, Counselors, Curriculum Leaders, Finance Directors, Librarians, Parents, Payroll Directors, PEIMS Coordinators, Personnel Directors, Principals, Superintendents, Supervisors, Teachers and Technology Directors.  

See Highlights Flyer.

Several of your district colleagues have come forward with some exciting and thought provoking presentations.  Some examples are:

Instructional/Technology

5 Moodle Modules You Need to Have

Academic Dishonesty: Digital Cheating in the 21st Century

Creating Responsible Digital Citizens: A look into the San Antonio ISD Cyber Safety Initiative

Designing and Teaching Effective Online Professional Development

Free Web-Based Tools for Administrators

Growing Up Online

iPhone Tips and Tricks

Using Technology in the Science Classroom

Wiki Wrangling

Yes You Can! Provide a Virtual Reading Specialist for Every Student

Business/Student

A Pony Express PEIMS Update

A Trail Drive Through TxEIS (Student)

A Trail Ride Through TxEIS (Business

A TxEIS HR Campfire Chat

Deep in the Heart of PEIMS

How NOT to choose the wrong Third Party Administrator (TPA)

Lasso your TxEIS Budget

PEIMS & Accountability “Using the Data”

Riding Herd Over TxEIS Finance and Requisition

Sheriff Discoverer Has Come to Town

A group of students will be onsite to share how they prepared for the Robotics contest and competed.

Hurry, time is running out!!!  Don’t let this opportunity that is right in your backyard pass you by.

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Everything posted on Miguel Guhlin’s blogs/wikis are his personal opinion and do not necessarily represent the views of his employer(s) or its clients. Read Full Disclosure