Lara Hill's Reflections on Technology and Education

Overall Reflections on National Educational Computing Conference

2009-07-03T23:56:00.005-04:00

National conferences are behemoth by nature and when it comes to technology -- much like waking up on a Christmas morning with way too many gifts to comprehend. This year's NECC did not disappoint. Besides the massive exhibition hall with over 500 vendors shouting about their newest and greatest, there were literally hundreds and hundreds of sessions, round tables, poster tables, and more to view. Steve, Donetta, and I spoke about the long time it took for each of us to just narrow down the field to the sessions that we felt would be best for the district. To review the program in detail, check out - http://center.uoregon.edu/ISTE/NECC2009/program/search.php. I have written separately about most of the sessions I attended in this blog, so I won't go over those again, but I will share some goodies that I think are worth further investigation this year:

Thinkfinity from Verizon (Free) - http://www.thinkfinity.org - excellent interactive activities and lesson plans for teachers to use in the classroom. Very dynamic, searchable, and connected to standards.
Google Apps for Schools (Free) - http://www.google.com/a/help/intl/en/edu/index.html - allows the district to base email and other apps for staff off of the Google tools -- for free. Allows each staff member to have 2 GB of space online, enhanced web-based email, and collaborative documents.
Clicker 5 (Cost) - http://www.cricksoft.com/UK/products/clicker/ - is a cross-platform program that helps pre-rereading / pre-writing students to put together ideas and words to write stories. This looks exciting for our PreK and Kindergarten classes to replace some of the older programs that no longer are being supported. Can also be used with more sophisticated content. To find out more, check out - http://www.cricksoft.com/uk/ideas/using_clicker/index.htm.
Library of Congress' Website (Free) - http://www.loc.gov/teachers/ - one of the best experiences from the conference was a free pass to visit the Library of Congress for a closed evening event. We were treated like royalty with free drinks and desserts as well as free access to the main reading room at the Thomas Jefferson Building. This room is only available to the public about twice a year so we truly were treated as honored guests. There are so many resources available for students and educators at the Library of Congress and even if you have checked out the site in the past, you should take another look.

Here is a picture from the Main Reading Room:

For more pictures from Washington, DC, check out my photo website at http://picasaweb.google.com/lhillclasses/WashingtonDC#.

21st-Century Learning: The New Visionary Administrator Speaks Up!

2009-07-01T08:42:00.003-04:00

The CEO of Project Tomorrow (the non-profit organization that runs the national survey of students, teachers, parents, and admininstrators called "Speak UP!") shared the responses of the Fall 2008 survey with a focus on responses of visionary leaders. From the 2008 Fall survey, Project Tomorrow discovered from the data that there is a growing cadre of visionary leaders whose technology skills and goals are more closely aligned with their students than with their teachers. To view the report, click this link - http://www.tomorrow.org/speakup/leadership21_visionaryAdmin.html. My beliefs about student, teacher, and admininstrator's responses to the survey seemed to be along the same lines. Hopefully, we too can participate in this survey this coming fall.

Microsoft Support for Educators

2009-06-30T15:17:00.002-04:00

Innovative Teachers Network - free resources for teachers - http://www.innovativeteachers.com/Pages/Welcome.aspx

NECC SIGAdmin Forum

2009-06-30T13:51:00.002-04:00

Don Kinezek, CEO of ISTE, discussed the importance of leadership support for sustainable positive change in education. Knowledgeable and persistent leadership is key for success and the new national educational technology standards for administrators (NETS-A) details the characteristics necessary. The new ISTE NETS-A sections are (ISTE, 2009):

1. Visionary Leadership
2. Digital Age Learning Culture
3. Excellence in Professional Practice
4. Systemic Improvement
5. Digital Citizenship

The first standard focuses on leadership that nutures effective and positive change. Leaders who cannot affect change positively will not survive. Digital Age Learning Culture (Standard 2), focuses on leaders' ability to model, promote, and support "rigorous, relevant, and engaging education for all students" (ISTE, 2009).
References

ISTE. (2009). National Educational Technology Standards. From http://www.iste.org/AM/Template.cfm?Section=NETS, on June 30, 2009.

Just a piece of NECC's Exhibition Hall

2009-06-30T13:48:00.002-04:00

This picture shows just a piece of the NECC 2009's Exhibition Hall -- it was massive, with over 290 asiles of vendors. Literally, this seemed to just go on and on...

Wordle - Create Beautiful Word Clouds

2009-06-30T13:26:00.006-04:00

Wordle has got to be one of the coolest free tools out there to see your writing in graphical form. Here is one using the words from Robert Frost's poem, Nothing Gold Can Stay.

Kathy Scrock's Winning Strategies for Information Overload

2009-06-30T12:51:00.004-04:00

Kathy used her easy-going manner to share ways to help manage the extensive amount of information that floods all of us. You can check out details at http://kathyschrock.net/score/. Besides giving details about how to filter email and setting up ways to access your email with IMAP, Kathy also gave details about the "must have" hardware which can make life easier to manage information. She recommended 1G 8.9" netbooks for the best bang for your buck. Secondly, she recommended the use of "very smart" phone. She also discussed blogging, microblogging with Twitter, sharing Google Docs with her whole district.

Teaching Elementary Students with Scratch Programming

2009-06-30T11:08:00.005-04:00

Christopher Michaud, Nebo Elementary
Tuesday, 6/30/2009, 11:00am–12:00pm WWCC 150 B

Christopher used his expertise with working with elementary students to help us digital immigrants how to use the free open source program called SCRATCH that allows students to create games, simulations, and tell stories through computer science and programming. The main information for this presentation is located at http://nebomusic.net/necc2009BYOL.html.

Check out Chris' link at http://nebomusic.net/Polygon_Step_By_Step.html which has the directions for creating a shape painter program in SCRATCH.

This is such an amazing and "tangible" way to teach math, logic and technological fluency! I think this activity alone could incorporate so many of the NJ State Standards.

Web 2.0 Exploration Presentation

2009-06-29T11:32:00.005-04:00

Web 2.0 New Tools, New Schools
Monday, June 29, 2009 - 11:00 am - 12:00 pm

"Technology is the support for learning." - Adam Garry, Presenter

I agree with this 100%! So often, as a technology director, so much of the time is gobbled up with the details of supporting the technology equipment, providing professional development, and dealing with mandates / requirements. Although these leeches are essential aspects of leading educational technology, the focus needs to be on finding ways to nurture student AND teacher learning.

Chris O'Neal, one of the presenters, recommended that it is best to find a tangible task and bring it back to motivate a change. Perhaps find a way to have your building administrators actually give technology trainings to their staff.

eToolKit - http://www.etoolkit.org - Web 2.0 tools and resources are on this website.

The toolkit has resources on data gathering and information such as surveys and data collection assessments. information also includes Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK) is the overlay of technology, content, and pedagogy. Additionally, there are many tips on how to get policymakers behind your vision. Overall, this website provides constantly-updated resources to support movement towards the new / updated version of school. ISTE provided a copy of Gwen Solomon and Lynne Schrum's (2007) book entitled, Web 2.0 New Tools, New Schools.

Tammy's Tech Tools

2009-06-29T08:37:00.005-04:00

Bright and early, Steve Chard, Donetta Marconi, and I arrived for our first real session. Her handout can be found at...

http://www.tammyworcester.com

Tammy's session was very practical and a great way to get started. She started out by sharing the gem called - http://www.todaysmeet.com which allows you to set up an impromptu chat room for free using a web browser.

Highlights from session:

Tammy's Tech Tools

Check out the link for the handout with all of the links - http://www.tammyworcester.com/Tammys_Favorite_Tips,_Tricks,_%26_Tools/Web_Tools.html.
Jamstudio - http://www.Jamstudio.com - allows students to use web to create music with various software instruments and then they can download and used in PowerPoint or other location.
Vocaroo - http://vocaroo.com - allows you to freely create recordings that can be embedded into web pages. Great use for posting to a class blog -- have students come up individually each day and record what happened during class that day.
Jing - http://www.jingproject.com and Skitch (best for Mac) - download the program to then capture screen shots, but instead of just sitting in the clipboard, you can annotate and do so much more. Additionally, this will record your voice and mouse movement. You can also move to Screencast which allows you to embed your video /image or download.
Similar Keepvid - http://www.keepvid.com - which allows you to harvest YouTube videos, KickYouTube helps teachers to download videos to bring into school. When you find the YouTube video on YouTube, in the address bar, just add "kick" before the word "youtube." Then you will be able to download it various formats. This is a huge advancement in working around streaming issues. No downloading, no fees, no extra links.
CoolTools - http://www.cooltools.net - has a Random Name generator http://classtools.net/main_area/template_loader.php/?fruit_machine that pulls up invidual names one by one for students to answer a question... You can use this when you are asking students to review facts as well if you enter the facts in the text box and then "pull the lever" to see which fact comes up for the student to answer. Another option is that you can embed this tool into your blog.

Too much on my desktop!

2009-06-28T00:53:00.001-04:00

Here is a test!

2006-07-19T10:18:00.000-04:00

I have been having freezing and hanging problems on Interent Explorer on my PC. I downloaded Firefox (go to http://www.firefox.com). Much better...

La

2006-07-19T10:10:00.000-04:00

Diigo - social annotation and social bookmarking

Entourage - Outlook Export and Import Script

2005-08-01T11:44:00.000-04:00

Moving data from PC to Mac can be a bit tricky when using Outlook and Entourage. However, I found this script online at http://scriptbuilders.net/files/exportimportentourage1.3.8.html .

I need to install and review.

Lara

Amazing Sites for Tracking Maps, Locations, WebCam, and Photos Tracked by Location

2005-07-23T07:20:00.000-04:00

Technology is constantly evolving and growing. I was googling a bit early this Saturday morning and I discovered some sites that were just awesome.

Google Maps - http://maps.google.com

Mappr - http://www.mappr.com - Mappr takes the tags that users submit with their photographs that they post online to Flickr (http://www.flickr.com). Mappr then shows the photographs on a map so you can search by a location. Currently, they are using zipcodes and place names, but they are working on including longitude and latitude. Nat at O'Reilly Radar has gathered some powerful web sites and tools that are focused on images, tagging by location, and more (http://radar.oreilly.com/archives/2005/07/where_20_a_coll.html). Here is a cheat sheet for adding tags that tie in longitude and latitude from Phillip Torrone (http://www.makezine.com/blog/archive/2005/07/how_to_gps_tag.html).

NJ Elite 2005 - Engaging the Digital Mindset

2005-07-21T12:59:00.000-04:00

Open-Source Software Resource Information

2005-07-11T15:51:00.000-04:00

Open-source software is exploding all over the educational world and for very good reason. It is free! Also, many of the software programs are completely compatible with the epensive protected software.

Here are some links that provide information about using open-source:

1. http://richtech.ca/seul/ gives a directory of open source software by category. Also, you can search through the database by keyword to discover which software is for you.

2. http://richtech.ca/cgi-bin/seul/seulview.pl?recnum=656 - (http://sourceforge.net/projects/helpmeict/) - HelpDesk for Educational environment

3. http://www.brunswickwdi.com/features - - BIE allows you to bring data from various locations and protocols and merge them together to transform data in to information.

CSS Style Sheets Reference

2005-07-03T14:49:00.000-04:00

Here is a wonderful reference for CSS stylesheets - http://www.w3schools.com/css/css_examples.asp

NECC - Debate about the use of Technology in Education Reform

2005-06-29T09:39:00.000-04:00

Does Technology Enhance or Detract from School Improvement Efforts? [Concurrent Session at the NECC 2005 conference in Philadephia, Pa.] - http://center.uoregon.edu/ISTE/NECC2005/program/search_results_details.php?sessionid=7480354
David Freitas, Indiana University South Bend with Janet Buckenmeyer
Description of session: Two educators will debate the effect of technology on school improvement. Based on reality, relevant research, and best practices, conventional wisdom will be challenged.

To access the full handout, go to: http://center.uoregon.edu/ISTE/uploads/NECC2005/KEY_7480354/Freitas_buckenmeyerNECC2005.pdf

According to Freitas and Buckenmeyer (2005), they reveal the following point / counterpoint about the future of technology in education:

Issue 4: The Future
Point
Technology integration is another educational fad. It’s an initiative doomed for failure. When student achievement stagnates or declines, a lack of technology support will likely be blamed. Under the No Child Left Behind Act, fortunately no excuses are acceptable.

Counterpoint
It must be acknowledged that a similar argument was made concerning other technologies, most recently and notably television. Some “research” studies at that time referred to this new invention as insignificant. Proponents, however, envisioned the education’s future through this new media. They argued that since the teacher in the box (television) was every bit as good as the teacher in the classroom, teachers could be replaced with the televised teacher at significant cost savings. Fortunately, this theory quickly short circuited. Few can argue the fact that the effects of computer and related technologies are pervasive and far-reaching. Such technologies are rapidly changing and affect every area in which we live, work, and play. Our graduates are expected to be comfortable and proficient with technology. If schools don’t prepare students to enter the workforce, aren’t they ignoring an important societal expectation? Accountability is one of the cornerstones of the No Child Left Behind Act. Now, the rising student achievement rates of every school, or lack thereof, is publicly shared. Success and failure will be analyzed. What role did technology play? This examination will likely yield more evidence of the link between technology and student achievement. (Feritas & Buckenmeyer, 2005, pp. 11-12)

Lara's Comments
First of all, the budget for next year sent by President Bush completely wiped away all funding for the EETT portion of the No Child Left Behind Act. Unless Congress puts money back in to fund educational technology, then educational technology advocates will declare that failure will be inevitable. Money is not everything, but it is necessary when upgrading school districts to be part of the digital world that is already in place outside of schools.

I would take this even further to state that educational technology when infused responsibly in to the curriculum and productivity of schools will not only help to meet the societal expectation, but also transform the depth of learning. Throughout the NECC 2005 conference, it is evident that educational technology is not about the business of bringing in gadgets that are fads, it is about empowering people - students, faculty, staff, parents, community members - to reach out to the macro and micro world in which they are a part. Weinberger (2005) in his keynote presentation at NECC 2005 addresses just this issue. He asserts that the individual's role in society is greatly expanded by the use of technology such as blogging, podcasting, etc. Evidence of this is seen through the dramatic example of Dan Rather of CBS News who was called on the carpet by a blogger. Individuals can now speak to a vast audience instead of just the confines of their community. Weinberger (2005) goes further to say that knowledge itself has been transformed (for more information, access Weinberger's site at http://www.hyperorg.com/).Today's students will be faced with a world that is more complex than the one that we currently reign within. Educational technology allows students in school now to move past the memorization of rote materials such as the periodic table and in to the ways that those elements can interact in a purposeful way to create something new and wonderful. Educational Technology is society's greatest hope for reaching towards the empowerment of all memebers of society to reach their fullest potential.

Lara

References

Freitas, D., & Buckenmeyer, J. (2005). Does Technology Enhance or Detract from School Improvement Efforts? Retreived June 29, 2005, from http://center.uoregon.edu/ISTE/uploads/NECC2005/KEY_7480354/Freitas_buckenmeyerNECC2005.pdf.

Weinberger, D. (2005). The New Shape of Knowledge. [Webcast of keynote presentation at the National Educational Technology Conference (NECC) 2005 in Philadelphia, Pa.]. Retreived June 29, 2005, from http://www.kidzonline.org/necc/agenda.html.

NECC - Podcasts and Blogs about NECC

2005-06-29T09:29:00.000-04:00

It is amazing that in just a year, blogging and podcasting has exploded! The NECC 2005 conference is covered by numerous blogs - such as mine as well as podcasts from various ed tech leaders in the field. These communication methods are powerful ways to reach out and share the experience and knowledge.

To check out some of the podcasts and blogs - http://center.uoregon.edu/ISTE/NECC2005/glance/blogging.php

Enjoy!

Lara

NECC - Webcasts

2005-06-29T09:26:00.000-04:00

To access webcasts of the most popular sessions from NECC - http://www.kidzonline.org/necc/agenda.html

If you have Windows you will need to have Windows Media Player.
If you are using Mac, you will need the following:
1. Mac OS X
2. Windows Media Player 9
3. Internet Explorer for Mac - does not work on Safari

NECC - Session - Using Moodle

2005-06-28T13:37:00.000-04:00

Use Your Noodle: Learn Moodle: A Free Alternative to Board
https://center.uoregon.edu/ISTE/NECC2005/program/search_results_details.php?sessionid=7486473

Link for Moodle: http://www.moodle.org
Downloads can be found - http://download.moodle.org/?lang=en
Instructions for how to install can be found here - http://moodle.org/doc/?frame=install.html
Presenter's Own Moodle Class Web on Exploring Moodle - http://imp.usd465.com/moodle/ - - create your own login and password
Based on Social Constructivist Pedagogy
Resource for teachers using moodle - http://www.facultyroom.org
Check out this web site where educational developers put updates about what they are doing on their open-source - http://eduforge.org/wiki/wiki/nzvle/wiki?pagename=MoodleRoadmap

Quiz on Attitude Towards Thinking and Learning - http://imp.usd465.com/moodle/mod/survey/view.php?id=246

FREE - Open Source Software
Over 4,000 developers working collaboratively on this project

Experience with Using Moodle
- Every upgrades that the district has used over the last 2 years has been seemless.
- Linux platform is more robust, Mac OS X Server does have some issues, can be installed on Windows Server 2003.
- Can use LDAP authentication for this. There are documents at Moodle - - http://moodle.org/mod/forum/view.php?f=25
- When editing your profile:
- Time Zone should be changed to ours.
- Use HTML editor
- DO NOT autosubscribe to forums
- The question about city - use school name instead of city
- Can filter words out, but because everything is logged, it really does not become a problem

To Gain Support from Staff - sell the modules that are easy and useful for them

Moodle Modules

Assignment
- You can put a bunch of assignments in and they can be scheduled in advance.
- Allows electronic submission
- Online or Offline
Chat
- can set it up so that all chats are trasncripted so you can monitor.
- There is an instant messaging feature.
- Can be turned off
- Chat room is only for your server, your people
Choice
- Allows for polling features. Shows list of names who have chosen each one.
- Can allow for one time response or multiple
- There is an optional new module for questionaires
Forums
- Where most learning takes place
- Can be set up to limit who can post
- Can include rating for the posts (students, and / or teachers)
- Posts can only be at a set time
- Can spell check
Glossary
- creates hypertext dictionary
- any user can submit, or additions can be restricted
- can be turned off for quizzes
- can be rated and comments
Lessons
- The Lesson module is a content creation tool that allows teachers to create a set of linked pages. Each page in a lesson provides information and a question; the next page in the lesson is dependent on the answer chosen by the student.
- create flash cards
- provide content and assess learning in one activity
- Creates a series of linked pages
Quiz
- Create and give online quizzes
- Variety of formats
- Immediate feedback
- Students learn more effectively with immediate feedback
- can include media
- can include equation editing
- Can require password or specific network address
- Option to set time limit
- Variety of statistics provided for teacher
- incredible statistics for teacher
SCORM (Sharable Content Object Reference Model) - standards for learning online
- Look like flash interactive
- Go to http://www.google.com and search for SCORM and moodle
- Check out - http://www.simplelearningcreator.com/
Surveys
- Pre-built surveys about teaching and learning
Wiki
- Wikis allow multiple users to collaborate
Setting up Class
- Can set up separate groups that do not see each other - like different periods of each classes
- Can also have visible groups or no groups
- There are 3 formats - weekly, topic, and social
- Can copy courses and archive them
- Show grades - if you choose no - then just the student will see the individual assignment grade
- Force language could be useful for foreign language class
- Meta course is a group of courses - for example like in a team setting

I created a test class on their server at http://imp.usd465.com/moodle/course/view.php?id=253&edit=on, my login in is my old one with my old pw.

NECC - Session - Bernie Dodge - Making WebQuest Creation Easier

2005-06-28T11:54:00.000-04:00

Bernie Dodge, the real creator of the web quest, spoke about the challenges that creators face when making a web page. He breaks down the problems with creating web quests, the skills needed (both techonlogical and pedagogical). He is posting his PowerPoint. There is a webcast of this session as well - http://www.kidzonline.org/necc/agenda.html.

I wonder about the ways that teachers and students can create web quests that they like and that they created in a library. It would be wonderful to have an easier system for filling out the forms for creating web quests. My thought for our use of web quests is to use Word to create the web quest, find a mechanism for easily saving the links to pictures for the link and then the ability to zip and post to Edline as a web site that it will automatically unload. We need to investigate this further.

NECC - Resource - Vocabulary Site

2005-06-28T11:51:00.000-04:00

Vocabulary University at http://www.vocabulary.com has a rich site that is free with games and learning tools for increasing vocabulary. Primarily aimed at younger groups - K-5. The site is not well laid out and is not very pleasing to look at, but the content is worth the sifting.

Collaboratory Portal - Home for the IP Videoconferencing Workshop

2005-06-27T13:21:00.000-04:00

The Collaboratory allows for media to be shared. Much like Edline. Sources of other web sites with information are valuable.

The PowerPoints are located here.

The collaboratory web site is http://collaboratory.nunet.net