Teaching With Technology

I for one like iBooks Author

noreply@blogger.com (Steve Dickie) — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 04:48:20 PST

If I was a good blogger I'd point you to some specific posts where people talk about all the problems with the end user license and shake their fists saying, "This is Apple at its worst!" I'm late to the game, so I'm sure you've already seen such posts. So, I'll just skip that part.

I think the biggest problem Apple has, as usual, is people's expectations. We really wanted them to fundamentally change the textbook industry, maybe even kill it so we could move into the future. Unfortunately corporate rhetoric and rumors rarely match reality. Ed-tech pundits also seemed to expect Apple to ignore its entire corporate culture and embrace the open source movement. Anyway, enough about that.

Why do I like iBooks Author? I've been playing around a bit with it and it is really pretty slick. I was able to quickly put together some material I'd had into a really nice looking ebook complete with a couple video clips and gallery widgets. Do I think this sort of book will make students suddenly embrace the textbook? No, I do not. However, I'll probably never write a textbook myself, so that's ok with me. In fact none of the classes I currently teach (physics, honors physics, and electronics) uses a textbook.

We have a cart of iPads in our school for student use. I could envision using iBook Author to put together interactive assignments for my students to work through. All of the content could be in one place which would make it usable even when the internet goes down (how many lessons have you lost to the net?). This could work great for sub plans. Do a little reading, watch a little video, do a little work and repeat.

I also envision using iBooks Author to create guides for educators. Right now I'm in the process of creating a set of lessons to go with a kit of materials that can be checked out as a part of the ICCARS Program (in association with Wayne RESA and NASA). I'll be putting all the material I create on the web via Google Sites, but I think I'll also put the material into an iBook. All the participants in the program were given iPads, so this makes perfect sense. I'll put the material on the web as well so people who do not have iOS devices can access it.

It really is not that hard to put the material in two different places with different formatting after its created. The writing and photography are the most time consuming parts of this whole process. After that it's just cutting and pasting.

I've included a page from the guide I'm working on. Now that I know what I'm doing I could easily put together a chapter of a really nice looking ebook in 10-15 minutes assuming the material has already been created. Once the whole book was together I'd probably spend some more time tweaking.

As I think about it I may also create a manual for the teachers in my building. When we got our iPad cart we also got a number of iPads for teacher use. The teachers who got them are required to be a member of our iPad Cohort, we do short monthly PD. I've noticed that many of the teachers I work with like to read to learn. This could be another platform I use to reach out to those teachers while I try to pull them along to try new teaching strategies.

Finally, I could see using iBook Author with students for student created content. I'll probably have students write in something like Google Docs so it can be collaborative. This will also let me watch the writing process and save a complete revision history. The writing is the hardest part of the whole process and wouldn't need to be done in iBooks Author. iBooks is just the final step. It would be nice if iBooks Author allowed students to be able to collaborate on the final layout as well, but I don't think it is that necessary.

Will iBooks 2.0 fundamentally change education as we know it? Really, does anyone expect that one tool created by a profit driven corporation has that kind of power? I know I don't, but the free iBooks Author app will undoubtedly be used to create some really compelling content. Additionally it may prompt other companies to create similar products that may end up being more open.

21st Century Learning Symposium

noreply@blogger.com (Steve Dickie) — Sun, 28 Aug 2011 03:29:39 PDT

Last Thursday I had the pleasure of attending the 21st Century Learning Symposium hosted by Saint Clair RESA at Marysville High School. I had a great time and I got to talk with a lot of great people. The week before was grueling as I was preparing both for school and the two sessions I ran. So, I'm finally recovered enough to get to posting the links to my presentations.

Before getting to my links I wanted to mention the Be Very Afraid Extra that was going on during the conference. Stephen Heppell has been running Be Very Afraid events in England for the last ten years. The original intent of these was to show how all of the money that has been spent on educational technology has paid off. Students showcase what they do and what they've learned with technology. One of the main ideas about these events is what they've done for themselves rather than what their teachers have done for them. The Be Very Afraid Extra on Thursday was the first of these to be run outside of the UK. There are already other such events scheduled for around the world later this year.

Unfortunately I didn't get to meet all the students, but I did get to meet many of them. Among my favorites were a group of middle school students who have become evangelists for Prezi. They're seeking to teach their own teachers how to use this cool tool while highlighting the advantages it has over PowerPoint. Another group consisted of an artist, a composer and a programmer, who together are creating a game for the new Windows Phone operating system. Leveraging the strengths of each to get the job done.

This sort of event highlights the possibilities technology offers our students and how those possibilities can be leveraged into learning and the beginnings of a career. The, "Be Very Afraid," is there as a message. Students often learn all of this stuff without the input of their teachers or the standard educational system. Most of the students presenting taught themselves the bulk of what they needed to know. Learning more from online forums then their teachers. Personally I think this is awesome!

Now, lets talk about me. I led two sessions. One on the creation and use of video and the other on pseudoteaching. My talk on videos and all of my links can be found at video.flosscience.com. There you will be able to find my collected wisdom on how to create videos and how to use videos to enhance what you do in the classroom.

My second presentation was on Pseudoteaching with Technology. My main goal in this talk was to get teachers thinking more about how they teach while focusing less on what tools they're using. Conferences like this one all to often focus on the "T" in "TPCK". I wanted to shift the focus more towards "PCK". You can find my presentation below. I have the feeling that my Prezi without me talking won't make much sense, but you can at least find all the links I gave out in my session. I may try to record a quick summary screen cast of the high points this afternoon. If I do, I'll post it to my blog.

Pseudoteaching with Technology on Prezi

Cross-posted from FLOSScience.

GoAnimate4Schools is cool

noreply@blogger.com (Steve Dickie) — Mon, 04 Apr 2011 03:14:41 PDT

I mentioned GoAnimate the other day and now I've gotten a chance to play with GoAnimate4Schools. GoAnimate4Schools offers both more and less than the free version of GoAnimate. So, what's the difference?

First and foremost I can create student accounts and give them access to stuff I create or upload. With GoAnimate4Schools, I get a lot of the features of GoAnimate Plus. I can upload my own backgrounds or Flash objects. I can even upload videos (up to 10MB) that can be incorporated into my animations. However, I have no way to get my animations out of GoAnimate4Schools.

With GoAnimate Plus you can export animations to YouTube or even buy a downloadable HD video version. In GoAnimate4Schools I seem to have neither option. Right now if I want to save my animations in another form I have to do a screen capture video.

I can create as many characters as I want. In GoAnimate the first character was free, but after that I needed points for the various pieces and parts I'd need for another new character. Points cost money, but you get a bunch of "free" points when you pay for a GoPlus subscription. While I can create lots of characters for free, I have less options for costumes/props. That said, any characters I do create should be available to my students (I haven't confirmed this yet).

So, what will I use it for? I'm not sure yet. I'll probably give students a way to show what they've learned in class in some sort of creative way. But I'll also use it myself. I plan on investigating the ideas presented by Derek Muller in his critique of the Kahn Academy videos. It seems like this may give me a way to make mistaktes in my videos in a more authentic way. So, hopefully students will get a chance to see the sort of missteps they are likely to make.

GoAnimate4Schools.com: Elevator Math by Steve Dickie

Like it? Create your own at GoAnimate4Schools. It's free and fun!

Create your Own Educational Cartoons?

noreply@blogger.com (Steve Dickie) — Tue, 29 Mar 2011 03:10:03 PDT

The other day I discovered another new animation tool on the net. GoAnimate is sort of free. You can create your own custom characters. The first one's free but others will cost a small amount, probably a buck or two.

I made a couple animations so far and it's pretty easy to do. For free you get a small number of characters you can add to your videos. You can have them talk in a number of different voices using the text-to-speech engine, or you can use your own voice. Each character has a number of "actions" they can perform as they move about to tell your story. There are a number of backgrounds to choose from, you can put your characters in a number of different settings as well.

If you want to pay $18 for 3 months or $58/year you get more options of things to do, like upload your own background images and post your animations to YouTube. GoAnimate offers an educational version as well. I applied, but apparently the response has been huge so they're a little back-logged on that front. It appears that this will give me some of the paid features for free.

Anyway, how will I use this tool? My first thought was to use it in a similar manner to how I've used BitStrips. I've used BitStrips to create little comic strips that I've used with my colleagues, but I've not used it with my students. The ones I've created are a bit of commentary on life as a teacher. But I digress. I really like the question-dialog idea presented by Derek Muller over at Veritasium. In his videos he starts by asking questions designed to elicit the common misconceptions held by most people before explaining the concept to be covered. His Ph.D. research shows this to be more effective than simply explaining the relavent ideas.

I wasn't sure how I could incorporate this sort of dialog into my own videos. Going out and interviewing random people (or students) would add an extra level of complexity that I'm not sure I want to do. OK, I would like to do it, but it adds a lot of extra stuff to deal with. Including a camera operator, some sort of hand held or wireless microphone with audio recorder, and more time editing all the extra footage to get just the bits I need.

Could an animated dialog give me the same results? I think it could. Is GoAnimate the tool I should use? This I'm less sure of. It certainly could be, I'll know more when they get back to me from GoAnimate4Schools. Below is my first attempt at a dialog with myself. I created a version of me as close to me as I could. The voice is my voice recorded with the microphone built into my laptop. This, or something like it, may serve as the introduction to a video on the force of gravity and or objects in free fall. This is why I ask a question at the end with no resolution.

GoAnimate.com: Investigating Misconceptions by falconphysics

Like it? Create your own at GoAnimate.com. It's free and fun!
Cross-posted from my science education blog FLOSScience.com

I Really Hate Hidden Pricing!

noreply@blogger.com (Steve Dickie) — Sun, 27 Mar 2011 05:09:22 PDT

OK, I just want to rant a little. A few people from our school are at ASCD right now. One of them sent me an email saying I should check out Bubble Score. So I went to the site a clicked around. The only thing I can do is get a video demo.

From there I went to Mastery Connect, their real product. I have to say, after the video demo of Bubble Score I was ready to whip out my credit card. However, there's no way for me to buy it. In fact There is no pricing information anywhere on either website. Why do companies do this? I just want to know if it is something I can even consider or not and I don't want to have to deal with email or phone tag!

It makes me feel that the program will only look good in the hands of a salesperson. Why not give me a way to really see the whole thing and tell me the price? The fact that it's hidden and only a sales representative can show it to me makes me think it must be not that easy to use or not nearly as cool as they make it out to be. Otherwise why not let the product shine on its own merits.

The other annoying part is that this appears to be a service with lots of parts (unfortunately not everything we need) and I just want to have one piece of it. From the site it looks like an all or nothing thing and it seems they only want to sell to entire schools or districts. Oh well, I guess they don't want my money.

OK, I'm done ranting.

YouTube Lifting Limits - Implications for Education

noreply@blogger.com (Steve Dickie) — Sat, 26 Mar 2011 04:39:15 PDT

Yesterday I inadvertently uploaded a video that was just over 16 minutes long to YouTube. Once I realized what I'd done I was surprised to see my video on my YouTube Channel. So I tried another and it worked to! Last year the limit was raised from 10 to 15 minutes. So, being a nerd I searched for an answer.

The help files on YouTube still list the 15 minute limit so I had to go to Google. This turned up a New York Times article. Apparently, last December YouTube began lifting the time limit from some users accounts. Now, I ask, why didn't YouTube tell me I now have no limit? I found out completely by accident. Beyond that, what does this mean?

Well, now I don't have to stress too much about cutting up ideas to keep my videos short. I'll still shoot for 10-15 minutes, but I don't have to worry if it goes to 16 minutes. Additionally, I can now upload full lectures if I choose. This could be huge for education. I try not to lecture anymore, but sometimes I really need to. Now I can record my lectures and easily make them available to my students. Or, we can record presentations at in-services and drop them on YouTube for future staff development. I've used Blip.tv previously and will probably continue to do so. However, now I can have all of my videos on both Blip and YouTube! Redundancy is a good thing.

As an aside. If your school or district currently blocks YouTube you should ask if you can have your channel unblocked. Often times YouTube is blocked due to bandwidth concerns. If only teacher channels are being used the bandwidth requirements should be much lower. And, if teacher videos are so popular that they cause a bandwidth problem then I say that is totally Awesome and that fact should be celebrated!

Anyway, here's the video that let me make this discovery.

Teacher Created Textbooks!

noreply@blogger.com (Steve Dickie) — Fri, 04 Mar 2011 11:38:56 PST

First I need to say I'm not really a big fan of most textbooks. I think most of them spend too much time and add more and more pages to make sure they have more checkboxes checked than their competition. The other thing I don't like is the price tag they have. One reason for the outrageous price tag is the overhead inherent in the publishing and distribution models of the past. What can we do about it?

Personally, I plan on writing my own textbook. I'll attempt to avoid the trap of throwing everything in and just focus on what is pedagogically important. I can always toss in the kitchen sink on the web so it'll be available to those teachers who want it. Anyway, I've just launched a project at Kickstarter to fund my idea. I'll spend this summer writing it and working with folks to get it into publishable shape.

My current plan is to distribute my text in some sort of electronic format and have print versions available though a print-on-demand service. So, I won't really need money for maintaing stock or delivering books. What then do I need money for? I'll need to hire an editor, pay for artwork, pay someone to do design and layout, and have some copies to give away to reviewers and such. If I make my project goal I should have just enough to get all that done, I hope. Ideally I'll hire people I already work with to do a lot of the work. Most schools have an over educated workforce, why not tap into the expertise all around me. Maybe this could be the beginning of a model where teachers are paid what they're worth by monetizing their own ideas?

How come I'm not approaching a publisher with my proposal? There are multiple reasons, but the main one is that I want to own what I create. I want to be able to post pieces (or maybe all of it) on my website for free without having to get permission. Anyway, if any of this interests you please check out my Kickstarter project.

Totally Awesome Video Abstracts!

noreply@blogger.com (Steve Dickie) — Mon, 21 Feb 2011 04:16:51 PST

This morning I sat down to reed Google Reader and I stumbled across a blog post by John Burk referencing a tweet by Andy Rundquist listing another blog post (I love social media). Anyway the gist of all that social cross-linking is the New Journal of Physics has just launched video abstracts for its articles! It does not look like authors are required to submit videos, but are strongly encouraged to.

So, why am I so excited by this? Well, two reasons really. The first is it gives me lots of ideas for what I can have students do to demonstrate mastery of concepts. Whether it's in my physics or electronics classes. Sure, people have been having students create video summaries/presentations of projects for years. But here are some real world scientists doing it. The ones I've watched are awesome. They can easily serve as a model for students to emulate.

The second reason for my excitement over this relates to the difficulty inherent in reading and understanding real research. I'm a physics teacher and I often have no idea what authors are saying in scholarly articles. So, how can I expect my students to really read and understand the primary literature? These videos offer a window of accessibility for non-physicists. There's a good chance that students will be able to get more out of the actual article when combined with the video. I'll definitely be trying this with my students.

One final thought. What if educational conferences had the expectation that presenters create short 3-5 min video abstract for their talks. How great would that be? I never know which sessions I want to catch. Often just 5 minutes in I realize I'm in the wrong room. It's not that the presenter is bad, it's just the 50 word abstract in the program was too short to really tell me what I needed to know. I think I'll propose the idea for the MACUL conference and create my abstract this afternoon (how come I can't just relax on a snow day?).

Cross-posted to FLOSScience.com

Science Only Studies One Thing at a Time! (re: Digital Natives)

noreply@blogger.com (Steve Dickie) — Fri, 14 Jan 2011 03:09:03 PST

I just got done watching a story on the impact of digital life on the teenaged brain that was on PBS News Hour on January 5th, 2011 (if you're watching the entire episode it's about 27 min in). Anyway, I was not overly impressed (*). The bottom line seemed to be that there is definitive evidence that teenagers' brains are being wired differently because of their use of technology and their reliance on multitasking. However, if you actually listen to what the researchers say, the story is not as clear cut. This is a story that is being presented too early based on research that is still on-going. Additionally, findings from one narrow area are being used to paint broad pictures to fill in gaps where research has not been completed.

I get really tired of this sort of reporting of science. This is almost as bad as the shows on aliens or cryptozoology that present 45 minutes of anecdotal incomplete evidence as proof and then 5 minuties with a scientist destroying the so called evidence.

Anyway, back to News Hour. At one point they see that it takes more of your brain answer two questions posed simultaneously than to answer one. The conclusion, since it requires more of your brain to answer two questions you can't be as good at multi-tasking. To me I say, wait... Now, I'm no neuroscientist, but the questions I'd like to ask one are:

Why does it follow that if I use more of my brain that I must not be as good? It seems like if I was only using the same amount that you could say that as I'd have to split the same "brain power" between two tasks. But if I use more of my brain does that mean I won't be as good? or does it mean I'll be able to get more done?

They also pointed to a study done on "video games" that showed that playing "video games" actually improves eyesight. Yes, as in the sort of eyesight corrected by glasses! It also improves things like attention and multi-tasking. But, the study in question relates to First Person Shooters (and probably one very specific game) and not all video games, but was presented as if it did. Now, there's research here, but then changes related to playing this sort of video game are being used to paint a broad picture related to all technology use by teens. This is not done explicitly, buy is very strongly implied.

Now, I'm not trying to say technology doesn't change our brains. I'm just saying we need to be very careful in how we use scientific evidence. We're told teenagers are better multi-taskers but I've never seen the research to prove this. There are mountains of anecdotal evidence, but this doesn't mean much. There are also mountains of anecdotal evidence that says sugar makes kid hyper even though every scientific study done shows this is not the case (**). We tend to see exactly what we expect to see.

* Disclaimer: I don't really believe in Digital Natives, so I may have brought my own biases with me when I watched this.

** “When parents think their children have been given a drink containing sugar (even if it is really sugar-free), they rate their children’s behaviour as more hyperactive.” Source: British Medical Journal 2008;337:a2769

How much do Credentials Matter?

noreply@blogger.com (Steve Dickie) — Wed, 29 Dec 2010 06:20:30 PST

So, I guess I've been sleeping or something, but apparently Jon Stewart has been shaking the tree again. This time calling out the Republicans on their filibustering of a bill to help 9/11 first responders. Now, I don't want to ge all political here. What I want to address is a passing quote I heard on the the news.

Stewart has been called a journalist by some, but on the news report that I heard only in passing a professor (not sure who, or from where) said Stewart is not a journalist. When asked what it took to be a journalist, he responded that journalistic training was required. He did not talk about what a journalist does, only how they are trained. So in a sense, you can only be a journalist if you went to school to become one. I wasn't aware that there was any sort of journalist certification.

How many jobs today are ones that our students could do in the future without any formal training. There is this great wealth of material available on the net totally for free. I could take computer programming classes from universities such as Stanford or MIT just by downloading them. I could get 90% of the benefit of those courses without leaving my house. So, what do credentials really tell us today?

They seem to tell us only that the holder of them spent the money required to get them. They also tell us that these people ostensibly took the courses and got the training. Now, if we put them next to a really motivated person who went to all the trouble to learn the material themselves... Personally, if I was running a company I'd rather hire the person who trained themselves to do the job. But, how does someone demonstrate they have the skills?

Well, I suppose you start to do the job you want, but do it for free. The web today really makes this a possibility. Want to be a journalist? Start a blog. Want to be a film maker? Make some films and put them on YouTube. Want to be a musician? Do what JoCo did. Want to be a computer programmer? Write some code and release it on the net. The web today is an amazing platform that can allow the best to rise to the top. All you really need is to be good and be willing to work for free for awhile. What better time to do that then while you're in school living at home.

I mean what will look better on a college/scholarship application? "I know how to program in Objective C," or "Here's the app I created in Objective C"? (Monarch Express, created by two of my students)

Now, how do we teach our students to do this? How do we get them to be the entrepreneurs they can be? All you need today to start your own business is a computer, a connection to the internet, and persistance!

Enough with the iPad Already

noreply@blogger.com (Steve Dickie) — Thu, 23 Dec 2010 05:18:57 PST

OK, seven of my last ten posts have been related to my iPad. It really is awesome! However, this is a technology in education blog, not an iPad blog. To that end I've begun documenting my iPad knowledge on a Google Site. As I learn new stuff I'll add it there. If I make get any huge revelations I'll blog about them here as well. I may also periodically post a list of updates here so they'll show up in your RSS feed.

Anyway, I promise to get back to my ongoing investigation into how technology can be a powerful tool for transforming teaching. You can find my collected ramblings on the iPad at ipad.flosscience.com

iPad as Teaching Tool after two months - The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

noreply@blogger.com (Steve Dickie) — Mon, 13 Dec 2010 05:45:26 PST

So, I've had an iPad in my hands for two months now. I use it daily both for serious and not so serious stuff. It has replaced my laptop for almost all of my at home net surfing and such and is the device I never set down while at work. So, what's the good, the bad, and the ugly?

The Good:

Wireless Display - I've been using AirSketch for this and it works pretty well. I've just learned that AirDisplay may fill the bill and may in fact work better than a VNC solution (more on this in the future). In the past I've used a bluetooth Wacom tablet for this, but I'd underestimated the value of being able to see what I'm writing actually on my tablet.
Portable Data Gathering - When I first got my iPad I used Google Forms for data collection. I've switched over entirely to Numbers. When I'm not using my iPad as a presentation tool I carry it around and collect data on my students' apparent mastery of concepts. I still haven't found my perfect tool, but Numbers is the closest so far.
Personal Learning Network - I now consume almost all my news on my iPad. For Twitter I use Flipboard and the official Twitter client. For RSS I use MobileRSSFree and Pulse. I've also leaned a lot of useless trivia by doing crosswords in the USA Today app. The PBS, NPR, and TED apps also give me something to do when noting else is happening.
File Access - I'd been using DropBox for this, but I just started playing with ZumoCast. ZumoCast is primarily designed to stream audio and video from a computer to the cloud, but you can also share folders full of documents. These documents can be downloaded and then opened in other apps as well. All my important teaching docs are now shared and I can have them on my iPad when I need them without having to take up lots of space when I don't.
It's Fast - It's pretty snappy. Everything works pretty well. I've had programs crash, but it doesn't take down the whole system. This may be part of the justification of the Bad and the Ugly below.

The Bad:

Still no Flash or JAVA - There is lots of good stuff out there that I just can't access. Yes, I know most video sites are now working around this, but I'm talking about some really good simulations that I'd love to be able to use.
No File System - Well, no real accessible file system. I could be wrong, but it seems that if I want to use the same document in different applications that each application has its own copy of that document.

The Ugly:

Google Apps - There's still no way to edit a Google Site from an iPad. You can easily add or remove text from a Google Doc with their mobile editor, but to do any real work you need to use the Desktop editor. While you can do this on an iPad the experience is not great. There are some third party apps that can edit Google Docs, but I haven't tried any yet.
Printing - So if I happen to have one of half a dozen printers then I can print? Really?
Projector Support - Why can't all apps share their screen with the projector attachment? Seems like this should be in the operating system rather than in individual applications. If you plan on projecting you should read app descriptions carefully to see if they support it or not.
The App Store - Both good and bad. There are some great apps there. However, I'd love to see what people would do if Apple loosened up their policies some.

UniBoard is Now Free

noreply@blogger.com (Steve Dickie) — Thu, 02 Dec 2010 02:01:25 PST

In the past I've shown off this great program for working with tablets or with a Wiimote whiteboard called Uniboard. The problem was that Uniboard seemed to be dead. There had been no updates or tweets for months (maybe a year). I figured it was a piece of great software that would just fade into non-existence.

Well, yesterday I went looking for it again. I had observed a colleague of mine teaching yesterday and realized that even though it wasn't being updated that he could definitely use it. Well, apparently last week Uniboard went Open Source. It is now called Sankore and is totally free. Warning, the page is all in French. Here's a direct link to the download page.

The free version used to have a nag-screen on every page, it's gone now. The screen-capture tool had a watermark in the recording which is also now gone. I can whole heartedly recommend this program. Whether you need a tool to help present lessons in class or you want to record lessons for reverse lecture you should check out Sankore.

Teacher TechBites ep 019 - AirSketch for iPad

noreply@blogger.com (Steve Dickie) — Wed, 10 Nov 2010 02:27:06 PST

In this episode I show AirSketch a cool whiteboard program that allows you to project what you're doing on your iPad through your classroom projector wirelessly. Basically, what AirSketch does is create a web page that another computer can access. All you need to do is point a web browser at your iPad and then the magic happens. As you write or draw on your iPad the writing appears on the projector. You can be anywhere in your room as long as you have a Wifi connection.

In the free version all you get is a whiteboard with a black pen. In the paid version ($6.99) you can change your pen tool and import pictures or pdf files to write-on/mark up.

Cross posted from TeacherTechBites.com

iPad as Teaching Tool after two weeks

noreply@blogger.com (Steve Dickie) — Thu, 28 Oct 2010 12:18:36 PDT

My main goal for the iPad centered around tracking student progress during class discussions. I've not had much success with this yet. I've been using forms created with Google Docs. These are ok, but not quite there yet. I think I'll need to buy a good spreadsheet program, maybe Bento or Numbers. I like the idea of using Google Forms, as I can easily track how results change over time. Unfortunately they prove a bit problematic when I use them during discussions. It's just not as fluid as I'd like and I can't see the past data while filling in new data. However, I absolutely love the iPad plus Google Forms when I'm scoring tests and quizzes. I just poke the dropdown of student names, check off what they know or don't know and enter their score. Awesome and much faster than trying to type all this into my computer or writing it down on paper (I done both of these earlier this year).

So, iPad as tool for teaching? Jury's still out. I've used it with AirSketch and MobileMouse (more on these apps in the future), but these haven't really changed the way I teach. However, as a tool for personal professional development the iPad will be tough to beat. I've already shown off FlipBoard for getting me back into Twitter. But I've also downloaded a number of apps for media consumption. These include:

NPR - Full audio and news stories
PBS - Has some full episodes of great shows, including Nova!
TWiT - The Twit network is a great place to keep up on changes in technology
NASA - Includes some great pictures, videos, and info from NASA
NY Times & USA Today - I far prefer my newspapers in this form. No stacks of paper to deal with
TED - Great inspiring talks.

Now all these apps are just pulling information I can already get from the web. So, why not just use my laptop? The iPad is a heck of a lot lighter and I'm not tied to a wall outlet. The battery life in my laptop is about 2.5 hours. I have yet to run into a time when I have to charge my iPad during the day.

In addition, it makes a great ereader. It's pretty easy to pull in PDFs, I've been using GoodReader as my app of choice for this. Again, noting I couldn't use my laptop for, it's just more pleasant.

The bottom line is that I've been consuming more media related to education and improving my teaching with the iPad than I was before the iPad. So, the direct impact on my teaching may be minimal so far, but the indirect impacts will likely be large.

Teacher TechBites ep 016 - Tracking Student Progress with Google Forms

noreply@blogger.com (Steve Dickie) — Mon, 25 Oct 2010 05:42:25 PDT

This year I've started teaching differently. I've embraced a teaching methodology called Modeling Physics. The largest component of this style is Socratic Dialog. Basically, we end up having a lot of class discussion where I ask questions without directly giving answers.

I've started using Google Forms to not only track who I've been calling on, but also what they know. So far it's working well, but I'll know more once I get enough data.

Crossposted from TeacherTechBites.com

Teacher TechBites Ep 015 - Twitter and FlipBoard

noreply@blogger.com (Steve Dickie) — Fri, 22 Oct 2010 04:33:13 PDT

So, I got a new toy. It's an iPad. It really has helped me to rediscover Twitter. I've used Twitter on an off for a couple of years, but FlipBoard on my iPad has gotten me addicted to it.

For all the haters out there I need to say it's not about stalking or public exhibition. For me, it's about learning and collaboration. I don't follow people who obsessively tell me what they are doing. I follow people who tweet interesting, relevant stuff. And now I follow them in a really easy to read attractive format. FlipBoard formats my feed in a magazine like format. In short, It rocks! Check it out below.

Crossposted from TeacherTechBites.com

Teacher TechBites ep 014 - Camtasia Mac: Rolling Credits

noreply@blogger.com (Steve Dickie) — Thu, 21 Oct 2010 09:20:40 PDT

Last year TechSmith finally released a Mac version of their Camtasia software. I'm here to say it rocks. I far prefer it to iMovie for making videos on my MacBook. Anyway, I'll be creating a series of videos to help new users figure out how to use it. It really is feature rich, but it does seem to be missing some of the bells and whistles you might have gotten used to in iMovie.

One of these "missing" features is rolling credits. In this video I show you how to create your own using the built in tools.

Crossposted from: TeacherTechBites

Professional Development

noreply@blogger.com (Steve Dickie) — Sun, 17 Oct 2010 04:55:32 PDT

I'd been thinking a lot about professional development lately when I read a blog post by Ron Houtman reviewing an article from the ISTE Journal of Research on Technology in Education (JRTE). So I guess this post is comments on a review of an article... or some such non-sense. It was really the TPCK graphic that caught my attention (saw it in FlipBoard). I've been very interested in TPCK for a last 9 months or so. Anyway, I acquired a copy of the article Ron reviewed and it got the old mental juices flowing.

One of the big bottom lines from the article is that professional development that leads to positive student outcomes needs to be on-going. This is really an echo of other research as well. A lot of the research also focuses on the need for content specific PD. This article mentioned this fact, but really didn't focus on it. Instead it focused more on the technology/pedagogy end of TPCK.

Reading this article this morning made me think about two workshops I attended last summer. One was all about technology with some pedagogy and the other was all about PCK with some technology.

Of the two workshops, I'm fairly certain that the one focused on PCK will prove to be more beneficial to my students. This is due in part to the massive amount of research that went into it's creation. Plus it really did focus in on the relationship between content and pedagogy. Once this relationship was fully explored we then thought about the best tools for the job. When I think back it really looks like it was right in line with TPCK.

Anyway, the point of this post was not to ramble on about the awesome PD I got to attend last summer, but to comment on the article. The article focused on PD that was not content specific. Most of the PD I've seen (or delivered) has not been conent specific. Yet research continues to show that gains in well crafted content specific PD are greater than in equally well crafted content agnostic PD.

So, what do we do about it? Unfortunately, those that are in the best position to deliver technology based PD are rarely content experts, they are Tech Ed people. Conversley, many content experts don't keep up with the latest trends in technology. It seems that to truly craft really good PD for technology integration you need to be an expert in technology, content, and pedagogy. These people are rare and will be very specialized. At the high school level, for example, it's not enough to be an expert in "science" as each subject is as different from the other as history is from English.

So when I ask, "What do we do about it?" What I'm really asking is, "What do I, as someone who delivers PD, do?" Should I only focus on delivering PD to other physics teachers? Or do I continue to develop training for other teachers in my school, even though I know the gains in student outcomes will be small?

References:

Houtman, Ron (October, 2010). Review of Connecting instructional technology professional development to teacher and student outcomes

Martin, W., Strother, S., Beglau, M., Bates, L., Reitzes, T., & Culp, K. M. (Fall 2010). Connecting instructional technology professional development to teacher and student outcomes. Journal of Research on Technology in Education, 43, 1. p.53(22).

iPad as Teaching Tool Day 1

noreply@blogger.com (Steve Dickie) — Tue, 12 Oct 2010 13:50:09 PDT

So, yesterday morning my Assistant Principal put my iPad into my hands. Today was really my first teaching day with it. Tasks accomplished yesterday:

gmail and Google Calendar synced.
Confirmed Google Forms will work on the iPad. You can't edit Google Docs, but you can enter information into a form.
Downloaded and installed a few apps

Apps used in the classroom today:

Mobile Mouse - Turns the iPad into a giant wireless trackpad. I set it up to work with the computer hooked up to my projector. $2.99 for the iPad app, the client app (either Win or OSX) is free.
AirSketch - I got the paid version of this one. It lets me draw on my iPad but allows any computer on the same network to view what I'm drawing. All you need is a web browser pointed to my device's IP address. You can also annotate on PDF's or images. I just open the webpage on the computer attached to the projector and students can see what I'm writing/drawing. $6.99 for the iPad app, but they have a free version.
DropBox - Online storage. 2GB of free storage. I can drag files, like pdfs, into a folder on my Mac and then access them from my iPad (or any computer on the internet for that matter). Useful even if you don't have an iPad. If you join DropBox please follow this link (then I get an extra 250 MB of storage). The program itself is free for Win, OSX, and iPad.

Today I showed a quick animation to help illustrate motion maps to my physics students. I used Mobile Mouse to control the computer while running the simulation. In the morning I had taken some screenshots of the simulation that I could bring into AirSketch. After running the simulation I drew all over the pictures I'd taken in the morning. Overall, it worked pretty well. In general my Wacom tablet does a better job of this, but it's nice to see what I'm drawing on my tablet for a change. I'll need to refine the whole process a bit.

All of the above is secondary, however. The main reason I wanted an iPad as a teaching tool was so that I could carry it around and keep track of students. I've been doing a lot more group discussion this year and it's tough keeping track of who knows what. Or, more importantly what we still need to work on.

I set up Google Forms where I can rate my students on a scale of 1-5. This is a very rough estimate on my part. Do they know the concept? How secure are they? How much coaxing did I have to do? A 5 would indicate the student demonstrated mastery and is very secure in the concept.

I'm not entirely pleased with it, I'll be tweaking this approach over the coming weeks. To the right is a sample of my form. I like this approach, because I'll be able to see who I've called on (and who I haven't) and how their demonstration of mastery changes over time. I can also quickly scan down my spreadsheet and get a rough idea of where the class as a whole is as well on any given concept.

iPad in education?

noreply@blogger.com (Steve Dickie) — Sun, 26 Sep 2010 11:45:00 PDT

So, last spring my Assistant Principal asked me if I thought we should pick up an iPad or two to investigate their educational potential. At the time I didn't see any immediate reason to. Sure they're great for content consumption, web surfing, and the battery life blows away all laptops, but these things only make sense if you have a classroom set or are going 1:1. None of those really justify the expense of buying one or two.

Now, enter this year. Over the summer I spent three weeks in a workshop learning a teaching technique called modeling. You can read reflections of my implementation of modeling over at FLOSScience, my blog focused specifically on science education. Anyway, at the center of modeling is Socratic Dialog. The instructor challenges students to explain what they mean in their own words beyond simply parroting back the vocabulary. In order to really be effective I need to know what level of mastery each of my students have demonstrated on each concept, so I've been keeping notes on our discussions.

I have 120 students who are taking physics or honors physics this year. After two weeks I've amassed a stack of sheets of paper trying to keep track. But I can't really do any analysis unless I spend quite a bit of time entering data. Enter my new idea.

What if I had some sort of device that I could easily carry around my room? One that I could easily enter data in on so that I could track individual student progress. My iPad was ordered last Friday. I plan on carrying it around and using it to collect data as I go. I'm still working out exactly how I'll do that, but that will be easier once I have it in my hands. I'll probably go with Google Forms (assuming I can enter data in forms on the iPad). If that doesn't work I'll likely go with Bento.

I will also be investigating some other ideas including:

Using the iPad to replace my Bluetooth Wacom Tablet
Recording discussions with a note taking app that will record audio along with any notes I take. Like a LiveScribe.
Creation of next generation text books. My electronics website is a start, but it can go further. PDF files are only slightly better than paper.
Creation of iPad apps. I have a group of students who are starting an iOS programming club. A pair of them have already submitted an app to the iTunes store!
Other ideas will come to me I'm sure

I'll be sure to share everything I use my iPad for here. If you know of any educators using iPads or of any other cool things I can do with one please let me know.

New Approach to my Electronics Class

noreply@blogger.com (Steve Dickie) — Sun, 05 Sep 2010 11:41:04 PDT

I've been relying heavily on the web for the last couple years to teach my Electronics class. This year it will be the primary tool. Last summer I taught a virtual class and I've decided to teach my face to face class the same way.

For the most part I plan to have students work through lessons and watch videos I've prepared on the internet. My plan is to deliver all of my lectures in this way. These lessons will each have assignments associated with them that must be completed and there will also be weekly quizzes "to keep my students honest". At first all students will work through the same units, but at some point I'll have options available giving them some choice.

These options will culminate in final projects where students must create something new based upon the skills and knowledge they've gained. I'm hoping this will work as well as I think it can. If so I may pitch a number of new courses that build off my electronics course. These new courses would be run concurrently in the same room.

If you're interested you can keep updated on my progress at my Arduino Education blog. If you wat to see or use my class materials you can find them at arduinoeducation.com All of my materials are released under a Creative Commons License.

Teacher TechBites Ep 013 - Wii-Uniboard

noreply@blogger.com (Steve Dickie) — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 14:12:02 PDT

So, in episode 12 I showed off Uniboard. In this episode I show that it functions with the Wiimote Whiteboard. This really does make it possible to get most of the functionality of a traditional Interactive Whiteboard at a fraction of the cost.

Cross-posted from teachertechbites.com

Teacher TechBites Episode 012 - Uniboard

noreply@blogger.com (Steve Dickie) — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 18:50:46 PDT

Uniboard is basically a whiteboard. That's really all there is to it. I discovered it on my quest to get the coolest parts of an Interactive Whiteboard without the corresponding price tag. At one point I used the Wiimote option, but now I go with the wireless tablet device.

Stuff to Know

Will respond to pressure sensitive writing
Has a built in web browser, but you can only write on static pictures of the pages
Will allow you to record whatever ends up on the whiteboard and audio recorded from a microphone
Can import power point and pdf files, which you can annotate
Includes a number of built in Apps and you can build your own apps to use as well
You can download Flash apps and embed them in your presentations
Free version has a pop-up on every page. It appears every time you change pages, so if you go back to a previous page it returns.

Cross posted from teachertechbites.com

Kahn Academy

noreply@blogger.com (Steve Dickie) — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 02:16:16 PDT

I just saw this yesterday. This guy (http://www.khanacademy.org/) started making videos to help his younger cousin learn algebra. Apparently he didn't know when/where to stop. Now he has over 1200 videos and receives something like 40,000 views a day. This has become his full time job! The implications of this whole story are pretty cool. They're both practical and mind-blowing.

On the practical side we have this huge library of videos we can use with our students. I haven't looked at all of them, but the ones I have looked at are pretty straight forward presentations that get right to the point of a lesson/standard. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that he starts with the standard and then builds a lesson to teach it. Most of the videos are 10-20 minutes in length and offer something a traditional lecture does not. The ability to pause and/or rewind without having to raise your hand and admit that you're "stupid".

On the mind-blowing side we have a couple of things. First is, Sal Kahn's method is totally reproducible. This means you can, if you're interested, create your own videos. Kahn uses a tablet device to write with his computer. You can get one on Amazon starting under $70. I'm not sure what program he uses for writing on the screen, but I've been playing with one called Uniboard, which offers a free version and allows you to record.

Or, if you have a camera that can record video you can also just set it up pointed at your hands and use a pencil and paper to compose your lessons. In any case you too can easily make videos and upload them to YouTube (or some other school friendly site) for your students, and it doesn't really take that much time.

The other mind-blowing aspect is that this guy was able to create these videos and in the process create his own career. Not only will he have donations and ad revenue to support him. I'm sure he'll be doing the lecture/keynote circuit. Yet another example to support Malcom Gladwell's assertions in Outliers (great book by the way). Kahn was in the right place at the right time, has ability (BS in Math from MIT), and was willing to work hard. He leveraged the internet and built a career literally from his own effort and intellect.