OPEN Teacher Talk

Mars Phoenix Lander and Science Education Reform

2008-05-26T02:00:00.010-05:00

I watched in suspense and awe, along with 1500+ other viewers, the Ustream feed as the Phoenix Lander touched down on Mars. Kudos to bencredible's spacevidcast for the show. Like another, I had to think, 1500 viewers? But my reflection was, why not 15,000? I remember as a kid every trip into space was an event. Everyone was gathered around the TV to hear Walter Cronkite or Jules Bergman relay the news from Cape Canaveral or Houston. I was too young to pay attention to the details but I knew this was something great that we were doing and everyone wanted to follow the event. What has happened? It was just these things that drove me and many of my generation to science and math as students. This was a different time. This was a time in which there was a national resolve to make science a priority.
It was a time which supported strong science curricula like the BSCS and PSSC. Curricula "encouraging engagement and understanding as opposed to memorization." Where is that leadership now? Who is going to set the sight of the Nation for something that may require a decade or two to reach fruition? Who is going to banish quiz show science courses for curricula which will give us students capable of handling the technological obstacles before us? Or maybe 2 Million Minutes offers a glimpsed of the reality. To paraphrase its producer It is not an indictment of our educational system as much as it is an indictment of our social system. Excellence in the sciences is no longer a priority for the nation, then how can we expect our young people to put forth the effort to excel? We haven't had a leader to encourage our students in this direction for a long time. I wouldn't think of endorsing a candidate here, but I am, before November, going to listen hard for sounds of that leadership.

Network Diversity Index Redux

2008-04-22T00:39:00.009-05:00

Thanks to Darren Draper for taking a look at a suggestion I had made for network analysis in a previous post. Hopefully this is not a breach in "blog etiquette" , but my response to his comment was rather long so I entered it as a post instead.
Here was Darren's comment:

OK, so I used the Shannon index calculator to learn that my H1 = 0.9088. But what does that mean?

I'm assuming that an H value of 1 means that your population is not diverse - at least not diverse when considering the different kinds of populations assigned (which are arbitrary and subject to bias).

Here's a screenshot of what I've entered (as you can see, I mostly use Twitter to connect with the ed-tech community). http://tinyurl.com/6lupxe

Darren, most biological communities will have a diversity index between 1.0 and 4.0. Your "community", with an index of .9088 indicates, on the surface, very little diversity. This would be what classical ecologists might call a "typal" community, like "grassland". In terms of your network, most of your information is coming from a single "species" called EdTech. Example: An established, mid-latitude ecosystem with limiting resources and most of them passing through a large number of very few or even a single species. The other species in this community, and there may be many, are represented by maybe only a single individual in the sample. You might say "Well yeah, its an EdTech community!' Low diversity in a network, to me, equates with focussed, but low quality (depth) information. Let's say you use Wordpress for your CMS, so you have a number of EdTech people using Wordpress in your network. If you added a few members of the Wordpress Codex community you might also pick-up information that may be of use to you.

Two observations:
One. If we consider this assessment to be correct, then, in conjunction with your discussion of Twitter Set Theory, you should be able to reduce the number of individuals in your network without reducing information content. Your EdTech species has a population of 257 competing for a resource, your time. Assume a 1 in 10 overlap in your EdTech set, you could effectively reduce the number of individuals in your EdTech population to 25-30, increasing efficiency and not degrading information. You might say at this point, "I've come to rely on my connection to more than 30 individuals in this group. How can I eliminate any one?" This brings me to observation two.

I believe your diversity is really higher than reported. I said "on the surface" earlier because I think the problem is in identifying a "species" in our analogy. If all the members in your EdTech population were giving you the same information, competition would have reduced their number before now (my guess is their number is growing). Case in point. Three different species of Anole lizard were observed in a certain tree of a Caribbean island. This couldn't happen because similar species couldn't occupy the same niche for very long without competition favoring one over the other two. Closer inspection revealed that each of them was occupying a very specific part of the tree and feeding on very specific prey in that area. Thus, they were not in competition with each other and were occupying a different role (niche) in the community. I believe closer scrutiny of your EdTech population will really reveal very distinct "species" exist within this group.

Biologists identify species using a key based on a dichotomy (dichotomous key). An organism is assessed as having a described character, which places it into one group or lacking that character which places it in another group. A new character is describe an the assessment continues in branching fashion until the "species" is identified (keyed out) by the set of accumulated characters. I've begun an attempt at this on a wiki but this is a developing idea much like the issue of "tagging". It will take time. One thing that might help is for people to give as much information in their profiles as they can comfortably give.

Of course, most of this is hypothetical and may be based on untested assumptions, but, if networks are going to be an important part of how we use the technology, then I think some metrics need to be established for assessing them.

Thanks again, Darren for the conversation.

technorati tags: Darren Draper, network, Twitter, diversity index,

Network Analysis a la Drape's Takes

2008-04-12T17:42:00.001-05:00

Drape's Takes: Twitter Set Theory & The Wisdom of the Group

Related to my previous post, here is another view of network analysis with specific reference to Twitter networks.

What is Your Network Diversity Index?

2008-03-23T20:27:00.025-05:00

In a previous blog post, I likened my network to a biological community. This was in an effort to provide a means of analysis of what was becoming the source of information in my personal learning environment. For the sake of the discussion I will classify individual (node) of my network as a member of a species. Also, in the case of my network, a species is an organizational construct rather than a genetic one. (See taxonomy in Wiki here).

The structure of a biological communities is very much a function of spatial and temporal interactions. For example, analysis of a non-tropical, climax community would show that it is comprised of very few species (low species diversity). In contrast, an equatorial tropical rainforest with moderate climatic conditions, high photoperiodism and few limits to colonization, show a relatively higher degree of species diversity. Climax communities, then, have a major fraction of the flow of energy/biomass involving very few species where in rainforests, that energy/biomass is not isolated but dispersed.

A learning network with a structure similar to a climax community would have a great deal of its information emanating from individuals of a very similar background thus creating the "echo chamber" effect. Whereby our associations with similar minded individuals creates a conversation whose point of view may be echoed by those around us limiting the opportunity of new/different ideas. The measure of species richness in a biological community (and information richness in our network) may be assessed by creating a diversity index.

The relationship between of the number of species in the community to the number of individuals in the community is shown by a ratio known as a diversity index:

Where D= Diversity Index
A = Number of species
B = Number of Individuals

The problem here is when the number of individuals is much larger than the number of species the diversity index will be very small. This could be corrected somewhat with the following:

Still, very little information about community structure is derived because as long as you have say, 5 species and 100 individuals, your Diverstiy Index will be .50 no matter how the individuals are distributed across the 5 species.

There have been many attempts at refining this index but the one I remember from an undergraduate Ecology class was called the Shannon-Weaver Index (revisionists now call it the Shannon Index).

Where: d = Index of Diversity
s = Total number of species collected
n_i= Number of individuals in th ith species
n = total number of individuals

simplifying:

simplifying still:
The Shannon function combines both the number of species and the the uniformity with which the individuals are distributed among the species present. The presence of both an increasing number of species or more equitable distribution of individuals among those species will result in an increase in species diversity.

For example, consider three networks each consisting of 100 nodes (individuals). Those 100 individuals are representative of 5 different organizational groups (species). Here is the interspecies distribution for the networks:

You can see here that all networks have a total of 5 groups and 100 individuals. Network A (top) exhibits the most equitable distribution of the individuals while community C (bottom) shows the least equitable. While all networks will have the same species diversity index of 0.50 (see earlier calculation), network A has the higher Shannon index.

This may allow an individual to analyze his or her network as it develops over time.

If, like myself, the math makes you wail and gnash your teeth, try the following. Evaluate your network, divide it into groups, give each group a number and determine how many people you have representing each group. Then follow this link to a Shannon Index calculator, enter your the number of people you have in each group, compute and read the value for H1.

I'm not sure of the value of this index on small networks. In ecological studies a random sample of the community is done with a sample size of 100. Also, while this does evaluate diversity and equitable distribution, it doesn't evaluate something like "trust" as mentioned here in a presentation by George Siemens in Dr Alec Couros' EC&I 831 course.

I am indebted to my notes from my ecology class at the University of West Florida under Dr. Gerald Moshiri. I am also indebted to Roger's Online Equation Editor for generating the equation images in png format.

technorati tags: network, PLE, George Seimens, ECI 831,

Network as Biological Community

2008-03-13T23:41:00.013-05:00

Recently, Alec Couros, in preparation for a presentation to his faculty, tweeted the question,"What does your network mean to you?". As a tribute to the vitality of his network, the responses (twice) produced a host of comments (collected in a Voicethread here) to answer the question.

As a self-proclaimed digital primitive, I began to answer the question with analogs to the Ecosystem component of the Biology content I teach. If the internet has become the landscape of our Personal Learning Environment (PLE), then I will employ a Synectics strategy I use with my students and create the metaphor; "Networks as biological communities."

We might define a biological community as all the interacting species within a habitat (or biotope). My learning network is a community of interacting individuals within my learning environment. Now here, I first rushed to consider that each individual member of my network would represent a different species. After a bit of mental wrangling, I realized that was incorrect. I should consider each person in my network as a member of a population which is "a group of individuals of the same species". What defines a species in this analogy and the identification of which species inhabit our "environment" will take some work. (I'm thinking a wiki may aid in this discussion).

Alec utilized the diagram above, which he had developed some time ago, as the visual for the Voicethread. Entities at the perimeter of the diagram (Web 2.0 "tools" if you pardon the expression) are ways in which other individuals in our networks perceive us and interact with us. They represent codes for who we are, thus, in the analogy, our DNA. As is true for our DNA, these codecs are able to be replicated, mutable and adaptive and in light of changes in the environment, some become more favorable than others. For example, where a web page once was the dominant form of expressing oneself, in a 2.0 environment, blogs and wikis are more favorable. Thus, blogs and wiki are selected for fitness in this environment and increase in frequency while web pages are selected against and so their frequency decreases.

This also bring in to question the definition of an interaction. What must occur in order to qualify as an interaction? Is the reading of a Tweet considered an interaction or would you have to respond to the tweet in order to qualify? Consider this, while I was unable to respond to the Voicethread directly with a comment, this blogpost was generated in response to the tweet. Some time will have to spent on categorizing the type of interactions within the network.

Why take so much time to develop the analogy this far? One, to answer the original question for myself. Two, I believe if I can fine tune the components of the analogy, there may be some ecological algorithms to develop metrics for assessing our Networks and Personal Learning Environments.

technorati tags: network, PLE, Couros, Voicethread,

Response to "teacher fear or teacher laziness"

2008-02-12T00:52:00.000-06:00

I linked to Connie Cossar's blog post by way of following Dr. Alec Couros' Twitter links to it and course presentations on Ustream. While I, like Connie, observe few local adopters of the technology , I'm not convinced that neither fear nor laziness could account for so few adopters. You have to assume that the number of teachers she is working with probably represents a poor sample of the population. Yet the number of teachers integrating tech on the order to which she alludes, would lead me to the conclusion that almost all are afraid or lazy. For example, we have 160 teachers at our school. Most are using email, Google searches, and learning Powerpoint. Of that 160 I am the only teacher that has posted a podcast, or utilizes blogs and wikis with students. ( I have taken on a technology learning group of 5 teachers so my hope is that will change). By my calculation then, better than 99% of the teachers at my school are afraid of technology or are lazy based on your criteria. I know this is not true. (Though yes, some are apprehensive and/or lazy!)

I agree, though, that most are "teaching" in their comfort zones. They have established their curriculum and their pedagogy in order to meet the needs (success) of most of their students. This, however, leads to a curriculum which is very inflexible to meeting the needs of all students. The technology they utilize is probably restricted to the technology that was available at the time they developed their teaching style, which, will probably shortchange students preparation for a technocentric future.

After teaching for twenty years I too, as in Mr Shareski's comment, am a bit more sympathetic to those teachers. When the administration tells teachers they are to developed 10 minute focus lessons for each period and teach a 25 minute focus lesson at the middle time block each day in order to prep for the state assessment (as well as teach their prescribed curriculum) well, lets face it, there are only 8 hrs in the school day. Also, in Florida a percentage of a teachers salary is dependent upon student performance on the state assessment. You can see where the state places the incentives.

So, one interpretation is this:
1. Teachers learn early on to prioritize. With the time available; What do I need to do to meet the demands of the administration? What do I need to do to meet the demands of my students? What do I need to do to meet the demands of my professional development?
2. The teachers/educators using technology are the ones that "get it". (But no one "gets it all". A total perspective is impossible. see Trin Tragula and TPV) This is that scattered but entrenched few that always look for a way to reach a few more students. They probably would have been the ones to embrace the "Open Classroom" and "Team Teaching" in the 1960's and 70's had they been teaching then.
3. Most adoptions/integrations are teacher initiatives and as anyone who has been teaching for awhile will tell you, teacher/classroom initiatives are rarely supported. So, unless you are in one of those rare districts where an administrator or IT director is the one who "gets it", widespread adoption of technology will more than likely be a prepackaged CBI.

The difference between now and 40 years ago, is the ability to network. Teachers will no longer have to work in total isolation. Innovation and support won't have to come from a University lab School. Most integration for the time being will be individual teachers, in networks, figuring out the what, the how and the why.

technorati tags: technology integration, Cossar, Couros, Shareski,

Acceptable Use

2008-01-15T04:23:00.000-06:00

My School district is reviewing a new Acceptable Use Policy. (To read the current one, select Information and News after following this link here.) The teachers in training as Technology Learning Group Facilitators were asked to review the policy and read Chapter 7 Online Security from Web 2.0: New Tools, New Schools and provide a response.

The following is the text of my response.

The Jekyll and Hyde nature of school acceptable use policies is tolerated by many, ignored by most. We are willing to suffer the monster at the perceived benefits of the good doctor.

Fear and Loathing

I f the acceptable use is not in toto, then, there must logically follow, disuse and a line must be drawn to portion the two. Where and for what reasons that line is drawn is almost as contentious as the question by whom.

Yet, when clear thinking is set aside and decision making is clouded by fear, well, many dystopian images come to mind.

"And where once you had the freedom to object, to think and speak as you saw fit, you now have censors and systems of surveillance coercing your conformity and soliciting your submission. How did this happen? Who's to blame? Well certainly there are those more responsible than others, and they will be held accountable, but again truth be told, if you're looking for the guilty, you need only look into a mirror. I know why you did it. I know you were afraid."
V's speech to London- "V for Vendetta"

Reacting out of an irrational fear is beneficial to no one.

The statement that a highly restrictive policy is needed to protect the students is based on the faulty assumption that it can protect students .

The Australian government underwrote a national policy to provide internet porn filtering software as a free download to businesses, schools and parents. The $84 million pricetag bothered a 16 year-old computer enthusiast who reported to the Communications Ministry that he had figured a bypass for the filter in 30 minutes. The ministry upgraded the filter software which he cracked in another 40 minutes. Wasteful spending aside, the student , a victim of cyberbullying himself, feared the complacency of responsible parties once the filters were in use.

The National Research Council released a report titled Youth, Pornography, and the Internet, stated that filters "can be highly effective in reducing the exposure of minors to inappropriate content if the inability to access large amounts of appropriate material is acceptable." (italics added)

An Electronic Freedom Foundation study found that with blocking software at its least restrictive settings blocked content .5-5% of the time based on state curriculum topics. In their most restrictive settings filters blocked up to 70% of the state mandated topics. The University of Michigan Medical School found similar results but also found that at the most restrictive setting 87% of the pornography sites were blocked while at its most restrictive still only blocked 91% of such sites.

You might wonder if such highly restrictive policies might be in violation of CIPA (Children's Internet Protection Act) "good faith" requirements for the protection of minors by relying so heavily on filtering software which is knowingly undependable.

CIPA with respect to adults, only requires that it is enforcing an internet safety policy that includes the use of filtering software that denies access to material that is obscene and child pornography (note that there is no "monitoring" requirement for adult use, nor is there a requirement to deny access to material that is "harmful to minors"), and that it is enforcing the use of such filtering software.

Controls v.s Control

David Warlick (cited in the accompanying reading on Web 2.0) in his November 30th,2007 blog post titled "Are we Inside the New Iron Curtain?" recounts a conversation Alan November and states:

" the the United States runs what is probably the most represive education system on the planet, especially when compared with the access to information that learners have outside the classroom. “Students in China have e-mail,” he said. “Do your students?”

No one would argue in defense of China's human rights policy over ours, but on this one issue, maybe there is something to be illustrated by this question.

District policy states:
Access is restricted to certain web sites and certain types of Internet activities by either the District firewall or the filtering service to which the District subscribes. Educational objectives requiring exceptions to this policy can be requested through the Network Systems Analyst and appropriate Director.

When did classroom teachers abdicate approval of educational objectives to a Network Systems Analyst? In addition, CIPA has no language requiring adults to state why they are seeking unfiltered access nor what type of information they are seeking.

Vicki A. Davis (also cited in the accompanying article), as well as teachers in other districts, have the ability to block and unblock sites from their classrooms. She advocates for teachers when she writes:

"We have too much to do to keep throwing rocks at one another! Fighting over filtration causes resentment, inefficiencies, and frustration. There are valid points on both ends of the filtration discussion, however, the bottom line is this… student learning.

Student learning…

Student learning…

Not, "it needs to be easy for a technology administrator to manage."

I’m sorry, but classrooms are tough to manage too."

Walled Garden or Stockade

District Policy States:
All content must be stored on the district’s web server unless the services of an Internet- based application service provider are required and cannot be duplicated on the district’s web server. All use of Internet-based application service provider sites or enhancements must adhere to the district web site guidelines and are subject to the review and sanction of the District.

This throttles many of the collaborative and asynchronous tools presently available. Without saying social, networking sites are out, but also many professional and learning network sites as well. Voicethread, Skype, Yugma, Googledocs , all blocked. Most sites which serve educators by hosting blogs, wikis and podcasts would be banned under this stipulation.

This is probably one of the most troubling (and baffling) of the policy issues.. Teachers anxious to leverage the technologies to their greatest potential will develop these devices outside of the confines of the network. Instead of school equalizing opportunity, a new segregation arises, those with access outside the school network and those without. We might want to add this variable in our analysis of student achievement data.

Working Together

Involve all stakeholders in the planning and decision-making process in regards to developing an acceptable use policy which provides an balance between protection and access which is appropriate to the level of the user.

Educate and assess students, staff and parents on the ethical use of the internet and make them accountable. Practice and model acceptable behaviors.

Provide dedicated logins for students.

Convey a sense of trust but provide an appropriately measured response for willful and malicious violations to the policy.

Provide distributed access and distributed filtration which allows a level of control and access commensurate with the user.

technorati tags: acceptable use,

Access Denied

2008-01-14T17:28:00.000-06:00

After 20 years, I was ready to quit teaching upon returning to school this year.

Here's the story.

On a somewhat primitive level, I was fairly successful with setting up a few technology resources during the 06-07 school year. I worked up a few blogs, experimented with wikis and incorporated the Interwrite SchoolPad into classroom use. I had developed my AP Biology curriculum as a Moodle course on the server of another school district in my state. Though the "Read-Write" scales were still stacked in favor of "Read", I was making progress.

I had worked over the summer to make some additions (and deletions) to those things I had implemented. It was going to be a great year!

I had also decided to preach the gospel of technology and signed-up to be the facilitator of a Technology Learning Community at my school. It was there, in my facilitator training sessions that I began to sense trouble in paradise. Some of the things the district level people were saying had ominous tones. Changes that the district was beginning to implement.

While we were "out" (summer break), the district's IT department had decided to enforce the Technology Acceptable Use Policy.

It wasn't until we got into preschool and I began working on the computer that I realized the extent of the changes.

A new server had been put in place over the summer. Four of the seven RSS feeds to my pageflakes page were blocked. My blogs that had been established in the previous year were blocked. I received word that because the district was going provide a server to allow our school to pilot Moodle courses this year I was not allowed to access my Moodle course on the neighboring school district's server. ( We just finished 1st semester. No sign of the Moodle server for my course yet!)

What a start!

I thought, okay, maybe if I could work with the teacher's in my Technology Learning Group (TLG), we could become a united force to shine light on this otherwise dark and dismal world in which we were operating. ( You have to understand, no one blogs, wiki really is a foreign word and aggregators and RSS feeds, I don't think so) No such luck.

I prepared a Voicethread on "Asynchronous Learning Environments" to introduce my group to Skype, Twitter, Yugma, GoogleDocs, etc. I also decided to share the presentation with my district level trainers. I guess that was a mistake. I received an email to say that "these are very interesting ideas and has caused a great deal of conversation at the District level." Two days later, all of these services were blocked. VoiceThread! GoogleDocs! I was floored. All of these were in violation of the new Acceptable Use Policy.

I was ready to throw in the towel on the TLG. If the technology department didn't support technology what hope did I have. The problem: if I quit as the facilitator of the group, then the group members don't get the hardware they were promised for signing on. I decided to move ahead.

In 2005- 2006, a technology-minded AP bought an OS X server for our school. The idea was to provide streaming content, web services, etc. I put in a request to have web services enabled in order to serve up podcasts. Well, our school has had 5 tech coordinators in the last six years. So, every year the request is resubmitted and the task goes undone. This year I place the request hoping that I could introduce my teachers to blogging (OS X server has a blogging application based on Blojsom). I received a reply from the district saying that they are no longer supporting the OS X server and because it is 3 years old it will be disposed of. The twisting of the blade occurred when I read the note further. That blogging and podcasts for teachers will only be supported within Moodle and that server was on order at this time.

Anybody need a Biology teacher?

technorati tags: acceptable use, technology,

Communication and Flat-Classroom Projects

2007-07-29T17:22:00.000-05:00

I was inspired by a post during the school year at Julie Lindsay's E-Learning Blog. Julie, Vicki Davis, a number of educators and their students have been engaged in the Horizon Project. A cursory explanation of the project is that it is a multi-classroom student collaborative to develop a wiki on emergent technologies.

The concern was raised regarding the confusion students were experiencing from alternate spellings for certain English language words. My original comment amounted to 'Don't worry about it, the students will benefit from figuring it out themselves' and I linked to an article I had read about other young students here.

While to me, alternate spellings seemed only mildly problematic, it may be a sign of some issues yet to arise. As I began to plan for my own flat classroom projects, what other communication concerns do I need to address as learning moves from immediate to asynchronous?

This post (and probably a few more) represents a reflection on my learning and should not be confused with a treatise on communication theories. I have been greatly enlightened by a series of essays here. They represent introductory concepts but I believe most educators will find them interesting reading.

A General Model of Communication

I first came across Shannon-Weaver when our Marine Research students were trying to find a way to compare biodiversity data gathered from a number of communities. The Shannon-Weaver Biodiversity Index came out of the work Claude Shannon and Warren Weaver did for Bell Labs in the 1940's.

While the original research had nothing to do with biodiversity, it had everything to do with improving the communication of information. The initial communication model came out of an effort to reduce mechanical noise, or interference, from the information-carrying signal in telecommunications. (Bell Labs? Telephone? Hello.)

Their original model proposes that all communication systems include essentially 5 parts:

an information source which produces the message to be communicated
a transmitter which converts the message into a signal
a channel which is the medium used to transmit the signal
a receiver to reconstruct the message from the signal
a destination which is the intended target of the message

Mechanical noise might be generalized as any source which restricts, degrades or otherwise interferes with the integrity of the original message. While noise can be introduced at any point in the model, we are considering, in this post, interference whereby the signal received is not identical to the signal transmitted.

So, if we were to assign the 5 essential elements of a communication system to a simplified model of a flat-classroom project it might look like this ....

... and the noise addressed by Shannon-Weaver would be introduced inclusive of components 2, 3 and 4. The analogous noise in a flat-classroom system is ultimately the result of a mismatch between the operations of the transmitter and the receiver. The question is then, "what noise sources might we encounter in our system?"

A short list might include:

Bandwidth
Operating Systems - not so much platform but the version of the OS could impact item 3
Browser incompatibility- different ways browsers display mark-up, plug-in availability for handling media files.
Filters, Filters, Filters!

Take heart! These problems are surmountable.

Addressing these issues will require a good working relationship between the classroom teacher and the IT person (people). While I know that there are some "IT departments that s**k", (Call me old-fashioned, but I don't let my students use that word either.), I personally found people able and willing to support what I tried to do this year. Network filters are the biggest roadblocks to this type of project. I wish I had more access to directly handle this problem. As it stands now, there is a request and review process in order to have a site unblocked. The positive side is that, to date, I have not been refused a request.

So, establish a communication link with someone in IT.

While Shannon-Weaver is a good place to start a discussion about communication systems and flat-classroom projects, there are some limitations in its strict application.

It's obvious linearity.
It, ideally, addresses the technological aspects of communication and thus...
...It operates irregardless of the meaning contained within the signal (message).

Shannon-Weaver was not inordinately concerned with the communication of intent, purpose or meaning. Yet, this is really at the core of our flat-classroom activities. Noise, in this case semantic noise, is not introduced because of a mismatch of technologies, but because of a mismatch which exists between the source and the receiver. (Items 1 and 2 in Figure 2). Such as occurs with different spellings for the same word.

Ahh.. now we have finally gotten to the original prompt for the post, but I think that topic will have to wait for next time.

technorati tags: Horizon Project, flat classroom, K12, Shannon-Weaver, communication,

"Online learning earns a net gain"

2007-04-16T16:45:00.000-05:00

This was the headline for an article that appeared in my local newspaper. An online version of the article can also be found here (Niesha Lofing, McClatchy News Service). I was wondering how long it might be before the reporting of a teacher using the internet in their classroom is no longer "news." To those outside of the classroom, it must look as if we are late to the table of information technology. From the viewpoint of an administrator:

"There is definitely a trend in the educational community at large of using the Internet in the classroom," said Bart O'Brien, superintendent of the Placer Union High School District.

So, how long would it take before things really begin to change? The changes needed seem to be painstakingly slow. Will I see “School 2.0 “ in my lifetime? Is a "trend" going to be enough to affect the changes needed? How long before comments like the one quoted from the principal are no longer newsworthy?

I do believe the reporter is looking in the right place, the classroom. The agent of change will most likely be the classroom teacher. Will there be an evolution to Teacher 2.0?

So, I began to think about it terms of what I teach, biology, and how things evolve. As the saying goes, individuals don’t evolve, populations evolve. Biologists look at the changes in frequency for a particular allele (form of a gene), say a, in a population normally at equilibrium for two alleles, say A and a. If the allele frequency in the population remains stable from generation to generation, then the population is not evolving for that allele. There is a principle known as the Hardy-Weinberg rule, which describes what it takes to maintain a stable allele frequency in a population. The H-W Rule states that the allele frequency will remain stable if ; 1) there are no mutations, 2) the population is infinitely large and is isolated form other populations, 3) if mating is random with respect to alleles and 4) if all individuals survive and reproduce equally.

If we consider our population to be the population of classroom teachers and our allele to be behaviors which include technology in the classroom. Now the question is, will the population of classroom teachers “evolve” into teachers using technology like that which is implied in the term Web 2.0.?

Let’s assess this question In light of the H-W rule,

1) A mutation. A change in the allele (behavior). Assuming, as in nature, mutations don’t start from scratch, they are small changes in established alleles. What could cause a teacher utilizing Web 1.0 to mutate into one to using Web 2.0? How about Did You Know? It has already gone viral! Viruses are known agents of genetic change.

2) An infinitely large, isolated population. The population of teachers is large, but certainly not infinite. The idea of isolation, in digital terms, is beginning to be unfathomable. The world is flat!

3) Random mating. The fact that teachers on the web seek out other teachers on the web suggests that there is selective “mating”. There is a deliberate and directed coupling of individuals and ideas. This is not random.

4) Survival. Well, this one I’m not sure of, yet. If there is no survival advantage to individuals with the mutation, then items one, two and three have no consequential effect on the frequency of the allele. The mutation dies with the individual. The change in behavior, strategy, pedagogy will have to make the teacher better suited to survive in the changing environment of education. What selective pressures are going to be acting on this mutation once it is introduced into the population? The future needs of our students? The school of 2.0? 2020 Vision?

This last item really is driving many discussions. It is also going to exert the greatest selective pressure on our analogous “allele”. As we do now, we will continue to see “Teacher 2.0” pop-up in the population in a generalized form, utilizing a variety of 2.0 tools. Eventually, as “School 2.0” (our environment) establishes itself, it will begin to exert pressures which will probably create new niche species from this original population. The problem is that in biological situations this change takes a long time.

How long? I’m not sure.

Okay. Well at least I remain hopeful

technorati tags: Did You Know? 2020 Vision School 2.0 Teacher 2.0

Worth the Risk

2007-03-30T00:25:00.000-05:00

The recent assaults on Kathy Sierra only underscore the importance of teachers in promoting acceptable use of the internet and exposing the insidious nature of cyberbullying.
I have been teaching science for 20 years . Risk assessment and safety are topics discussed the first week of every school year.
Let me tell you, the science laboratory is a dangerous place and the potential for bodily injury or worse is present. Yet we allow, dare I say, encourage our students to participate in laboratory activities every year in our science curriculum. Why? Risk/Benefit assessment. The risk of having students participating in properly operated and maintained laboratory facility as part of a high school course of study is far outweighed by the benefits of inquiry that can only be attained by a hands-on lab experience.
Are there concerns? Yes, but students are instructed in proper procedures for safely conducting themselves in the lab and then monitored throughout the activity.
Have the safety issues changed over the past 20 years? Yes.
Do we close down high school lab facilities as new safety issues arise? No.
There is a deliberate and collaborative effort on the part of the science teaching community to develop and communicate new protocols to allow students to continue working safely in the lab.
For example, during the 1980's, concerns were raised about the risks of AIDS infection during the blood typing lab conducted in most high school biology courses. The protocol changed such that a school or volunteer nurse would conduct the bloodletting step in the procedure. Later, as the risk of hepatitis and other blood borne pathogens became more likely, the Florida legislature halted the use of any human tissue, including blood, in the secondary laboratory. Did this stop the activity? No. The intervening years saw the development of blood substitutes and synthetics so that today, students still conduct the lab procedure. Some might argue that something is lost in the student not determining their own blood type, but the lab skillset is still practice and assessed.
Now a new risk emerges, exposure of our students to cyberbullying.
I believe the call to act (Vickie Davis, Andy Carvin)in response to this issue of cyberbullying will prove more effective than the call to remain silent (Robert Scoble). As in the case of lab safety, together we can develop the protocols which establish the behaviors for our students to engage the internet safely.
As for being on the cutting edge, I will paraphrase a Boy Scout mantra. There is no safe way to swing an axe, but there is a safer way.

2007-03-23T16:14:00.000-05:00

John Seely Brown

In a correspondence with Darren Kuropatwa, he indicated he had most recently been influenced by the work of John Seely Brown and his description of the "atelier learning" in the core academic areas.

The following represents my first impression from a limited review of his work.

I think, therefore I am.

I participate, therefore I jam!

"Much of our knowing is brought forth in action, through participation -in the world, with other people, around real problems"
John Seely Brown "Growing Up Digital"

2007-03-21T15:27:00.000-05:00

If I Build it ....
I was contemplating how I was going to raise my students' awareness of the potential of the class blog if they don't come to it. I am taking a big gamble here devoting time and resources to this endeavor. I've just plowed under a significant portion of my cornfield. Will they come?
Then I downloaded the slides presented in a panel discussion by Kathy Sierra at SXSWi.
While I rarely like the application of business models to education, the Seven Blog Virtues (for a Global MicroBrand) are keenly appropriate.
Sierra writes:

...a way of thinking about blogging for the purpose of building a Global Microbrand (whether the brand is you, your product, a cause, etc.).

I think, at least in the beginning, I am trying to sell my students on the idea of coming the class blog . In this sense, then, the Seven Blog Virtues are an imperative if I am to entice them and sustain their interests.

Global Microbrand Virtues: (from session transcript by Laura Moncur)

Be Grateful: MOST important. Every moment people give us attention, it’s a gift. I never stop being grateful. It’s REALLY a gift.
Be Humble: When I look at someone’s blog, it’s all about you and that isn’t really giving something back. Our job is to make people feel better about themselves in a legitimate way. Give them a gift.
Be Patient: It takes time for things to grow. We just wanted to build a blog, give what we can give, help people and respect the gift of attention.
Be Brave: Grow a thicker skin. As you become more popular, the critics will come out. Don’t have death by risk aversion. If you’re doing something that people love, then there are some people who are going to hate it. You don’t want EVERYONE to hate you.
Show Respect: If I can just give something back, it gives them respect for their time. Give them superpowers.
Be Generous: Give away whatever knowledge that I have. Give things away. If you can teach someone how to do something, then they will be better at what they can do.
Be Motivating: Put someone that someone else wants to say out there. Talk to the BRAIN not the mind. Include pictures.

As I turn the blog over to the students (after all, it is their blog), I hope I will have modeled the virtues well as they develop their own voice.

2007-03-09T23:05:00.000-06:00

Teaching, Learning, Teaching, Learning...
Just because I haven't written about my progress doesn't mean I haven't made any. I guess the products of my learning will have to bare witness to my journey. A great deal of credit goes to the talented contributors to the K12 Online Conference this past October. I encountered more talent in this workshop than in all my 20+ years of workshop attendance. The number of workshops and the asynchronous nature of the conference provided me with an unparalleled opportunity in educational technology.
My first year of teaching AP Biology afforded me a situation for developing a Moodle Course. Except for the external blog we have for the course, the content is primarily managed in Moodle. I've tried to use as many different modules as possible (chat, discussion, wiki) as I increase my proficiency. What has been best, is it seems to get around the filters the district has in place for social web tools. We have been able to work in the chat module as we develop the wiki content. Though there have been a few bumps, Moodle has performed well.
Eldridge and Gould describe a model of Punctuated Equilibrium to explain the sudden appearance of forms in the fossil record. I guess my evolution was punctuated as of last week when I left my mark in the digital fossil record. I have been gathering all of this knowlege and these tools to transform the learning interface for my students. I was ignited by several recent posts to Darren Kuropatwa's blog. The current addition of a SmartBoard to his class had me wondering about the Interwrite SchoolPad that I had started using last year. He had mentioned uploading the day's SmartBoard content into a slideshow on SlideShare. After loading the latest version of the Interwrite sofware, I realized I could export my pages as a .pdf to SlideShare and paste the slideshow into a classroom blog. So now I needed to activate blogs for each of my classes. A couple of emails to the district's IT department had my blogs lifted from the filter (at least for reading, editing from school will be a problem I think.) Here is one result. This seems like a good time to hit the School Advisory up for the funds to purchase 4 more SchoolPads to pass among the students.
Now, Podcasting.
I have been toying with podcasting for some time, but the fearless nature with which Mr. Kuropatwa wrote about podcasting challenged me. So, I took the bait. My first podcast was was a microphone on the teacher desk and me lecturing an introduction to the classical genetics of Mendel. Nothing great but there it was!
So, in the last two weeks I've redesigned my website, posted a podcast, established four classroom blogs (with slideshows) and one master blog for myself.
None of this, though, would have been possible except for the fact that someone took the time to share their experiences with me (us). I am grateful.

A Difference: SmartBoard Day 1

2006-10-07T14:35:00.000-05:00

Podcasting and Skype in the Classroom
Personally, the number of podcasts that pique my interests is overwhelming. I understand the strength of podcasts as a means delivery.
I am also in awe of teachers who have successfully developed strategies to use podcasts as products to assess student mastery. e.g. content reports, oral histories, spoken word poetry to name a few.
Realizing that the number of students entering into post secondary science instruction appears to be at a national low, I would like to have my students suggest a project to find out how scientists became scientists. and how (or if) they apply the "scientific method" they learned in high school to what they do each day.
Most high school science courses introduce the scientific method early on as a series of logical steps a scientist uses to determine the cause for some observable phenomenon. Abductive reasoning produces competing hypotheses, one is tested by a controlled experiment, data is collected, analyzed, results are reported and conclusions are drawn. (You remember, don't you?)
Do scientists remember being taught the scientific method?
Do practicing scientists follow this method in their daily pursuits?
What, if anything, in their high school experiences lead them to become a scientist?
My plan is to have the students identify a number of prominent , practicing scientists in the field of biology today, people they read about in the news, award winners, people listed in their text. Then, try to develop contacts with them in order to set-up skype conversations to answer a set of questions like the ones above.. The conversations can then be mixed into podcasts for publishing.
Maybe they will realize that scientists are people. And while it may take work and desire, anyone of them can develop the skillset necessary to be a scientist.

2006-09-11T17:04:00.000-05:00

Teachers Not Using Technology Must See This!
I know I have neglected my blog for a number of weeks now (I have the entries in my non-digital journal), but I could not let this go without sharing this with anyone who may stumble across this blog. Did you Know? is a fantastic powerpoint presentation on an equally fantastic blog called The Fischbowl. Please link over to this site, watch the slide show and as soon as you pick your jaw off of the floor, leave a comment.

2006-07-27T12:30:00.000-05:00

AP Biology Wiki
ISTE provides a series of podcasts from NECC. One of the speakers, Dan McDowell of West Hill High School, addressed creativity in the use of WEB 2.0. Dan really focussed on exploiting the strength of of wiki pages , i.e., collaboration. One of the things he does is to develop a wiki for the essential questions provided by the College Board for his AP curriculum. This is something I also plan to do with my AP Biology class this year.
I'm not sure how Dan organized his wiki, but my plans are to generate one page devoted to each topic. The relevant essential questions will be listed on each page. The questions will be divided among the members of the class. Each student will be required to provide the primary entry for a certain number of questions and review and revise a certain number of entries. Points will be awarded according to schedule similar to the one mentioned in the previous post.
Access to the wiki will be restricted, at first, to my students. After the assigned topic is "complete" (never in a wiki), it may be opened for public revision. My hope is that this will produce a permanent set of review "sheets" which will lessen the need for cram sessions as the May test date approaches.

2006-07-21T12:38:00.000-05:00

AP Biology, Blog or Wiki?
I was listening to a podcast of Alan November speaking at NECC. Several things he said resonated my own thoughts as I decide how to effectively integrate the Web 2.0 with my curriculum. Because the medium is different, the assignment that utilizes the medium has to be different as well. If pencil and paper could be used to complete the assignment, why use the computer? If the assignment can be cut and pasted to completion in a few minutes, of what value is the exercise to the student?
For example, this will be my first year teaching AP Biology. I understand the time constraints will require that a lot of the work on the part of the student to be completed outside of class . One idea I had was to post an essay question online and have the students collaboratively develop an answer. There were a few things I needed to be able to do with this assignment.
First, make it a true collaborative effort. Not the usual group project where one person does most of the work and the rest of the group sits back and takes credit. Therefore, my second need was to verify student input and award credit. Maybe 3-points for an original and correct content contribution, 2-points for a content correction or clarification and 1-point for grammar/syntax correction.
The dilemma then, do I use a blog or a wiki? I understand the collaborative nature of wiki pages and originally had thought ot employ this tool. But, after reading FAQ's at the PB wiki site, I decided to use a blog instead.
The PB wiki does allow for verifying which student modifies the page and when, but unless I search back through the various permutations of the developing page, I won't know what content the student contributes.
So, I've decided to use a blog. It will be a restricted one, accessed only by my students with an assigned username. The comment section will be used to verify what content was actually contributed. I would also like to set up the blog with an "I'm on-line" indicator in the sidebar so that students may chat as they develop content.
Next post, an idea for a wiki!

2006-07-05T10:56:00.000-05:00

Blog Facelift.
I've revamped the blog a bit as I learn a little more about CSS. The basic template has been changed, for better or worse. I like the look of this one.
I've copied a few lines of code to add a some functionality. Like tags. Also methods of contacting me; Yahoo mail as well as Skype and Yahoo Messenger status buttons. There is also a subscribe button ala Feedburner. (That is a little scarry. Thinking that someone may actually find this blog and read it!)
Of course, the goal is to use these skills to affect more efficient communication about what is going on in my classroom. As the school year starts, I will need to set up a separate blog for my students and parents and keep this one for my own professional development saga.

Technorati Tags:

2006-06-10T23:02:00.000-05:00

Student Assessments in Science
Okay! Enough already! The results of student performance on various assessment instruments for science is not so good. In fact, it is poor by most standards.
I'm not going to spend kilobytes defending the (science) teaching community and education in general, there are several capable voices at this already.I'm not going to make excuses fro myself, effective or not, I work diligently at my classroom responsibilities (and more) all year.

What I am going to do is investigate and reflect on strategies that might make more effective use of:
1. My time.
2. My time (50 mins) each day in contact with my students.
3. My students time spent engaged with the curriculum.

My time. As it stands, 7:15 - 2:45 five days a week. Each day divided into five 50 minute teaching periods, two 50 minute planning periods, 25 minutes for lunch and a total of some 45 minutes for announcements and general mayhem in the hallways.

My time each day with students. Directly, each student sees me for 50 minutes each day. Divide that time among an average of 31 students in the classroom, well, you get the point.

My students time spent engaged with the curriculum. Your guess is as good as mine. From very little (for most) to a great deal (for a few).

To this end I will employ the following:
Learning Theory . As a science teacher, to disregard the information from valid, systematic research on learning and the brain, would be somewhat hypocritical.
Effective teaching models - research based strategies for instruction.
This thing we cll Web 2.0. As much as anything, I believe, while not a panacea, digital technology will unite my objectives for time management with my goal of increasing student achievement in science.

2006-05-03T21:08:00.000-05:00

The Legislation That Would Not Die!
Sorry, but this time of year I keep one ear open for legislative action on educational issues.
It looks like I spoke to soon. Even though the Senate defeated legislation for gutting the class size ammendment, the House narrowly passed a bill to put a new ammendment on the ballot.
Then, as per title, Senate republicans pulled a fast one to reintroduce voucher legislation already voted down earlier. Democrats, in response, began stalling the session by having bills read into the record (What if they call for a reading of the budget?). It's alive! It's alive!

2006-05-02T23:32:00.000-05:00

..And Then There's the A++ Plan
It appears that the democrats, and more than a few moderate Republicans, were able to fend off another of the Governor's "devious" plans to weaken the class size ammendment.
Several legislative issues still remain unsettled; a voucher ammendment; funding for the Technology Tools for Teachers (currently unfunded); and the A++ plan which includes Middle and High School reforms.
The Florida DOE's Committee for High School Reform Task Force has sent to Gov. Bush a list of recommendations to "change high school as we know it." The recommendations rely heavily on two two reports. One a 1997 phone survey by Public Agenda and the other, an on-line survey of high school students conducted by the National Governors Association. Summaries of the reports say students would work harder if the course work were more challenging and they were allowed to take courses that interested them.
The recomendations and the A++ plan call for more rigorous course requirements for graduation, including 4 years of math, level 2 or above; offering students the opportunity to graduate with a major or minor area of study; providing for a differentiated diploma recognizing various levels of proficiency.

2006-04-08T15:32:00.000-05:00

Welcome Teachers!
A few teachers have expressed interest in establishing a dialog which can move beyond the confines of departments and disciplines. A dialog that does not have to be constrained by lack of a quorum or confined to the last few seconds of an already overlong faculty gathering. We hope you find this venue open and encouraging, A place to teach and a place to learn. Most of all, a place for supporting a positive environment for professionals and the profession.