Education World: Are You a Bully?

Education World: Are You a Bully?

Interesting view of teachers and administrators?

Amazing look at tomorrow!!!!!

One of my PLN's shared this video with me.  Teaching in a school with very poor equipment we try to model our technology use and share our personal equipment with students.  Our students were amazed by this piece. If you teach in a high tech classroom please let me know how your students responded.  Hope you all enjoy.....

**Vodcast** Easy file retrieval/movement

Using the Sata/IDE to USB 2.0 Adapter

 

The Sata/IDE to USB 2.0 adapter costs $19.99 plus shipping and handling at Tiger Direct.  I did not search for other suppliers but have seen many online vendors carrying this similar product.

Week 12 Are you Flatter yet?

Yes!!!!! I have been preaching the message:  DO WHAT YOU LOVE. Anything you are passionate for will consume your time without your knowledge. I can sit down at the computer first thing in the morning consumed until someone asks, what's for supper. Honestly, I can sit at the keyboard for 10 to 12 hours without realizing it. Having just finished a business section on Entrepreneurship including leadership qualities with passion fueling many successful business stories. Movies worth considering are: Facebook, Ruby, Miracle on Ice, Google boys, Pirates of Silicon Valley (little dated), Bill Gates, and Pursuit of Happyness.  

Tony Hawk, professional skateboarder, who knew skateboarding before he came on the scene? Who hasn't heard or Burton snowboards? How long have they been around?  We can't train students to go to work in the “factory” because they really don't exist anymore. Not, that anyone would ever want a boring factory job when you have grown up as  Digital Natives or just plain Born Digital. If the United States wants to maintain the status of superpower, the battle will be in the classrooms of our country.  The 21st century,  the digital century with products and services we can't imagine, so how do we teach for them. It will not be teaching to the test; it will be teaching critical thinking, collaboration, innovation, and teamwork.  Our country needs every child to graduate college to compete in the global economy, raise gross domestic product, raise the standard of living, and dissolve the national debt. I don't see the 21st century with many letter carriers, do you?

Week 12 Inclusion

Inclusion is wonderful. Inclusion is for good for teachers, businesses, students, classrooms, and communities. Across the country public schools have focused on Adequate Yearly Progress or  AYP, which is measurement of individual student learning. AYP compares a student's academic scores year to year using standardized testing.  AYP has confirmed concerns that some students were not learning. We are spending money on practices that make students dependent on others, are very costly, and frequently don't produce results. What does work, is doing the right thing, which is exactly what we saw in the video.

Watching the video of Celeste's class it was clear that she was part of the class; she was accepted and included as a different “bodied student.” Yes, she is a functioning student within her class that was isolated from her peers by illness. It is so amazing that we have the capabilities to bring those individuals that are removed by illness, geography, or even anxiety from a classroom and have them become part of the classroom community. I found that truly inspiring! How could anyone question the decision to provide her instruction using Skype?

The use of Assistive Technology (AT) has been increasing but it is a mutual commitment that requires both teacher and student to be active participants. There is a National Public website on AT  listing of over 22,000 AT products with searches by function or activity.  The University of New Hampshire Institute on Disability is a leader in the AT movement offering classes and workshops on a variety of AT devices and strategies.  One upcoming class is titled, Universally Designed Technology to Support Reading, Writing, and Communication in the General Education Classroom. Most devices are really one time purchases and are more cost effective than the use of paraprofessionals or aids.

My ten years teaching in a large high school (2200+students) provided the opportunity to teach two students, Beverly and Nancy using AT. Both students had full mental function. Beverly was born legally blind, attending general education class only at the high school level. At age ten, Nancy was in an accident that left her only able to move her head. Beverly loved the general education courses and found AT provided many more options including independence for her in high school.  I was very comfortable with both students technology but was surprised by the lack of support for the teacher.  Teachers supporting students with AT receiving no extra training and must provide all student modifications without any extra time or reduction in schedule.  The class sizes are not reduced for AT students and after school makeup sessions may not be reasonable for the student to attend.  When considering significance disabilities shouldn't plans require the case manager review in detail the student's Individual Education Plan (IEP) and provide examples of prior modifications? A team type approach to make sure the student gets the best possible education with appropriate modifications.

The End…Reflections from a reluctant web 2.0 teacher

This has been a great experience for me!  Before this class I never considered a podcast, wiki, blog, Jing,  google docs, and now I can’t imagine live without those tools.   There is so much great material packed into this course, but if I had to pick one thing that my students love, it would be the wiki!  My wikis are very much under construction  gathering resources for 5 courses spanning 3 different content areas, will take time.  Oh yes, and all types of nasty things crawling around my laptop has forced me to make the change of a lifetime!  Working in an IBM "shop" since the age of 17 it was traumatic purchasing a Mac Book Pro this past Monday at age 52.  I love Disk Operating Systems (DOS)  and PC's but, having spent hundreds of hours cleaning equipment and bringing numerous viruses, worms, bots, and Trojans home, I had no choice.  I do feel that somethings were effected by the machine infections most obviously timeliness.  Productivity prevailed!

Wikis ensure student productivity with access available in class, resource, the library, or even at home.  Students can have greater control of their learning enabling more discrete repeated instruction from both school or home with the help of Jing.  The only negative is the district's policy to block all streaming video, meaning peers and students will not see the video clips inside the school unless they use my machine. Students seem to enjoy that I am teaching less and I believe even the lecture classes are  learning more utilizing the wikis.  Inspired "not to go quietly into the classroom" I emailed a request to remove the filters from my 3 wikis on February 11th, 2011.

There is still much that I can do while waiting for a response, including using the 2 flip video cameras I purchased for students to create their own "me" project.  Primary grades often complete an "all about me" project from which the flip project will spin. Students filling the camera's 2 hour video capacity, could be a source of improved understanding for families and staff.  Students will edit and burn a DVD of their work in class to share with family and friends, helping to foster the connections between home and school.  In August, freshmen orientation could continuing to capitalizing on students connections by incorporating pieces of all their videos to demonstrate the strength and diversity of our school. Could this impact student expectations and confidence?

Imagine a class focusing on second language learners creating flip projects in their own language to help and encourage younger students in acquiring english.  Students experienced in the transition to english could provide support and comfort to those beginning the process.  I am so impressed by the number of students that speak another language, since I have difficultly with my only language, english!  Having a non-english speaking mother-in-law created some interesting communications experiences for myself and children which technology eased.  

Memere (grandmother) as the kids called her was amazing in the kitchen, where cooking and baking dissolved the language barrier like sugar and water.  Memere would make their favorite dishes and though we tried to learn, we couldn't keep up and her fluent son didn't speak kitchen!  Attempting to create her signature dishes I got the idea to video record Memere and grandchildren making those "favorite recipes."   The recipe videos captured a woman who loved and cherished her grandchildren and truly enjoyed time spent cooking and baking with them. I have written many of the recipes down but, I like so many, prefer the visual. I believe that simple story explains the incredible power technology has to remove barriers and to connect people in many ways, even with Facebook. 

Living in a state that borders french speaking Quebec provides opportunities to visit relatives across the border on a regular basis.  Thanks to the many online translators (babel fish, and google translate),  Facebook has husband's french speaking family poking and sharing with me! Writing my thoughts in english then translating it to french.  When posting messages I use both the english and french text to ensure that anything lost in translation will not offend.  Could you envision foreign language classes using Facebook to communicate with native speakers, possibility from other countries. English speaking students using the target language and the non-english speaking students responding in english.  Think of the ability to speak the target language with a 21st century audio pen pal or rather audio pal. Technology is limitless to education.

 

There has been no class graduate or undergraduate that has influenced by teaching style and environment more than Plymouth State University's, Teaching and Learning In a Network Classroom.  Having coursework that can be used in the classroom immediately has lifted many frustrations and provided hope that tomorrow will be better.  Technology really lends itself well to project based learning which, I think we all appreciate for its deeper and enduring understanding.  I plan on taking a Windows operating system and Network Security classes at the technical college this summer hoping to stay ahead of classroom issues and updating the other aspect of my Personal Learning Network. However, saying the M word will take more time.

podcast test...pretty funny so I will leave it for all to enjoy

This is always the way I start the PowerPoint sections of ICT.....my students always remember what not to do after watching this......love it.

Week 10 Professional Learning Community

Until very recently a Professional Learning Community (PLC) was something I felt I have moved past, yes before the days of the Internet there were things called Bulletin Boards which people would use to share downloaded updates, bug fixes, and utilities.  They were the life-line for people living or working with computers.  When I first began teaching I had classmates that I met when converting my BS degrees in Accounting and Management Information Systems to secondary education with a k-12 computer certification.  Now, I had a new different focus to my PLC, education comprised of several students in the same program meeting 2 nights a week for 18 months.  When I began teaching there was an opportunity to teach a college level networking class at the high school where I worked.  There was an excited yes from me on that request!   The Instructor’s class met daily for 7 weeks during the summer at Pease Trade Center, so I again blended into a new PLC for Cisco Networking. The nice thing about these communities is once accepted you always belong.

Reflection on PLCs has confirmed my want and need for a technical PLC entity.  Most of you are unaware that in the last 3 weeks I have been infected by 2 worms, hosted a Botnet, and lastly a malware attack.  Those of you unfamiliar with a botnet, check out the Kaspersky article, The Botnet Business. It is a pain in the butt!!!!

These formidable adversaries have costs me hundreds of hours during the crunch time of our class, nearing the end.  What I realized is that my PLC needs to save me from the hours and stress associated with this type of invasion.  Yes, I do have resources and protection, using Kaspersky as my protections program.  Yeh, I know some protection, but the same thing happened with Norton’s endpoint, McAffee, and Sophos protection engines. The root of the problem is that the botnet is within the school system when it attacks a PC it locks it up forcing a hard boot.  When the machine restarts it launches and embeds into the startup file before the protection engines start.  The only reasonable work around for the problem is a product called Deep Freeze which will freeze the hard drive and the boot sector to prevent unauthorized programs and or files.  Actually Faronics has a wide range of products many are ideal for education and computer labs.

Sorry, I have spent so much time researching my invasion I am sounding like the geek from many, many moons ago  (When you are a computer major, geek is good). There is a huge value to PLC's and they don’t just need to be work related even if the P is for Professional.  The P could just as easily mean Personal as with both my daughters who married last fall,  I am their PLC when it comes to cookingJ  I think society has always had these learning communities only they didn’t utilize technology.  I’m thinking that, those old fashion sewing circles were probably a PLC…… 

ce5160networkedclassroom - home

ce5160networkedclassroom - home

Webinar

I attended a webinar which is a seminar, lecture, or interactive conference hosted on the web, in this case at the hosting site called Elluminate.  Richard Byrne a local celebrity/teacher from Maine introduced and led the topic of back-channeling in the classroom. The term Back-channeling was first coined in 1970 by Victor Yngve, a Massachusetts Institute Of Technology (MIT) professor in the area of linguistic who used the term to identify the short messages such as, yes, head nods, and uh-huh that the person speaking receives from the listener indicating attention and understanding. Technology’s version of the back-channel is slightly different because there are actual conversations occurring outside of the lecture.  It is similar to passing notes in class while your instructor is talking but with technology back-channels that type of behavior is accepted and encouraged.

This is how the webinar worked with Richard Byrne speaking during a slide show of the topic but the best part is that while that while he is presenting  there is a side bar in which participants can Instant Message (IM) to presenters and other participants without disruption to the presentation.   I did not participate in the sidebar chat as this was a first experience and things were moving very quickly.  Even though I only listened into the Webinar I still felt like I got a lot out of the experience.  How does back-channeling look in the classroom?

The back-channel is an open real time chat channel available for student’s questions and comments occurring during the course of instruction.  It is truly amazing!  Think about showing a movie in class and you need to stop it for students to ask questions or to provide students with a missing connection in the content.  No more interruptions or disruptions because now those conversations can take place in the back-channel and not interrupting the flow of the lesson/movie.   Websites available to use for back-channeling are as follows:

Wave.google.com

Edmodo.com

Micromobs.com

Todaysmeet.com

Hootcourse.com

Neatchat.com

Friendfeed.com

Chatzy.com

Tinychat.com

Stinto.net

Snapgroups.com

Twitter can also be used if the back-channel is open to everyone on the web.

You can enjoy the entire webinar at slideshare.  Additional resources available from Derek Bruff posting on the 9 uses of back-channel in education which include:

Notetaking

Sharing resources

Commenting

Amplifying

Asking questions

Helping one another

Offering suggestions

Building community

Opening the classroom

Lastly consider Cliff Atkinson's new Book, The Backchannel.

Week 10 Thoughts on Chapter 5 Professional Development

Remaining active in your career development is vital to maintaining employment in all professional positions, teaching is no different.  Employment in the technical fields meant education and training plans were developed by managers to achieve the corporation’s vision for the future.  I worked for large highly technical organizations literally on the cutting edge of technology throughout the 1980 and 1990’s before moving to public education in 2000.  Professional development in corporate environment for technical staff included conferences and tradeshows attendance for exploring processes that assisted work flows in all departments.  Every major technical conference or tradeshow would require corporate representation to collected material and network with competitors and vendors on new equipment and software.  Corporations saw in technology, means to improve customer service, reduce operating costs, and a stairway to the top of their industry which provided the greatest rewards.  Corporations were actively involved learning and acquiring cost cutting technology.  Top management created the vision of the future then took the steps to make it a reality by training current staff and hiring both new and temporary staff to meet deadlines and milestones.  Education could learn something from the private sector in that area.

In 2008 Yale University hired Michael Peel as Vice President responsible for Human Resources and Administration.  Peel had plenty of experience as Vice President of General Mills Corporation for 17 years, impressive yes.  However, even more impressive is GM’s consistent appearance on the “top 100 companies to work for,” according to Fortune Magazine annual list.  Peel identifies important qualities that companies must have to be great workplaces and acknowledges Yale as a positive environment.  Peel   understands how important employee development plans are to employee job satisfaction and uses surveys to identify areas for improvement.  Kansas State researchers, Thomas Wright and Jon Wefald, found that happy employees perform better and are less likely to leave their jobs.  Wright goes on to state that happy employees are essential to achieving corporate outcomes.

Education has had more a mishmash approach to professional development.  My district’s idea of professional development is more the one size fits all approach used by schools without success.  The district has failed to unite staff, students, and parents with short and long term district goals and a plan to achieve them.  Yes, educators do develop both annual and 3 a year goals that must include a method of measurement.  Shouldn't district goals contain the same elements? We are all rowing the boat but not really going any place. This true tale explains why graduate classes are my most valued means of professional development. I can count on Plymouth staff to do as Yale has done in focusing for the long range. 

Professional development page within the above link cannot be directly referenced and is provided below for your convenience.  

Personnel 119                                           PROFESSIONAL STAFF DEVELOPMENT OPPORTUNITIES

A program of in-service training shall be established to provide an opportunity for the continuous professional and technical growth of the professional staff.

Staff members shall become knowledgeable about new developments and changes in their specialized fields, and shall utilize any new and/or improved methods in their work.

It shall be the responsibility of the Superintendent or his/her designee to implement appropriate staff development training and activities.      

Week 9 Unlocking the tool kit

Yes, please unlock it!  I have always believed that network access for teachers should never be restricted because we are the ones that design and implement lesson plans that are appropriate for our students?  It is so frustrating when you spend the time to put together materials to engage, inspire, and develop deep understanding on a topic only to experience the dreaded HTTP error 404 page not found!  We can use a proxy server like Proxapp to get around it or simply omit and push forward.  No matter, what your decision is it takes time away from the plan and disrupts the lesson flow.  This is how quick and easy it is to bypass school filtering, just watch the video.  Search you tube for how to bypass Internet or school filters to see the extensive list of suggestions. Filter bypass options can only mean that once again we have put a Band-Aid on a broken arm.  Please do not think I promote this method but, we need to face reality for many students it is a challenge that is enjoyable and frequently successful. 

or

The United States Children’s Internet Protection Act (CIPA) intentions were to keep young citizens safe from inappropriate material.  However, the federal law is more concerned with “images” of an inappropriate nature and material that could be “harmful to children” which is basically, the words describing the images.  New Hampshire school district computer and network policy requires an acceptable use as well as inappropriate or illegal use policy.  Computer World blog post on, How Internet censorship harms schools provides great examples of issues with filters on school district networks.  This link provides information on news groups for a few popular search/webmail resources that email daily proxy sites for bypassing filters on selected sites.  My thoughts are the energy wasted that could be used for far better outcomes.  My belief is that we should be spending our time putting together great and I mean really great educational tools for digital citizenship allowing students to access sites like you tube, facebook, my space and the host of others that are blocked because of their location not for their content.

 

Why not ease into digital citizenship beginning with staff by removing all blocks and filters from staff network logins.  This would give teachers more flexibility in the classroom to select material that is current, relevant, and engaging for the students. Keep filters on for inappropriate images and “sexual related text” at the upper grades.  We can adjust content from a more open environment reducing filter management and freeing resources for computer and network support.  I believe an implementation in a slow and focused approach would be respectful of our students and their attainment of knowledge.    

Webinar with Rich Bryne of Free Technology for Teachers

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zxYb4rUcbZo&feature=related

Week 9 Thoughts on Chapter 8

Chapter 8 is titled Systemic Issues or issues affecting the entire system which can be addressed and ultimately resolved in one word, technology.  Systemic issues include equity, digital divide, English Language Learners (ELL), English as a Second Language (ESL), special needs, struggling learners, special education students, blogging, podcasting, and assessment can all be addressed with technology most of the time.  Beginning with issues common to ELL, ESL, special education, special needs, struggling learners, and print disabilities are reading fluency and comprehension related problems.  

In 1998, an amendment to the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, required federal agencies to make all electronic and information technology accessible to those with disabilities.  Microsoft led the way incorporating disabilities options in their Office products beginning with version 2000.  Students can listen to what is in a document, spreadsheet, or presentation using those disability options available on all Microsoft products.

Practice involves multiple repetitions; practice improves reading performance and ability.  When decoding tasks become very intense as they often do, comprehension suffers.  Using free reading programs, like read please, natural reader, and rocket reader to create a connection between what a student’s sees, and hears, improving the decoding task and comprehension.   The next step is to require all libraries to comply and provide electronic or audio aids for those who choose to use them.  All libraries should be required to activate disability options on all their computers to ensure universal access for people with disabilities. 

It is my belief that excessive special education budgets and struggling readers could be a thing of the past.  No longer will a student need to visit a resource room to have material read to them.  The real power will belong to the student, who becomes independent in their learning and has the ability to control when and where they learn.  Think of the budget dollars that just one school employing an aide for student reading, could redirect to technology.  At $60 a day {$10 per hour * 6 hours}  or almost $11,000 a year {$60 *180 days} a school could purchase a total of 55, $200 netbooks {11000/200}. 

In 2005, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) professor, Nicholas Negroponte, began a mission to develop a rugged, low cost, low energy laptop, to educate the world’s poorest children.  Negroponte’s vision was for every child to have a laptop and the non-profit organization, One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) was born.  The laptop designed for 3^rd world countries was anticipated to cost $100 per unit however, indestructible and improved battery and solar capabilities drove the cost to $199.  The laptop named XO is available on Amazon and will meet requirements for blogging, podcasting, and video conferencing to improve writing and learning across the curriculum. 

Week 9 Brian Crosby's Amazing Classroom

An amazing place to experience learning with technology is Brian Crosby’s class and I am would love to be there.  Having worked in private industry for many years I need to ask, how do teachers passionate about technology get the hardware to create those types of classrooms for their students.  In the business/private industry arena equipment is given to those who are the heaviest or most demanding users, creating an exposure to employees of new technology before making large investments in it.

Where is the educational road map of America?  I really need that map because I can’t even get around in my school and district.  If I want to achieve change is it, top down approach or bottom up approach that needs to be invoked?  Brian Crosby, how did you create the opportunities for your classroom? Some of the answers can be found in Brian’s blog, learning is messy.  Teaching in a high school computer lab that has one flat-bed scanner, a black & white laser printer, a set of speakers, and a digital projector used because the room is overcrowded by 29 large desktop computers that consume the entire room blocking the blackboards.  How to you go from here to equipment?

 

Are there or should there in place government programs requiring specific time, effort, and mastery by teachers in return for classroom equipment?  Imagine a teacher completing specific milestones receiving hardware investments to be used by the teacher in his or her classroom. This teacher equipment would be conditional on the teacher’s employment in a public school that has a minimum e-rating of 15% or greater as a starting point.  Allowing for teachers in socio-economic depressed areas access to the tools they need to raise student achievement.  Giving teachers that are willing and able to jump through hoops the opportunity to obtain technology on a regular basis for their classrooms.  I would be thrilled if I had Brain Crosby’s technology access one day a week! 

A one-to-one laptop program is a dream I don’t think I will ever see!  How would students respond academically with one-to-one laptops or netbook program?  I would be obsessive in finding content material appropriate for my students given the opportunity but, let’s not stop there.    School districts must become more open with the filters, beginning with teacher logins.  Is it crazy to want teacher network logins without filters, allowing teachers to demonstrate items that students currently cannot access like social media or streaming video?  This would allow teachers in my district to use YouTube videos for instruction, and video conferencing with other parts of the world, or a homebound classmate.  Heck, I was out of school for a week after surgery and I couldn’t even Skype my classroom because of the Internet filters! Yes, it is time for change.

Week 8 Connectivism and Constructivism

Acquiring knowledge is similar to building a house, it must begin with a solid foundation.  Connectivism and Constructivism both look to build upon the solid foundation to create a continuous learning environment. Constructivism is a must larger process with the end result defined and preventing any significant changes from occurring once the project has begun.  When relational data bases were first created they followed the contructivism philosophy because there could not be any changes to the structure once it was created.

Jacqueline Grennon Brooks and Martin G. Brooks offer five key principles of constructivist learning theory below. These would be used to guide curriculum structure and lesson planning.

. Pose problems of emerging relevance to students.

. Structure learning around primary concepts.

. Seek and value students' points of view.

. Adapt instruction to address student suppositions.

. Assess student learning in the context of teaching.

Connectivism is more like an Excel spreadsheet, which accommodates the addition of rows and columns any place within the spreadsheet at any time.  Connectivism is more like planning a cross country trip where we decide what, where and when we will visit during the planning process. However, once we get going we run into reality of detours, seasonal hours and life.  Life is the important piece in the connectivism puzzle because it allows for the changing of the program on the fly, just like our Excel spreadsheet.  If we encounter a flat tire next to a dude ranch, we could find it an interesting and convenient addition to our journey, especially if, we need to wait for a repair.  Connectivism allows us to change, to accommodate our existing structure, and add new items, to remove the obsolete, or move beyond something we once found interesting.

The Element

I think the Element by Sir Ken Robinson also includes connectivism theory in his book.  Sir Robinson explains that sometimes we need to change our group, our community, to move forward.  The Element provides many great examples of people with incredible talent that could have been easily overlooked.  However, the passion for their talent drove them to excel and success was often realized after the connection occurred.

Week 8 Skype Conversation

Iphone 4

It is not uncommon to experience technical difficulties when trying new technology or even just using a different piece of equipment. Dan and I had this experience on Saturday during our Skype call leading us to explore the instant messaging feature which works quite well for trouble shooting microphone problems. Upon overcoming the bad microphone we encountered a significant delay or latency and frequent static noise, prompting Dan to reach for his Iphone. I must admit I am jealous and cannot wait for Verzion to release their version of the Iphone in just a few weeks. Dan used the very clean and clear iphone microphone for a great call focused on troubleshooting in the classroom.

Dan and I are both responsible for computer lab maintenance and repairs with limited support services.  We discussed the impact machine failures have on the classroom and content we teach.  We often trouble shoot machine failures in the lab with students because there is a lack of backup or replacement equipment.  What is the correct choice in that situation?  Fix the problem so everyone can get to work or have one student unable to work?  This is a real problem for many classroom teachers. 

A major difference in the labs Dan and I use is the student login process and servers. Dan’s students all have their own network account were my student’s login as a general student with no tracking or accountability.  Dan’s school is using a windows 2003 server environment and my school does not have a dedicated server.  My district uses servers for student portfolio work shared by all thirty plus school buildings.  

Lacking a school server and network accountability means teachers do not have work accounts to store  and access work, preventing student work from being electronically corrected without going to each individual machine in the lab.  The lack of a network environment where each person is identified and accountable is a disservice to the students and limits teachers from viewing student work in process from their desktops helping to ensure ethical student environment. 

Another less obvious issue with our student portfolio accounts is access.  Frequently, one or more of the servers will be unavailable, sometimes for a few days making it a poor choice for storing daily work in process.  Our portfolio design prevents student access to work and materials from outside the school building.  I'm sure that we have all be able to revise a PowerPoint, Excel, or Word document for another project because we kept and accessed it for modification, which I think our students should be able to do as well.

Sharing of issues, resources and workarounds gave both of us some ideas to explore in the classroom.  I created a shared folder for Dan within my Google docs account to better assess how this option could be used for his students.  Also visit the Google Doc Community on YouTube for help and ideas from the whole community of google doc users.  Dan gave me some ideas on using Dropbox although it could be an obstacle without network logins with scripts connecting to a unique dropbox for each student.  Dan also faces the issue that students cannot easily access their work from outside of school. The lack of student email accounts makes the tracking of student work activity within a wiki impossible. 

We both agreed some of the network settings and maintenance could be done on the local machine to alleviate network login problems.  I have found that obsolete software and hardware can be an issue to identifying and correcting problems prompting a suggestion to view Windows lifecycle data sheet to verify the latest service pack for the product and/or the product retirement date. Another good resource for classroom teachers trying to resolve issues is Tech Republic   a website devoted to resources for IT professionals.  I also use box.net  offering free 30 day trails with many of the same share features as Google but an added option of commenting on a document without modifying it.  I found the comment feature great for notation on grading of individual documents.

Week 7 Technology and Standards, is it the technology that drives the project or the project that drives the technology?

Teaching accounting, introduction to business, careers, study skills, and economics which adapt well to projects woven of content and technology.  These courses content drives the technology with accounting utilizing calculators, spreadsheets, accounting software, and at times tax research. Projects expose students to the technology of the field which in my area is the content. Student’s technology thinking should focus on selecting the right tool for the job similar to selecting the appropriate outerwear for the conditions. The thinking process associated with selecting the correct tool should be modeled in the classroom.  Since I worked for over 25 years in the private industry working in technology I am able to share what was and what is currently going on in the field.  However, when I step into the lab for computer instruction my philosophy changes to reflect the uncertainty.

Teaching Internet Communications Technology (ICT) explores computer, software, hardware, Internet, researching, critical thinking skills, and many other resources.  I cannot stop with simply teaching students how to use a program; I want them to understand the potential for a variety of other applications.  We are preparing students to fill jobs that have yet to evolve and certain to include technology.  We need to teach for today, but open our lessons to what is new or possible tomorrow.  Our students must compete now and be ready for the challenges of the future. 

When teaching in the computer lab it really is about exposing students to new ways of doing and thinking.  Teaching students to be critical of information they retrieve from the Internet is vital task but, only the beginning.  Our students need to know that using a product like Read Please (and reading bar) can improve comprehension, increasing their knowledge and ultimately improving their grades.  Exploring Project Gutenberg, the digital book index, or the audiotext for those who prefer to listen exemplify the options students have available.  Are all students aware that books written before 1927 do not have copyrights and many are available in alternative formats for free online?  Does it matter if it happens in computer class?

Staff who embrace living with technology need to demonstrate that aspect to students by sharing new tools.  When teaching computer skills it should be the technology that drives the instruction.  When I was commenting on Filip’s social bookmarking blog I used the old saying, “If it ain’t broke don’t fix it,”  which applies to technology in general.  We become so comfortable with our way of conforming to tools available we may not seek new or possibility better solution.

Capelle says, “While this willingness to explore technology is admirable, it is also a case of focusing on the tool, and not on what the educator intends to do with it.”  I think that educators are correct in taking new technology and applying it to content, after all that's what business and industry do with it.  

Week 7 Thoughts on Chapter 3 of Web 2.0 new tools, new school

First item to really get me thinking in chapter 3 was on the first page!  Steven Downey stated , “Web 2.0 is not a technological revolution; it is a social revolution…..”  Reflecting on the changes in the hardware and software industries over the last 10 years lead me to believe software manufacturers had a major role in today’s outcome.  Remember when Microsoft  released the Millennium (ME) operating system?  The cost of the program was a little over a $100 or $59 for the upgrade.  When XP hit the shelves in 2003 it was $199 for the package and $99 for the upgrade.  Does that mean the cost of developing an operating system doubled in just 3 years?   Hardware was expensive and software was in many instances, even more costly than the hardware.  People spend a lot of time and money developing software that made our lives easier and we paid for their efforts.  

Software manufacturers with Microsoft leading the charge developed new procedures for the installation of software, a registration code generated from a product key or serial number was necessary for installation.  We all can appreciate that fact the companies need to be paid for their products but, these companies lost sight of their customer’s frustration from costly products to daunting installation tasks that frequently required a call to the manufacturer for an override code.  Software manufacturers had created a way to prevent people from sharing  or pirate the software they purchased.  Yes, the software license was for use on one computer, but some of the software was used infrequently making it easy to share with friends for both limited use and evaluation.   People began looking for easier solutions and Freeware and Shareware began to rise in popularity and shift began.

“It (Open Source) enables the Web to shift from being a medium in which information is transmitted and consumed into being a platform in which content is created, shared, remixed, repurposed, and passed along,” states Downey.  The quality, quantity, and variety of software programs available for free is amazing and a credit to the web 2.0 community.  Web 2.0 makes trying and doing things easy and affordable. I hope it will aid in reducing the impact of the digital divide.