Tech-Savvy Teacher

At my new job in Montana’s virtual school, I have been looking for quick, easy ways for teachers to be able to share quick bits of content using largely free tools so teachers can use the tools in an unlimited way on their personal and school computers without much ado.  I’d like to share the brief training tools I created for my teacher and course development corps to accomplish just that.

There are seemingly dozens of tools that turn PowerPoint presentations into nice, compact Flash presentations, but, there is one specific free tool that does a great job of making easy end products.  It is called iSpring Free.

iSpring Free works with PowerPoint 2000-2010 and Windows 2000-7.

After installing, it is dead simple to create flash objects that plug directly into a learning management system, in our case, Moodle.

After you install iSpring Free, here are the simple steps to create the narrated PowerPoint and turn it into a Flash object:

1. Record narration directly into PowerPoint


2. Notice the narration now appears, along with timings, in your slide sorter


3. Publish in the iSpring Free tab


4. Choose options carefully

5. In Moodle, choose “Link to a file or website”


6. Use the Moodle file dialogue to upload and choose the file

And… there it is! Now you have a narrated PowerPoint Flash object that plays automatically in Moodle.

Obviously, this would be easy to overuse in a course but it is a fast, simple way to add your voice to a series of visual images.

One of the critical challenges in eLearning is finding quick and easy ways to quickly share information from teacher to student and back.  I hope to put a number of tools in my teacher’s tool chest to easily create way to share thoughts, feedback and content without the technology getting in the way.

July 29th, 2010 | Category: elearning, get your nerd on, software reviews | Leave a comment

Marjee Chmiel, The JASON Project with Trevor Owens

Young people are playing games.

Games are inherently motivating

Students work at their own pace

Things to look for:
-conceptually challenging material
-multiple entry points (fits into class structure)
-personal goal setting

How to use games?
Awareness
-links to games on website
-include parent newsletter

Optional
-assign as homework
-extra credit
-special ed
-transition activities

Large Group Activities
-Demo or full-class activity

Small group-individual activity
-If you have access to lab

Games to play

Playing History.org
Collection of History Games

Playing Science.org
Collection of the major units of Science

PBS Kids Games
Great set of early childhood K-6 games

Games for Change
Directory of social issue games

Super Smart Games
Wide range of free and commercial

Icivics
Variety of games on civics.  Do I have a right was highlighted

Jason Project
Check out Coaster Creator.  Awesome physics roller coaster game.

June 29th, 2010 | Tags: ISTE10 | Category: games in education | Leave a comment

Presented by: Dr. June Garwin, West Chester Area School District with Mary Beth Clifton

Presentation Download

What is the next version of school going to look like?

Is online learning effective?
-It Depends
-Students who combine online with face-to-face do the best Dept of Ed 2009
-75% of teachers said teaching online had a positive impact on their face-to-face teaching Blackboard 2009

Pro Devo for Blended Learning
Objectives
-Best Practices
-Communities of Learners
-Use existing tech

They didn’t teach the nuts and bolts of tech (like Moodle)  They helped but was not part of the instructional design

Online Standards
www.inacol.org
www.nea.org/home/30103.htm

District uses Moodle for their student management system (Great Choice!!)

Make sure you have an end of the year process to move students out and new students in

Online classes must be handled differently between K-12 and College environments

Units for Teachers (Week per)
-Getting Started with online teaching
-creating the online course
-facilitating online learning
-assessing online learning

General Format (Each Week)
Whole group discussion
Team Activity
Moodle Activity
Individual Reflection
Individual project

Online Teams
4-6 people best
Think about the composition of teams
Cannot talk face-to-face
Ice Breaker activity
Assigned roles impose a starting structure (the more structure the better)
Intro at last face to face meeting
Forms basis of communities of learning/practice

Team Assignments
Consensus Building (Hard at first)
Division of Labor
Discussion

Team Dynamics
Provide means for collaboration
Monitor the check for problems
Evaluation

Course Structure
Expectations of submissions, feedback and conduct  (Me too is not a discussion)
Communication
How to get help
Objectives
Assignment checklists with due dates
Rubrics and Grading
Variety
Unit Consistency

John Medina’s 12 Brain Rules

Student Engagement
May look different online then face-to-face
Create real-world connections and choice
Campaign against the Online Worksheet

Great session… Jason and I are feeling good about our pedagogy after this session.  They have some great ideas on student and teacher involvement.  Finding out about the 12 brain rules was a score!!!

June 29th, 2010 | Tags: ISTE10 | Category: online teaching | Leave a comment

June 29th, 2010 | Tags: ISTE10 | Category: paper and paperless world, tech savvy teacher rants | Leave a comment

GREAT first day at ISTE!  Mike and I attended some excellent sections and I met a number of acquaintances and friends alike.

I was inspired by my last sectional today on Universal Design for Learning.  They made a number of interesting arguments about refashioning materials to make them accessible to diverse populations.  Among their demonstrations was “UDL Editions” of some classic texts (for example, this version of the Gettysburg Address).

As I will be overseeing course development for my new job, I have tried to wrap my brain around this monumental task of constructing content in an accessible format for the purpose of teaching students with wide abilities.

Available for sale now from textbook companies!

At some point, my online school will ultimately adopt a number of courses from the 10 or so prominent national providers.  These courses are essentially a textbook, refashioned into an online course-friendly format, often with lessons built in for the purpose of creating engagement and learning opportunities.

Here is the question I have: why haven’t textbook manufacturers made any progress in this space at all?

The sad reality is that other than some CDs with PDFs of works, a PDF copy of the textbook and the occasional crossword puzzle creator and PowerPoint collection, textbook manufacturers aren’t moving into this digital space at all.

With all of the development that goes into a textbook, why can a textbook company stop with the awful online editions (PDF death) and CDs full of useless worksheets and instead sell me the textbook in objects that I can plug into my LMS or classroom website  that presents the content that:

• Reads the selected text to the student.
• Allows the text to be changed to different editions of the textbook based on reading level.  (Seriously… isn’t this a great idea?  Since textbook manufacturers usually have 4-5 editions aimed at different reading levels, why can we utilize that with our students?  If I have a US history student in the 11th grade that has a 6th grade reading level, shouldn’t we be able to seamlessly offer that text so s/he can continue to get content at their reading level while we work on getting that student up to par?  Seriously textbook companies… do this!)
• Offers definitions to all words or translations to other languages.
• Offers regular quizzing and understanding checks for complex passages.
• Offers additional resources at content partners, like the Smithsonian or National Geographic or PBS or the like.
• Offers video suppliants directed integrated into the text.

This would be a gamechanger for the textbook industry and make these classroom resources a lot more useful.

Instead, I get CDs full of useless worksheets, strange DVD-based games called “Mind Jigglers” or some nonsense and a book that just isn’t that flexible.

Something has to change!

(Image by Cowtools)

June 29th, 2010 | Tags: ISTE10 | Category: folks that don't get it, media authoring, paper and paperless world, textbooks | Leave a comment

My battery indicator days I have less than an hour to work with here, so, let’s see if I make it through this session.

I am sitting in a packed house for “Beyond Print: Digital Curricula for the Diverse Classroom.”

As a new curriculum director of a K-12 online school, the digital curricula development question is an important one to me.  Part of my experience with online learning involved programs that have tried to shoe-horn print content into a digital classroom.

I know it is popular to dog on textbooks as old school, but, for a variety of learners, carefully crafted content (either in its commercial or organic form) is an important tool to meeting students where they are. So, this is of interest to me.

Presenters are from CAST, which is a non-profit dedicated to instructional design and “Universal Design for Learning.”

Reframing Learning and Literacy: There are a number of dated notions what constitutes learning and literacy.  For example, braille might not be considered “reading” the text because of the different modality of picking up the information.

Our whole educational system is built around how to remediate students who are struggling.  Perhaps a more useful way of looking at this involved saying that both the learner has problems and the learning environment has problems.

It is important to build learning environments that are flexible in both directions.

Universal Design for Learning: UDL has three primary principals: What?  How?  Why?  Details of this framework can be found here.

UDL editions: CAST project to create unique digital textbooks that are “smarter” digital content.  They are available here.  These are smart texts because they are:

• …able to read the text to the students.
• …able to translate individual words.
• …able to highlight and take notes.
• …able to integrate additional information.

The UDL editions are old school (2008).  So, what do we know how about making these open, UDL editions to materials?

Use open, standard formats: avoid vendor lockin.  Examples: HTML, ePub, DAISY.

NIMAS Format: http://aim.cast.org

XMLMind XML Editor is a useful editor for creating these types of resources.

CAST is working on an open source product that will allow teachers to create content that has best design practices built into the process.

What’s the impact of this shift?

• Creating reading materials at grade level, allowing for greater meaning to students
• Creating engagement for students that struggle with traditional literacy
•  

Wow… great session and a lot to think about.

Here is my thinking:

• My teachers at MTDA will be designing a small number of courses in our initial year.  It seems like if we start now looking at creating these “smart materials,” we can save the struggle of retrofitting the materials later.
• I wish there was a single or complete tool that we could use to design these materials.  It looks like there are some tools in development, but, we aren’t there yet.

Wow… great session!

June 28th, 2010 | Tags: ISTE10 | Category: new media, old media, paper and paperless world | Leave a comment

Presenter: Hall Davidson

Live Wall at http://www.wallwisher.com/wall/ISTEdeepDive

2010 This is the year digital music sales will surpass physical sales

Unintended Consequences
iTunes U

We are in an epic time
Bad Economy
Effective Tech
Engagement for 21st century learners

Signals of change
Students in online learning condition performed better than those receiving face-to-face instruction -US Dept Education
Still the best way is a combo

Education needs to change the gatekeeper

Indiana, Texas, Florida, Cal, Oregon – All have changed state law to allow digital text or equivalent.

Digital Resources cost $19 vs Print Resources cost $79

Mooresville graded school district
-HS referrals went down %64 after going all digital

Mooresville 1:1 Camp for District Leaders and Teachers to learn how to make the transition

Great session.  Hall was very entertaining and though provoking.  His session proves that everything exists to create an online learning environment for students that differentiates, all stakeholders just need to shift.

June 28th, 2010 | Tags: ISTE10 | Category: elearning, folks that get it, textbooks, web 2.0 | Leave a comment

Mobile Devices + Web 2.0 = Engaged and Empowered Learners
Juile Evans
Camilla Gagliolo
Carl Anderson
Tim Wilson

Speak Up National Research Project
Background
-open to all K-12 schools
-school get back data

Project Tomorrow

Things Speak up provides
-Collect unique data from stakeholders

Activities, Attitudes, and Aspirations
2009 participation – 370,565
All 50 states participated
97% Public School
Equal participation between urban, suburban, rural
Data is available at the website

Key Findings
Digital Disconnect
Students power down at school, power up at home
Frustrated with lack of technology use

Top student response of what is holding them back
-Not being able to use their mobile phone

Data showing that younger teachers are showing more concerns with mobile devices in school

Parents asked if schools provided educational uses for mobile devices, would they be willing to purchase for their child – 62% said YES

Students are VERY interested in Online Textbooks.

Great session.  Thank you Project tomorrow for making all of this data available .  Project tomorrow’s finding validated many of my assumptions, but assumptions won’t move districts – data will.  If you need help showing your district leaders what students are thinking about technology and more importantly how they want to use it, this is a great place to start.

June 28th, 2010 | Tags: ISTE10 | Category: Uncategorized | Leave a comment

There has been a ton of buzz so far among the Linux folks about Revolution Linux, a company that does a work on making Linux an option for the enterprise.

I will take notes here, and make my stunningly insightful commentary will be shouted in CAPITAL LETTERS.  Aren’t you excited?

We are hearing from the CEO of Revolution Linux today.

(Note: I am not new to Linux and, in fact, prefer it to a number of platforms.  I have heard a couple of people argue this week that Mac users have an easy transition back and forth to the Linux… perhaps from the whole “think different” thing.)

The crowd is half IT and half teachers, with a couple of rogue administers sprinkled for spice.

10 Common Pitfalls on the Road to Open Source:

1.)  Technical interests superceding user interests:

• IT adopts, had a beautiful setup, but it isn’t really adopted in a way that is user friendly.
• Users need to be part of the discussion at a level that doesn’t necessarily involve the security or hardened nature of the project.  Technical interests shouldn’t be the key discussion point.

2.)  Lack of user input.

• Need to have user input to give users space to develop skills and express needs.

3.)  Training Issues

• Free doesn’t mean free… (free speech vs. free beer).  This is specifically important in training; which might be something that needs substantial investment.

(WOW… people are jumping out of this session… I think this might be a bit much for the masses.)

4.)  Individual needs vs. organization needs

• Inappropriate focus on one or the others can create implementation issues.

5.)  Changing software and versions too often

• This can be frustrating for novice and end users.  Changes can be disruptive.

(THIS IS INTERESTING… I always end up installing the latest and greatest when I use Ubuntu, for example, but I suppose this can be frustrating to end users.   I wonder if one option would be to adopt the LTS releases of Ubuntu and only update when those update every three years?  Interesting stuff.)

6.)  Interoperability between systems

• I am not sure of the speaker’s point here… do we WANT the same or NOT want the same?  I would argue that this is a power of open source: wouldn’t it be nice if we had a set of 20-30 tools that were available on Linux, Mac and Windows?

7.)  Lack of local support

• Support is critical locally.

(THIS IS JUST AS TRUE IN A PC/MAC environment, even though some perceive these environments as “easier.”  I have seen a number of districts hand machine to users w/o support and then complain that small problems seem to deter the users.)

8.)  Buying a product, without giving the same kind of support as you usually do.

• See training, among other issues, above.
• Just because a resource is free doesn’t mean that it shouldn’t receive support.

9.)  Ignoring user interfaces.

10.)  Going for Open Source because it is free.

(I AM GOING TO RESPECTFULLY DISAGREE here: I have extended thoughts here related to Moodle, in particular, but, in reality, the cost IS an important factor, even if you factor in support and training.

This session was at a 10,000 foot level.  The bottom line for me is that these are becoming dated arguments.  Perhaps we need to reframe the open source debate?

June 28th, 2010 | Tags: ISTE10 | Category: linux | Leave a comment