So What's with HyperStudio 5.0?

So what's in HyperStudio 5.0?

It LOOKS GOOD!!!!

Roger took us on an extensive, albeit sometimes jumbled, tour of his new
release on Tuesday Morning. I had seen a demo of it at the MacKiev booth a NECC the day before and it was wonderful.

For those of you who remember HyperStudio, you will be reacquainted with a long lost friend. HS is designed using the screen-by-screen format (didn't catch if they are still using the Card/Stack metaphor in 5.0.) Anyway, thumbnails of sequential cards can be streamed down the left side of the screen. Floating toolbars are more sophisticated because of the extensive palettes that appear instead of dropdown menus.

A wonderful addition that I saw involved editing drawing and painting efforts. You might remember in the earlier versions of HS, If you wanted to move something that you painted on a background, you had to marquee the object and then you moved the object AND any included background. What a
mess!!!!

HS 5 considers ANY creation as an individual object. This means that you can grab it, move it, rotate it, expand or contract it. It's a whole new world for editing.

The new HyperStudio is strong when considering the video and Web 2.0
opportunities. You can import videos into your project with relative ease.
Your video can include movie files as well as live feeds where you program
is encompassing direct, live video feeds from cameras connected directly to
the computer. This is just like HS 3.0 The NEW addition allows you to link
live webcams into the program. This wasn't completed when I saw it, but
they said that there would be a set of "approved" webcams that would be
allowed to link. Interesting.

On the output side, Roger was amazing us with the Podcasting capability.
This option wasn't ready for demonstration, but it appeared that you could
export your project to a video that could be podcasted. It would include
the RSS code but you would have to find a site where you would post it. I
don't think that this is officially a podcast because those are usually
limited to an audio file, it's more like a vodcast.

Overall, all that I can say is "ROGER'S BACK and I AM excited!!!!"

HyperStudio is Announced!

Why was I getting up at 5:45 AM for 7:00 breakfast at the Omni Hotel sponsored by the KievMac software company? It was because Roger Wagner would be there to unveil HyperStudio 5.0.

You might remember HyperStudio. It was a multimedia authoring tool that Roger Wagner (then a 4th grade teacher in San Diego) developed back in 1986. He wanted a user-friendly system that 9-year-olds could use to create programs that were filled with images, text, sounds and animation.

Roger began the HyperStudio company and matured HyperStudio on the Apple IIgs and then onto the Macintosh and Windows platforms. It was a wonderful programming language that was used in k-12 schools throughout the world. We used it for our Educational Media classes to provide a relatively easy way for students to create multimedia programs.

In 1999, Roger had the good fortune of selling his HyperStudio company to The Learning Company for millions of dollars. This was fortunate for Roger but highly unfortunate for the rest of the world. The Learning Company tried to update HyperStudio to version 4.0 and the program imploded around its faulty code. This was so disastrous that schools, teachers and kids dropped this fallen albatross for the likes of mPOWER and PowerPoint.

Even amidst the shards of HyperStudio, Sunburst Software purchased HyperStudio from The Learning Company - Talk about a Fire Sale . . . They decided to rewrite the program from the ground up. Apparently, they enlisted the services of MacKiev. This is a software programming company in
. . . Russia of course.

Last November, Sunburst flew me over to Chicago for a day to consult on some upgrades that they were considering for their keyboarding software. I found myself in the car with a man who informed me that they were working on HyperStudio but they are just trying to settle some ownership rights issues.

Well, apparently, rights were settled last Friday when Roger Wagner signed on the dotted line to purchase the program and then market it through MacKiev. I don't know what the agreement is, but I DO know that they are promising to release HyperStudio 5.0 by September.

I have spent this entry explaining the background of HyperStudio but didn't say much about the program. Don't want to make this posting too long, so I will continue with this next time.

Z

NECC 2007 - Expanding Your Classroom with the Interactive Web

It's NECC time!

I assume that if you are reading this, you are probably in my NECC workshop entitled "Expanding Your Classroom with the Interactive Web."

Instead of creating CDs or killing a lot of trees to provide you with notes of resource addresses for this workshop, I am providing these links to site here on my blog. It's quicker, it's easier, AND you can access them with the click of your mouse.

We will discuss the basis of the Interactive Web (AKA "Web 2.0" but I can't use that term here - it is copyrighted ;-)) We will then explore the educational possibilities of using blogs, wikis, podcatching, podcasting and social networking software in the classroom. By the end of this workshop, if all goes well, each of the attendees will have their own blog, wiki, podcast and del.icio.us accounts.

Here are the resources that we will be using. I am posting this here to share it with you readers, but also so that my students will be able to link to them from this posting instead of having to create a whole different website. (pretty cool, eh?)

Connectivism Website - George Siemens

Classroom Blogs
University Class Assignments
Blog-bib - Annotated bibliography on blogging
Weekly Teacher Blog - 3rd
Student Blog - 5th Grade
Prepare for Field Trip - 4th grade. Sets stage for trip.
Edu.blogs.com - Evan McIntosh. Comments/reflects on using tech in ed.
www.weblogg-ed.com - Will Richardson
Dr. Z Reflects - Dr. Z's humble attempt at blogging.


Overall Blogging Examples
Captain's Blog - Journal of Captain Mark Bromwich in Afghanistan.
BG Blogging - Creative Writing blogging from Middlebury University
Blogging NECC 2007 - Page full of blogs about NECC 2007
Bloglines - On-line RSS Feed Reader. Get an account.
Technorati - This is the Google for Blogs.

Create Your Own Blog
Blogger - Quick and easy blogging spot.
WordPress - Takes a little longer, but includes tagging and couple of other treats. It's worth the extra time.

Wikis
Wikipedia - The encyclopedia created and edited by "the masses".
Dr. Z's ITEC Conference 2006 Wiki - Check this out for more . . .

Reality in Second Life at NECC

I am sitting here in the Cedar Rapids airport at 5:40 AM waiting for my aerial coach to whisk me off into NECC-land in Atlanta, GA. This is my annual trek to the NECC(a) MECCA of educational computing.

A new dimension has been added this year with the ISTE Second Life experience. I am not enrolled in any SL activities yet, but learning about SL and the instructional opportunities of the Virtual Worlds will be one of my quests over the next 6 days.

The beginning of the SL integration into the NECC RL experience is the inclusion of SL nametags. An industrious member, Know Clue, has accepted the job of taking member-submitted photos of SL members and turning these into Nametags. http://www.flickr.com/photos/knowclue/page2/

You will see my photo/nametag in this entry. Looks just like me, eh?

Remember the mantra of Second Life, "On the Internet, Nobody knows you're a dog."

Distance Education through Second Life

As I contemplate the opportunities provided by Second Life, I see a number of potential pathways.

Consider SL as an opportunity to provide another dimension to distance education. It can provide another dimension that will enrich the learning experience. Last night I taught one of my distance education courses at the University of Northern Iowa (UNI). It is a face-to-face video course over the Iowa Communications Network (ICN). The ICN is an Iowan resource composed of a state-owned fiberoptic network that connects over 800 broadcast sites throughout the state. These broadcast/reception sites vary in sophistication, but all of them include monitors for reception and cameras for broadcasting. Most of them include teacher computers along with DVD players, VHS players and overhead cameras. It is said that no one in Iowa lives more than 20 from an ICN classroom.

My class last night involved me sitting alone in an ICN classroom at UNI and talking with students at 7 sites across the state. Most of my classes include students in the UNI classroom as well as the satellite classrooms but not this time. I control who and what is seen from my control tower. Some sites have multiple students while other students sit alone in their classrooms. The interaction between the students and between the students and me is somewhat limited. I don't see students communicating much between themselves outside of the classroom unless they are involved in completing a classroom assignment.

Imagine if this course was taught in SL. At it's basic level, it would be a chat room with avatars. Interaction would depend upon students' typing skills as well as their interest in the topic. One of the problems with using a written interface is the extended lag time between questions and answers. This gives us a chance to consider our ideas before we share them but it can also cause frustration. SL will ultimately provide an audio interface (it is in beta format now) which will bring a more satisfying interaction between participants. I have used Skype to interact with others while in SL and it worked well. Unfortunately, there is a limit of 4 participants (I think) in a Skype conference call so it would require limiting the class size.

SL can play audio and video broadcasts that are streaming through the Internet. This means that I could share videos from Edutopia by the George Lucas Education Foundation. I could just post them one of the videos screens in SL in my "classroom" whatever that may look like.

Playing streaming audio feeds also means that we could use the Webcasting technology that the EdTechTalk podcast guys have developed. This means that multiple folks could connect with me through Skype and then broadcast this through the web which could then feed through SL. The best part is that we would see the avatars standing/sitting together. I have found this geographical proximity to be an interesting phenomena which I will discuss in another posting but I think that it improves the interaction experience.

Musical concerts are happening in SL every week so the process of mass communication is already a reality. This interaction is something that will provide great opportunities.

What about panel discussions or group interaction or ??? These are the topics for another post.

Second Life Again

Last night I spent an interesting time in SL (Second Life). I have been honored by a friend of mine to share a virtual house in the virtual life of SL. This friend, Ferdi Serim, has spent his life developing new ideas for making education more relevant and more exciting. Presently, he is living in New Mexico working with students on a nearby Indian reservation.

Anywho, Ferdi invited me to join him in a house on EduIsland in SL. He rented the land and the landlord suggested that he had a house already built so said that he could have it. I must admit that I have been questioning the sense in having a home in a virtual land. Interestingly enough, it gives me a feeling of belonging. It is a place where I can go and talk with people. In fact, I have been meeting people who have been walking by the house and invited them in for a discussion.

Perhaps the best part of the house is the way that Ferdi and his friends have decorated the house. He has installed a huge speaker system and has figured out how to stream music that he has performed and recorded into the surroundings so that you can enjoy it.

Last night, Ferdi suggested that we go to an SL location called Svarga. It is an incredible fantasy land. Ferdi and I found out castle that a music room. We had a jam session on some percussion instruments. What a groove. Another participant in the jam, Rasmussen, videod the session and you can find it here.

The world of Second Life is just now beginning to grow and the possibilities seem endless.

Tell me what you think.

Teachertube is here!!!!!

I have been looking for this for a long time. It is TeacherTube.com

Teachertube.com appears to be a youtube for educators. You will note the note that notes " Keep it SAFE! Flag all Inappropriate Videos"

According to the "About Us" at the bottom of the page, Teachertube opened March 6, 2007 so it isn't even a month old. It was put together by a teacher.

This is where teachers can upload their instructional videos or videos of them instructing. What a WONDERFUL resource for professional development!!!!

Here is a video that shows how technology can help educators dance through the day.

http://www.teachertube.com/view_video.php?viewkey=7f89ddbebc2ac9128303



Leigh

Getting Into Second Life

We are finally "into Second Life."

I am an associate professor in Instructional Technology at the University of Northern Iowa. I must admit that I have "fiddled" with Second Life for about 6 months. This means that I have ventured onto Second Life and then retreated. Not because I couldn't "do" SL. It was because I saw the incredible attraction of the site and realized that this spot could consume a GREAT DEAL of my time.

Recently, our whole division decided to approach Second Life and explore it as a venue for delivering/exploring/experiencing instruction and learning. On Thursday, all six of us went on-line together and explored various spots. An interesting aspect of this process was that 5 of us were sitting together in a classroom at the university while I sat at home and explored it from a distance spot. I could have gone into school as well, but thought it would be fun to be the "distant explorer." We also integrated Skype so that I was part of the oral discussion that ensued.

We had our Techie guy kind of leading us but each of us had done some previous exploration or had friends who had suggested places to explore.

Presently, we are exploring what it would take to create a learning center in SL. We want to see what it would cost to get "enough" land. We need to find out how to create each of these buildings. We are discussing sharing spots with other institutions.

I have met a number of people/avatars on SL. It is another accessible market for friends/colleagues/potential students that will change our lives. Communication is the main motivator for progress. Consider the evolution of communication. Bell developed the telephone in 1875. This provided individual voice communication. Marconi and a number of other inventors across the globe developed radio broadcasting in the 1880s. This provided a broadcasting of information over large distances. The basics for television also began in the 1880s but the video communicator didn't become common in households until 1950s.

The Internet was made accessible to the public in the early 1980s. It became commercial in 1985. The Internet had a crude interface that Dante himself couldn't have conceived. But it was actively used because it provided a person - to - person seemingly immediate connection that could connect throughout the world. In 1990, Tim Berners-Lee created the basics for the World Wide Web (Wikipedia says that he used a NEXTcube as its first server.) The WWW provided a graphic interface for the Internet as well as a relatively simple way for folks to publish and share their ideas for all of the world to enjoy.

This progression went from 1-to-1 voice (phone), 1-to-many voice (radio - corporate controlled), 1-to-many video (Television - corporate controlled), 1-to-1 text (email), 1-to-many text (listservs), 1-to-many graphic (websites - personally controlled), 1-to-many video (YouTube et al - personally controlled). Now we have the wonderful virtual world (like Second Life) where we can have 1-to-1 connections but I can walk through places that are of interest to me and meet other people who have similar interests. This will expand my personal network and help me build communities that are not geographically limited.

As I wrote this short and simplified history of communication, I realized that there are many aspects that I have left untouched. The evolution of audience can also be followed here. Directed audience as with a phone call. The expanded audience that is only limited by access to a receiver (radio or TV) or channel (cable TV).

The important aspect that I am trying to portray here is that we are social animals. Communication is what will always push a technology into acceptance. Since we can't teleport to other places in the world and universe (ala Star Trek), working within a virtual world can provide close second where we can experience and create desired realities.

The ITEC Conference is a huge success!! . . . and so was my Interactive Web workshop

Well, the ITEC Conference is over and it was a success.

Over 500 educators attended and they had an opportunity to meet with old friends and make new ones.

The hottest topic of the weekend was podcasting. Podcasting, blogging, and wikis were on everybody's minds. I must admit that part of my perception might have been biased because I did a workshop and a session that involved using these 21st century tools in the classroom.

My workshop, Expanding Classroom Opportunities Using the Interactive Web, was quite successful. Although we had some Internet access problems, I was fortunate to have a room full of techno-veterans who were able to work with the challenges. This workshop was meant to demystify the Interactive Web. Throughout the 2.5 hour span, we explored the wonderful opportunities provided with blogging. We explored a number of examples and each attendee created his/her own blog through Blogger. I must admit that I like the tagging capabilities of Wordpress.com better, but it's a lot faster to make a blog on Blogger.

We followed this by exploring the wiki-world. I had a couple of folks who had never even heard of the word, Wiki. I reminded them of the Wikipedia. We visited Wikipedia and even added a sentence on one of the entries. (Don't worry, it didn't affect the meaning.) I then directed them to the wiki I had created for the conference, ITECconference2006. When you look at this wiki, you will see that I created a page for each of my presentations. This was intended to provide a place where folks could access our resources and add their own. (I was kind of hoping that they would make the changes during the presentation, but that didn't happen.)

Anywho, each of the attendees created an account on wikispaces. There are others, like Peanut Butter Wiki, but this is the easiest one to do in a short period of time.

We finished with podcasts. I had intended to provide each learner with the opportunity to create their own podcasts - even had microphones. Unfortunately, we ran out of time so I asked them if they would like to see me make a podcast from start to finish. After their resounding cry of "YES", I began my venture.

I began with Garageband (check out the tutorials) because it is so simple to add background music and edit. I created a quick 30-second audio recording. We then selected music for an intro and an outro (Like that name? I just learned it last week from the Apple website.) We added those musical clips and placed them appropriately (along with the proper "ducking.") We transferred the podcast to iTunes where it immediately started playing. We needed to convert the file to an mp3 format for the podcast, so we used the convert feature on the Advanced menu. Finally, we had to use the "Show File in Finder" command to find the mp3 format of the file so that we could move it to the desktop.

Confusing? It can be. I hope that Apple makes this process MUCH less complicated in iLife '07 or sooner. This is also why I supplied each of the attendees with instructions on How to Make a Podcast Using Garageband. (I will post these soon.)

The most difficult part about giving a workshop on creating a podcast is deciding where to upload the podcast so that it can actually be heard. Usually, we geeks have access to a server where we make special accommodations for them to upload their work.

I found an alternative!!!!! I found Pod-serve.com
This is a site where you can upload your podcast and, belive it or not, it does all of the RSS magic there too. This means that you just need to upload your podcast and then you can immediately subscribe to it. I must admit that I don't know much about this company, so you should check it out before you use if for your workshops or classes.

Elapsed time for making a podcast? 15 minutes from beginning to end. Would you believe that I just checked on the podcast that we made and it already has 51 subscribers? Must be a slow day in pods-ville.

This workshop was my first one covering these 3 tools of the Interactive Web. I hope to do many more. I have applied to NECC 2007 to make a similar presentation. I truly hope that it is accepted.

Interactive Web Workshop at ITEC 2006

On October 8, I will be presenting a 3-hour workshop at the Iowa Technology and Education (ITEC) Conference in Des Moines, Iowa. I am looking forward to this opportunity. I have shared the Interactive Web with others through presentations to colleagues and small discussions with students, but this is my first opportunity to present a workshop at a conference on this topic.

We will discuss the basis of the Interactive Web (AKA "Web 2.0" but I can't use that term here - it is copyrighted ;-)) We will then explore the educational possibilities of using blogs, wikis, podcatching, podcasting and social networking software in the classroom. By the end of this workshop, if all goes well, each of the attendees will have their own blog, wiki, podcast and del.icio.us accounts.


Here are the resources that we will be using. I am posting this here to share it with you readers, but also so that my students will be able to link to them from this posting instead of having to create a whole different website. (pretty cool, eh?)

Connectivism Website - George Siemens

Classroom Blogs
University Class Assignments
Blog-bib - Annotated bibliography on blogging
Weekly Teacher Blog - 3rd
Student Blog - 5th Grade
Prepare for Field Trip - 4th grade. Sets stage for trip.
Edu.blogs.com - Evan McIntosh. Comments/reflects on using tech in ed.
Dr. Z Reflects - Dr. Z's humble attempt at blogging.
BG Blogging - Creative Writing blogging from Middlebury University

Overall Blogging Examples
Boing Boing - A Directory of Wonderful Things
Bloglines - On-line RSS Feed Reader. Get an account.
Technorati - This is the Google for Blogs.
Captain's Blog - Journal of Captain Mark Bromwich in Afghanistan.

Create Your Own Blog
Blogger - Quick and easy blogging spot.
WordPress - Takes a little longer, but includes tagging and couple of other treats. It's worth the extra time.

Wikis
Wikipedia - The encyclopedia created and edited by "the masses".
Dr. Z's ITEC Conference 2006 Wiki - Check this out for more . . .

Haven't posted in a while

It is kind of embarassing to be talking about blogs but not have posted on my blog for 3 months. I am giving lectures today in our Ed Media class about Blogging, Wikis, and Podcasting. In fact, I am demonstrating this to a student right now.

Will be giving a workship at the ITEC conference next Sunday. Should be good. I will post the info here.

Z

Day 4 - NECC in San Diego

This was a good day.

The main event was the Thinking Graphically presentation that Lynne Anderson-Inman and I gave at 11:30. About 40 people attended.

I am now in the Closing Ceremony with about 1200 of my closest friends. Kathy Schrock is doing a presentation on having students create PSAs (Public Service Announcements) as a language arts activity. She is showing a bunch of PSAs that students have created. They are pretty good.

She is now showing a PSA that was created at the ISTE Leadership Symposium. Apparently the attendees did the audio and she ddid the video. She called it "kinda lame." Who am I to argue?

When she was done, everyone applauded. She said "Applause is soooo 90s." She had us all open our cell phones and hold them up like kids do at concerts now. I feel updated!!!!!!

Day 2 of NECC '06 in San Diego

While Day 2 of NECC was intriguing, it was a bit of a technological challenge. I seem to have lost my ability to access the wireless network through my computer so I will be unable to provide the "on the spot" blogging that I had hoped to do. I worked with multiple Mac gurus (including Richard at the Apple Exhibit) and it turns out that I can access the Web through a direct connect to my computer but not through wireless. This provides creedance to the age old (at least 10 years old) adage that there are three types of death: Brain death, Body death and being off-line.

I was fortunate enough to go to the SIGTC (Special Interest Group for Technology Coordinators) breakfast. The $15 breakfast (biscotti, muffins, and coffee) wasn't much but the entertainment was great. It began with a Web 2.0 panel including David Warlick, Tony Vincent, Will Richardson, Thor Prichard and John Hendron. I won't describe these folks because it is already posted at the SIGTC wiki. You will find links to their websites as well as the podcast of the discussion as well.

This is exciting that SIGTC already has this posted. We (SIGTC) will be using a wiki and a variety of Web 2.0 apps to provide resources for educators to use.

A highlight of the day was the keynote speaker, DeWitt Jones. DeWitt is a photographer for National Geographic. He gave a wonderful hour-long talk where he shared some of his life stories and then connected them with the photos that he has taken over his lifetime. He said that his interests are Vision, Passion, Purpose and Creativity. I was most impressed with his comment that "If you truly have a mission, the passion will be there. The purpose and creativity will follow without question."

I also had an opportunity to listen to Tim Wilson. Tim is the host of one of my favorite education podcasts, The Savvy Technologist. It was a great presentation. He has already posted his links to his website and will probably put his podcast up soon. I greatly appreciated Tim's view of the future. He spoke of Applications, Conversations, Audience and Challenges. One of his emphases was keeping students safe online. He suggested that we use tools on our server so that we can pull the plug until it is remedied. He isn't saying that we can fully control their access to technology, he only wants us to have a certain amount of sway so that they will pay attention.

Tim mentioned that we don't do much to teach web safety to our students. An attendee mentioned the iSafe curriculum. I don't know much about it but you can check it our at http://www.isafe.org/

I attended a presentation on Writer's Companion at the Visions booth on the Exhibit Hall. it is an interesting program that merges a graphic organizer, word processor, and desktop publisher to create a powerful tool for student writing. I need to review it a little more. This will be much easier since I won a copy of it at the end of the demonstration - lucky me.

Tomorrow, at 8:30, I will be at Nicholas Negroponte's keynote where he will unveil the $100 computer. I wrote about this earlier in this blog. It has a great photo of it. I will tell you more after I see it tomorrow.

Day 1 of NECC '06 in San Diego

The End of the First Day of NECC is upon us.

I am going to be blogging the happenings at NECC. It has been a wonderful opportunity to see new things that are happening. I will intersperse these accounts of my doings with comments on interesting software packages, people, ideas and places that I see.

This is actually before the actual beginning of the conference. Actually, I guess the conference began tonight with the gala reception and festive fireworks. Would you believe that we went out on the terrace of the Convention Center where we watched 5 sets of fireworks exploding up and down the San Diego coastline. AND they were all synchonized.

But I jump ahead of myself. My NECC day began with attending the ISTE NETS Forum. This was a meeting where the ISTE folks who developed the NETS (National Educational Technology Standards) 8 years ago, were meeting with educators from around the country (and even the world) to discuss how they can be updated. We were engaged in a number of interesting activities including identifying the new technologies and educational applications for the past 5 years.

An important thing for me to share here, is the address for a survey on the NETS Standards that they want as many educators as possible to fill out. If you want to have a say in how the next set of NETS standards look, complete the survey at this address:
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.asp?u=390142293245

3D-Interactive Mindmapping: Saw some interesting software tonight at the reception. My favorite is called 3D-Interactive Mindscene. It is a mindmapping tool that allows you to review an "aerial view" of a mind map for the book "Of Mice and Men." Then you can change your perspective and move down to a more "on the ground" perspective as you "walk through your mindmap" of the book. You can visit the site of this company at http://www.reachout-interactives.com. The site takes you through a multimedia presentation. This is the only book they have developed but the possibilities are endless.

simSchool: Saw an interesting simulation software that creates a classroom simulation that poses classroom situations/problems for teachers and they can practice their teaching skills in handling the problems and get immediate feedback about their success. I didn't get an opportunity to spend much time playing with this software but if what I saw in the short demo holds true with the rest of the product, this looks like a valuable tool for teacher education and mentoring. You can get to it at simSchool. Click on the "Tour the Classroom" button to try it out. You have to register but it is worth it.

My Hero: www.myhero.com is a site where kids from around the world post stories and videos about those people who are important to them. Apparently over 20,000 schools are registered on this website. I may go to the screening on July 6th from 4 - 7 pm to see more about it.

Well, that is the beginning of my experience at NECC. If there is anything that you want me to search for, leave a comment on this blog.

Nite,

Z

Blueberries . . . Soft Semantics

Continuation of my discussion with Dr. David Thornburg:

David,

I think that you are getting caught up in "soft semantics."

Whether you want to admit it or not, education has a set of products. Dictionary.com defines "product" as:

1. Something produced by human or mechanical effort or by a natural process.
2. A direct result; a consequence: “Is history the product of impersonal social and economic forces?” (Anthony Lewis).

As ethereal as you want to be about education, educators do a great deal of work and they have products. The question arises when we try to define how these products are measured.

Should we use tests? Sometimes.
Should use Porter-esque rubrics to evaluate projects? Sometimes.
Should we use attitudinal surveys? Sometimes.
Should we just talk with the students to see how they feel? Sometimes.
Should we interview parents to understand their perceptions? Sometimes.

There is a plethora of opportunities for evaluating the success of the educators in achieving their goals of producing their products (whatever they may be.)

Creating a positive educational environment is the key to developing a learning situation where students can succeed. This environment is filled with intangibles but it is still developed by the educators (these include the classroom teachers as well as the administrators, staff, school board members, parents and community members.) Much like going to your Japanese restaurant, the school and classroom teachers try to provide a successful experience to all who come. It works for some and doesn't work for others.

Having taught for 6 years in a dropout recovery program in East Los Angeles, I know something about systems that don't work. I also know about finding and creating systems that appeal to the students that don't "fit in." In every case, there is a product that we are trying to create. That product is not the student but the student's ability to succeed in the world in later life. We can't follow the student into later life to measure our success, so we identify the skills that we believe are necessary to succeed, we find ways to measure the success on a more immediate basis.

It is a problem when we don't feel that we can measure our success in achieving our goals in the classroom. Usually educators say that this is because we don't want to be told that we didn't succeed. If we can't find ways to measure our success, we will have no way to be able to compliment ourselves when we have successfully created our "product."

Thoughtfully yours,

Leigh

Blueberries . . . But curriculum isn't our product

Continuation of my discussion with Dr. David Thornburg:

David,

I must disagree about curriculum being our product. The success of our students' learning is the product. The students are clients but their parents are as much the clients as the students. It is the parents who move their students to a different school if they don't see the results that they want with their cherished children.

Leigh

Our kids aren't blueberries

I recently sent a link to a great story that connects kids with Blueberries. No, these are not computer-Blackberries.
It is about a lecture that was given by Jamie Volmer. Jamie was giving a speech to teachers where he was connecting education with a business model.
http://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif
http://teachers.net/gazette/JUN02/vollmer.html

I sent this link to a mail serve where I got into a discussion about this with David Thornburg. I have asked him for permission to post this discussion here in my blog.

I will provide this by posting his responses as comments to my postings throughout this blog.

Z

Building Community through Blogs

Blogs . . . Blogs . . . Blogs . . .

Blogs are a wonderful way to communicate with others about your ideas and develop a community of like-interested folk who want to discuss things. At first, I wrote "Like-minded folk" in the previous sentence, but that could and would make it a bit boring. Like interested folks are those who may have differing opinions on similar ideas.

The most important part of a blog is building community. I started a blog on EdTechTalk.com but no body responded. It identified that people read the post but there were not comments. This isn't much of a community. Either I am not very interesting, or people are not very talkative. Either way, a community needs to have a dialog between those who are writing and those who are reading.

a $100 computer for only $300

What a Deal!!!!!

You have probably heard of the MIT $100 computer by now. This is a computer that is designed to make computing available for underdeveloped countries.

The proposed $100 machine will be a Linux-based, with a dual-mode display—both a full-color, transmissive DVD mode, and a second display option that is black and white reflective and sunlight-readable at 3× the resolution. The laptop will have a 500MHz processor and 128MB of DRAM, with 500MB of Flash memory; it will not have a hard disk, but it will have four USB ports. The laptops will have wireless broadband that, among other things, allows them to work as a mesh network; each laptop will be able to talk to its nearest neighbors, creating an ad hoc, local area network. The laptops will use innovative power (including wind-up) and will be able to do most everything except store huge amounts of data. (http://www.laptop.org/faq.en_US.html)

This computer is designed to provide computing power at an affordable price. I was listening to the TWIT (This Week In Technology) podcast where they were discussing the features of the computer including the power generating crank. I heard Leo Laport say "What are you going to use a computer for if you don't have the power to run it?" He obviously "doesn't get it." I have lived in Malaysia where many of the children went to school by day and returned to their homes which were plywood huts that had no electricity. Having one of these computers would allow them to continue in their studies. They don't have to be chatting or web surfing. Writing in the dynamic world of word processing allows for students to revise at will and develop into better writers. The world is not based upon technology, but if students have the opportunity to develop their skills and knowledgebase through technology, they will be better prepared for the world of today and tomorrow. KUDOS MIT!!!!

An interesting proposal has come to the forefront. Let's purchase these $100 computer for $300. Pledgebank is providing an opportunity to make this purchase so that you can help support providing computers for students in underdeveloped countries. Basically, your additional $200 would buy 2 computers for the needy students. (I would suppose that it would be tax-deductible but I would check with your CPA.)

Nicholas Negroponte will be speaking at NECC 2006 in San Diego on Thursday, July 6, 8:30 - 9:45 am. He will discuss the "One Laptop Per Child" initiative.

Podcasting Workshop for Carver Fellows

I had the privilege of presenting a 45-minute workshop on podcasting for the UNI Interdisciplinary Carver Fellowship. This workshop, Podcasting in the Classroom, was meanthttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif as an introduction to the world of podcasting and ideas for how it can be used in the classroom.

I have a few notes here concerning some of the links I included in the discussion:

audible.com This is a site where you can download audio versions of books and other resources.

Atus The brand of wireless microphone that I used to record my Database class in Fall, 2005.

Rogue Amoeba Software The creators of Audio Hijack Pro software. Great software that will record anything that comes through your computer. I used this to record my Database class.


Databases in Education (Fall, 2005) The website which holds the podcasts for my Using Databases in Education classes.

Skype The software discussed that will enable you to phone anywhere in the world free-of-charge. This is a computer-to-computer connection. Skype needs to be downloaded on computers at each end of the conversation and then just follow the directions to make the connections.

Dr. Larry Anderson The president of the National Center for Technology Planning.

Dr. David Thornburg Long-time speaker on using technology in education. Head of the Thornburg Center for Professional Development.


Radio Willow Web Podcasts that have been created by 1st through 5th grade students in Omaha, Nebraska.

Audio Yahoo Search engine for audio files including podcasts.

Olympus Digital Voice Recorder WS-100 The digital recorder used to record the podcast that is available at the bottom of this posting.

Additional Resources from the Workshop:

Podcast of the Workshop This 45-minute recording can be heard directly from your computer by clicking on it or by subscribing to the podcast. http://coe3.coe.uni.edu/~zeitz/podcasts/podcastworkshop5_22.mp3

Podcasts Resources Handout - Handout filled with resources for finding, making and publishing podcasts.

Podcasting in the Classroom PowerPoint - Presentation provided in the workshop.

I hope that this is useful for you. Please contact me if you have any questions about how you can integrate podcasting into your classroom.

Leigh
zeitz@uni.edu

Dr. Z Reflects

I have started a number of blogs that didn't do much. Dr. Z Reflects will be my reflections about things that I am seeing, hearing, recognizing and researching dealing with education, technology and daily life.

I plan to include links to resources (i.e., podcasts, blogs, websites, on-line tutorials, etc.)

Should be fun,

Z

Contact Dr. Z

Here's how you can contact Dr. Z (Leigh Zeitz):

email: zeitz@uni.edu
Twitter: zeitz
Skype: leighzeitz
Second Life: Leigh Writer