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Friday, June 16, 2006

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

Sunday, June 11, 2006

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.

Sunday, May 28, 2006

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.

Saturday, May 27, 2006

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

Friday, April 21, 2006

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

Monday, January 16, 2006

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