Get yer textbooks here
In the extremely unlikely event that you or anyone you know might be looking for an educational technology textbook, I’m selling one.
Educational Research: Competencies for Analysis and Applications is yours, all yours, for a steal: $10.
Of course, I have almost zero eBay history, so you’d kinda have to trust me …
Education-based barcamp
Tara Hunt is organizing a barcamp focused on education this August in Vancouver.
You should be there. I’m definitely going to try to be there. (It’ll be easier if they tell me ASAP when exactly when it’s going to be!)
BTW, nice new site design, Tara.
Live-blogging: Hi-Tech Communication, Lo-Tech Principal
I’m liveblogging a NAESP session by Tod Harrison from Durant Intermediate School in Oklahoma. Should be interesting.
Problem: getting information home
Just not getting there … and not much budget to play with. Also, many parents not available during the day. But they needed to get information to parents.
His assistant principal is not tech-challenged … and neither is Tod. But if he tells that to teachers, he’ll be doing tech support all day long. So … they’re looking for solutions that don’t involve them doing it all themselves.
But, found out that 60% of parents have email (at library, work, school). So, they started a weekly email newsletter. No size limitations, and no paper wasted either. Teachers started a section: Teacher Brags, in which teachers brag about how well kids are doing.
Response
First week - hundreds of responses. Parents loved it. Interesting … his assistant created it in Word and converted to PDF to email. Don’t use an HTML email format or anything like that.
Evolving the idea
After starting, they then added podcasts, using a Mac server and Audacity for recording. Their podcasts are now publicaly available at Durant’s site.
They’re now using Macs with Garageband to capture podcasts. They’re doing enhanced podcasts with photos so that essentially you’ve got a presentation.
Now with kids
Now they’re getting the kids involved … 5th grade class did a video for presentation for the staff Building Leadership Team meeting. Took them about 20 minutes a day for 2 days, plus some editing time, I presume.
The kids know this … it’s simple for them, and teachers need to catch up.
Bumps along the path
There are some challenges they’re working through …
- It’s technology … so there are still some bumps along the way.
- Plus, it costs a decent amount of money.
- Need to learn the programs
- Takes time
- Teachers have some technology fear
Interesting … I asked whether he’s had any pushback from parents who don’t have email. Not really, he said - he’s got 75 new email addresses in the last month. So more parents had email - or just got it - than he knew of originally.
. . .
. . .
Now we’re just all chatting in the room, and the principal (Steven Puckett from Indian Land Elementary School) sitting next to me mentioned they use ConnectEd, which can send messages in multiple formats to multiple groups of people automatically.
Live-blogging: LMS in Elementary?
I’m currently in a session at NAESP on using Blackboard, a Learning Management System, in elementary schools. This is interesting, because LMSs or CMSs (course management systems) are almost always only used for high school and higher education, and sometimes in middle school. But elementary is almost unprecedented.
Betsy Jones, an administrator in Greenville, SC, uses it for:
- sharing info and resources
- formative and summative assessment via surveys & tests in Blackboard
- self-directed learning
- collaborative learning experiences
- 21st century skills
- parent involvement
- activities for early finishers
- differentiation for different types of learners, and learners who learn at different speeds
She teaches a few students to use the system … then the students teach each other. Interesting! Then students start playing with what they’re seeing, and sharing what they’re learning.
Even more interesting, she had requested students with major discipline problems, and so filled her class with kids like that … and saw huge improvements in learning and behavior. Betsy attributes that almost entirely to student engagement.
She had one student who was a “problem” introduce Blackboard to the teachers … a huge bonus for him and also a major boost to teachers using technology - if this 5th grader could do it, they had to be able to do it. Teachers were scared to use tech … but the students helped them along. Betsy even had some students attend professional development for teachers when the school acquired SMART boards.
… currently getting an overview of Backboard functionality … fairly standard stuff.
A teacher in the group pipes up and talks about how she uses their LMS to post the weekly schedule every Friday night, and updates with announcements every morning.
I asked Betsy if she lets students use discussion boards. Some classes yes, some classes no. When she does, she gets parents trained at the beginning of the year with students, and they sign an “acceptable use form.” Has worked very well, even in a high-poverty area where only 2 of her students had computers at home. Some parents even started coming into school with their kids in order to use the computers and get on the class site. Very cool.
For spelling tests, she recorded words and then had kids listen to them, writing down what they thought the spelling was. She had 5th graders post notes from Math classes to Blackboard so that they could access it at home later when they were doing homework and needed to refresh their memories.
Overall, she felt there was much more student excitement and engagement … resulting in much improved student learning
That’s bullshit, man (or, observations at the exchange counter)
I’m taking a research methodology course for my master’s program in educational technology.
One of the requirements was to do a ethnographical study of some common setting. I chose the exchange counter at Future Shop, a major Canadian electronics retailer.
Ethnography is challenging!
I decided to go to Future Shop and observe the returns and exchanges counter. Here are my notes - hastily scrawled between visits by suspicious sales staff!
They’re punctuated by my hasty attempt at categorization while in the store … and are pretty raw, pretty much straight from my notebook.
1. Scene
Future Shop in Abbotsford. Big store, jammed with electronics, computers, media, appliances, etc.Near the front entrance of the store there’s a long counter with several electronic cash registers on it. Service staff face the entrance; clients walk up to them. The cash register screens are visible by service staff only; not clients.
Clients enter a line at a sign. There’s a roped-off section suggesting where the line-up should be. When a cashier is free, people move forward.
Service staff have a fairly informal uniform - black shirt, tan pants, with a security ID tag around the neck. Clients are widely varied in dress from jogging pants to jeans to suits.
2. Bearded man
A bearded Caucasian 40-ish man steps up to the counter. He’s got a boxed product and a variety of papers - receipt, and some bigger sheet of paper. Phones are ringing. The PA system repeatedly pages various people in various departments. He talks to the cashier; there seems to be an impasse. He leaves with his papers and box.3. Bald man
An 60-ish Caucasian man steps up to the counter. Strained expression on his face. Cashier (20-ish, female, short, dark-haired, Indo-Canadian) checks his receipt, checks his box, asks questions, taps data into her cash register. I hear him say “whatever.”There’s little eye contact between him and the cashier. He has on hand on his hip, one hand on the counter.
She scans his credit card, seems to be finishing up. She cracks a joke, pointing at some place in the store. I don’t hear her words. He laughs.
She continues tapping on the cash register. She smiles again, saying another joke or anecdote. He smiles. The register spits out more paper for the client’s signature. He signs.
4. Self-assured man
My attention is captured by a self-assured Caucasian man in his early 30’s. Suit, tie, dress shoes. Goatee. Short, slim. Walks up to a 30-ish couple in the line-up with a Guitar Hero 3 box in hand. “That’s the wrong music game,” he says, loudly. “You should get _____” (can’t hear the name.) They smile, nod, answer shortly and quietly.5. Finished
Meanwhile, the bald man finished, and is walking away.6. 2 young guys
Two young Indo-Canadian guys in jogging suits and white runners step up to the counter. They say something. Cashier says something … I catch “buy something else.” They leave the counter, walk past me into the main section of the store. One says while passing “that’s bullshit, man.”7. Self-assured man #2
The self-assured guy steps up to a recently opened position on the exchanges counter. He’s loud - I can hear him half-way across the store, although I can’t make out every word. He makes eye contact, unlike some others, and says confidently “I need to exchange _____ for _____” (couldn’t hear the names of the products).8. 30-ish couple
Meanwhile, the 30-ish Caucasian couple step up to the other station. He puts the Guitar Hero 3 box on the counter, talks to the cashier. She opens the box, checks the product, and checks his receipt. I hear a few words she says: “what happened?” They seem to want to check if the guitar is still working.The couple does not make much eye contact with the cashier. The stand slightly turned towards each other, talking very quietly.
The guitar inspection seems over - the cashier taps on her machine and and it produces a 3-foot long receipt. He signs it, and she hands over cash. Must have been an original cash transaction.
9. Self-assured man #3
He’s just finishing up with the cashier. Is still loud and somewhat perfunctory: “Thank you very much and have a good day.” He turns, walks away with his newly exchanged-for product, and walk out the door. The alarm sounds … he slows, half-turns, then continues walking out. No Future Shop employees do anything.10. 2 young guys #2
The two young guys are back, with some small product in a plastic case. I hear the word “here” as they plunk it on the counter. One faces the cashier as she processes the exchange, the other faces his buddy. Both make little eye contact with the cashier.The transaction is over quickly. They sign the receipt and walk out. The alarm goes off again - they continue walking out. No-one does anything.
11. Diffident woman
A Caucasian middle-aged woman sidles up to the counter, but stays a couple of feet away. After a minute or two, the cashier looks up, speaks, and the woman walks closer. They start talking.12. End.
My time is up. I’ve been approached 4 or 5 times by Future Shop staff with slowly increasing levels of interest. Maybe they think I’m secret-shopping them, or work for a competitor. Time to pack up and get out.. . .
. . .This was very fun and very challenging.
I really felt a need for a video camera to capture information that could then be analyzed in depth later … I really felt I was missing so much detail that I wanted to capture.
Deconstructionist question
For my current course in my master’s program, I’ve been looking a number of different theoretical perspectives from which educational research can be conducted.
The prof asked us to come up with research questions from each. As I was doing so, I was thinking of web 2.0 technologies like those listed under the Virtual Me header at right … web services that allow anyone to record personal information, history, events, thoughts, experiences. Here’s my question for deconstructionism:
How does recording personal history and artifacts - which necessarily presents a static, freeze-frame version of the self - subvert the concept of identity by representing a dynamic, mutable substance as a stable, unchanging essence?
A good deconstructionist question should be subversive of itself … should deconstruct itself and its own language just as much if not more than whatever concept it purports to analyze.
Coming up with that was fun.
Triumph
My daughter Gabrielle won her school’s spelling bee this past week Thursday.
I was in Winnipeg for a quick business trip, but my wife Teresa took pictures and our son Aidan (4) took video.
The really cool thing beyond Gabrielle winning is that she’s in the lowest grade of middle school right now, so she beat out kids not only in grade 6, her grade, but also grades 7 and 8.
Her prize was the Ripley’s Believe it or Not book in her hand, and in March she may go to the regional spelling bee in Vancouver’s Orpheum.
Congratulations, Gabrielle!
Quotable quote
Saw this today in EdNews:
All politics are based on the indifference of the majority.
By James Reston, quoted, p. 216, FORBES Magazine, August 23, 1999.
Apparently, people learn better when they’re awake
Sometimes solutions are too simple to work.
Or, rather, they’re so simple that no one actually believes they will work. Like the connection between school start times and student achievement.
In 2002, high schools in Jessamine County in Kentucky pushed back the first bell to 8:40 a.m., from 7:30 a.m. Attendance immediately went up, as did scores on standardized tests, which have continued to rise each year. Districts in Virginia and Connecticut have achieved similar success. In Minneapolis and Edina, Minn., which instituted high school start times of 8:40 a.m. and 8:30 a.m. respectively in 1997, students’ grades rose slightly and lateness, behavioral problems and dropout rates decreased.
Why is this? Well, apparently …
Research shows that teenagers’ body clocks are set to a schedule that is different from that of younger children or adults. This prevents adolescents from dropping off until around 11 p.m., when they produce the sleep-inducing hormone melatonin, and waking up much before 8 a.m. when their bodies stop producing melatonin. The result is that the first class of the morning is often a waste, with as many as 28 percent of students falling asleep, according to a National Sleep Foundation poll. Some are so sleepy they don’t even show up, contributing to failure and dropout rates.
There’s no one panacea to student achievement problems. But this sounds like it could help, and I for one would like to see it researched thoroughly.
Sloodle walk-through
An informal overview walk-through of Sloodle that I did for a masters of educational technology course
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About
Sparkplug 9 is John Koetsier's blog on life, the universe, and everything,
but mostly the stuff you see big in the tags to the left.
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