Techomnivore

ISTE has developed a wonderful tool to help schools assess their technology integration efforts. The Classroom Observation Tool provides a checklist to guide you in observing how education technology is affecting classroom instruction. The tool is built on top of Adobe Air and allows you to work offline and then upload your results so you can access them from anywhere and share them with your instructional teams.

The tool has six main sections: Setting, Groups, Activities, Technology, NETS, and Chart.

• The setting section collects information like teacher, grade, subject, number of students, time, room description, and student characteristics.
• The groups section asks about student groupings, percentage of students engaged, if technology is being used for academic content learning effectively, the role of the teacher, and comments on this
• The activities section helps you identify what types of activities are taking place and how essential the technology was to the lesson or not
• The technology section asks which technologies are being used by the teacher and which technologies are being used by the student
• As you might expect, the NETS section has the National Education Technology Standards listed for you to check which ones you see being employed
• And the chart section lists the class time in 3 minute segments and asks you to select if technology is in use by students / for learning and if technology is in use by the teacher / for learning. It them sums it up by the total number of minutes technology is used for teaching and learning overall.

This is a powerful tool to guide technology vision planning, guide curriculum development, and encourage the effective use of technology on the classroom level.

I definitely recommend you check it out: http://icot.craftyspace.com/  (and click on downloads to get the tool onto your machine)

School reform is in high gear. With stimulus funding being the latest log in the fire, attention to education in America is at an all time high. We are aware now — our children are the only hope we have for continuing the levels of prosperity this country has become accustomed to. In the world of school reform there are efforts to improve teacher quality, to rethink school design, and to reboot school governance. But nothing offers more promise than the magic combination of our technology with the teaching practice.

So, as the story goes, the fabled titan of technology, Microsoft, decided to throw their hat in the ring and take a stab at making a school model that works. The School of the Future was going to revolutionize teaching and show the country how schools should be run. Yet three years later, the school is a lesson in failure as eSchool News put it in their June 1, 2009 issue.  The article cites several reasons why the school failed and for the most part, I agree.  When I visited the school, they were still on their first principal and the tour was nice yet something did not seem right.  Passing by the classroom, one thing became evident — that the students weren’t learning.  

So what did they do wrong?  According to eSchoolnews, a lot…

They were rushed. 

Why was the SOF in such a rush to get started?  Because of this rush, this push, vision was clearly lacking, execution was lacking, and this is SOF’s biggest failure,” said McGuire.

Microsoft’s expertise guiding the project was vague and there wasn’t enough time to refine the model.  The framework they gave to guide the development of curriculum was so general that the process felt “more like an academic exercise than a productive process.”  Educators were notified of being hired a few weeks before the school opened.  As a result they were not adequately trained to work with the technology, nor were they trained in project based learning.

The technology didn’t work.

Microsoft decided not to allow the use of textbooks or printed materials — everything online.  The school’s wireless connection often would not work.  Students often did not bring their laptops home for fear of theft and lack of basic upkeep skills.  No IT staff on site.  The district was running Macs in their schools — not PCs — so the district IT people weren’t prepared to provide the levels of support a 1:1 school needed.

Poor leadership.  Poor school-community-home relations.

Four principles in three years.  Three district superintendents in three years.  Lack of consistent leadership means that they’re starting at square one every time a new leader takes the reigns.  There was no effort to foster school-community relationships until it was too late.  The parent portal which communicated grades and progress lacked standardized grades and was difficult to understand.  

Why was this school caught so flat-footed? Is it a mystery that curriculum should be well thought out? Did they really not know that a portal that’s supposed to be the crux of the whole learning operation should work properly … and that tech support might be a good idea? These are lessons that every school has known for quite some time.  — Mitch Chester, Massachusetts’ education commissioner.

Microsoft’s project coordinator, Mary Cullinane, suggests a different perspective — that the school is in its infancy ad can learn from its mistakes.  They cite a lack of professional development and an investment in better community partnerships as the biggest areas they needed to improve on. 

What Microsoft has succeeded in doing is being transparent.  They’ve not kept the school’s test grades, attendance rates, and other metrics of success public.  This gives us a clear picture of the things school visionaries, leaders, and districts need to be careful not to do when designing and implementing innovative schools.  In the age of school reform, when educators are willing to take risks, caution signs are a welcome sight.

I heard a man speak about how our rules around copyrights needs to be rethought with regard to educational use.  He made a compelling argument that today’s digital technology opens up a world of possibilities for creation of original content but that original content isn’t unoriginal if it contains clips from other works.  He went to a medeival definition of authorship where original work always contains thoughts and ideas from others and yet, when remixed, the work truly is original and delivers a different message.  Wish I remember his name… got to take better notes.

Anyway, I found this article on Boing Boing (via Engadget of course) that says that the Electronic Fronties Foundation is petitioning for change in the Digital Millenial Copyright Act to permit educational uses of media clips.  The MPAA responded and said that it would be OK for you to use video clips as long as you recorded it yourself aka set up a video camera and recorded a flat screen TV.  They even went as far as to put together a video demonstration of how this can be done (see below).

My thought is — why stop there?  If you agree that there might be some value in permitting teachers and students to use media clips, then why make it so hard that it’s impossible?  What do you think?

MPAA shows how to videorecord a TV set from timothy vollmer on Vimeo.

Apple is making me smile today.  First they offer free computer recycling for schools (and not just Apples).  Then, they advertise this opportunity on a beautiful web page — they never do anything half-assed. 

This spring, Apple will recycle your school’s old, unwanted Mac computers, PCs, and qualifying peripherals from any manufacturer—for free. There’s no purchase required, and all accredited K-12 and higher education institutions with at least 25 pieces* of recyclables are eligible to participate.

Click on the following link for more directions and qualifications to get this for your school.

http://www.apple.com/education/recycle/

Through a website sponsored by Pearson and Nokia, the Mobile Learning Institute hosts video vignettes of innovative uses of technology in education.  You can see a tour of High Tech High by Larry Rosenstock who brings you into the project based learning spaces in what has become a legendary school for educational technology.  See why “you can study the world through carpentry”.

Check out Mobile Learning Institute

Hey all — I’m looking to test Schoohoo.com, the free alert and messaging software for schools that The Innovative Educator wrote about a few days ago.  This is a side project for me that I became interested in after the Virginia Tech tragedy.  Texting technology offers great hope to get messages out quickly for direction, assurance, and improved communication with parents.  I’d like to try this service with a small handful of schools so we can make a recommendation.  Schools will be asked to get a few administrators, teachers, and parents to register for text alerts and get feedback from them how it worked (how user friendly was the registration process, did you receive the alerts, do you like this service, what would you do differently).

In order to participate you must

• Be a NYC Department of Education school
• Get permission from your principal to run this small pilot
• Get at least 1 administrator, 2 teachers, and 3 parents to try it out at your school
• Run a few test alerts (including a district alert from me)
• Have the participants fill out a short survey at the end

Interested?  Reply to sign up.

Hello All — I’d like to share an opportunity with you to participate in a fantastic contest designed to help high school students prepare for the SAT/ACT. In this contest, students create flashcards — images and sentences paired up with one of their SAT/ACT vocabulary words. The contest ends 5/22/2009 and there are prizes. The contest is sponsored by MIT and is a follow up to the successful BrainyFlix which you can also see at their website.

Double-Up Contest: Make Brainypics, win $$$ & prizes. Make even more Brainypics, double-up the $$$ & prizes. See Contest Rules.

Weekly iTunes Giveaway: 5 funniest BrainyPics with pictures of you, your classmates, family or teachers *snicker* *snicker* each win iTunes! Due by 4/26 Sunday at midnight.

Check it out:  http://www.brainyflix.com/flashcards

Hi All — We spoke about the changes that were happening in the Department of Education in February/March but never had a chance to follow up. Even now I’m not 100% sure how much has been announced so I’ll just share about the changes with me because I won’t have the opportunity to see you in my former capacity.

I am transferred to the Office of eLearning Services under Troy Fischer.  We are working toward three goals: developing a system for online professional development, leveraging digital core curriculum content, and promoting strategies to implement virtual learning environments.  Ultimately when our PD system is complete, teachers across the city will be able to take professional development workshops online and content specialists will not have to worry about scheduling PD in specific locations, they’ll be able to reach a wider audience and take advantage of all the benefits of eLearning. I’m spending most of my time now immersing myself in the concepts, strategies, and methods used in online professional development.  Also, I’m working on developing a CMS beginner workshop in an online format.

Thanks for the opportunity to work with you the last few years — I’ve learned a lot from you!  Particularly about making the connection with technology and the curriculum, the different approaches to technology integration in schools, and how persistent you can be when it comes to making positive change that you believe in.

You can continue to reach me at the work email and I’ll be looking for your comments and input on this blog.  I would love to hear how you’re doing and excellent project ideas — thinking about how that can happen.

I stumbled upon the KEO project the other day and realized what an amazing opportunity for a classroom writing project.  The KEO project is a space time capsule set to launch in 2010 with a destination 50,000 years in the future when it’s set to re-enter earth’s atmosphere.  It will carry a diamond encased with samples of blood, air, and water as well as letters from earth’s inhabitants. Everyone is invited to write as message to the future inhabitants of earth by visiting their website and entering your message in the webform.  What would you like to pass on to your faraway descendants?

Your classroom project can be research about the KEO project and it’s founder, Jean-Marc Phillipe and a writing assignment to be included in the time capsule.  The website has some good framing question:

What reflections, what revelations
do your future great grandchildren evoke in you?
What would you wish to tell them about your life, your expectations, your doubts, your desires, your values, your emotions, your dreams?

Here are some thought provoking questions to get your students thinking:

• The time capsule is considered a work of space art by it’s creator, Jean-Marc Phillipe.  Take a look at the space art left on the moon called Fallen Astronaut.  What message do you think space artists are trying to communicate?  If you could create your own space artwork, what would it be and what would you want future observers to think of when they saw it?
• The messages included in the KEO time capsule are going to be included in their original, uncensored form.  Do you think that’s a good idea?  What are the dangers of censoring the messages?  of putting uncensored messages in space?
• Create a presentation of a time capsule created in the past — opened or not.  Include the following: when it is to be opened (or when it was opened), who was the archivist, what was the container made of, where was it stored, what kind of items are stored in it, what was the “sealing ceremony” like?

Link to the KEO website where you can enter your message to be included in the time capsule:  http://keo.org/uk/pages/message.php

Link to the Wikipedia on the KEO time capsule: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KEO

Link to the Wikipedia article on time capsules for the third project idea:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_capsule

Edweek has an article reporting on a research study conducted on 280,000 students looking at their use of personal technology in learning and concluding that most school’s “no personal technology” ban affects their learning negatively.  The report asserts that students are a ‘Digital Advance Team’ illuminating the path for how to leverage emerging technologies in effectively for teaching and learning.  The report outlines ways personal technology can be integrated including greater access to Web tools and lessons in electronic format such as podcasts and presentations, use of games and simulations, and links to videoconferences with subject area experts.

http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2009/03/24/27digital.h28.html