EdVentures in Technology

teaching, learning and change

Archive for December, 2006

Status report on resolutions for 2006

December 31, 2006 at 9:52 pm · Filed under Random Thoughts

Last year I listed seven resolutions. How did I do?

1. Give this blog the attention it deserves

In 2006, I hit the 100 post milestone. This year I hope to drive more traffic but I think I will need to develop more programmatic posts than summary posts to achieve this.

2. Finish my M.Ed. in Educational Technology

Graduated in May, yippee

3. Start my Ed.D.

Looking to start in spring 2007, probably beginning with my CAGS until PSU’s doctoral program is approved.

4. Present at an industry conference

Submitted presentations but have yet to be accepted. Trying again for 2007

5. Map out my career path

Hmmm….

6. Give back to the EdTech field

Making small steps with local endeavors but I hope to become more involved with NHSTE this year.

7. Develop and teach a graduate level course

Looks like I’ll be teaching that course this summer. The catalog title is Elements of the Web, but I may have to tack 2.0 on to the end of it to keep it current

[tags] resolutions, 2006, report [/tags]

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Top Ten of 2006 - These are a few of my favorites posts!

December 31, 2006 at 7:46 pm · Filed under Random Thoughts

So after wrapping up the top ten most read posts, I wanted to take some time to reflect on my favorite posts. So here they are:

Life Altering Moments (My Encounter with Beena Raza)
It was a privilege indeed to meet such a strong and dynamic woman as Beena and I look forward to working with her in 2007.
Blogging Frustration
I still find myself struggling with style, more specifically, identifying a writing style that reflects my thought process. But as Stephen Downes pointed out, “It is necessary to take an attitude something like, ‘It’s good enough because it’s me.’”
The truly world-wide web, or my blog’s travellog
I am constantly amazed by our global reach.
Gilford Middle School Web Access Report
It still amazes me that despite all of our progress, that our schools live in the dark ages when it comes to access to web-based technologies. I echo Will Richardson’s frustration that too many schools focus solely on filtering rather than on empowering our students with developmentally appropriate critical analysis and information/digital literacy skills. Sometimes I wish I were back in K-12.
Knowledge as Legos or what I learned from my 5-yr old
From my 5-year old philosopher: Like an individual Lego block, data in isolation is essentially useless. The value of data is determined by our ability to combine and recombine it with other pieces of data in order to create a solution or solutions to any given problem/challenge.
News from WebCT Impact
If I’d only known in July what would transpire in August, I would have had a lot more questions to ask of the gentleman I was sitting and conversing with during the keynote, Senior VP and General Counsel, Matt Small!

The last four posts all carried a common theme - what I perceive to be the growing need/demand for a virtual office. I’ve been thinking that it might make an interesting follow-up book to Will Richardson’s “Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms.”

The Digital Nomad’s Toolkit
Are Google Apps the tool of the future for higher ed?
Teacher as Digital Nomad, Part I
Re-visioning the online learning environment, part 1

So what will 2007 bring us? Any predictions?

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Happy Holidays and a Blogging New Year

December 24, 2006 at 9:43 pm · Filed under Random Thoughts

It may be next year when I get to post again so in the meantime may I extend a warm holiday greeting and my best wishes to my friends, family and those I have yet to meet. And to my brothers and sisters in arms overseas, you are not forgotten. Stay safe and I hope that you can soon return home to the ones you love.

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Blogging frustration

December 22, 2006 at 2:58 pm · Filed under Random Thoughts

My blogging buds often give me a hard time - they say I don’t blog often enough. I cannot disagree but I’ve been trying to figure out why.

Part of it has to do with time, but I fear that is a universal truth and one which is not unique to my situation. Recently though, I’ve come to feel that the greater reason has to do with how I think. I envy the likes of Will Richardson, Wes Fryer, Stephen Downes and company because they write either with a flow and passion that I admire, with a sense of the narrative through the use of digital storytelling to which I aspire or with a concise analytical approach that I wish I could emulate. And they make it seem so effortless to boot. By comparison, I often feel like my posts are too simplistic and as a result drag my feet on posting to my blog until I have wrought a piece which rises to my level of acceptability. If I seek to become a better blogger, then I need to understand how I think and in knowing develop a strategy which will ensure my own personal success.

I’ve come to believe that two factors are in play: 1) my unrealistic expectations and 2) the fact that my thought process is rather staccato in nature. My thoughts come to me rapid-fire, often seem unrelated and then branch out geometrically. I find myself struggling to retain some control and recollection over how they developed and how I arrived at my conclusion. I often find myself unable to sit still and speaking so quickly that folks are continually asking me to slow down. My conversation also reflects my leaps in logical progression and I often lose not only myself but the others who have come along on my conversational journey. This is particularly true for those things that I am passionate about. As you might well imagine, coupled with my tendency to “go with my gut,” this behavioral thought pattern leads to quite a bit of frustration!

Where others cogitate, I perceive. In one of my graduate courses, Theories of Learning & Cognitive Development, there was a rather heated discussion between the professor and the members of the class when someone used the term “feel” when they were tallking about something they believed. The professor held that it was impossible for one to “feel” a thought and did not allow the term to be used in our discussions. While technically that may be true, I find that I rely heavily upon my intuition to guide my actions and as a result often use the term “feel” instead of “believe” to reflect my intuitive thought processes. So heavy a reliance upon my intuitive and perceptive nature may contribute to this A.D.D. of the mind. Upon reflection, I ought to find some exercises which will force me to use different cognitive processes to develop my thoughts.

I still do not entirely understand myself but then again, like this post, I am a work in progress! To my blogging audience, I thank you for your patience and I will strive to post more in the upcoming year (with New Year’s coming up, this might make a great resolution - again). And to my own inner critic -
“Shut up and let me think in peace!”

For those with advice on overcoming my blogging writer’s block, your comments are most welcome!
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Encyclopodia - Wikipedia for your iPod

December 22, 2006 at 1:27 pm · Filed under TechTalk, Web 2.0

The blogosphere was abuzz a month or so back when word spread about an app called Encylcopodia that dumped the entire Wikipedia body into a content form that could be ported to and read from your iPod. The implications are staggering but so are the possibilies, not simply from the standpoint of having such a wealth of knowledge at your fingertips but from the demonstration that such a thing was possible. My mind started churning out a number of exciting variants.

What if the content was not only viewable but was formed in such a way that it could be read back to the user? How might this help our auditory learners or those with visual impairments?
What if we could easily port our own local wiki content to such a form accessible from our own or our students iPods, or better yet any similar device regardless of manufacturer? I could envision our teachers having a portable professional development app at their disposal, or our students having a portable repository of knowledge and information for when they conduct field studies.
What if, through the integration of a recording system such as the MicroMemo, we could then contribute back to that larger body? Imagine students conducting interviews or taking field notes which could then be incorporated into a Wiki-based study. I haven’t played with it much but the application TiddlyWiki has the ability to work locally and then synchronize content with the server based version.

What would it take for us to take what Robert Bamler has started and make it even more valuable as a teaching, learning and archival tool?

P.S. - Could we have a 5g compatible version? The current version of Encyclopodia supports only pre-video enabled iPods and I don’t have a spare iPod to risk hacking my 30GB 5g although the iPodlinux.org site says it’s simple.

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Revealing the title of Harry Potter Book 7

December 21, 2006 at 4:00 pm · Filed under Connectivism, Creativity, Random Thoughts

Ok, this might seem to be a bit off subject but I think it speaks volumes to how the cunning application of technology can engage learners.

I heard rumors that J. K. Rowling had announced the release of her 7th and final Harry Potter title. I had intended to visit her site but my ADD got the better of me. Then I came across a post by one of my most recent blog favorites, Wes Fryer,entitled Discover the final Harry Potter book title. Wes was reporting on a CNN link which provides directions on how Potter fans could learn the title of this last book. I won’t play spoiler for those who want to find out for themselves, but it turns out that J. K. Rowling’s website has hidden a number of “easter eggs” which in turn lead to a game which upon successful completion reveals the final title.

As I followed the instructions, it occurred to me that this sort of engaging, challenging and creative application of technology is what makes learning so much fun. It is not the rote memorization, it is not the regurgitation of meaningless factoids - it is in the exploration and experiential interaction engage our learners and this engagement generates excitement and passion which translates into lasting memories and this retention leads to a greater likelihood that these memories will be around to contribute to the cultivation of new knowledge.

Very cool indeed!

And to add to the novelty, this 7th installment will be available on the 7th day of the 7th month of the 7th year of the 2000 millenium, or 7 on 7-7-7. Hmm…
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Online Connectivism Conference

December 20, 2006 at 12:56 pm · Filed under Connectivism, Higher Education, Web 2.0

This one is on my virtual calendar!

The Learning Technologies Centre at the University of Manitoba is hosting the Connectivism Online Conference. Thanks in large part to the efforts of George Siemens, this wholly online (oh and did I mention, FREE!) conference runs from 2-9 February 2007 and will feature the likes of Stephen Downes, Terry Anderson, Bill Kerr (link to presentation material) and Will Richardson as well as George Siemens himself.

This event will employ both Moodle and e-lluminate and will cover such areas as:

“…trends in K-12 sector, trends in higher education, research and net pedagogy, technological and societal trends, and connective knowledge and connectivism.”

I am looking forward to this event and hope that you will join me there!

Note: Bill Kerr’s link has been updated to reflect his new location and he kindly offered a link to his presentation material.

[tags]occ2007[/tags]

technorati tags:occ2007, connectivism, learning, online, conference

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The Evolution of the Web Portal in Higher Ed

December 7, 2006 at 10:26 am · Filed under Random Thoughts

My colleague Ken Kochien has recently posted an interesting piece on web portals and references the efforts of Virgina Tech as they redesigned their portal experience. As I reviewed their presentation, I was immediately reminded of the many shortcomings of SCT’s current Luminis offering. I should point out that Luminis is also based on the uPortal framework. My frustration stems from the fact that the larger SCT grows, the harder it is for them to remain agile and responsive and in turn to create a product that is agile as the rest of the web world at present. My biggest concerns deal with the presentation, interface and usability.

I took some time to review the VT Tour and I’ve posted my thoughts and comments on their model by slide. If I get a moment, I’ll try and grab some screenshots of our own portal for comparative purposes.

Slide 3 - The VT Home page is colorful and engaging, ours could stand a redesign which will probably occur in conjunction with the web redesign.

Slide 4 - Icons in title bars are attractive, even better is the skinning of the environment, rounded corners, shaded titles, clear delineations of content all serve to improve the user experience.

Slide 5 - The VT Courses tab is a little busy but ties together nicely with the SIS. I prefer the idea of a myLearning tab which not only integrates the students courses but also a library channel (rather than a separate tab-see slide 8 ) I like the date feature but would prefer that the student calendar feature integrated both a global university calendar for campus wide dates as well as an LMS based calendar which posted course specific dates.

Slide 6 - This is more of a wish list item but how nice would it be if students had the option to post a brief biography of themselves a la MySpace to share with others and could control it from their portal?

Slide 8 - I like the idea of a Services tab and the concern expressed that by placing services in such a tab it avoids the concern of promoting one service over another, in this case the former VT Library tab became a channel in the Services tab. I still prefer keeping academics together and pairing the Library channel with the students courses and academic tech support in a myLearning tab instead.

Slide 9 - The “MyStuff” tab. I admit it has promise. How cool would it be if we could integrate a WebDav service to drag and drop items into the student’s network storage space? Better yet, develop a web-based HTML editor and management service similar to Google Pages. Make the MyStuff tab mean something to the user whether faculty, staff or student because ultimately that willl determine the efficacy of a portal solution. It’s no longer about the institution’s wants, not that it has ever been, it is about engaging users. The value of a portal is derived solely from its usefulness to our users. To be snippy, “Hey {Insert your institution name here}, it’s not about you, it’s about your USERS!”

Slide 12 - Zooming channels. Another great idea and one which exists now in our own portal but unfortunately the interface is such that it is not intuitive and therefore not a well known feature amongst the user community. The “+” and “-” icons are more universal and probably better understood than the icons which exist in Luminis 3.x

Slide 13 - Support for Tech Support (Woot, woot) - This issue has plagued many a HelpDesk charged with providing support but unable to do so without asking a user for the Username/Password. This is what I would call a BFO (Blinding Flash of the Obvious). Now granted there are some security issues to deal with but most of these can be managed through process and policy.

Slide 14 - Finally a content manager that makes sense. The current version of Luminis has this god-awful interface which does not lend itself to usability. The VT example is more intuitive and also informative and does not require launching a separate interface window. Those channels which are locked are clearly marked as such. I would still prefer (and have no doubt that it is in development) to have an AJAX interface to drag and drop channels where they are desired without having to go through the multiple click process which still appears to exist.

Slide 15 - An intuitive channel manager. This would be even better if it supported tagging for findability but the VT example is a far cry from the current Luminis model which is really only effective if you already know what it is you need. Window shopping is not encouraged.

Slide 16 - I like the prompt and alert model which informs users where their channel will be placed.

Slide 19 - New tab button - again intuitive and friendly. This concern for the user should result in increased adoption and usage of the portal.

Slide 20 - A Confidentiality Preference! In an age where concern over identity theft is beginning to become internalized by our user population, what a great service to offer. It really should be a mandatory feature.

Slide 21 - Aggregated layouts - Addresses one of our key concerns which is how to target content by user role and how to decide between duplicate content containers and elevating the proper one.

Slide 23 - Sub-tabbing - A great way to maximize space without overloading the user with too much information. Also intuitive as it functions in much the same way as the nav structure in shopping sites.

[tags]education, evolution, highered, luminis, plymouth, portal, vt.edu, web, highered [/tags]

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Gilford Middle School Web Access Report

December 6, 2006 at 10:58 am · Filed under Random Thoughts, TechTalk, Web 2.0

I’m at GMS providing tech support for my wife who teaches 7th grade science. We’re trying to connect an Intel Play QX3 USB Microscope (microscopy-uk article) to her classroom computer in order for her to conduct a hay infusion micro-organism experiment. The idea behind the microscope is to quickly show the class some of the protists that they are searching for. Unfortunately, the as with many schools, the lockdown on the local computer as well as her own teacher’s computer, prevents the installation of new hardware without an admin override. This protects the computer wonderfully at the cost of learning. To be fair, the computer teacher at the Middle School is the first tier support and he may be able to assist. I’ll update as I find out more.

Since I was unable to help out here, I thought I would take the opportunity to test the Internet access from the classroom. Here are my notes:

The school uses St. Bernard as a filtering tool
GIFs which pull from Flickr accounts would not display on the computer (the dreaded little red “X” appears instead)
del.icio.us is available (which is good as I just set my wife up with an account so that she can share resources with her class. However I couldn’t install the quick link buttons in IE due to admin restrictions)
Flickr blocked (web host)
PBwiki blocked (web host)
Googlepages blocked (web host)
Blogspot blocked
Wikipedia available
My blog is available
Picasa seems to be available (as it operates on a different principle (invitation only) from Flickr)
G-Mail blocked (E-mail host)
Google Docs available
SuprGlu available (one way to get around blog blocking and ensure some level of content oversight)
Edublogs.org blocked (discussion forums,hobbies/interest - see image below)

Now the St. Bernard software, as illustrated above, does allow for either an Override (if the educator has such privileges) or an Access Request from the local administrator. I am hoping that Michelle and her fellow teachers have this access and with it the trust of the district that her professionalism will ensure good decision making!

[tags]k12, filter, pedagogy, access, internet, teaching, learning [/tags]

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EdVentures in Technology

Archive for December, 2006

Status report on resolutions for 2006

Top Ten of 2006 - These are a few of my favorites posts!

Top Ten of 2006 - Most Read EdVentures Posts

Happy Holidays and a Blogging New Year

Blogging frustration

Encyclopodia - Wikipedia for your iPod

Revealing the title of Harry Potter Book 7

Online Connectivism Conference

The Evolution of the Web Portal in Higher Ed

Gilford Middle School Web Access Report

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