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by Scott McLeod | Mar 28, 2008 | Blogging, Miscellaneous, Not So Irrelevant, Tech Tools |
In the past, I’ve labeled my random thoughts and captures from the Web on this blog as Half-finished or half-baked?. As of today, I’m re-labeling those as Not so irrelevant and have made a new category on my blog for these…
YouTube Insight
YouTube has released YouTube Insight, an analytical tool that allows users to view detailed statistics about the videos they have uploaded. I pulled up my list of videos and clicked on the About this video button for my video on The Resilience of Teacher Culture (featuring Richard Elmore). Here’s what I got:
Nathan Lowell quote
Here’s my favorite quote (from Nathan Lowell) from all of the comments at Will Richardson’s post regarding 21st century skills for educators:
We’ve spent millions of dollars to equip and wire schools and now that we’re discovering just how much we can learn with them, we’re spending millions more to prevent the intellectual capitalization that our investment represents.
Classroom examples
Colette Cassinelli has set up a VoiceThread 4 Education wiki where educators can post examples of how they’re using VoiceThread in their classrooms. Very cool idea. Similarly, Liz Kolb is blogging about how to use cellphones as K-12 learning tools. I’ve added these to the Moving Forward wiki since I think they’ll be helpful examples for presenters. [Anyone know of similar sites – ‘how to use these tools in education and here are lots of examples’ – for online video, podcasting, Twitter, etc.? I particularly like the idea of the wiki where everyone can post their examples for all to see…]
Rightload
Courtesy of LifeHacker, I discovered a nifty little Windows tool called Rightload that allows me to right-click on a file and instantly upload it to my web site.
Music education bloggers
Joseph Pisano and Owen Bradley are trying to get 100 new music education bloggers by January 2009. So far they’re up to 36. If you know of any music educators who are blogging who aren’t on the list, encourage them to sign up! [It would be great if the massive list of teacher bloggers at Support Blogging was divided up by subject areas!]
Leaders in Learning 2008
Kudos to Dan Meyer, Vicki Davis, Jason Ohler, Liz Pape, and the other finalists for the 2008 Leaders in Learning Awards. As a General Excellence awardee last year, I can emphatically state that the winners will have a great experience!
by Scott McLeod | Feb 10, 2008 | Law, Policy, and Ethics, Leadership and Vision, Professional Development, Tech Integration, Tech Tools |
At the request of her principal, Pam delivered a presentation to her staff on technology tools. At a follow-up meeting, she faced a lot of criticism from members of the Faculty Council who claimed that she ‘wasted their time.’ Rather than supporting Pam, her principal simply sat there and nodded her head as Pam absorbed the blows.
Here is the comment I left at her post:
Your administrator cut you off at the knees. She essentially set you up. NOT cool. Does she do this to others or is it just you? Either way, it should be a huge warning sign that you’re not going to get the kind of support you need. I suggest you either call her on it (and judge her reply very critically) and/or start looking for another building. As an educational leadership professor, I say be very, very wary of a leader who breaks trust with you like this.
Do you think I was too harsh?
by Scott McLeod | Jan 20, 2008 | Miscellaneous, Tech Integration, Tech Tools, Videos |
Here are some new videos I have recently run across:
The last one is very funny and also illustrates yet again the power of Web 2.0. elkedas added the link to the video on the Moving Forward Videos and Handouts wiki page. If I hadn't made that page publicly editable by anyone, and if she hadn't voluntarily taken the time to add the link, I probably never would have seen the video. Now I have a new resource for when I present (thanks, elkedas!).
These are the kinds of examples we need to give educators in order to help them see the power and potential of some of this technology stuff. Also, please remember that the Moving Forward wiki is intended to be a free resource for all of us who are trying to facilitate technology-related change in schools. If you've run across a great education-related blog / wiki / podcast / video / etc., please add your resources to the wiki so that we all can benefit, just like elkedas did. Thanks!
by Scott McLeod | Dec 29, 2007 | Tech Tools |
I don’t often blog about specific technology tools, but I just ran across a service called Kwout (pronounced ‘quote’). It lets you quickly take a screen shot and then post it to a web site, Flickr, or Tumblr.
The cool part of this is the image mapping. For example, in the screen shot below from this blog, you can see that what looks like an ordinary graphic actually contains hyperlinks. Very nifty!
by Scott McLeod | Dec 27, 2007 | Law, Policy, and Ethics, Leadership and Vision, Tech Integration, Tech Tools |
I’m one of the lucky ones: my XO arrived in time for Christmas (thank you, Betsy!). I wish I knew to which country the other one went. For those of you who are so inclined, you still have time to give one and get one.
My kids and I have been playing with the XO a lot over the last couple of days. It definitely requires a mind shift for those of us who are used to computers with the Microsoft Windows interface. I’ve been reading up on the Sugar interface so that we can better understand how to think about this new computer. I’ve also started bookmarking some helpful XO resources in my del.icio.us account. As others have noted, the key is not to judge the XO by the standards of a more expensive, mainstream laptop but rather to recognize it for what it is (and then marvel at the form factor and functionality that you get for the price).
Now that it’s in my physical presence, I already have LOTS of questions
about my XO (e.g., how do I find files that I download? can I add some
of you as friends in an XO group?). Doug Johnson, Tom Hoffman, Anne Davis: who else out there in the edublogosphere has/ordered an XO? Should we create an edublogger community around this thing, maybe as a group blog or as a social network in Ning?
Notes
- I tried to wow my 89-year-old grandmother with the XO yesterday. She said, "Oh, I know all about that thing." My mom had heard about the OLPC project too. Awesome!
- I’m the third person in Iowa to add myself to the XO Frappr map!
by Scott McLeod | Dec 19, 2007 | Higher Education, Podcasts, Pre-Service Preparation, Professional Development, Tech Integration, Tech Tools |
[cross-posted at the TechLearning blog]
I talked my department chair into letting me do a 10–minute technology demonstration to my faculty colleagues at each of our monthly department meetings. My last one was titled ‘Fun With Audio.’ It went something like this…
Hi everyone. You know how you open up your word processor software, type some stuff, and then hit Save and your file’s somewhere on your hard drive? Let’s take that same thought and extend it to audio…
[open up Audacity with the LAME MP3 encoder already installed]
This is audio software. It’s like your word processor but for voice.
[hold up tabletop mic]
This is a microphone. $30 at Best Buy. I plug it in here and I’m ready to go. I click on this record button, start talking [blah blah blah], hit stop when I’m done. Voila! A sound file!
[play back file]
What can I do with this? Well, I don’t know about you but I can talk faster than I can type. So maybe I’d like to send a message to my class…
[demonstrate a quick voice memo to students – blah blah blah]
Click on Export as MP3, put the file where I want it, and send it as an e-mail attachment. Ta da! I’ve just freed up 20 minutes of my day. What else might we do with this?
[talk about voice instructions for online course management systems, sending voice e-mails instead of text e-mails, doing interviews for research studies, interviewing local experts for department web site, etc.]
[expand my faculty colleagues’ horizon by quickly mentioning Skype and the ability to record long-distance phone calls for free; offer to help anyone install Audacity and get up and running; drop a hint that I’m going to do a hands-on podcasting clinic in the spring]
Done! Thank you very much!
[next month: YouTube QuickCapture!]
This stuff is getting too easy not to use. Faculty members in colleges of education don’t tend to be very tech-savvy. With the right approach, however, we can get them using, and thus exposing future educators to, these tools. My audio demonstration took about eight minutes, I never mentioned the word ‘podcast,’ and I had a ton of questions and interest at the end.
We can do this. Share the love, share your knowledge: adopt a professor today.
by Scott McLeod | Nov 28, 2007 | Blogging, Communication, Law, Policy, and Ethics, News and Events, Research and Evaluation, Safety and Security, Tech Tools |
This arrived in my e-mail inbox yesterday:
CDC REVIEW OF ELECTRONIC MEDIA AND YOUTH VIOLENCE
Research Shows Increase in Electronic Aggression
In September 2006, experts from academic institutions, federal agencies, and nonprofit organizations gathered at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta, Georgia, to better understand the varied ways new media technology – blogs, instant messaging, chat rooms, email, text messaging and the Internet – influences youth aggression. The two-day meeting, "Electronic Media and Youth Violence," was held to review current research and to discuss the implications for youth, parents, school staff, and educational policymakers. Data from the review show although rates of electronic aggression are lower than rates of physical and verbal aggression, these rates seem to be increasing. In 2000, 6 percent of internet users ages 10 to 17 said they had been subjected to online harassment; by 2005, the percentage had risen to 9 percent – an increase of 50 percent.
The complete review can found in the December 2007 supplement of the Journal of Adolescent Health. To access a complete copy of the Journal and the supporting issue briefs, which summarize the research and discuss the implications of these findings for youth, parents, school staff, and educational policy makers, please visit www.cdc.gov/injury.
A few thoughts…
- Most parents probably don’t do near enough at home to teach and monitor children’s appropriate usage of electronic communication tools. We know that schools and religious institutions don’t when kids are with them. So why should we be surprised that some children and adolescents are using these tools for inappropriate purposes? It’s like Lord of the Flies out there when it comes to adult supervision!
- The JAH research articles on this topic are impressive. It’s going to take me a while to read through them all. My first scan, however, is that while there seems to be a bevy of top notch, peer-review-quality research there, it’s all on the harmful effects of communication technologies and none on the empowering effects of the same. We need good, data-based information on this topic, but I’d like to see academia provide some counterpoint research on the positive aspects too, not just more fear-driven research. I want to also see a two-day meeting on Electronic Media and Youth Empowerment. We’re not going to back to a tech-less society. Why can’t we get info on both sides of the coin so that we can make intelligent decisions about this stuff?
- ‘An increase of 50 percent’ sounds ominous. An actual rise from 6 percent to 9 percent doesn’t. Presentation makes all the difference.
- The policy implications from the expert panel crack me up. Essentially the panel said ‘The federal government should do very little. The states should do more. School districts and schools should do the most.’ In other words, they could have just typed the word ‘federalism’ on a piece of paper, handed it in, and gone out for coffee. Nice job, folks!
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by Scott McLeod | Nov 21, 2007 | Leadership and Vision, Miscellaneous, Professional Development, Tech Integration, Tech Tools |
[cross-posted at the TechLearning blog]
We can imagine a continuum of frequency of technology usage that looks something like this (click on image for larger version):
People use digital technologies at various levels at both home and work. We can arbitrarily categorize the frequency of their technology usage as a range of very low to very high. Of course individuals may fall into one category at home and another at their workplace.
We can imagine a second continuum of technology usage overlap that looks something like this:
In other words, the digital technologies that people use at work will overlap to various degrees with those used at home. Some folks will have little to no overlap, using one set of tools at home and another at work, while others will utilize similar software and hardware in both locations.
[There’s at least a third possible continuum: type of technology usage. However, I’m not smart enough to figure out how to incorporate into this post how people use their digital technologies so I’ll leave that for someone else. There probably are other dimensions of this as well. Maybe we’ll hear from the tech integration folks!]
We can conceptualize different individuals or job classes by using these two continua. For example, we probably would be safe in guessing that someone working in the information technology industry is likely to use technology a lot both at work and at home. That IT professional also may have substantial crossover between home and work in terms of tool usage. In contrast, a secretary might have a technology-intensive work life, using a computer nearly every minute of every day, but have a less-intensive technology experience at home. Finally, a fast food worker may not use technology much at work or at home, the latter perhaps because of income challenges. Lest I offend anyone, let me note that these are just generalizations to illustrate the use of the two continua; we all can think of many exceptions to these examples.
If we use these continua to think about K-12 schools, then I believe the issue probably looks something like this:
Speaking generally, the people in charge of implementing technology initiatives likely are high users at both home and work, with a fair amount of overlap in terms of the tools that they use. Teachers and administrators, on the other hand, probably are not using technology near as often. Also, they likely have relatively little crossover between the specialized technology systems they use at work (e.g., student information systems, electronic gradebooks, PowerPoint, parent portal software, and “clickers” for formative assessment) and what they use at home (e.g., digital photo management, games). What overlap does exist is probably mostly in the arenas of e-mail, word processing, and browsing the Internet. Finally, as we know, students’ personal lives usually are much more technology-rich at home than at school. They use many more tools, most of which are not allowed during the school day.
It would be interesting to discuss these continua with a school staff, ask educators to draw their own diagrams, and then compile the results in some way. For example, if we assign the numbers 1 (very low) through 5 (very high) to the first continuum and 1 (no overlap) through 4 (high overlap) to the second, we can think of individuals as numeric triads (home-work-overlap). Using the examples above, an IT professional thus would be 5–5–4, a secretary 3–4–3, and a fast food worker 1–1–0. A media specialist might be 4–4–3, a principal 1–1–1, and a student 5–1–1. Once the triads were determined, they could be analyzed for purposes of sparking discussion.
I’m not strongly invested in these continua. There probably are better ways to think about these two dimensions and, if so, I’d love to hear them. But I do think it’s helpful to try and diagram issues in a way that makes sense to people. If we believe that moving schools forward on the technology front is desirable, we have to help educators create mental models that are easily understandable and useful.
Have a happy Thanksgiving, everyone.
by Scott McLeod | Oct 24, 2007 | Leadership and Vision, Professional Development, Tech Tools |
[cross-posted at the TechLearning blog]
Here is a suggested five-step conversation plan for creating greater interest
in digital technologies by your school administrators…
Step 1. Acrobat
“Can I have 10 minutes of your time?”
“Sure. How about tomorrow at 3pm?”
The next day…
“I am guessing that you run across things on the Web that you’d like to save
for future reference. I know I do. I often bookmark those in my Web browser but
sometimes they disappear and aren’t there when I return later. I thought you
might be interested in how to capture a web page in the full version of Adobe
Acrobat so that you have it forever in a PDF format. I use this a lot
myself.”
Demonstrate Acrobat…
“Thanks. Let me know if this is something you’d like me to install on your
computer. Also, I know I went through this fast, so I’m more than happy to come
back anytime and walk you through how to do this.”
Step 2. Podcasts
“Can I set up a one-hour meeting with you to go over some technology stuff?”
“Sure. How about next Thursday at 1pm?”
A week later…
“Hi I brought this CD with an
interesting interview I heard with three data-savvy principals in Minnesota.
I thought we could listen to it together and then talk about it.”
Listen to the CD. Have a conversation about the administrator’s reactions
to the podcast and how you can help with some of the data-driven issues raised
in the interview.
“Thanks. By the way, here are a few more CDs with some other podcasts
related to data-driven decision-making. I thought if you liked this one you
might want to have some others to listen to while you’re driving around, working
out, or whatever. Oh, and there’s lots more good stuff like this on the Web. Let
me know if you’re interested in seeing what else might be out there for
you.”
Follow up a month later if you haven’t heard from the
administrator.
Step 3. Online videos
“Can I set up a one-hour meeting with you to go over some technology
stuff?”
“Sure. How about next Friday at 10am?”
A week later…
“Hi. I have a few online videos I wanted to show you. None of them are very
long but they’re all really good. Some of these might be great discussion
starters with our staff.”
Watch some or all of the following online videos together (make sure
they’re not blocked!):
Have a conversation about the issues raised in the videos, how they might
be useful with school initiatives, etc.
“Thanks. By the way, here’s a link to some other videos that may be of
interest. You might be particularly interested in the administrator’s guide to
cyberbullying. Oh, and there’s lots more good stuff like this on
the Web. Let me know if you’re interested in seeing what else might be out there
for you.”
Follow up a month later if you haven’t heard from the administrator.
Step 4. Sheetfed scanner
“Can I have 30 minutes of your time?”
“Sure. How about next Wednesday at 2pm?”
A week later…
“Hi. I wanted to show you this thing. It’s a sheetfed scanner. What you do is
you insert it between your keyboard and your monitor. Then, anytime someone
hands you a document that you want to save, you stick it through the scanner,
give it a title and some keywords, and click on save. This saves the file as a
PDF document on your hard drive. Anytime you need it again, you can open up the
software and pull up the document by doing a quick search on the title or
keywords. Then, best of all, you can throw the paper away! This is a great way
to stay organized and reduce all of the paper that’s laying around your office.
I use this all the time in my own work. Would you like to see a quick demo of
how it works?”
Demonstrate the scanner and software. Highlight how quick it is to scan
and save, and how easy it is to retrieve scanned documents.
“Thanks. Let me know if this is something you’d like me to install on your
computer. Also, I know I went through this fast, so I’m more than happy to come
back anytime and walk you through how to do this.”
Step 5. RSS [Note: I've changed my mind somewhat regarding this recommendation]
“Can I have 30 minutes of your time?”
“Sure. How about next Tuesday at 9am?”
A week later…
“Hi. I know you’re interested in woodworking and hiking. Plus you’re always
raving about those pugs of yours. I wanted to show you something.”
Show RSS in Plain
English. Then show the administrator the RSS aggregator you’ve
created for him, with feeds already set up for woodworking,
hiking, and
pugs
(replace with whatever the administrator’s interests are!). Show that you’ve
also seeded the aggregator with some
administrator-oriented blogs too, so that the aggregator can be
used for both professional and personal interests.
“Thanks. Here’s the URL for the aggregator. I showed you how to open up posts
in both the aggregator and the original web site, but let me know if you have
any difficulty. I’ll leave this for you to play around with for a few weeks. By
the way, if there are other web sites that you visit regularly (e.g., CNN, USA
Today, The New York Times, ESPN), they probably have RSS feeds too and we can
add those into your aggregator. Let me know if you’d like to make any changes or
additions to this.”
Follow up a month later if you haven’t heard from the administrator.
And so on…
Conversations like these can go a long way toward facilitating administrator
buy-in and support for technology initiatives. Too often technology workshops
and demonstrations focus on student or teacher needs and neglect the very real
needs that administrators have for professional growth and increased efficiency
or effectiveness. The key is NOT to show administrators what you think is
cool but rather what will be USEFUL to their own learning needs and day-to-day
work. Remember that the most important person in your administrator’s life is
herself. Once she’s engaged personally, then you have a much better chance of
getting her interested in what teachers and students might do with digital
technologies. Until you’ve set the hook, much of this will be abstract to her.
Create opportunities to make digital technologies concretely real for your
administrators. Help them feel in their gut that this stuff is useful and
powerful.
Hopefully this five-step conversation plan will spark some ideas regarding
your own work with administrators. If so, please share with the rest of us!
by Scott McLeod | Oct 17, 2007 | Communication, Online Learning, Safety and Security, Tech Integration, Tech Tools |
Check out the transcript of Will Richardson’s live online chat about the educational benefits of social networking. Part of the fun at this year’s T+L conference!
FYI, tomorrow is an online discussion with Thomas Hutton, senior staff attorney for the National School Boards Association, on navigating the legal landmines associated with new technologies. You know I’m looking forward to reading that!
