Technology In Education Online

I arrived wondering what I will discover during my time here.  The trip down went fairly well.  For those who can relate, my anxiety of getting from school to the airport was happily relieved when I was sitting in the airport reading a book on my Kindle.  It is nice having a Kindle to pull out and easily carry around my book collection without taking up a lot of space in my carry-on backpack.  Also, when going out to dinner once I arrived being able to take it with me to read sure makes it nice! 

Getting ready to go I fine tuned my presentation, The Project-based 2.0 Buffet! Eating it all up!  In presenting in the fall at CECA 2009 conference on this topic, I wanted to refine what I presented to make it a valuable experience for those that will attend the presentation at FETC 2010.  I believe that in any presentation it is imperative to be open to changing directions according to what the audience is looking for.    I think in the presentations I’ve attended in the past, I’ve always worried when the presenter will not move away from their PowerPoint presentation.  It is as if  the audience doesn’t even need to be there for the person to continue their presentation.  I know I’m in trouble when I see the presenter being chained to their laptop.  They dare not venture being arms reach of the laptop.  And to make matters worst, they basically read their bullet points to you. 

So as I get ready for the confercence, I will see how far as stay on my presentation and how far a stray from my initial thinking on what I will present.

After traveling to various conferences across the country, a similar message has been told to me regarding Web 2.0 tools, “These are really great tools! But our school district doesn’t allow us to use them.” John Dewey stated, “In more primitive societies at least what is learned is put into practice, whereby in formal institutions often the educational process is far removed (abstract and bookish).”

And so as I prepare to present at upcoming conferences this fall, these words echo in my mind.  If we are to move beyond this restrictive environment we’ve placed on students, we are faced with a daunting task of relinquishing control.  We continually define new ways to distance ourselves from our students.  By placing more and more restrictions on these tools we move further away from our students connecting with their learning.

On top of this, we must look for ways to not create more of a digital divide in the utilization of these Web 2.0 tools.  We must discover ways to offer these tools to students that may not have a computer and Internet access at home.  Can we move progressively forward and ignore the possibility of losing more students due to this fact?  These are difficult times but we must find ways to put this technology in the hands of all students.  With the use of netbooks and the cooperation of Internet service providers we can move forward to this dream.

Here we were talking about opening up schools to current technologies yet when attempting to go to several sites while here at the high school I was blocked from using them. A couple notes about blocking – YouTube, Ning.com, Web-based email, TeacherTube, SchoolTube.  How are we going to bring this gap between students everyday life experiences and the experience at school?  Alan November gave a great presentation about the use of various Web 2.0 tools. Yet, I’m here at the conference and couldn’t even use them!

It isn’t a knock on the conference location. It is more of a reflection on how restrictive we are in our schools.  It is a subject that we don’t talk about even though it needs to be discussed.  Where you might ask?  Anywhere there are administrators placing restrictions on their use.  It is as if the emperor isn’t wearing clothes and no one wants to say anything.

I think several components come into play regarding Web 2.0 restrictions. One is power and control. The other is fear of the unknown.  Let’s talk about the first one: Power and control.  If I restrict the use of these tools I am in a powerful position.  I am fulfilling my responsibility as an administrator.  And if I don’t know what these Web 2.0 tools do, what would it mean if allowed myself to be vulnerable to the statement “I don’t know what Web 2.0 is.”  The other part of not knowing is it leaves you susceptible to dismissing the use of Web 2.0 tools.  If I don’t know I simply can state that we restrict the use of these tools.

For technology coordinators, I can easily show that I’m doing my job if I can show all of these sites and Web 2.0 tools that are restricted.  See I’m doing my job!  Much easier to explain then if I just leave open the use of these tools.  It helps with job security!

We must open up the dialogue to discuss these issues.  If we don’t teach students how to use these tools appropriately who will?

I’m sitting at the Technology Showcase here in Atlantic City watching the excitement people have shown learning about how using a Moodle and Joomla in their school can open up new opportunities.  The major complaint I’ve heard from people is how restrictive their school districts are when it comes to allowing Web 2.0 tools.

We have to move away from this idea.  Students are leaving us behind when it comes to this technology.  My question is where is the evidence to show that allowing students access to these tools is detrimental?  Instead of restricting students, we should be teaching students how to use these tools responsibly. 

Another thought is how much is this related to not really knowing what all of this about.  Sometimes when people don’t know their first tendency is to lock everything down.  Don’t they understand that it really is OK not knowing everything. In this day and age how can anyone expect to know all of this?

Finally, I think in some instances it really is about power and control. If I dictate what is allowed and what isn’t allowed I am in a very powerful position. This is sometimes the unspoken word behind the reason we become so restrictive. Information is power.

Somehow we must find ways to reach administrators and technology coordinators to break down these barriers.  There needs to be a reeducation of decision makers and a grass-roots effort by educators to change this attitude towards Web 2.0 tools. Those that restrict these tools are missing out on a great opportunity to create a more constructivist approach to education.

I decided to announce my first annual, maybe semi-annual, maybe when I feel like it, technology awards. My awards are based on the 4 catfish system. Four catfish means it rates the highest achievement in technology and it’s uses in the educational sector.

 - Great program, product, or service would recommend highly

- Good program, product, or service would recommend

 - OK, but I’d wait awhile for improvements

 - A real stinker

 My first award and recipient of the four catfish award goes to JingProject. What started out as a free beta download has now become an official TechSmith product.   I’ve used Camtasia Studio and SnagIt for a number of years. Over the past year or two I’ve reconsidered how often I’ve put together tutorials for students and teachers. Now with JingProject, they can do it themselves. On JingProject’s one year anniversity, Techsmith is offering even more storage space (2 GB) plus 2 GB of transfer sound. I can’t wait to see what lessons students put together using JingProject this coming year.

 Another  four catfish award goes to Moodle.org. What started out as a collaboration with three teachers has now taken me around the country promoting the use of Moodle.  Another great free program. Moodle is revolutionizing the way teachers are teaching. And to top it off, the Moodle community is tremendous in their support of users. And it’s all free!!!

   My third four catfish award goes to Joomla! Here is another great free open source web-base program for creating websites. Like Moodle, Joomla offers an array of free extensions (Moodle refers to them as modules).  The Joomla! community is great when it comes to support.  When you look towards creating a collaborative web presence Joomla! is a great choice. It takes the creation of a website out of one person’s hands and makes it a true joint effort.

   A three catfish award goes to Apple’s Garageband. I would probably give a four catfish award if it was available on something other than a Mac.  OK settle down all you Mac devotees out there! Researching the best tool for creating podcast there is no better tool. And this is coming from someone who has been a PC person most of their technology life. I have yet to see a program on the PC side that matches the ease of use.

  A three catfish award goes to Audacity. A free open source program that is available on multiple platforms and can be used for creating podcasts. Not as user friendly as Garageband, but for free you can’t beat it!

 A two catfish award goes to Xobni (inbox spelled backwards). If you’re a Microsoft Outlook user this is a great little plug-in (and it’s free) that makes finding things so much more easier. Great for finding email attachments, previous emails from contacts, phone numbers from emails, and assorted other features. I run it on two computers, one it seems to work fine on and the second one seemed to slow down my system a bit. The other problem I had was sometimes Outlook wouldn’t start-up and I had to reboot to get it working again. However, please note that I run several, and I do me several, Outlook plug-ins along side of Xobni which may contribute to the problem.

 And my dubious one stinkin’ fish award  goes to the scanning technology at conferences in the vendor areas. It sure makes it easier to pass on your information but the amount of phone calls I get after a conference sometimes is unbearable. Look I know people are only doing their jobs and trying to earn a living but to keep calling and calling! The worst part is when you agree to purchase their product(s) and once the sales is complete it is as if you never existed. There goes the phone calls.

So there you have it my first annual, semi-annual, occasional, CATFISH AWARDS!!! If you have a program, hardware, etc that you would like to nominate for the illustrious CATFISH AWARD, please let me know.

How often has this saying been used these days? There comes a time when a cleaver saying becomes more of a cliché than actually having meaning. “Thinking Outside the Box” has now officially entered into my cliché database.  This term is bantered about in education more often than any other saying today.

But here is my thinking. Maybe thinking outside the box isn’t really thinking outside the box. Maybe we’ve got it all wrong and the outside is in and inside is out. We are so locked into educating to perpetuate the status quo that anything outside of teaching to the test is thought of being some type of outside the box experience. And then we wonder later on why people are so enamored with these 30 second sound bites.

It is as if all of those multiple choice, true/false, and fill-in-the blanks tests has prepared us not to question anything. Just get the quick answer and don’t scratch below the surface to explore any further.  We learn that the answer must be a, b, c, or d and then carry this over to adulthood accepting those 30 second sound bites as fact. Never questioning beyond the surface.

So, perhaps we are already thinking outside the box and that is the problem.  If we really want to move education beyond this state, we must move our teaching methods towards a more applicable experience for our students.  Utilizing concepts put forth with Web 2.0 tools is just one avenue to explore in making education a more interactive experience.

Today’s theme has been my quest today. All sessions I’ve attended have been Web 2.0 related.  If I were highlight the day I’d say there are just an incredible amount of “cool” stuff coming out all of the time related to Web 2.0.  Just when I thought I was catching up to things, something new comes along.  The run down of sessions today:

Starting off the morning attending Alan November’s presentation: “Cultivating a World-class Work Ethic”.  If I were to reflect back on the session the key thing is that we must think of our learning from a multitude of perspectives.  If we study, for example American History, do we only source out of Google only from an American perspective?  Do we, with all of this technology available, open ourselves up to a more global perspective?  And if we restrict what we teach and our approach to how we teach  what are we preparing our students to become.  There are so many great things available to students today, especially with Web 2.0 tools that by placing all of these barriers in our educational approach we don’t create life-long learners.  We are leaving our students the job of teaching themselves outside of school. Students must and should have a say in their own education.

The remainder of the day I spent going to various Web 2.0 sessions.  I think when you talk about creativity and empowerment Web 2.0 is the future….for now. Who knows what the next big thing is coming around the corner!  This can be looked at in two different ways: 1) Why learn this stuff if it is going to be passe in no time, or; 2) This is some exciting stuff and it allows me to continue to bring in new ideas to students!  People were talking about YouTube, Digg, Blogs, Second Life, Habbo & Club Penguin, MySpace,  and Facebook to name a few. The whole idea is taking a bottom down approach rather than a top down approach towards education. Forget about memorization and regurgitation. Let’s move away from this focus on standardization especially since we can’t even get the “experts” to agree what these standards are and how we measure students’ progress.

The final thought of the day is this: If we talk about transforming our teaching methods with Web 2.0, we must think about how we teach ourselves.  If we are attending conferences, I think we need to develop conferences more towards being interactive and hands-on.  People may argue that with larger conferences this is an impossible task.  However, lets’ think about how a conference might work/ look differently. Attendees come to the conference, for those that don’t have a laptop, attendees are given a loaner system to take with them throughout the conference.  An attendee walks into a session, round tables are setup where people sit down, open up their laptop, and begin to walk through using these Web 2.0 tools.  How can we afford this?  I’ve seen vendors, such as Gateway, Dell, and HP, at the conference. Why not tap into their resources to provide the loaners?  The same with software. We have Apple and Microsoft at the conference. Why not have them participate in this process to provide the operating systems.

Actions speak louder than words! Why not re-invent our conferences and make them more like what we talk about when we talk about Web 2.0 philosophical approach to learning.  Let’s remove the chairs lined up in rows and create a a round table experience with a more collegial, interactive experience!