Archive for March, 2008
Free webinar with Anasatasia Goodstein
One topic I tend to speak on quite a bit is the internet safety/digital citizenship issue. Yes, we need to keep students safe from predators, but we also need to prepare them to be successful, both as human beings and in their future careers. In order to know how to guide students along the right path, we really do need to have a comprehensive, in depth understanding of what they’re currently doing online right now.
Enter Anastasia Goodstein. She’s an author, online at the yPulse blog, and offline of the book Totally Wired: What Teens and Tweens are Really Doing Online. I have to admit, when I first grabbed a copy of the book, I was half expecting to be disappointed. There are so many adults that claim to be tapped into the younger generations, but just wind up spouting the same cliches. I was pleasantly surprised by Anastasia’s perspective, her insights and the depth of her research when it came to getting into the minds of today’s teens. After speaking on a panel with her at the Office 2.0 conference, I knew she was a speaker that we had to bring into our EdTechConnect series of webinars.
Tomorrow night, Wednesday, at 6pm CST Anastasia will be presenting a free webinar for educators that you won’t want to miss. She’s been featured in print, on the news, and has presented at conferences around the country. Tell your colleagues too, it promises to be a fantastic presentation!
Totally blogless
So after admitting that blogs have slid down in my priority list, and realizing that I just don’t read through them like I used to, I saw a post by Doug Belshaw that struck a chord.
I unsubscribed from every blog I subscribed to via Google Reader.
Now I’m suffering from information under-load (if there’s such a term). I feel a bit disconnected in terms of my main areas of interest: education, technology, productivity. So, reader, I need your help! Which blogs would you recommend in these areas? Are there any that you don’t miss a single post from?
Pure and simple, I can’t read them all. Nor can I subscribe to them all and just selectively read some. I really need to scale back what I subscribe to in the aggregator.
Bundled into it, people have been telling me that I’m long overdue to switch from Bloglines to Google Reader. I’ve been married to Bloglines for a long time now, but I’m ready to shake things up just a bit.
So right now, I currently subscribe to ZERO blogs. Based on what you know of me, and many of you reading know me pretty darn well, what would you recommend that I add to the list?
Contact Deficiency Syndrom
Before I go off on a rant, let me preface this one by saying that I’ve been as guilty of this as anybody else. It’s corrected right now, but as recently as 10 days ago, I was suffering from the same problem that many blogs suffer from. It’s called, “Contact Deficiency Syndrome”.
This occurs when someone has a blog or website that is publicly viewable, but leaves no way for people to contact them directly. No ‘contact me’ page, no email address, no form for submitting a general question, nothing… This leaves visitors and people who would like to contact the author three possible solutions. 1) They can leave a comment on a post that is completely unrelated to the topic at hand and HOPE that the author gets email notification of comments. 2) They can do some searches for the persons name/alias and try to find a means for contacting them elsewhere. 3) Decide that they aren’t worth contacting after all and just give up.
If you’re taking the time to publish publicly, then you want someone to read it. So why not give them a means for extending contact with you? I’ve noticed this quite a bit recently as I’ve tried to contact many bloggers directly for a variety of reasons, both personal and professional. An astonishing number of bloggers, particularly Blogger.com users, have no way for people to contact them.
If you’re worried about SPAM, there are a ton of potential solutions. You don’t have to give out your email address. You could use an online form instead. I saw Alan Levine’s comment on this WordPress plugin, saying that he used it himself. I figured if he recommended it, it would probably work for me. Easy install, easy setup, and now I have a Contact Me form available again.
There’s plenty of other ways to do it (besides just listing your email address). If you use Blogger, you could check out these directions. Or just come up with your own. Totally up to you. But you never know when someone might visit your blog and decided that they want to make direct contact with you. When that happens, will they be able to do so, or will the opportunity just walk away?
Take a few minutes right now and check out your blog! Be sure to log out so you are experiencing it the same way that visitors are. Is there a means for making contact with you?
Edmodo – A hands on look
Jeff O’Hara, known to many as Zemote on Twitter, invited me to take Edmodo for a spin before he opens it up to beta testers. I’ve been talking about it with him for well over a year, so I’ve been salivating over this for quite a while.
If you haven’t seen the basic layout of it, this should help you get an idea of what it looks like.
The main timeline is very similar to what you see in Twitter, just with a few more controls. You control how many appear on the page, you can do a basic search, and you can filter the central feed down to specific categories, like assignments or events. Individual posts display the icon of the person who posted it, and are highlighted by a colored border, identifying which class, group or activity the post is targeted to. For example, in the example above, all Science Club posts are grey, making it really easy to pick them out of the primary feed. One other key difference between it and Twitter is that replies are actually threaded, allowing them to stick together to form conversations. If you’ve used Twitter for very long, you know how much of a challenge it can be following back a conversation of replies and @ messages. Threaded responses make much more sense for a school environment.
Speaking of classes, activities and groups, the inclusion of them makes it rather easy for teachers to blast info out just to the students who need it. You can always click on any of those links to filter things down to just that category. Of course, if something really important comes along, you can always click “Locker” and it will stash the post in your locker (think of it like ‘favorites’ but with more of a purpose). Even your locker can start to get messy though, so Edmodo allows you to tag your posts that are saved in there and provides a drop down box to filter out your locker by tags you’ve created.
The other major difference between this and Twitter is the diversity of what you can share. You aren’t limited to 140 characters, but the size of the bubble really encourages you to keep things brief. However, you can share text, links, and files. You can even embed things into the text area, which opens up an entirely new world of possibilities (see the screencast demo for an example of this). If you’re a teacher, you can also post alerts, assignments and events, which each have their own dedicated boxes along the right hand side.
Events allow you to enter in a date, so the widget along the right can display what events are coming up soon. Assignments also allow you to enter in a date, giving you the same functionality, but they also allow you to add files directly to that posting. Alerts will make you nostalgic for Twitter itself, since they have a limit of 140 characters. I’m guessing that if it doesn’t provide the option to send alerts via SMS, that’ll be coming in a future release.
There’s no question that educators love Twitter. And while many have tried to figure out where it fits into education, so far the general consensus is that it doesn’t really make sense in the classroom. Not the way it is right now at least. Edmodo on the other hand is designed with the school environment in mind. It’s built from the ground up to provide teachers with a communication platform that’s as simple as Twitter, but shaped to support the classroom experience. While there are still some bugs to be worked out before it goes prime time, trust me when I say you want to be on the list for a beta invite. There are so few Web 2.0 sites that are designed specifically with education in mind, I get the feeling that this one is really going to lead the way.
Teachermate PC – Part Two
Well, remember when I ‘reviewed’ the Teachermate PC a few posts ago? Basically I slammed it for three reasons: 1) It’s not a PC if it can only run proprietary software 2) It doesn’t cost $50 if you HAVE to buy their software to make it even worthwhile to own and 3) Their website is wonky, and that’s putting it kindly.
After writing that post, I was contact via email by Seth Weinberger, the Executive Director of Innovations for Learning. He thought that if we had a chance to talk and see it firsthand, I might revise my opinion of the Teachermate.
I gotta admit, he was right about two of those three items.
The one thing he was wrong about is the website. It’s slow and clunky, but even worse, it’s incredibly misleading. Part of the reason I blasted the device is because they’re calling it a Handheld Computer. It is NOT a handheld computer. At least, not by the colloquial definition. Rather, it’s a custom built platform designed to run their reading and math software.
What’s the difference there? Quite a bit. As Seth shared with me, they’ve spent 15 years developing reading and math software for students grades K-3. A serious amount of time and research has been put in to make it integrate tightly into the core curriculum (textbook), and really target students at their exact ability level. The software is the breakthrough. The hardware is a means for putting that software in students hands.
You’re probably thinking, why not just box it up and sell it? Seems as though they’ve been doing that. Trouble is, most classrooms don’t have a 1:1 environment. In a typical early elementary classroom, there are 1-5 computers, and 3-4 of them are sometimes working, sometimes not. T he one computer that DOES work… is on the teachers desk, not to be touched by student hands. Yes, they do visit the computer lab, but not to learn reading skills, rather to learn computer skills.
So what they did was they built a custom hardware platform SPECIFICALLY to run their software. That puts an entirely different spin on things. So perhaps the issue isn’t so much a matter of deceptive practice (billing it as a $50 PC), rather misguided marketing combined with sensationalized reporting.
Gotta share a few other tidbits that I learned while talking to Seth. I loved the idea of the Sync and Store case for its simplicity, but I didn’t realize how critical it was to use these devices effectively. The idea is, once per week the teacher goes into the classroom management software and marks off where each student is for reading and math, at a class, group, or individual level. Then, the device will load up lessons that are specific to that students’ level! The device won’t have the entire year stored on it. Heck, it won’t even have the entire unit. It will have just the lessons that the individual student would need for that week. VERY targeted. Of course, the flip side is that students’ answers/responses are recorded and uploaded to the teachers’ computer at next sync so they have a solid idea how the student is doing.
Another tidbit that almost blew me off my chair was how they’re using the microphone. The example he showed me was the Teachermate displaying an image along with a sentence below it. Then, using the built in speaker, you would hear a person read the phrase aloud. After hearing it read aloud (highlighting the words along the way), the student would repeat it back. The microphone would record the student reading it. Then, it would play the original voice reading it, the student reading it and the original once again. So the student had the ability to compare their own reading and inflection to the original! Not only that, but those recordings? They also get transfered over to the teachers computer so he or she can HEAR how the student is doing. Just think how powerful that would be to be able to break out during conferences and share with parents.
But wait, that’s not all! After reading a story (or watching an animated story), students can even choose characters from the story, stamp them on the screen, type out their own story via the onscreen keyboard (yucky, but kids are doing it anyway on their video game systems all the time), and then NARRATE IT using the microphone. The whole thing is saved and can be transfered over to the teachers computer. I know what you’re going to ask next, and no, there is no way to publish those just yet, but it’s on the list for 2.0.
Starting to get the idea why I’ve changed my opinion of the device on the whole? This is not a PC. Calling it one just confuses things. Rather it’s an incredibly powerful 1:1 deployment of the Innovations for Learning Reading and Math programs.
Of course, the big giant unanswered question is whether it’s worth the roughly $100 per student it will cost to deploy throughout your K-3 classrooms. To be honest, I don’t know. We’ll have to see what the research says once it comes in. My gut feeling says students will wind up with positive results. Could those results have come about another way without spending the money? Probably. But at the same time, this is such a no-brainer to deploy that substitutes could use it easily with little to no training. In an era where teaching quality has really come into question, this would certainly be a pretty powerful asset to any reading or math program.
Personally, I think they’re on to something here, and I’ll be watching them careful for future releases.
2008 Discovery Education/3M Young Scientist Challenge
It’s that time of year again! Time for all middle school students to dust off their lab coats, clean out their test tubes and… grab their camcorders?
That’s right, it’s time for the 2008 Discovery Education/3M Young Scientist Challenge! This is the 10th year of the challenge. In the past 9 years, over 540,000 students have been nominated to enter, with 9 incredible students emerging as America’s Top Young Scientist.
The competition is open to all 5th, 6th, 7th and 8th grade students and will revolve around the theme “The Science of Space.” Students are being challenged to create a 1-2 minute video about a specific scientific concept selected from a list of concepts provided by the judges. Entries are not being judged based on production skills, rather the students ability to demonstrate understanding of the scientific concept and his/her comfort level discussing science in general.
Ten lucky finalists will win an all-expenses paid trip to Washington D.C. to participate in the competition finals. After a series of individual and team challenges, an overall winner will be named America’s Top Young Scientist and awarded a $50,000 savings bond.
This is a wonderful opportunity to help cultivate a love of the sciences amongst our middle school students. I hope you will join me in both spreading word about this challenge, as well as encouraging students to enter the competition! Who knows? America’s next Top Young Scientist may be in YOUR school right now!
For more information, view the press release in its entirety or visit www.discoveryeducation.com/youngscientist
Cutting Edge using computers on the edge of obsolescence?
A few years ago I was at the CUE conference with Discovery, and was part of a little scavenger hunt we had at the booth. People had to come up to me and tell me one innovative way they were using technology in order to earn my stamp. By far, the most innovative story I heard just happened to be someone about as far away from the cutting edge as possible.
Essentially, his district was clearing out the old technology. No, we’re not talking about eMacs, or Beige G3′s, or Purple iMacs, or even 5400′s. We’re talking about Apple IIe’s. Not just a few, 20 of them. This teacher (boy do I wish I had his name still) said, “Pass them over to me. I’ll take them.” SO they set up the computers around the edge of his classroom. While they couldn’t access the internet, they had basic wordprocessing programs available and some fun reading and math games. Yes, he could stand up proudly and say that he had launched a 1:1 initiative in his classroom!
Which leads me to an email conversation I had with Brian Mull yesterday. He pointed out that regardless of the age of the equipment, if you have an internet connection you have access to a wealth of web2.0 applications that require very low overhead. So we were wondering from a very practical standpoint whether there were any teachers out there who are using new online applications on ‘older’ computers, and how well they ran.
SO, if the computers in your classroom are 3 or more years old, leave a comment sharing:
1) How old your computers are and what type they are (PC, Mac, etc)
2) What online applications you use (Google Apps, Picnik, Slideshare, Zoho, etc..)
3) How the experience has been. Just some anecdotal notes about successes and failures.
I think there are quite a few schools on the far side of the digital divide that would be interested in hearing your experiences!
Teachermate: $50 PC? Hardly
UPDATE: After discussing the Teachermate with its creator and doing a hands on demonstration, I have posted a follow up to this post. Please be sure to read that as well.
I’ve often been told that if it sounds too good to be true… it is. A classic example is the new Teachermate PC that has recently been posted about on the Crave blog and Engadget.
I know in the blogging world, it often seems like a race to get information out first, but how about just a LITTLE bit of research beyond the press release? The more I looked into this Teachermate, the more irritated I got.
So what is it?
It’s obviously not the most powerful handheld, but it should be plenty for the kids in kindergarten through second grade for whom it is intended, with a 2.5-inch color LCD, built-in microphone and speaker, 200MHz ARM processor, 512MB of memory, and a 4-hour battery. “Software for the handhelds includes a complete K-2 reading and math program that aligns with the Chicago Public Schools’ reading and math initiatives,” according to its press release.
Sounds all well and good. Until you learn that the only software it comes with is a classroom management program. That’s it. You can organize your students into classes and keep track of how long they spend reading and doing math practice. Based on the information that I can find on their website, that’s about it. I’m not even certain what students themselves would do with a basic, out of the box Teachermate.
Want more software? There’s a Reading program and a Math program. They cost $20. Apiece. WHAM, your Teachermate just about doubled in cost right there. Don’t like those programs? Well, that’s too bad. Because those are the only programs that will run on it. So you’re pretty much locked in.
There IS a very nifty carrying case for them. They call it the Sync and Store case, and it will hold 30 Teachermates at one time. Yes, it will also charge them, and it will even sync all thirty at once which is VERY slick. Of course, it isn’t free. In fact, it costs $300 (plus shipping and handling).
So if you’ve been doing the math, you have the $50 Teachermate PC, $40 for the Reading and Math software and $10 for a 1/30th share of the Sync and Store case. Grand total for your $50 PC? More like $100. And that does NOT include a browser. Or even WiFi for that matter. Heck, you can’t even install your own software on to it!
To be honest, calling this a PC is really pushing it. It’s more like an advanced LeapFrog system or a colorful generic Nintendo DS (minus the touch screen, WiFi, and choice of software). I don’t care how good the Reading and Math programs are, charing $100 per student for such a limited application is ridiculous.
Oh, and for the record, their website has got to be one of the worst I have ever seen. Click on a link and then wait, wait, wait for it to show up. And once it does, you have to keep right clicking to zoom in in order to just read what’s there! Why use Flash to build a website that has nothing but static pages? Yeesh. Common sense here people.
Other than all that, I love the device and can’t wait to buy one. 
UPDATE: After discussing the Teachermate with its creator and doing a hands on demonstration, I have posted a follow up to this post. Please be sure to read that as well.
$125,000 a year for every teacher? Quick, update your resume!
I think I speak for most educators when I saw that I was floored when I read this article in the NY Times. I mean, every teacher in the school will be making $125,000 a year and the principal will be making $90,000 a year. Everything is upside down, dogs and cats are living together, the devil is strapping on ice skates as we speak.
So is this the big grand ol’ teaching lottery? Is every person within 200 miles of NY going to be dusting off their resume and applying for the positions? While they do state that the roles are going to be a little more rigorous and that there will be extra responsibilities, let’s face it, who among us are only doing the things specified in our job description? I think we’re all used to put in quite a bit of overtime as need be. So nothing new there.
I think this does bring up a larger question of, how do you measure the worth of a teacher? How will they determine who deserves the six figure salary?
The school’s teachers will be selected through a rigorous application process outlined on its Web site, www.tepcharter.org, and run by Mr. Vanderhoek. There will be telephone and in-person interviews, and applicants will have to submit multiple forms of evidence attesting to their students’ achievement and their own prowess; only those scoring at the 90th percentile in the verbal section of the GRE, GMAT or similar tests need apply. The process will culminate in three live teaching auditions.
So there you go. Quantitative results along with live ‘auditions’. Not a bad way to go. I’m sure we’ll get some arguments about whether that really ensures they’ll get the best of the best, but you do need to pick some criteria and run with it.
That being said, as a former teacher I know that I felt I had a legitimate right to complain about my salary. Especially when they asked us to come in on weekends, stay late for events, and other such things. However, would a higher salary really have changed all that?
To be honest, this charter school kinda scares me. If they spend this incredible amount of money, hire only the ‘best’ teachers and STILL have the same issues that every other school has… well, what does that say about our educational system and the way we assess it? And if they ARE successful, are they basically ‘proving’ that schools won’t be successful until salaries increase and teachers are paid what they feel they are worth? That could lead to some rather messy negotiations in the next few years.
And of course, the biggest question to me is, how much of it is the money versus that age old formula of caring teachers who have high expectations in a supportive environment with clear vision and leadership.
One last question that I’d love to hear your thoughts on:
Would you rather work in an environment where you had little technology, little extra support, but complete autonomy and made six figures, or an environment where you had aids, ample technology, shorter hours, less responsibility outside traditional duties, but ‘only’ made $60,000. Which would you choose?