TQ#9 - Phun and Molecular Workbench

How much educational value is there in the freeware Phun? I found that it can assist in understanding physical systems and the processes of which they are a part. The visual aspect of the tool as well as the ease of use are also two big positives. If I want to play around with a design idea, I can quickly lay out some objects, connect them, and then see how they interact. The application, in other words, is great for brainstorming. When I started using Phun, I found that it initially forced me to think about what mechanical processes have to come together to make a whole process work. Do I need two hinges to make a piston turn or three? Does there need to be some space between moving parts so they can move in the full circle they need to? What parts are needed, and in what orientation are they needed, to make a whole system function? Of what shape must the parts be in? Given this capability, coupled with the ease of use of this program, Phun already justifies itself for educators.

What can be done in this program beyond this? I wasn’t so sure about the actual representation of the physics in this tool. How do we know how far back an arm has to move to generate a certain amount of force? What velocity is achieved by a certain movement? How much friction will be generated by parts being a certain distance apart? Will the system have its physical integrity at all when we design it in Phun? Thus, I see this program limited to visualizing how the parts of systems work together. It can be something a student can quickly pick up and use and put him or herself on the road to designing physical systems; it might have use in physics classes as well as any class where design becomes part of the activities.

Molecular Workbench is a program that I thought showed some promise at first. For one thing, from a technical perspective alone, the software is released in a number of different forms in case one has an issue with running/installing it. For instance, I wanted to play with the program at work, but my firewall would not let me connect to the server, so I downloaded what they call the Cd version and was able to look at most of the activities this way. MWB also has the ability to cache files, so if one can connect to the server just once, the program will run without a connection from there on out. This helps when one’s Internet connection is intermittent.

As for the content of the program, it appears to be good, though I am not a science major. As Kevin pointed out in his blog, one needs to be up to speed with at least some basic principles fundamental to the activity before the software can assist in learning. In short, the program targets learning exercises in the area of molecular dynamics (movement and stickiness); there are also extensions into the fields of chemistry and biology. Finally, there is an authoring tool. Activities are aimed at ages from middle school to adult/college. As for the tutorial for MWB, I started to look at it but wanted to jump right into the activities, as I think most learners would do as well.

Among other things, I explored Newton’s Third Law through an activity called “Newton’s Laws at Atomic Level.” The activity made things easy to comprehend because it started with visualization at the atomic level and then made practical application with the example of a balloon exploding (and, by analogy, the design of a rocket ship). I found it kind of basic, but it did lead me to recall a practical application of Newton’s third law (see screens below).

The next activity I found a little meatier—concerning the way vibration is effected by the strength of bonding and mass of atoms. I see the application from Newton’s second and third law, but the importance of vibrational activity is not explained here. The example from infrared spectroscopy I found to be quite vague.

Last thing I would say: attractive layout of report at end of activity.

Next I looked at an activity under Physics/Quantum Mechanics. I was already interested in the idea of “quantum tunneling” after reading an article sometime ago about this phenomenon occurring when transistors are placed too close together on microchips. It has been a problem for Intel and other chipmakers. Not very enlightening at all…too much was assumed here. I started the activity from the beginning and went through every sub item under the topic, but still was not getting much from the exercise. Not nearly enough scaffolding on these pages. Looked at other pages on nano technology; pretty much the same thing here.

I found some other activities under “quantum dissipation.” There was more explanation at the bottom of each of these pages. I can see again how the ability to change variables can be a great learning experience if the proper background knowledge is provided.

Sketchup and POV-Ray Assignment

I did not get terribly excited about either Sketchup or Pov-Ray. I did have a good bit of trouble going through POV-RAY; I thought I was following everything very closely (such as when it came to simple things like camera placement and placing objects), yet I ended up putting my objects out of view. I was actually drawing things (my objects and camera) visually on a piece of paper beforehand on top of a coordinate grid so I knew I had my coordinates correct, and yet, at times, I was not seeing my objects. It was quite frustrating! I did learn some by inspecting the contents of the 'include' files.

As for Sketchup, I also had ongoing problems: I was drawing objects with the rectangular tool, for instance, but they kept appearing with one edge far longer than the other and I could not figure out why. On POV-RAY, I wanted to draw an “8” on my pool table 8 Ball, but, for the life of me, could not reason out how to do this. This probably says something more about my conceptual abilities than about the intuitiveness of POV-RAY. Perhaps our K-12 children would surprise us with this program and have great success…but I know I would not be a very good guide for them.

Sketchup 7.0 design: My Family Room




POV-RAY design: Game of 8-Ball






POV-Ray source Code for design above:




#include "shapes.inc"



#include "colors.inc"



#include "textures.inc"




global_settings { assumed_gamma 1 }




camera { location <-15, 8, -10> look_at <0,> }




sky_sphere{



pigment{



Bright_Blue_Sky



}




}



plane{y, 0



pigment{color Green}



}




sphere{5*y, 5



pigment{ color rgb 0}



}

sphere{<0,>, 5



texture {



pigment{color White}



finish {Shiny}



}



}



cone{<0,> 1 60*z 3



pigment{



wood



}
}

TQ#7 – Examining Gapminder use in education

While I only vaguely remember the one statistics course I had in college, I fully appreciate the tremendous importance statistics has in American society and thus the importance of teaching it to schoolchildren. Gapminder appears to be a good tool for introducing children to statistics and for help with concept formation itself. Nevertheless, I did come away with some reservations. I looked at a number of different kinds of data when playing with the tool. From the start, it sparked my imagination—i.e., it made me think about why we might want to compare various measures and, by implication, how it might help us make important decisions. Children today—and myself, as an adult included—are visual learners, so Gapminder is an interesting and motivating way to look at statistical data and compare such data as over against scanning through datasheets.

Some other positives of using Gapminder that I would mention follow here.
First, it is easy to use. You simply pick the data on two axes. You can select the countries to isolate, look at longitudinal data, and also change the speed at which you see the longitudinal data. Seeing longer-range changes can be extremely important when looking at international data, where changes may occur over longer periods. Also, the trails that can be displayed for selected countries were very helpful in visualizing changes over time. I also liked that you had the option to pick “time” as a variable, i.e., comparisons independent of any other variable.

It is exciting to think that you can use your imagination to compare two trends and, from this, perhaps formulate hypotheses; in other words, it can be a good starter for research for students of all ages. Of course, it is limited by what data has been collected by the tool’s makers—substantial but certainly not exhaustive. Another limitation concerns, in general, the sophistication of statistical work you can do in it. There seems to be, for example, no way to look at the degree of correlation (e.g., the Pearson R correlation coefficient). The logarithmic scale could also be a bit confusing—in other words, you might not realize what you’re looking at because there are no indicators of what you’re looking at on the axes markers. Finally, at the data collection stage, we know there are always a number of assumptions that come into play at this stage, yet these are here left largely unstated (I did read the information provided under “Data Documentation” and “List of Indicators” but found no further insight there). All of these things need to be pointed out to students who use this tool. Students might then also be lead into using some of the more sophisticated statistical tools by way of the excitement this tool creates in them. I would also like to see students contributing to data collection itself so they begin to see some of the assumptions that come into play there (i.e., formulating questions, isolating hypotheses, and determining what values to compare in the first place). The tool could be used in almost any class, from science to humanities (while also linking to real world issues when possible and appropriate), the latter where statistics also can play a huge role. Normally, this is something students would use in class only since, 1) it does not take that much time to use and, 2) teacher guidance might be needed in order to understand its uses and presuppositions.

Using Gapminder myself, I looked at some things that interested me and that allowed me to explore some of my pet ideas or hypotheses—e.g., like expenditure per student compared with school level completed and also expenditure per student (the same measure, making for an interesting comparison) compared with literacy rate, to ask questions about what kinds of expenditures were working. Being already quite interested in the U.S.’s energy mix, I compared pump price for gasoline with hydroelectricity consumption and also with several other measures under the Energy category to try to get a handle on predicting viable energy mixes. I saw, for instance, that price at the pump had consistently gone down for nations with a more diversified energy mix, telling us perhaps something about the viability of alternative energy use. However, when debt servicing was looked at compared with the alternative energies, greater debt servicing seemed to be going on for some counties, indicating that government subsidies might be a part of the startup of some alternative energies, but not necessarily for all countries due to other factors (but which ones?) I also explored some other topics having to do with death of food sources compared to use of fossil fuels for energies and the way that the U.S.’s import-export ratio correlated with income per person.

TQ#6: Assessing Web Conferencing Tools for Educators

I am going to break the following TQ response on web conferencing for educators down into the following 4 sections:

1. How might teachers make use of such web conferencing/collaboration tools?

2. What things do we need to be thinking about as ed. tech. coordinators or administrators when we think about choosing web conferencing tools for our teachers/students/classrooms?

3. Given the criteria laid out under #1 above, what did our group think about the tools we looked at?

4. What might be some of the difficulties with using such tools (i.e., areas for training)?

How might teachers make use of such web conferencing/collaboration tools?

I am not a K-12 teacher myself (I have taught at college level—undergrads and grads); K-12 teachers would clearly be able to come up with more ideas than what I have laid out here. For the college classroom, these tools have obvious relevance to distance learning programs, and I have used them in that way in limited ways.

For the K-12 setting, these tools could be used to have meetings with students in other parts of the state or world by which the learners can compare their notes on some study they have done and gain valuable additional perspectives not only on their data (e.g., studies in the science field) but on methods and approaches to study and life in general. it might be quite fun and a great learning experience to do such studies during class time and also record them for later reference. Students are “in their element” with this kind of interaction.

Teachers also might use these tools for in-service sessions—for instance, to save on travel time and fuel. Administrators could make similar use of the tools.

What should be some of our considerations when choosing these tools?

The considerations, obviously, depend on the institution and total context where the tools will be used, but I would think that the following criteria would be important across the board, with the first three being most important.

• What is the cost of the technology? We want to minimize this, but not give up too many of the features that we will consistently make use of.

• What is the technical integrity of the product? This would include things like how well the tool will work with limited bandwidth as well as cross-platform compatibility. The tool has to run on different network infrastructures and OS’s and has to run with minimal lag times or delays. If it does not, people (students and teachers) get tired of it quickly and will not use it. Considered under this sub-point is also what plug-in’s will need to be installed and how stable or consistently they work.

• A third criterion would be ease of use. Teachers have enough on their plate so we do not want these tools to have steep learning curves. How intuitive the interface is is another closely related concern.

• A fourth concern would be ‘the feature-set for the price’: Does the product/tool have the feature-set we need? We would want to maximize the features we need while at the same time get them in the most cost-beneficial way. We may need to give up some things to get a price-point that meets other goals.
What would be some features we might look for? Obviously, this depends on the actual setting or school we find ourselves in. As an ed. tech. coordinator, I would try to conduct a focus group with teachers after choosing an initial collage of web conferencing tools, and then also follow-up with a survey to gain other views on what features they want. What are some of these features, across the board? A lot of the tools have the same general features:

• Whiteboarding
• Audio and video capabilities
• Chatting
• Upload of files and screen capture
• Presentation tools, such as the ability to sync everyone’s screen with what the presenter is doing and the ability of all users to interact with/modify the whiteboard and files.

Other bells and whistles come into play then—e.g., like commenting ability and voice annotations, and extra plug-in’s such as ready-made quiz creation

So what did we find during our quick survey of some web collaboration tools?

Here is what we (i.e., my group and I) thought: there are a huge number of tools (and growing almost by the day) to choose from these days; however, many of them, to put it frankly, are not so good—they either seem to be in their developmental stages or just have not been thought out all that well.

The tools we looked at and tested as a group were Vyew, Wizig, and Yugma. We did not look at Eluminate because all three of us had used it before. Individually, I also looked at Skype; I found Skype to be not as full-featured or perhaps just not directed at the same audience; nevertheless, I found it to be a tool that might have some limited use in classrooms.

All three of us had used Eluminate and the consensus was that we liked it a lot. It seems to meet all of the criteria laid out above—e.g., handled even limited bandwidth very well, was stable technically—even given its use of Java (I find that sometimes Java can be “funky”)—the interface was intuitively laid out (i.e., I and colleagues could pick up on how to use it in a relatively short period of time; perhaps moderator role a bit more of a challenge), and, finally, it was quite feature rich.

As for the tools we examined this time, we found none of them to be particularly exciting or promising. None of them were very good with lower bandwidths (I have a low tier DSL connection); my connection never crashed but my keystrokes were sluggish, something that also can take away from the experience and focus on one’s content. My colleagues on a LAN and cable modem said they saw no delays. All of the tools included the basic feature set listed above, but none were terribly intuitive; you kind of had to go through the tutorial and look around for extended periods of time to find how to do things. The process of creating new sessions and inviting persons to them was pretty intuitive with all the tools.

Vyew had a somewhat richer feature set I thought, but it was hard to sort out the screen quickly…you had to pay attention to the tool too much of the time instead of to your content. Vyew also was a bit quirky in some of its features—e.g., you could only seem to delete one page at a time of your uploaded documents. Vyew included features beyond the basic tools listed above, like sticky note and audio contextual commenting or annotating. Yugma probably had presenter tools most like those of Eluminate—i.e., it was always clear who the presenter was. The way the other tools worked might be a source of confusion in this regard. Vyew said that it had not yet implemented the ability to save your session; the others seemed to have this feature. This is an important feature, allowing students to review what was said or absent students to review what went on. Wizig was the least feature rich, I thought. One of our group members also had an issue with her microphone not being detected by Wizig. Vyew had problems installing or running Java more than once during our session for two of our members.

As for the cost of the tools, we found prices based on how many users were involved, but I could not find anything on cost to institutions. Wizig might have been the least expensive, but it was also the least in features. My conclusion on these tools is that I would not recommend any of them at this time—I think the low tolerance of poor bandwidth and relatively poorly designed interfaces made them bad choices no matter how much they would cost the institution. So far, until we examine more tools, Eluminate is the tool of choice, but cost-benefit to the institution and the needs of the institution would have to be looked at.

As for our last point listed above, Ed. Tech. Coordinators will certainly want to lay aside time for training on the tools (as well as for pre-purchase surveys), but we need to focus on tools that even the least tech-savvy persons can pick up on relatively easily. These tools do exist—we just have to look for them. The speed of the tools and the general technical stability are also key issues, as I see it. The goal is for the technology to disappear so that the content can become the focus.

TQ#5: The Role of Concept Mapping in Planning and Thinking

I am very excited about concept maps and their use in education. I have found that they have relevance to all age levels, from Kindergarten through college age and also that they are quite a bit more versatile than perhaps formerly thought—e.g., they can be used to represent both linear and non-linear thought processes or argument trails.

For one thing, I have found concept maps, at least in some form, to be quite helpful at the brainstorming stage of laying out a research paper or argumentative essay. While I may not necessarily lay out ideas with the same bubble icons or elucidate all my ideas and inter-linkages with the traditional concept map, I think I use the basic same formula. At the design stages of constructing a website, concept maps are also very helpful, and designing websites is something learners of all ages might often be involved in today.

So what is it about concept maps that are so helpful and facilitative of learning? For one thing, the visual and discrete nature of concept maps makes it easier to see the linkages between individual elements of the map—e.g., all the individual steps of an argument are laid out (or should be) in a easy to read format, unlike having to reread the steps toward a thesis embedded within paragraphs of prose. This visual and discrete representation probably makes retention easier also. Memory experts argue that visual cues can be great aids to retention. The discrete nature of the mapping process also should also mean that we have not missed any steps in the path to our conclusion. Related to this, researchers have pointed out that concept maps possess a hierarchical form, with general concepts at the top and proceeding to the more specific concepts going down (Novak and Canas, 2008). Concept maps also, finally, assist us in making linkages or applications of arguments that we already see as valid to other ideas or arguments in the same domain of knowledge as well as in other domains.

It thus almost goes without saying that concept maps operate from within a constructivist framework. For one thing, concepts maps are not created by a teacher for the students (at least for the most part), but rather are created by the learners themselves. Thus, we have self-regulation of learning going on right from the start. Concept maps also allow for self-regulation of learning since they can very easily be revised and also revised in an ongoing fashion (unlike arguments in a research paper format). Concept maps also stress the combining of concrete content (i.e., the links within each node to various kinds of empirical evidence) with the higher order conceptual frameworks. Finally, learners from all locales and literally from all over the world--wherever there are Internet connections--can add to and modify the concept maps we create, thus broadening and deepening them while also assisting the original creators in expanding their understanding of knowledge domains as well as moving on to higher cognitive levels in their thought processes.

The Cmap software package is a particularly handy tool for doing concept maps. For one thing, these tools make it quite easy to lay down concept maps in the same way that a word processing program assists one in writing and revising in contrast to writing on paper. The Cmap program also makes connections with others an easy thing to accomplish given its built-in collaboration tools. Also, Cmap allows one to add other media to a node on the map, such that the point or idea of that node can then be explained or elucidated with something concrete or empirical. In general, collaboration is also made easier by these concept maps because things can very easily be plugged into them in contrast to adding sentences to paragraphs of explanatory or expository writing. Finally, the Cmap maps can also be accessed on the web so the Cmap application does not specifically have to be installed on the computer where one wants to work with a map.

Some great examples of the aformentioned use of concepts maps are, in my opinion, the Austhink critical thinking website tutorials, found at link below:

http://www.austhink.org/critical/pages/argument_mapping.html

Another good example of the use of a concept map would be the CUNY school's "Intro to Philosophy" course materials posted by undergrad. students in the form of CMAP's, found at the link below:

http://cmapspublic3.ihmc.us:80/servlet/SBReadResourceServlet?rid=1229454598921_677508370_7013&partName=htmltext

My reaction to Wenglinsky’s views on technology and student achievement

My reaction to Wenglinsky’s views on technology and student achievement:

Discussions of how technology might influence student achievement are very important given the fact that, by many estimates, some one billion dollars was spent on just digital technology in all the nation’s K-12 schools in the last 3 years. Is this money being spent wisely? Wenglinsky’s book on this topic is welcome, given the relative dearth of studies on technology and student achievement; his study also helpfully draws attention to some of the inherent difficulties in measuring the effect of technology on student achievement. I read most all of the book by Wenglinsky, but will focus my comments on chap 4, given that we are to discuss technology and its effect on student achievement.

I liked the way that Wenglinsky included both anecdotal accounts of technology use (chap 3), and comprehensive numbers (chap 4). The former, as he says, puts a face on educational use of technology and also connects the researcher to the practitioner, so that the latter sees how the researcher is assessing the use of technology in classrooms. Quantitative, comprehensive data is needed so we can make judgments about technology’s overall effectiveness. The NAEP study sounds like a great study, including scores on student tests but also interviews with all stakeholders involved (administrators, students, teachers, etc.). Many of the results of the 1996 and 2000 studies laid out by Wenglinsky were intuitive, but it is good to see these intuitions confirmed—e.g., the fact that fourth grade teachers learn how to teach reading more through on the job training in contrast to how 8th grade teachers learn to teach a subject field like math or science, namely through their educational preparation. Other findings under the category of “non-technology instructional practices” also helpfully confirmed things like an ongoing need for teacher training in the area of special needs and cross-cultural understanding and the idea that students who test less (i.e., involved instead in project based learning) show more achievement on the NAEP (but how does this help us if we are constrained by PSSA requirements?).

In terms of technology use and its effect on student achievement, here are some things I found particularly interesting and/or helpful as a teacher. First, there continues to be a “digital divide” in the sense that poorer students have less access to computers an home. Due to increasing immersion of technology in all schools, all students have access to computers at school, but still not at home, but the latter where it seems to count most (see chart at top of p. 69). The student’s socioeconomic status still made the largest difference in effect on test scores. Second, teacher preparedness in his/her subject field (in the upper grades), teacher comfort with using technology, and class size seem to have a positive effect on test scores, as we have really always known. Third, the use of simulation, games, and data analysis tools seemed generally to have a positive effect on test scores. Computers do these things well, but the machine has to be made use of by the constructivist minded teacher, as Wenglinsky indicates (70). Specifically in the area of reading, word processing had a positive effect on test scores, but not the use of computers for reading stories (presumably, e-books or reading off the computer) or even spell checking. Fourth, frequency of computer use in school had negative effects on test scores whereas frequency of computer use at home had positive effects. Thus, teachers should be working with students directly during classroom time and saving the use of the computer as the medium for homework (but what if the student does not have a computer at home?). Finally, drill-and-kill exercises on the computer seemed always to have a negative effect on the 8th graders but had some positive effect for 4th graders, though I did not see the numbers in his charts. I want to think that drill and kill in some forms or at some ages still can be a good thing.

TQ #3

Reviews of educational effectiveness of some games:

Web based Oregon Trail game:

There was certainly a “whatness” (Prensky concept) to this game: the game set you in a certain social and historical setting, that of what it might have been like for early pioneers to cross this country. The challenges that had to be met were authentic and a true learning experience. They showed that you could not make shortsighted assumptions. You had to be ready to adapt to the challenges the real world forced upon you—sickness, weather, broken equipment, need for food. The tenuousness of getting these things was also represented. There was also a moral aspect or element to the game—what do you do when someone is near death?…do you push ahead to get to your destination or give up your time and possibly the sustenance of others to assist that one person? What is most important to you is a question you have to face? Beyond this, too, the game showed its users a very important lesson—that we fail at times. We must make choices and we might not always get it right. This is like real life.

The problems with the game were that its choices were too limited. Why, for instance, wasn’t there anything like medicine to choose as a resource or supply when you bought things? There was medicine in these days. The game did require some planning, but since there were not enough variables involved, the planning was not that involved. I felt that I was just clicking away on the mouse many times in a mechanical fashion because I just wanted to move ahead.

I also wanted to know the why of my journey—whey were we going where we were going…perhaps this is obvious, however.

Screen of last part of game for me:

Review of Roller Coaster Tycoon 3 demo:

Enjoyed this game: the graphics are immersive and the simulation seemed sufficiently complex so as to approximate what real businesspersons and managers of themes parks would have to think about. Actually, the model might go beyond even what one person would have to know, since the player becomes park engineer, investment decision maker, and human resource manger.

There was a lot to like about this game/simulation. The game works very well at the level of the “What” and “Why” of Prensky: the 2 main rules of business apply: pleasing people while balancing this with making money. I was also left with a sense of the need for responsibility because when you design your rides you have to pay attention to safety concerns. The simulation I think teaches the student about how to plan (when you first put together your theme park, there are many, many things to think about and balance), but it also teaches that running a business is an ongoing art—other factors can come into play that spoil your initial idealistic plans, things like a rain storm at times of the day, a ride getting old so that customers no longer enjoy it or find it that novel.

The game teaches in an excellent way also the principle of being an honest business person: when you provide something above and beyond what the other guy does, you win! Competition is good. The game also allowed for different views of the park, so that one could see the aesthetics of your park form just one area but also see the variety you afford throughout the rest of the park.

I also felt that the game was very open-ended, in that there was no one solution offered to the student—the number of the solutions to this game were, literally, infinite. Thus, the student could get beyond the view we all so often assume—that there is one right answer and let’s go searching for it. It is not easy to get away from that assumption, but this game helps in doing it.

My final screen where I achieved 9,557.29 profit.

Sim City Classic Experience:

I was impressed initially by the need to have some greater direction or tutorial from the beginning. The quick start guide was ok, I guess, but there might have been more that listed some of the principles that should go into building a city and why? Probably, the game does not go into such detail because it is still just a commercial product and not intended for an educational setting.

I saw some positive things coming out of the game right from the start. E.g.,s: the planning of a city involves a number of complex and interconnected things, there is no one right decision (there are always tradeoffs), and planning can be gratifying when done right. (Why, however, does my city have to be based on fossil fuel technology right from the start? However, many alternative energy technologies may not be capable of producing the vast amounts of fuel needed to run any one city.) The “General Hints on Strategy” laid out in the main instruction area laid out several of the tradeoffs involved in building the city. The game did have a good bit of authenticity, including showing the impact of the major’s approval rating as one more factor for consideration.

I did not seem to be doing some things right in this game: for one thing I never could seem to get anybody moved into my city/village…I was building things, including roads and power lines between my homes and businesses, but no one moved in. My mayoral approval rating changed and so did my budget and timeframe. I did not like this game nearly as much as Roller Coaster Tycoon. I did understand why there had to be so many commercial areas (i.e., is one commercial area a zone or is it one business?...still not sure). What was the scale in general of the game? Was each residential zone a zone or neighborhood or just one property? Instructions did not help much. How realistic were the costs of each zone also?...did not seem so realistic.

Results of my Questionnaire on Trends in Educational Technology Integration

6 total responses

1. What is your occupation?

50% K-12 Teacher
16.7% Educational Technology Professional (ed tech coord., consultant, etc.)
0% University Faculty
16.7% Business Professional
16.7% Other (list please)

2. How would you rate your proficiency with using technology in general?

33.3% Very proficient (Bus. Pro.) 50% Somewhat Proficient
16.7% Not very proficient (K-12 Teacher)

3. Name three computer programs you have made most beneficial use of in educational settings in the last school year.

• SharePoint Microsoft Office Oracle Calendar (Business Professional)
• Firefox (to explore Web); Excel (to track students) PowerPoint; Jeopardy and other Games (Other)
• Google Docs Alice Flash (Ed Tech Coord)
• Smart Board applications Power Point Math 24 (K-12 Teacher)
• SMARTBoard notebook software NCTM Illuminations Study Island; webcams, noodletools.com, and podcasting (K-12 Teacher)

4. What has been one of the single best experiences using technology in an educational setting and why was this so?

Some randomly chosen comments:

"Using a classroom performance system to review for a science test in second grade. The kids loved using their own controllers, and they were fully engaged."

"I would say that using Google Docs made a big difference in the way students were working in my class. The reason would be the fact that collaborative work was a clear and tangible outcome for students' efforts."

"WebQuest made in TLT 406 - my daughter's science teacher even asked to use it!"

"Using Google Docs was my best experience because it allowed me to collaborate and share information with people easily and effectively. The accessibility, low price point (free), and ease of use made it very effective in reaching various people with different needs."

"I'm not sure if I can name one specific experience because I feel that anytime that I am able to bring the real world into the classroom to make connections is a worthy experience. However, there was one point when I used a CBR/CLB reciever when graphing which was a very worthwhile experience. The students were given the opportunity to use their knowledge of graphing with slopes and y-intercepts to match pre-created graphs. They were challenged and also able to make more connections as to the meanings of the different graphs."

"SMARTBoard notebook software has positively impacted the lives of mathematics students. It brings math to life and allows students to see things such as geomtetric transformations and reflections in real-time. I love it!"

5. What has been one of the single worst experiences using technology in an educational setting and why was this so?

Some randomly chosen comments:

"Would say, teaching programming skills to female students in middle school and high school. There is a tendency to see a decline in female students selecting computing subjects as they get to higher grades in secondary school."

"Electronic calendar management has been extremely difficult task that I have been dealing with. The biggest issues have been standards, interoperability across platforms, and consistency of use. When you have various groups managing calendars in different ways and using different products, it becomes quite difficult when they need to collaborate with one another and manage their time effectively."

"Not receiving adequate training and being encouraged to utilize a particular technology in the classroom."

Exploring Netlogo

Netlogo model I looked at the longest was the one on how rumors spread. This exercise had a good bit of relevance to my field of religious studies: scholars of the New Testament study how stories about Jesus circulated in the early communities and things like the distance these communities were from each together, the time span involved and the kinds of stories come into play when investigating how profoundly the stories got changed.

Intriguing questions were put forth here for consideration with direct relevance to my field: how the speed with which the rumor spread slows down as more people know it, how the distance between communities effects the speed of spread, and how the proximity to the rumor source effects the speed of spread and integrity of rumor.

The other 2 Netlogo models I looked at, like this one, were very amenable to HOTS: traffic grids and segregation.

Using Surveymonkey

The link to my survey is:

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=wB4bz4UBJEVwjQoDjJ6pUQ_3d_3d


I have used Survey Monkey before. So far I have not outgrown the free account: it includes several different kinds of response types and the lack of a straightforward way to create a closing/thank-you page is not an insuperable obstacle. Moreover, a good survey or questionnaire tool is dependent largely on the writing skills of the crafter.

Exploring Webquests

I worked through the Federal Reserve Bank webquest, aimed at 9-12 grade/social studies.

http://questgarden.com/46/47/8/070208172527/index.htm

I thought the Task was perhaps a bit contrived: starting a central bank system for a country is a bit beyond the pale of most anyone. Also, the webquest immediately seems to get off track: the Process is really all about how the USA federal bank system got started and how it runs today; interesting but there is no easy cross-over to starting a bank elsewhere. In other words, what was needed is talk about what federal banks do in general, how they react to recession and inflation, etc. There was some of this, but not nearly enough.

Technically, the webquest might have had navigation buttons on each page so one did not have to look to the side navigation to move ahead. Aesthetically, it was laid out in an appealing way and made good use of pictures to draw the user in.

I liked the way that the resource links were embedded into each step of the Process page instead of being on a resource page themselves; however, I found that some of the links did not apply in any direct way to the question that was asked above them.

I guess there is always a tension between how far one directs the user and how much one lets him/her discover the path to answers and the tools to use on the way. However given this reality, I thought this webquest may have been a bit too open-ended—i.e. not enough focus on one key point. It felt more like of a general overview of the history and present day workings of the Fed, and, furthermore, the webquest seemed kind of stuck at the knowledge level (not moving on to higher order thinking).

Loved the video hosted by Charles Osgood!

WISE Inquiry

I completed the Frog Deformity WISE inquiry, found here: http://wise.berkeley.edu/student/topFrame.php?projectID=4742

I was intrigued from the start: I liked the way the students (6-12) were presented with two hypotheses, so at least they were pointed in the right direction without too much openness to the exercise, but at same time they were asked to do some thinking themselves. Great stuff! It got me thinking about other applications of this way of doing things.

The inquiries kind of feel like webquests; like a webquest, it keeps the student focused on the task at hand…it directs him/her, instead of being a general web search.

Navigation here was a bit strange or hard to use: e.g., it was generally hard to get back to the page you had been on.

It’s nice that you could type your notes right into the Web page. That way your notes and inquiry do not get separated from what you are doing on the Web. Also, I like the way it collects all your notes together at the end!

I think the word “mutant” was spelled wrong.

There were some dead links in this exercise (a link off the page where pictures of the deformed frogs were shown and the page about other scientists' reactions).

In general, I liked the way that this inquiry guided the student into recognition of the interlocking aspect of nature—things going on at the amphibian level and even bacterial level can ultimately affect humans. Also, the exercise was authentic—this is a real issue that real scientists think about today. Finally, the exercise drew together several kinds of media—newspaper articles, pictures, articles by scientists, that made it more interesting to work on and complete.

My Questionnaire on Trends in Educational Technology Integration

TLT 470 Classmates,

Please click the link below to take part in my questionnaire concerning digital technology in education. Thank-you kindly for your time and input! Dan

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=wB4bz4UBJEVwjQoDjJ6pUQ_3d_3d

TQ#1

TQ#1 – Jonassen, et. al. and Koehler and Mishra statements on a framework for technology integration in education

We have under consideration here two articulations of frameworks concerning how we are to think about the integration of technology into education. The chapters we read were the initial ones in the respective books by Jonassen, et. al and Koehler and Mishra, and they were about laying down some criteria, in a relatively general way, for evaluating the ways technology can contribute to education and learning. As I read both articles, I kept looking for more examples to help explain what the authors were getting at, but I guess that was to be saved (appropriately so) for later chapters.

I gleaned something from both of the articles and have criticisms of both as well. The Jonassen statement, for example, could have defined in a better way what “technology” is; an assumption throughout the Jonassen statement seemed to be that “technology” referred to “digital computer technology,” whereas I was not sure why things like causal, analogical, and expressive thinking/learning could not also take place with other (more primitive) technologies. In this regard, on p. 8, Jonassen almost contradicted himself when he stated that children ‘do not learn from technology, but by or through thinking,’ but then went on to state that children can learn through the aforementioned technologies (i.e., computer digital technologies) (pp. 8-9). (Jonassen, however, does come close to defining technology as something other than digital technology at the top of p 7.) I am not against digital technologies in general; I just think that Jonassen could have made his point better in this programmatic chapter of the book.

The Koehler and Mishra chapter was certainly the more analytical one, though such analysis did not always appear necessary (e.g., why do we need to know whether or not a technology has “specificity”?) Also, I did not understand at times some of Mishra’s analysis: I am still not sure, for example, what “functionally opaque” means. I especially liked that Koehler/Mishra broke down every component of the technology integration “mix,” analyzing separately the dynamics of the subject matter content, the learning principles (pedagogy), and the technology and then showing how each intersected or influenced the other two and finally then how each of these intersections again intersected, resulting in the “Technology Pedagogical Content Knowledge.” I felt that this breakdown and analysis helped readers to focus on the goals of learning by isolating such goals. In this regard, I gleaned some very important caveats from the Koehler/Mishra article. Examples of these would be: a) digital technologies do not have to be used in the ways everyone else has always used them (users need to explore them deeper for new and as yet unforeseen applications), b) each technology does some things better and some things worse than any other technology; users need to be aware of this fact when considering their application to learning contexts, c) technologies bring their own biases and thereby can modify, in subtle ways, the very content conveyed through or with them (similar perhaps to Marshall McLuhan’s “the medium is the message”), and d) teachers need to isolate and think separately about the content and the pedagogical methods appropriate to such content and to the learners, and only then think about what technologies can best be exploited to approach the isolated objectives. These areas, in other words, need to be looked at separately; having this pointed out to us helps us avoid making hasty assumptions. I thought the Koehler/Mishra statement, despite its opaque language at times, helped us do this better than the Jonassen, et. al statement.

Perhaps in some tension with this last statement was one other thing that struck me about both articles/statements—namely, how neither seemed to take under any significant consideration in what ways non-mainstream students (those diagnosed with various learning differences such as autism or ADHD) might respond to the use of technologies and digital technologies in education. For such children, there are learning goals other than those laid out at the bottom of p. 7 and top of p. 8 of Jonassen. While I am not as critical of Koehler/Mishra in this regard, their article also seemed to presuppose the mainstream student throughout. I think we need to hear much more about the non-mainstream student when we talk about what technology can and cannot do in our schools.