Mark’s Blogophilia

We arranged and clarified the final assignments (with rubrics) of the Lesson Plan and Web Page design assignments.  We’ll drop the Exemplary category in web design, given the novice status of the class.  We had the last three presenters on the Digital Domain: Joan on Fun Brain; Kaylen on kids-centered virtual world “Whyville;” and Brian on the Tycoon simulation game.  This sharing of discoveries have helped all of us see more of what is out there to use.

I gave a quick PPT and discussion about the significance of no longer engraving in public and business buildings, how it’s a sign of the times that we don’t expect  the future to look very much like the present.  This contrast between the past’s confidence and the lack thereof in the present was illustrated best by Strasbourg Cathedral, which took 400 years to complete; no there is a culture that believes in the future!

The educational relevance of wikis was the main topic for the evening.  The technology is still so new, and yet there were many signs of its influence, in publishing, education, business, and so forth.  Discussions of the California Open Source Textbook Project really dredged up a lot of concerns about just how much anything new can positively change today’s standards-based schooling.  The jury is still out.

Larry bravely led with the first Lesson Plan assignment, an insightful and well-integrated idea about having students produce, edit, and distribute oral histories.  His presentation enthused and inspired many students and help give them a better idea of what to do Thursday…our last class!

Alright, so this class had its own chaotic energy…  Trying to put together a common rubric for the final, trying to surf the energy of the impending holiday, and anticipating the upcoming Spanish dinner contributed a mighty centrifugal force away from the key course questions.  We ended up dropping the presentation of the discipline tools, discretion being the better part of valor and all.

My question remains: are they comfortable enough with the educational criteria for assessing the use of digital technology?  I have been more deliberate about modeling the questions, but I don’t see as much of that spontaneous questioning on their part.  I also wonder how comfortable they are with what higher-order thinking is.  I need to be more determined in my effort to elicit this in our next class.

On the upside, the dinner went off quite well.  The students seemed to appreciate the gesture, and the food!

In this class we got immediately embroiled in tech futures issues.  I posed a “near tech future” of integrated technology where one’s urban landscape would be a movement through an interactive, triangulated web of needs and desires with commercial and social sites, a scape where you are spread across a much larger and more integrated relations.  Many picked up on the potential to be either too narrow or corrupted by others with suspicious motives.  This brave new world is technically possible now, but it still feels quite foreign to all of us, since we can remember a time before any of these technologies existed. 

I tailored the tech skills requirement to a specific requirement to create a web page.  Earlier evaluations of the survey led me to believe that more had experience with this than turned out to be the case.  Even though some colleagues argue that this is now superfluous, I can see that it remains relevant.  This will be due by the end of the semester (next week!).

There are many professional challenges of creating and using accurate and fair assessments.  We worked on developing task lists and rubrics for the final requirement: the technology lesson plan.  I worked up some examples of exemplary criteria and the students worked on fashioning their own.  I probably didn’t leave enough time to explore this in enough depth. 

We had the presentation of lesson proposals first.  Keeping the educational objectives clear seems to be the common thread of consideration for all.  We had three more digital reviews.  Brian’s was the first to deal with the tutorials, since all of the others have been about simulations or educational sites.  The web site assessments revealed a wide range of web page products.  There is no one-best form, but there are better and worse results.  The collective review tells a lot.  I wanted to make this part first, since there was little in the book and very few in the class had experience making web pages.  Whether it scratched the itch is another question. 

The workshop portion following the assessment was designed for similar reasons; there is a wide variety of interests, needs, and skills.  I hope that this activity will allow each to tailor her own tutorial.  One oversight was quickly revealed: I never realized that their computers would not have sound.  I need to encourage them to bring in headphones or earplugs. 

After this class we’re 60% through the course.  It’s hard to conceive, accustomed as I am to semester-long courses.

The workshop lesson was designed to get students experience integrating several elements: collaboration with colleagues (preferably in the same discipline), a cross-curricular theme (the relevance of water, in this case), place-based learning, educational technology, learner centered, and higher-order thinking.  It is a lot to take on, but too often teaching and the information taught float free from context and students don’t get to use their brains well.  The hum was there for the students; they were quite focused with meaningful and professional considerations evident throughout the task.  I wonder, though; I had a presentation part, so that each group could see what the other did, but I wonder if I need to assess more directly.  I also need to make sure that they draw these experiences through the entire class, that they have utility and persist in theoretical inquiry throughout.  And that brings up another consideration: are they beginning to ask the higher-order critical questions of these technologies?  They are showing some evidence of it in their digital reviews.  Perhaps I should assess this in more ways.

    Lesson (anyone’s) in their disicpline, about a major concept (& defense of why it’s important)

    A hands on/minds on component

    Using digital technology following the NTeQ Model: interactive, student-centered, higher-order thinking

  – Proposal due in one week

Tech Presentations: Amy (gradebook software), Chris (history simulations), & Larry (Redistricting game)

Smartboard activities: Technical facilities & educational relevance.  It was a shame that we didn’t have more Smartboards to work with (only one), so that everyone could play and play more.  It was good to have several minds around a central issue and to have everyone benefit from comments and insights.  Still, it seemed obvious that everyone needed more opportunity to experiment with the features.  We also had much less than I expected about the best educational practices.  I should make sure that I hold everyone accountable for what the work that they did or did not do.

Assignment: Database and Spreadsheet chapters together for Tuesday

We set some administrative tasks, signing up for digital review presentations, using tutorials to catch up (& an announcement that we’ll be drawing from the entire group on skills training and evaluation), and make plans for shared dinner Thursday.

I showed Synchron-eyes features: connecting to their future work and to their upcoming presentations.  Joan presented on a bridge-building simulation game. Good discussion of its merits

We moved to the courtyard (on gorgeous evening) for discussion about mediating technologies. Used examples from math (Roman numerals, zero) & literature (Jekyll & Hyde). Didn’t get to the ads, but that was okay; since we were outdoors it was less manageable.

Reviewed key features of the Writing/Editing/Publishing/Teaching Slam Game (including the procedures — all written up in handout — and talking about moving between platforms, using graphics and presentation criteria, especially graphics and PP limitations) and and then set them in motion. The lab had changed the software to Office 2007 yesterday, so some of the features were not the same. I discovered that I need to change the requirement that they save it as a different document each time (which will indeed allow the different editors to be noticed.  I must also devote more time to this (last phase was rushed and unfinished) and review the educational worth on Thursday.

The assignment was to research best practices with Smart Boards and bring in PP and text materials to use (with internet source) for Thursday.

We had a lot of administrivia to begin the class, especially a lot of downloading of programs (Second Life & the ever-so-large iTunes program).  The bulk of the class was devoted to framing technology criticisms, understanding that technology is much more expansive a category than is normally considered, that it’s neither just a tool nor neutral.  Technology favors certain ways of thinking and behaving and certain power arrangements.  How technology mediates one’s experience of the world is the trickiest thing to conceive.  I won’t know for awhile if the students understand and have utility with that concept.  The rest of the class was devoted to exploring RSS Feeds (through Google Reader), Merlot, Second Life, iTunes, and other news and information sources for teaching and learning.  Tech reviews start Tuesday, so I’ll be looking forward to that!  I have to reform the syllabus, due to the results of the survey (and presumably from the course goals the students handed in today).  It should improve the class, but it poses quite a challenge; how do I make it as inclusive as possible given the wide range of technical expertise?

Finally I had a chance to meet the students!  We stayed pretty close to the critical “sweet spot” I was hoping for: how technology affects learning and culture.  I didn’t get to do my schtick on tools, with the tool belt, nor did I get to the Power Point I had prepared.  I felt that the discussion and its natural way was doing a lot of the work and in a better way.  There’s more to do with this on Thursday (and throughout) I believe.  Their first critical reviews and discussions will help me figure out if they are in the ballpark (they can sit wherever they please once inside, however)).

Setting up the blogs proved more difficult than I thought that it would.  I realize now that I should have run through it myself completely, but then there’s the “old teacher-as-complete-authority voice.”  The students did a great job of cheerfully playing it through themselves and then helping one another.  That will probably go a much longer distance toward bringing them together as a group.  My “complete authority” position of knowing it all might have kept them more isolated, interacting almost exclusively with a machine.

It seems that we have varied reactions to the technological demands.  I want to make sure that all feel that they are included and encouraged.

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