edsysad.org

Recently, I’ve been working quite extensively with WordpressMU. I’ve developed our school and teacher websites using it as the backbone. Recently, I started working with teachers to create project and topic specific blogs for instruction. The problem was there wasn’t a quick and easy way to import large numbers of users (i.e. classlists) into newly created blogs.

Dagon Design and Nicholas LaRacuente had developed a very nice plugin for importing users with just a username and emai. Unfortunately, this did not import existing blog users. I added a few lines of code to their work and now it adds both existing and new users during an import. This means you can dump classlists from you student info system and import right into your blogs.

This plugin comes without warrant. Use it at your own risk!

Edsysad mod of Dagon Design plugin

I had an interesting realization today. Even in a class of master’s students studying educational technology, there are not that many people who feel comfortable integrating technology into the classroom. There just are not that many good models for technology integration, that can easily be generalized to other classrooms. Why is that?

It seems like the answer is usually a rant about unequal access to technology, which on some level, I to agree. But, there are so many free and open-source projects out there for educators to use. Read the rest of this entry »

I think I’ve reach a turning point in my view of educational technology.

I’m finding myself rolling my eyes each time I hear about another cool gadget or gizmo that makes things easier to do. Put best by Gary Stager when discussing a recently unveiled digital video product:

“Animoto is undoubtedly a cool piece of programming, but my head will explode if someone tells me that it has educational value…”

Call me old fashion, but I like figuring out how to do hard things. Figuring out how to do hard things teaches you a lot of things. It demands that you focus your attention. Maybe it is just the way I’m programmed, but if something is to easy there is no reward. I feel that as we strip away the need for expert knowledge, we are left with a system devoid of accomplishment.

Ultimately, I think kids are missing out on the discovery of how “cool” things are actually created. Instead they drop a few pics they stole from Google images or Flickr into a template and call it good. Students miss out on critical production ideas such as layering, cueing, masking, and sound-tracking. Without all of the prior knowledge how can students hope to be able to create anything original?

An even bigger concern is that these programs change the way we think. Just look at effect of PowerPoint on instruction. In many cases, content has been reduced to a series of 3-5 factoids per slide. We change our instruction to fit the program, instead of changing the program to fit good instructional practices.

I think I’ll try to focus more on developing applications guided by theory, instead of instruction guided by application.

David Warlick’s “Teacher Technology Rant” and rebuttal “Why Teachers Don’t Use Web 2.0 - an historical perspective” by Gary Stager really got me thinking about the difference between Web 2.0, as a cultural phenomenon, and Web 2.0, as a set of innovative technologies.

As a culture, Web 2.0:

• is thrives on user created content
• holds freedom/democratization of information in high regard
• is inherently anti-authoritarian
• gives equal voice to anybody with a computer
• holds social networks in  high regard

As technology, Web 2.0:

• allows your Internet browser to become a collaborative tool
• permits the sharing of nearly all types of digital media
• allows for the Internet to become nearly any computer application you can think of

Most educators I have talked with see the inherit value of Web 2.0 technologies, but they do not see the value of Web 2.0 culture. This is interesting to consider. Can you have Web 2.0 technology without having also embracing Web 2.0 culture?

I’m not sure what I think yet.

After reading through the comments to David Warwick’s “Teacher Technology Rant”, I notice that system administrators were being listed as one of the prime reasons for teachers. I think that it is a valid observation and speaks to a growing problem in educational IT.

In many instances, educational IT managers have come from the business world. Business is about efficiency and keeping technology focused on making profits. Education is a messy affair and our product is students with the ability to think (or at least it should be). Business IT is about the box and educational IT is about the learning. Basically, educational IT and business IT do not share the same mindset.

Of course, this idea is not new. I think I first saw something along these lines at an Apple training workshop. The idea was along the lines that business and educational IT share the need for scalability, security, and reliability, but educational IT needs flexibility unheard of in the business world. It needs to be able to take risks.

I think that teachers need to be given the training and education to manage more IT. We need folks that are out on the fringe and in the trenches helping make the IT decisions. A centralized person or department, depending on the size of the school district, should be developing capacity, security, and reliability. However, there should be people at every site who can manage and adjust to meet teacher needs.

This posting begins my path down the road of an ed-blogger. For the past several years I’ve lurked though the comments and postings of many other ed-bloggers, afraid to do more than leave an occasional anonymous comment.

Today that ends! I hope that my thoughts and reflections may prove useful to others as they struggle with the complex task of integrating technology effectively into the classroom.

My goals for this blog are:

• share the configurations and hacks of open-source software that I find particularly useful
• reflect upon why we should care about technology in the classroom
• look at how students respond to using technology for learning
• observe how educators view and use technology in the NCLB era
• connect with other educators who share my vision of the future of education