Month: December 2005

My wife returned last night from TIES, the Minnesota K-12 technology conference, and said that attendance was down. I know the same thing has happened with the similar conference in North Dakota and that there is a possibility that if attendance does not rebound this coming year the stand alone conference may be discontinued. I remember attending MECC (the “original” Minnesota Educational Computing Conference) back in my Apple 2e days – while I attended national conferences in my discipline, MECC was probably the most exciting conference of the year.

I wonder if this is unique to our area, a temporary situation in our area, or a trend of a more general nature. So, if this trend is real, I wonder why this is happening and if it is a good thing. Here are some thoughts (completely without data).

Perhaps individual districts or regions (in ND we have some regional training programs sponsored through the state) have increased tech professional development to the point that further exposure is not needed.

Even if this is true, I think district programs tend to be idiosyncratic and listening only to yourself limits creativity and innovation.

Perhaps “integration” has happened on all levels. Maybe the discussion of teachering with technology has become integrated within more general local and regional conferences. Hence, more technology topics are included at the state teachers convention. In my case, more technology topics might be included at the American Educational Research Association Convention.

Again, while I think this may be the case and this may be fine for those educators with general interests, I still like the opportunity to go to a conference to concentrate on a specific topic.

Some more negative thoughts:

There has been some money spent in recent years on professional development. When money is easy (for example, when grants are available), teachers are paid for participating in professional development. Perhaps this generates expectations that are not feasible in leaner times. Perhaps the idea of individuals paying to become educated is dead.

Perhaps NCLB has caused a loss of interest in technology-supported education or caused priorities to shift to other topics of professional development.

Please check out the following site – Work-Learning Research.

This link provides information related to claims made regarding the benefits of “learning by doing.”

The source cited in the diagram above by Wiman and Meierhenry (1969) is a book of edited chapters. Though two of the chapters (Harrison, 1969; Stewart, 1969) mention Dale’s Cone of Experience, neither of them includes the percentages. In other words, the diagram above is citing a book that does not include the diagram and does not include the percentages indicated in the diagram.

If you follow some of the same discussions I do, it is interesting to note how such claims originate. There must be an important lesson in this situation for educators. ALWAYS question and spend some time with primary sources.

Don Lemon, a faculty colleague sent me an email indicating:

The Dale being referred to is, I believe, Edgar Dale, a UND graduate from Rugby, ND. His writings in education were popular in the 1930s — 1950s. It seems I recall that he had a “Cone of Experience.”

Tom Hoffman from ed-tech insider continues the discussion (my earlier post) concerning teen interest in dangerous sites and services. His post notes the inadequacy of the assumption that training will control abuse. The comparison to drivers education and teen driving made sense to me.

I have been following for a week or more an “intense” discussion that appears to span several different listservs and blog sites concerning the damage that can be done by student blogs.

For example, Diana Clarke offers the following comment on WWWEDU

I encourage every responsible blogging educator on this list to go NOW to xanga.com and myspace.com and run a search for their local high school or middle school to learn how students are already using blogs. This is the image of blogging that many adults have in some schools. Blogging means bullying or violence and leads to suicide or attempted suicide in some cases. Newspapers are beginning to report on this with greater frequency.

Also, see a typical news piece from the Star Telegram on the topic.

This is good advice and I must say we have been concerned because we have children too and we know adolescents and young adults use these sites.

I think Diana’s point (I have the advantage of reading the entire post) is not that educational blogs are bad, but parents are very concerned when an educators takes the plunge and involves students in blogging because of what she describes as the public image of blogs. Maybe so. Perhaps it would even be fair to say that some citizens have a similar view of the Internet in general.

So are teachers asking for some calls from parents should they take the plunge and initiate a classroom blogging project? Sure. What would I suggest the teacher say to these parents?
– Help parents understand the distinction between blogs as they will be used in the classroom and some of the blogs parents are concerned about.
a) The sites that concern parents will exist whether or not the class blogs. Students are aware of these sites and pass this information among themselves.
b) The school blocks access to thess sites (I am guessing here).
c) Students will access such sites outside of the school. As a parent you also need to be aware that such sites exist.
d) Someone needs to talk with students about such issues. Teachers who make use of blogs will take the opportunity of such activities to discuss related issues. Educators will take some responsibility for discussing Internet safety and Internet abuse.
e) Parents must also educate themselves and address such issues. Abuses are most likely to occur through use outside of the school.

Schools may consider use of a protected blog environment such as
Landmark Project Blogmeister.

I am not certain what I think of all the concerns raised by the “lawyer types.” Some concern (I would prefer to use the term “awareness”) is necessary. Those of us who prepare teachers directly or through our written products make what I think is a reasonable effort to do this. It really comes down to issues of time and focus. How much time should be devoted to “concerns” in contrast to opportunities? Those whose expertise is in identifying concerns also need to take some responsibility for evaluating the impact of their tone and the consequences their message. More time devoted to the study of legal issues can mean less time devoted to pedagogical issues. So, the endless discussion of legal issues is OK as a method of exploration, but what we need are the experts in the fields focused on such concerns to prioritize. We need a little more risk assessment and a little less hypothetical thinking.

I think it would be extremely sad if educators back away from productive opportunities because of things that might theoretically go wrong. Teachers need a reasonable awareness of potential dangers and should take reasonable precautions. So should parents. I am on the side of everyone taking a little more responsibility. Teachers and administrators need to do this, but so do parents and students. The real world is out there whether you like it or not. Students already take it on during their “free time.” Sooner or later, they will be living in it without your guidance.

Some suggestions from Bud The Teacher.

This is basically a rant so if you want only to read positive comments try back in a couple of days. It is probably obvious that I prefer Macs to Windows machines, but I do own and use both. I just tend to have more difficulties with the Windows OS.

This particular problem began about a week ago. I have been running Norton products as virus protection. My system alerted me that there was a problem so I opened the application (see below).

Now, I ask you if you were informed that your virus subscription had expired what product would you assume you had to reorder. It says NAV 2004 so I ordered another year’s subscription to NAV 2004 for XP.

Turns out I was wrong. When I attempted to submit the key, I was informed that the key was not valid. Had I clicked the link (Renew) I would have learned that I had actually purchased the wrong product. I should have purchased a subscription for Internet Security.

It turned out that last year I had upgraded my NAV account to an Internet Security account. So, I forgot and that may be my fault. I do think the screen display is misleading. It clearly says NAV 2004.

This is not my complaint. Once I realized the problem, I began to attempt to communicate with Symantec. I wanted to cancel my NAV subscription order. Communciating with Symantec is a challenge. The first thing I tried was a type of web form in which you enter information (your account, email, description of the problem, etc.) and they get back to you. That was now four days ago (no response).

Then I tried to call. The email I received verifying receipt of my order provided a phone number. I called. Forty minutes later my call was answered. However, it turned out I had somehow connected to the person responsible for Enterprise and not home issues. He asked that I send him a copy of the source I had used to find his number, but he could not help me. He fowarded me to another number, I selected option 2, and the line went dead. Who knows – perhaps my university phone line has some timer or something.

The next thing I tried was the chat support. My chat query resulted in immediate communication. This was good. After several comments back and forth, the tech person agreed with my assessment of the situation. I had probably ordered the wrong product. He would send me an email explaining how I should apply for my money back and I should then purchase the appropriate subscription. He was a nice guy, but it is now more than a day later and still no email. So thanks Abin Mammala – you still owe me an email.

I decided to chalk the $30 up to a bad experience and take advantage of the opportunity to offer a description of this experience to the world. This is a perfect case study of how not to impress a customer. I also removed the Symantec products from my machine. It turned out that the annual subscription to Internet Security was $40. This seems pretty high. After I installed Windows Service Pack 2, I had to disable several features (e.g., soft firewall) because they appeared to conflict with similar features in Internet Security. There also seemed to be no way to move back to just the Symantec virus protection product without starting over and purchasing another original product.

I did download Microsoft AntiSpyware Beta and turned back on the features I had disabled when installing SP2. I am not certain what Microsoft has in mind when the time frame for Antispyware beta expires. I may be attempting to purchase another subscription again. I guess I will worry about that in about a year. This seemed way too complicated and time consuming and I have no idea if I am now working on a secure machine or not.

Back to the Mac – I need to get some work done.