Month: May 2016

Pop computing

It is the end of the K-12 school year and many educators and tech support staff are highlighting student work using social media. I think this is a good thing. It provides students an authentic audience, informs parents of student activities and provides ideas to other educators. However, I make one further observation after reviewing many such posts – few examples can be found to demonstrate how secondary students make use of technology. I have made this observation before and wonder if you have noticed the same thing.

I think I know many of the reasons for what I have just described:

a. elementary teachers have greater control and can carve out blocks of time in a day or week to devote to the type of projects you see online,

b. middle school teachers are more likely to work in cross-disciplinary teams that can be focused on projects, and

c. the use of technology on the secondary level tends to be focused on tool integration rather than self-contained projects. This focus may be important but seems less news-worthy to many who want to promote what is happening.

I also think that tech support personnel have greater difficulty addressing content expectations that exist at the secondary level and are less likely to have the background knowledge necessary to offer suggestions.

Whatever the issue – please add your own thoughts to my list – I think this is a problem. Educational technology application just seems to run our of steam.

The coding thing in its present iteration has many of the same issues. Idit Harel just generated a concern with what was described as “pop computing“. Hardly an opponent of computer science, Harel a co-author with Seymour Papert, has long championed constructionist approaches to learning but is disappointed in present coding experiences.

I now see my concern with the focus on the “hour of code” and what I observed here as sharing a common theme. Both seem to run out of gas without an obvious end game. With programming, I would begin by making certain secondary students have access to a computer science course. I would also suggest that what counts toward graduation requirements (not electives) should include computer science as an option.

Why is this an issue? In part, I blame AP, dual-enrollment, etc. courses. If this is about reducing the cost of a college education by taking supposed college level courses on the cheap, I think this is misguided. Take a high-school level computer science course, master a foreign language, improve your writing skills, take an industrial arts class. Enter college with a greater breadth of knowledge and greater depth of knowledge and skills in important areas.

 

Loading

Awareness of the opposition

Understanding argumentation is likely very important to wading through political news in a productive way. Argumentation involves taking positions and refuting opposing positions based on the careful identification of reasons and the evidence behind those reasons. It is a way to get beyond the noise and the emotion when decisions must be made in contentious situations. Argumentation is a productive process that requires careful attention to the positions we already hold (are there actually reasons and is there actually evidence) and attention to the efforts of those with a different perspective to support their position. The externalization of positions is a way to learn. (Yes, I have been reading about the educational potential of argumentation and I see the educational applications as based on similar principles as my description of authoring/teaching to learn). Educators might want to consider developing argumentation skills as relevant to the educational emphasis on the development of 21st-century skills and particularly critical thinking.

As often seems to happen for me, reading about one issue sensitizes me to another. The Wall Street Journal published a piece and proposed a service related to developing awareness of extreme political positions contrary to your own. The proposed service took advantage of “research” conducted by Facebook regarding extreme political positions. It was not clear that the Facebook research was related to the accusation that Facebook promoted liberal news stories over conservative stories, but interest in this topic likely encouraged interest in this research and the WSJ awareness of the research. Facebook researchers published a piece in Science (I admit I have not read the original research) on “very” polarized content and the database for this content seems to be the starting point for the WSJ work.

To be clear, the core issue in the WSJ article seems similar to Pariser’s concern that personalized search creates a filter bubble in which individuals are more likely to come in contact with information consistent with existing values rather than information that reflects reality. The idea is that our online history biases what is presented to us because we are likely to regard such results as a successful search and search algorithms want to provide us successful search results. The WSJ article mentions this issue without actually demonstrating this is a reality. This is not the point. What the WSJ article is trying to do (if I understand the intention apart from the other content provided) is to offer the reader a side by side comparison of positions taken on a popular political topic. It is more a way to bring to the attention of the reader extreme contrasting views as a way to encourage awareness.

I found it very interesting to examine the content and to try to mindfully apply the reasons and evidence test as a way to examine the contrasting extremes. I would encourage you do a similar thing. Take an issue – gun control, climate change – and review some of the extreme “news” appearing on Facebook. The WSJ service makes it easy to explore some sample posts. What is the evidence offered in justifying any reasons given? I think approaching this demonstration using this technique adds something to what the WSJ proposes.

 

Loading

I made a bad assumption

I just updated our textbook and then explained the reason I decided to update the existing content rather than just republish as a new book. I thought I was doing the right thing by updating our content, but after not seeing the new content in my own Kindle download of our book I investigated. I based my approach on assumptions and did not read the fine print (which follows).

Some examples of corrections that don’t justify sending updates to customers who previously purchased your book are:

  • New Content Added: Chapter(s) or page(s) added, deleted or revised; new images added; bonus chapter added.

  • Book Plot or Character Changes: Character’s name changed; book ending changed.

  • Marketing Information: Links or marketing info added, deleted, or modified.

I did not update to correct errors. I updated because I wanted those who had already made a purchase to get the most current content at no additional cost. I should not have relied on my assumptions. I don’t understand this position. Current content would seem a unique benefit of digital content available via the Internet. Current content is one of the common complaints of those who oppose traditional paper textbooks updated every three years or so. I doubt those with an old edition would repurchase a book and even if they would I should have the opportunity to decide if I think I deserve additional income.

I guess the thing to do at this point is to delete the existing book and publish as a new book.

Loading

Book Update

Our book, Integrating Technology for Meaningful Learning, has been updated and is available for Kindle users (or users of the Kindle app). It is difficult to know what to call this edition. We had 5 editions with a commercial publisher and have updated the Kindle version twice since. Our reasons for moving from a commercial textbook publisher to Amazon were complex and we have explained this in a series of posts some years ago. Short version – we wanted to author content not suited to the once every three years textbook model.

Perhaps some thoughts on getting a book into the Amazon environment might be useful to others.

Issue 1 – update or new book

Amazon has a feature I like in books that may involve updates. Updating a book once you have prepared the appropriate files (the preparation is the issue) is trivial. You can change the content of an existing book by uploading the new files and the modified version of the book will appear in 72 hours or less. You might want to do this because you have identified errors that need correction or because it is time to update the content. What we just finished is a major rewrite.

The nice thing about the update is that those who already own the older version can move to the new version at no cost. Here is the problem with updating a book. The publication date on the Amazon site is the original publication date. As an author, you have the opportunity to write a description of your book and could include the date of the most recent update, but this information tends to get buried. The original publication date is prominent. I am concerned because what appears to be a dated book about technology is likely to be ignored.

I am not sure what to do about this. I want those who have already invested in our content to be eligible for the update. I think I will give it a month or so as an update and then I can easily delete the existing book and upload the book again as a new book. I will have to see how things go.

Issue 2 – formatting

Several previous authors of a Kindle book have discovered that formatting a book for the Kindle is quite a task. What you see in your word processing environment is not necessarily what you get in the ebook. These authors have decided their experiences were worth another book and you can purchase multiple Kindle books on preparing a book for the Kindle. My recommendation – these books can be helpful, but the information in this area seems to become dated very quickly.

I found that things kept changing on me and I had to experiment each time. The last time I found what turned out to be a fairly easy approach. I wrote in Google docs. I used Apple Pages to finalize the manuscript and save it in a format I could submit. Apple then updated Pages and removed features I needed. This time I again wrote in Docs, but I had to use both Calibre and Sigil to generate a final product. I should give credit where credit is due and point any interested Kindle author to a YouTube video that explains the process. To be fair, part of my issue has been not using MicroSoft Word, but even Word users have to do some post-production work.

I wish Amazon would invest more in tools for formatting. I am proposing something like iBooks Author. iBooks Author has a lot going for it, but it is simply not flexible in the platforms it supports. I must prepare a textbook learners can use even if they do not own Apple hardware.

Loading

Google Slides Q&A

Google has just released a new feature for Google slides that allows those in the audience to submit questions to the presenter. The feature is called Q&A. This quick tutorial should get you started.

QA1

The Q&A option is activated from the drop down appearing just to the right of the Present button.

QA2

Once activated Q&A will display a URL at the top of the presented slides. Anyone in the audience can enter this URL and submit a question.

QA3

This is the display an audience member sees allowing a question to be submitted.

QA4

Questions are then related to a special window available to the presenter. Because many questions could be submitted members of the audience can raise or lower questions in the list. Of course, the presenter selects the questions to address.

Loading

Bill Atkinson, hypercard and authentic learning

I strongly recommend that you watch (or listen) to this Triangulation interview with technologist Bill Atkinson. Leo Laporte does a great job interviewing Bill covering topics ranging from HyperCard, coding and authentic learning to Atkinson’s use of LSD.

Atkinson has long been a personal hero. I admit that I still miss HyperCard and credit this software for getting me into coding and authoring opportunities for students of all ages. Atkinson’s comments on the end of HyperCard and what he recommends as a replacement may be of interest to educators promoting student authoring. Brilliant insights based on his life experiences which remarkably predate the position of my present educational leaders. His way of describing these ideas seems more useful than most I encounter. These ideas were what initiated my own thinking about authoring to learn.

hwildcard

Sample from my NDWild clipart project (distributed as a Hypercard stack).

Loading