When I attend large trade shows, I try to take some time to explore what some of the smaller or startup companies have to offer. “Making it” in the educational software field is tough even if you have a great concept because it can be difficult to gain attention for your products.
Muzzy Lane Software offers a high end “simulation” (I would also classify this product as a simulation/strategy game) that allows history students to take on historical roles, make key decisions, and experience how such decisions might have influenced the course of history. The present game emphasizes WWII era European history. Running beneath the “video game” is a complex structure of rules and a proprietary engine (potentially allowing the adaptation of the technology to other scenarios or content domains.
The company web site offers a nice page with links to online information on quality education games.
It is sometimes helpful to place present experiences in some type of context and understand the issues and values that shape current policy. You may be aware of the effort to generate a National Technology Plan. As a contribution to this planning effort, scholars from the Education Development Center Center for Children and Technology were asked to shape a A retrospective on 20 years of technology policy. An overview of some of their observations was reported at NECC. The report traces the evolution of present policy through various initiatives back to “A Nation At Risk.” Whatever their professional or political views, it appeared that the authors were quite careful to avoid being judgemental. However, the presenter was quite clear that reactions to the issues outlined in the document should be examined with an awareness of the value systems driving change. (My translation – we had to write as we did because we were paid to do so. We encourage you to take this document as a starting point and be as judgmental as you feel is necessary to accomplish something you feel is meaningful.)
By the way, the list of “influential position papers/reports” provided in this retrospective may be helpful to some (note to edtech graduate students outlining the intro for thesis or dissertation).
Seems to me, we are going in circles and my personal historical context places us back at the point at which we thought meeting individual needs through ILS applications that personalized drill activities was cool.
The question of whether or not anyone can show “technology works” comes up again and again. While many educators may assume someone must have already answered the question or not feel attending to the question is necessary, the question will not go away. Those committed to technology in schools owe their thanks to those researchers who are willing to take on this deceptively simplistic question.
I know enough about the associated issues to realize that I probably will never be able to do relevant work myself. It takes access to many schools, teachers, and students to even begin asking interesting questions. It takes having significant funding and probably working in certain parts of the country to have the necessary access.
I suggest you review the NECC paper provided by Bebell, O???Dwyer, Russell, & Seeley on this topic (NECC . In addition to providing new data, this paper does a nice job of explaining what is already known and why the question is so difficult for researchers to answer.
I try to attend Bernie Dodge’s sessions when I can because I admire how he has been able to generate significant ideas out of courses he teaches (e.g., webquests). I mean this comment in a positive way. My research and teaching concern the same general field of study, but I can’t say any class project I have ever generated has been the basis for any serious scholarship.
The presentation “when teachers blog” concerned work by Dodge and Molebash evaluating the blogs of preservice English and language teachers. The general rationale for exploring blogs with this group was based on the assumption that such students would be “pro” writing and may be positively influenced by the opportunity to eventually engage their own future students with this tool.
The activity of encouraging preservice teachers to blog has extended across two semesters to this point and has involved the collection of some data (activity level and questionnaire responses) and some basic “manipulations” (whether blogging and reading the blogs of others was voluntary or worth 10% of the course grade (see paper paper to be available). Response to the experience of blogging was positive, students felt quite capable of blogging, and there was increased activity with incentives.
Some of the ideas shared at the session were very interesting. The authors wanted to provide teachers an opportunity for reflection and noted changes in what teachers had to say as they became more experienced in their student teaching. The idea of “saving” a record of this part of one’s life is interesting. Following the presentation, the group became caught up in a discussion of concerns associated with blogs – what younger students might reveal that may endanger them, what preservice or practicing teachers may say about their private and professional experiences that may endanger their professional futures. For example, student teachers reflecting on frustrations with students, colleagues, supervisors may encounter repercussions. In my opinion, it is difficult and perhaps inappropriate for people who are passionate about what they do to separate their professional and personal lives. Perhaps, this is especially true for those just discovering and shaping a professional identify.
It seems a sad trend that self-expression can also be self threatening (must be something in the constitution about this). I guess this means I should not post my pictures from last night’s excursion to “The Quarter.”
Symbiot Security offers a product that allows companies to fight back against those who attact company server sites. This story has a personal connection – Frank Milano is Cindy’s brother-in-law – and we have heard about the product the company has been developing. The CBS article does raise some issues about this approach. Will attempting to retaliate improve or encourage dark side hackers? Perhaps large companies have few alternatives.
Keeping a blog going can be a challenge. I guess the challenge is self imposed. Do I have to post every day? Do I have to stay on topic? I wonder how many blog authors have kept their projects going for two years. I partly use this blog as my own online note storage system so the commitment may be a little easier for me to maintain. I also get personal benefit from exploring the associated technology. I have moved from Blogger to B2 to WordPress and have learned some things about PHP and MYSQL as well.
By the way, we do encourage you to explore the NECC conference site even if you are unable to attend the conference. Some of the keynote presentations will be streamed so you might want to take advantage of that option. We will be offering some images and comments from the conference.
You may notice that the blog looks different. You may also note that there is a long gap between the date for the current past and the next older post. I had a little server problem. Actually, it was a big server problem. I am now operating off a different machine. I also decided to upgrade the blog software (b2 => WordPress).
The gap in posts was caused by the lose of data. I do make an effort to back up (like all good edtech people), but a mysql backup is not exactly what you might expect. You do not simply move one file from the computer to a storage device (e.g., CD). You have to export the database info you want to save and in the case of emergency rebuild the MySQL database. The is the kind of task they pay IT people to do and a hassle for people like me. Anyway, it has been a learning experience.
I will be adding as much content as I did have backed up as I have time. Good to be back and thanks for your patience.
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