Author: grabe

Heard about XML, but baffled by what it is and what it is good for? Here is a good description provided by Paul Merrill – XML.

Yesterday Bernie Dodge gave a presentation entitled WebQuests and other Viruses. The focus was on understanding how some useful ideas take hold and take on a life of their own. The “virus” was the metaphor for this process of dissemination. Today, I attended a session by Lloyd Rieber in which he gave some attention to the same topic. Dodge’s idea/virus is the WebQuest. Rieber is attempting to encourage a focus on student authored PowerPoint games. He argues that while students can author games in many ways, PowerPoint games have the advantage of being based in a software that is familiar to educators and widely available. Reiber is also taking a similar approach to Dodge and is promoting the PowerPoint game through a web site – Homemade PowerPoint Games. This site provides examples of games and game templates.

Cindy and I are at two conferences in Anaheim – AECT and NSBA (National School Board Association) T&L. Our visit is an efficient opportunity for us because the combination of conferences addresses our different interests. The two conferences also share a common vendor exhibit providing an opportunity to contact old friends and catch up on new resources being released.

For example, we have been following Tech4Learning for years (see our web site for a description of mediablender). This company’s newest offering addresses the need for staff development and support. Recipes4success provide explanations for how to use common software in implementing classroom projects. For example, how might a student use MediaBlender to create a multimedia project.

I have been on the lookout for an inexpensive and easy to use tool for commenting video. I think there would be a number of applications in which such a tool would be useful. For example, preservice teachers might use such a tool to comment/reflect on their own performance in teaching a practice lesson.

I know that this capability exists. For example, the large PT3 video project (InTime) hosted by the University of Northern Iowa allows the viewer to select from among multiple commentaries on the same video. I know how to edit the Quicktime text track to display HTML pages, but this does not really provide a reasonable solution for someone who is not interested in coding.

I thought I located the product I was looking for when I found Microsoft Producer (see my comments on 20.6.03). Producer was intended as a PowerPoint extension. It provides an easy way to connect PowerPoint slides with specific locations within a video and publish the combination for web presentation (or local viewing using a browser). However, Producer operates only within the Windows XP environment and the product generated can only be viewed using IE for Windows. For you Windows types, this is a good solution.

I have just encountered something new. It has limitations, but it is both free and cross platform. Video Paper Builder is a product developed by the Concord Consortium with support from NSF. It is a tool for integrating video, images, and text and produces a product for the web. A screen capture of the display from my experimentation is provided below.

This product has some quirks. You can insert buttons in text to jump to a point in the video and you can set points in the video to display an image, but you cannot directly get the video to trigger the display of a specific text segment (unless I am missing something). What the system does is reveal a strange little symbol in the upper left-hand corner of the video (see the screen image) that when clicked will display the text. If you enjoy exploring experimental products, give this one a try. I think this group is moving in the right direction, but may be one version away from a tool that will be widely adopted.

I watched a brief spot on Public Television in which Sherry Turkle (MIT Prof – The Second Self, Life on the Screen) made some specific statements about the limiting effect of PowerPoint. I have heard others in casual conversation make statements about “power pointless.”

A quick Google search revealed several sources relevant to this issue. Here is a good wiki source (PowerPoint.) presenting both positives and negatives.

The Oct. Technology and Learning contains an interesting article addressing whether the recently published vision of 21st Century Skills and the core skills forming the focus of NCLB are compatible or contradictory. I have been waiting for the Technology and Learning web site made this article available to promote this article (Judy Salpeter).

One core challenge is the designation of “essential skills.” NCLB may have identified some, but not all of what is necessary. Another challenge concerns understanding the connection between “the basics” and “meaningful applications.” Is it necessary to assure that the basics are in place before more meaningful activities are attempted or is it more useful to learn what basic knowledge is needed in the context of meaningful learning tasks. How does the emphasis on “essential skill” testing influence the distribution of classroom experiences between “the basics” and “meaningful applications? If a balanced approach is recommended, what will encourage teachers to take the risk of developing activities that are not directly related to those objectives emphasized on tests?

A recent Christian Science Monitor article investigated what it calls the Great Escape – the escalating of teacher loss during the first three years. The article concludes the colleges of ed are generally producing enough teachers (perhaps not in the right specialties or willing to go where they are needed), but an increasing proportion leave during the first three years. Why? It appears there are many known reason – a sink or swim attitude, lack of decision making power, certification requirements associated with NCLB, etc.

Technology types may recognize a familiar name in this article – Tom Carroll, a name many of us associated with PT3, is now executive director of the National Commission on Teaching & America’s Future (NCTAF) and appears to be involved in addressing some of the issues raised here.