Making lemonade

I am teaching a grad class for the UND program in Instructional Design and Technology this semester. I have had the opportunity both before and after retirement to teach a course a year for this program and I truly enjoy the experience. This class theoretically combined on-campus and off-campus students using technology services that allow all to meet in a kind of virtual classroom. Because I no longer live near campus, my courses are now all online.

The technology for the class has not worked very well this semester. The U made a decision to move to a product that operates within the Blackboard environment (Collaborate Ultra) and for what remain mysterious reasons after week two. We have yet to have a class when we can all get the system to work. Last week was particularly problematic because I could not launch the class remotely. Tech people tried to help and even took over my system remotely but nothing would work.

I had enough and fell back on something I knew I could count on – Google Hangouts. I had used this system before with a grad class consistently mostly of K12 educators based my belief that you learn about technology by using technology and Google products would be available to K12 educators (and others) after the class ended. This would not necessarily be the case for a CMS such as Blackboard. I sprung Google Hangouts Video on the class without warning and had a functioning session without problems.

I have since decided to move the Google Hangouts for the semester. I will let the U tech people struggle with Blackboard Collaborate. I thought I would create a simple tutorial related to Hangouts video calls so that my group and others might take advantage of more of the features provided.

I must say I prefer the previous version of Hangouts to the present arrangement. The previous version of Hangouts allowed me to create a “circle” for my class, start a session and share it with a circle within Hangouts, and record the session for distribution to those unable to attend or those wanting to review the session. Google has changed some things. I cannot find a way to share the present version with a circle and the recording feature is now a function of YouTube live. I prefer the old system and I have what are reasonable alternatives.

So for the uninitiated, you being by connecting to hangouts.google.com.

You should encounter a screen that looks like this. I have X’d out the history of past hangouts I have used. I use video call for my class. If you must deal with more than 9 people in real time, you will have to make the effort to use the YouTube Live alternative.

Video call should bring up a screen allowing making use of your camera and mic and a couple of other things. In the lower left-hand corner, you should see an icon that will launch chat. I will get to that later, but you may want to make use of chat and video/audio with a group. The dialog box appearing in the middle of the screen allows the originator to invite others. In the previous version, this is where I would take advantage of Google circles. I prefer not to have to enter addresses for all members of my class, but I use the copy link to generate and copy a unique URL to the clipboard. I then send this link to all members of the class using any email system. Note – you will not see this link immediately as it is copied to the clipboard. Just assume the address is there and paste when you generate the email invitations.

Students click on the link they receive and show up in the video session.

The video Hangout call allows many features those of us who use online class systems are used to having available. In the upper right-hand corner, you should find an icon that launches the drop down you see here. You can launch that chat tool and screen sharing from here.

Screen sharing offers two options – share the entire screen or share the active window of an application (e.g., PowerPoint, the view from a second browser).

The chat pane is fairly standard and should appear on the left of the video pane. Participants can carry on a chat while others are speaking.

Here is my work around for recording. I simply launch Quicktime (I tend to use Apple products) and record the section of the screen that Hangouts window. I save out recording in 720p and then upload to YouTube for sharing and archiving. The upload takes some time for a multi hour class, but I do not have sit and watch while this is happening.

 

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Cost per classroom

How are decisions made that commit funds for online services to individual teachers? I have been searching online to see if data exist on how frequently individual teachers are given a budget, allocation or allowance for instructional resources they can apply in their classrooms. I came up with nothing. My wife tells me this is not how it is done. Teachers write grants or seek funds from the PTO, but they are not allocated funds to be applied as the teacher believes meet classroom needs. Hmm….. Self-determination is such an important motivator.

I started thinking about this because I try to keep track of the costs of various online services I recommend. I start from the assumption that free is not a long term strategy for quality resources.

Just to make a guess at what such an allocation might look like I generated a short list for what a 5th-grade teacher might request. My items included:

Insert Learning

 

WeVideo

NewSela

I could not find a NewSela chart, but I did locate a source I am using for estimation ($18 per student).

Total request for a 25 student class (no other classes involved) – $40 + $25×9 (five licenses = $225) + $18 x 25 ($450) = $715.

I suppose this seems like a lot. Newsela can be accessed at no cost, but the Pro version offers a management system allowing individualization (tracking) of individual students. I assume this would be the major purchase in the literacy area for the classroom.

I must admit to having no personal experience as a K12 administrator. I have a lot of experience as a college administrator, but my budget contained very little for instructional resources. Students purchased their own books and supplies. My instructional resource budget was a hold over from the days we rented a few instructional films and was never removed.

The online blogs of various K12 folks describe their use of the type of services I list here. I can explain to future or practicing teachers how these tools work. What I cannot track is how experiences with such services translate into use in classrooms.

 

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Moderating comments in Hypothes.is

While layering services do not technically modify the content as originally generated by a web author, some have complained that annotations are not approved by the authors and may be problematic. For example, comments may be inappropriate and offensive. A comparison to blogs is used by some in explaining this objection. Blogs typically allow the author to control comments. The author may prevent any comments or moderate comments before the comments are released to the public.

Hypothes.is is one of the first services I am aware of that offers a partial way to address this issue. I say partial because the technique is under the control of the individual who creates a group for annotating web content and not the author(s) of the content annotated. So, for example, a teacher could moderate annotations generated by students the teacher has formed into a group.

The system is straightforward. Annotations made by members of an Hypothes.is group appear with a flag when viewed by members of a group. Clicking this flag by a member of the group sends an email to the group moderator who can then decide if the annotation is reasonable or not and delete the annotation should this be necessary.

 

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Mastery revisited (again)

Mastery learning is one the concepts I discovered early in my career and that I continue to return to as a great idea just on the edge of meaningful implementation. I see mastery learning as different from other education concepts that continue to reappear even though the efficacy of these ideas is seldom demonstrated. To me, mastery learning is an idea that has waited for a practical method for implementation. Tutoring has always been an approach to implementation responsive to individual differences in learning speed, but the cost effectiveness of tutoring has typically prevented speed of acquisition differences to be accommodated. My interest in technology from the beginning has been related to the potential for personalization. The “personal computer” offers opportunities for many forms of individualization.

Educational historian Larry Cuban has recently begun generating blog posts focused on the Personalized System of Instruction – Fred Keller’s model from the late 1960s (here and here). As a model suited to technological support, PSI offers the best model from the early days. Bloom’s more group-based approach possibly received more attention because of Blook’s conceptual framework and concepts such as formative and summative assessment, but Bloom was also simply better known as an influential figure. I try to get my grad students to consider Keller’s perspective as a better starting point for individualized instruction.

 

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Is the focus on STEM just another educational pendulum problem

The focus on STEM in education is in full force. Science, math, and technology are somehow linked to the economic success of the country. Resources and attention follow the factors that are understood to influence the bottom line. The weird thing, I think, is that this focus of attention and resources can be seen even at the level of elementary education. STEM for all despite the reality that the contributions to be made will require college and probably graduate-level education and most even at this advanced level will be unable to develop the level of expertise necessary to make actual contributions.

K-12 is a zero-sum environment and this environment is underfunded to begin with. Resources focused on STEM (time, content funding, educator support and professional development) mean there is less available for other content areas. Few problems facing the country are exclusively STEM-based. Consider the present climate-change issue. This problem is about science, but not because of science. The science is pretty clear. The problem is one of economics, failed information literacy, and ethics. More STEM will not provide a solution to this scientific challenge.

So many of our real problems are “social” problems better addressed by the second-class citizens of education professionals – social studies educators. Our biases when it comes to the importance of various content areas have long been obvious. These social problems must be addressed by anyone and do not require a graduate degree. What the solutions require is a focus on better understanding at all levels of education. It is time for K-12 folks to get off the STEM bandwagon and do a better job of preparing the total learner.

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Annotation Studio – MIT Digital Humanities

I have used this blog on several occasions to provide tutorials on several online services that could be used to implement the instructional strategies I outline in my book “Layering for Learning“. The book has a very specific focus – educator amplification of online resources (video, web pages) – to create better learning experiences for students. An important focus here is that the content comes from a third party (or at least that is what is assumed) and the methods do not violate the copyrights of the original creators. So, educators can make use of YouTube videos and web content they did not author.

Many of the tactics I cover in the book and in my free online resources could be applied to other content. For example, Google docs allow peer editing, commenting and the opportunity for educators to distribute content they have available with overlays of comments and questions.

The Annotation Studio Digital Humanities project from MIT is an online option developed more specifically within the framework of educational applications I outline in my book. It is specific to content uploaded by educators and so is different than the approach I have described in my own work.

It is important to me that I recommend tactics that have demonstrated value. My own approach relies on the work of educational researchers. The Humanities project is less based in quantitative research and focuses on the argumentation style of those from the humanities. MIT has generated a White Paper that describes Annotation studio, provides a tutorial on the service, and provides additional comment justifying such activities that may interest educators. The program was developed at the university level, but has been used in high schools.

 

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Personal history

I received what I thought was an interesting email this morning. This email notified me that my content contained an out-of-date link and provided a more current address. I have generated so much content that finding a way to keep information current is a problem so I appreciate assistance when offered.

The unique thing about the request was that it concerned a blog post I had written rather than the content I might try to keep current. The blog post was written in 2002. Unlike web page content I create, blog posts are kind of a temporary offering I assume fades into the mists of time. Just to address the emailer’s request, here is the original post updated to include a current link.

OK — just in case you don’t know and were wondering — what is a blog?

Blog is web slang for “web log.” Think of a blog as a web page that the author continues to update with new and typically short comments. Blogs entries tend to be dated and the entry appearing at the top of the page is the most recent. Blogs are created using a simple web form through a service provided on a remote server. There are several such services and basic blogs can be created for free. Blogs are either hosted on the remote server or can be ftp’s to a server of your choice.

We must admit that we are new to blogging and we are learning as we go. The experience of jumping in and trying a new technology venture in a public way is becoming a pattern of learning for us. We think this is a great way to learn and we would encourage you to take the same approach.

It seems to work best for us if we learn within the context of an actual project. Here is our proposed project. We will be attending the National Educational Computing Conference in San Antonio (June 17-19). Experiences at NECC should provide us something to write about. We intend to share both our NECC and blogging experiences with anyone who might be interested. We hope the combination will be of some value.

History of weblogs

For some reason, I found the topic addressed by the broken link, then and now, interesting. Blogging could not have had much of a history in 2002 nor could other forms of online authoring. I occurred to me that we (my wife and I) have lived through the history of something that continues to shape many aspects of our world. We were working with technology before the Internet was available and before the web browser. We did things for ourselves (e.g., running a server and generating web content “by hand”) because sharing content and opinions had yet to be developed as a service. Our first book on technology integration for educators was written in 1995 and we were working with computers in classrooms some years before we wrote about the topic. I like to explain our earliest personal work in the field by noting that we first used the Apple II when you had to add an extra card so you could have lower case text. It does occur to me that a comment about adding and pulling cards probably makes little sense to many technology users. Trust me – it is the kind of thing you used to have to do yourself.

It is interesting being old in a field often associated with the young. You must pardon our smiles when you share your enthusiasm and sometimes assume we don’t understand. We are not putting you down because of your enthusiasm. We were once where you are now and remain involved and excited by the present. When it comes to broad access to technology, the good old days were not that great.

This post from 2002 contains some history. The post mentions attending NECC in San Antonio. Some of you may have just returned from ISTE in San Antonio. Same organization with a new name 15 years later.

I was thinking that blogs of some duration end up being historical accounts in the raw. The many entries speak to current events and in doing so offer by accident an account of the topic the posts tend to address. I will have to take the time to reread some of my old stuff.

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