Educational Technology and Change Journal

(From: Bonnie Bracey Sutton, Associate Editor)

Date: November 9-10, 2011

Venue: Andrew W. Mellon Auditorium, Washington, DC

Please save the date for FOSI’s fifth Annual Conference and join our diverse group of participants as we discuss strategies for safe and healthy online use!

Who will be there? An international audience of policymakers, Internet Industry leaders, educators, legislators, law enforcement, Internet safety advocates, teachers, and technologists.

Why should you attend? This year’s FOSI conference and exhibition will be an opportunity for all stakeholders to discuss innovative ways to keep kids safe online.

If you are interested in sponsoring, exhibiting or more information, email us at:events@fosi.org

Click here for more information on the 2011 annual conference.

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By Jim Shimabukuro
Editor

The Future of State Universities conference, held at the Four Seasons Hotel in Dallas, yesterday and today, attracted some very powerful people, including college presidents and provosts, public higher education leaders, and noteworthies such as WICHE president David Longanecker, Arizona State University’s Michael Crow, U.S. Under Secretary of Education Martha J. Kanter, Clayton Christensen, Britain’s Tony Blair and Australia’s John Howard, former U.S. governors Jeb Bush and Jim Hunt, Education Secretary Arne Duncan (via video), and Salman Khan. But what makes this conference “unusual,” says Doug Lederman, is the sponsor, “Academic Partnerships, a for-profit company that works with public universities to build, market and support online academic programs” (“An Unusual Conference,” Inside Higher Ed, 10.7.11).

The commercial shadow over a conference to decide the future of public universities was not lost on the commenters, and one in particular caught my attention. Titled “Self-importance on Display,” it was presumably posted by Bob Kustra, President at Boise State University (10.7.11). Here’s the full comment:

As President of Boise State University, I received an invitation to attend and promptly threw it in the circular file. Even though a strong supporter of online education, I couldn’t imagine what I would learn from a collection of self-important, traveling higher ed barkers who could really be more effective back on their own campuses rather than preaching from Olympian heights and a few has-been’s from the governmental world.

Continue reading →

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The LearningTimes – Jossey-Bass Online Teaching & Learning Conference (OTL 2011) will take place completely over the Internet on October 18-20, 2011.

Now in its 5th year, OTL 2011 is 3 days of live online sessions designed to equip educators and administrators with the essentials of online course design, development, instruction, and assessment with a comprehensive understanding of ‘the WHAT’ and ‘the HOW’ of online teaching & learning.  You’ll interact live with leaders in this fast-growing field, right from your desk!  Keynote presentations include:

Online Learning: How It Disrupts Traditional Higher Education for the Better
with Henry J. Eyring

The Mobile Academy: The Future is in the Palm of our Hands
with Clark N. Quinn  

For more information and to register visit:  http://2011.onlineteachingandlearning.com/

And don’t forget the Pre-Conference!  Sponsored for the 5th consecutive year by Fielding Graduate University, the program features information and advice you can put to work immediately at your institution.

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By Jim Shimabukuro
Editor

Today, the Indian government announced the Aakash (“Sky” in Hindi), a tablet that will initially be given free to students and, later, sold for $35 to $60 dollars. It is being developed by Canada’s Data Wind, and it’s sold by the company as UBISlate 7. The UBISlate will “be available at retail stores for … about $60, and it will feature a cellular modem and SIM card slot…. [The Aakash] version will be WiFi-only” (“Aakash Android Tablet Hits India for $60 or Less,” Liliputing, 10.5.11).

According to John Ribeiro, the Aakash “has a 7-inch display with 800-by-480 pixel resolution, 256MB of RAM, 2GB flash storage, and a 366MHz processor from Connexant. The tablet runs the Android 2.2 [Froyo] operating system.” He adds that, “with added GPRS (general packet radio service) capability … it [could] double as a phone” (“India’s Low-cost Tablet Is Made by Canada’s DataWind,” ComputerWorld, 10.5.11). Ribeiro, quoting Suneet Singh Tuli, CEO of DataWind, says that it “is adequate for most applications including HD quality video, reading books, and basic office applications.” Continue reading →

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I live near the Washington Mall, where there are so many museums and learning places. I am also a short distance from the National Geographic Building, the NEA building and the headquarters of so many teacher organizations. I worry about the people who do not have access to the resources that I have. Even in this area, there are people who have never been down to the mall or any building in the Smithsonian. The last classroom job I had was teaching a school full of immigrants. Some of them cried when I took them on a field trip to Washington, D.C. They had never, NEVER been there.

Of course, my principal was not that keen on “wasting” educational time to take students to other learning places. So one of the things that we can do with the digital promise is to at least introduce students to museums and learning places. The Exploratorium is a wonderful place to visit online. They promise a lot and deliver.

Then there is this. Most of my students will not visit the Sistine Chapel anytime in the foreseeable future, but that doesn’t mean they can’t explore the place. Even when you go, there is too much to take in without preparation. And reflection is needed. However, through the web, you can re-visit the chapel.

Bonnie with her students at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, learning about GIS and space photography.

Continue reading →

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By Jim Shimabukuro
Editor

Harry Keller, ETCJ’s science education editor and president of Smart Science® Education Inc., was interviewed by Jim Shimabukuro in The American Journal of Distance Education July-September 2011 issue (v. 25, no. 3, pp. 192-200). The interview, “Speaking Personally — with Harry Keller,” focused on the company’s online labs.

Here’s an excerpt from the interview:

JS: What about support for project-based learning? Group learning? Field experiments?

HK: Anyone can use our online labs as part of projects: as preparation, as a resource during a project, and as a comparison after project completion.  The curriculum designer or teacher chooses how and when to use our lab units.  We could build a series of modules that include hands-on or field trip activities along with supporting online experiences.  If focused on a real-world challenge, these should qualify as project-based learning and evince active and engaged learning that inspires students to achieve deeper knowledge of their subjects. Continue reading →

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By Frank B. Withrow

It has always fascinated me to cogitate a bit about how we think. How do our thoughts become conscious to our minds? We examine the world through our senses and translate many of them into speech and language. Our memories of things often take on a wide range of sensory images. If we think about our mother’s apple pie that she baked for us when we were a kid, do we think in words or combinations of words, smells and tastes? Are most of our thoughts and memories in the form of a speaker in our heads? How do my fingers know what to type as I write this? If a stranger asks me how to find a place or address, do I see that address in my mind or do I just verbalize the directions or a bit of both? I often see in my mind the roads and buildings. If I am deaf, do I have an ASL signer in my mind? If I am deaf blind, do I have a tactile signer in my array of mental images?

If I am an architect, are my memories filled with architectural drawings of the inner workings of buildings or do I see the completed structures as well? If I am a musician, do melodies run through my head or do I see musical scores? If I am a computer programmer, do I think in code? If I am bilingual, do I think in one language only or a composite of languages? If I speak several languages, how do I organize my thoughts? Continue reading →

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By Judith McDaniel
Editor, Web-based Course Design

On July 8, 2011, I wrote about US News’s proposal to rank online education programs. I concluded:

U.S. News’s efforts at analyzing and ranking new online programs will be good if:

• the data collected enhances knowledge about online approaches to higher education;
• gathering information into one searchable site provides comparative data on the effectiveness of online academic programs;
• the publicity assists the public to better understand online learning and the opportunities it offers;
• and then (perhaps) this collective effort will expand the market for adult students.

If the new rankings are simply perceived as another way for some institutions to enhance their revenue, then this effort will not benefit a public that needs and deserves this information

Now US News is one step further on in its ranking process, and today Inside Higher Ed reported that some schools had opted out of the ranking questionnaire while others had answered it and filed complaints. Continue reading →

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By Jim Shimabukuro
Editor

A month before Operation Iraqi Freedom was launched, Chief of Staff Eric Shinseki, the U.S. Army’s top general at the time, testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee that “several hundred thousand soldiers” would be needed to secure Iraq after the invasion. The U.S. Defense Secretary replied that the general’s estimate was “far from the mark”; the Deputy Defense Secretary chimed in, claiming it was “way off the mark.” Three years later, the CENTCOM Commander admitted that the general’s estimate had been correct after all.

The point of this bit of history is that the U.S. government is wont to take grand and dramatic action to solve problems without paying close attention to the consequences. In the short run, the greater the theatrics, the greater the impact on the public. In the spirit of No Child Left Behind, we have The Digital Promise, the latest shock and awe solution to our country’s broken public schools. The question, however, is the long run, the aftermath. If necessary, can we sustain the additional costs over many years?

Continue reading →

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By Frank B. Withrow

[Note: The following article is Frank’s response to comments received on his “The Digital Promise Must Be a Total Learning Experience,” 9.26.11. – Editor]

I once was a scoutmaster and had two boys that were eager to become Eagle Scouts. They both succeeded. One was very smart and things came easy to him. The other had to sometimes struggle to master content. The smart kid was a loner and liked to work alone and could care less about what the other Scouts were doing. The other wanted everyone to join him in his effort to become an Eagle. When he discovered something new that he liked, he wanted all his friends to join in and share the joy with him. I knew both boys from when they were just preschoolers. Both made Eagle, both did well in college and both had successful families and were successful in their fields of work.

The lone wolf passed away a few years ago. He was a good citizen and a good professional and had a good life. The other is retired now after a life working to benefit others. I recently got an email from him on Facebook saying he was volunteering to work in a social charity effort to help disabled people. He in effect said he could not think of not working at something that brought good to other people. He indicated that he expected to continue doing such work as long as he lived. Continue reading →

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By Frank B. Withrow

Ipads, Ipods, smart phones and the Internet give educators new tools to rethink learning and schools. Today there are many learning places that our children engage in daily from Sesame Street as preschoolers and other learning programs on television to formal classes in schools. As educators we must develop new ways to certify that a student has learned his or her lessons. For example, a student may watch all of Ken Burns’s Civil War or the many videos on World War II and have gained a comprehensive understanding of those history lessons. How does the education system certify these informal learning experiences? There are many blended learning opportunities available to learners.

A student may be active in the Scouts and become an Eagle Scout. Can what the student learns in scouting somehow be considered in accreditation of his or her learning experience? Learning in traditional schools takes up about 1/9^th of the student’s time. Can we blend the total learning experience of students into a comprehensive whole? Could some teachers become monitors of nontraditional learning? For example, we have published standards in subject areas. If students believe they have mastered the skills and knowledge in a given area, can they be tested and credited in that area? For example, in English literature, if they have read all the assigned materials, could they set up an appointment with a monitor and be tested and interviewed with respect to his or her knowledge? Continue reading →

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By Stefanie Panke
Editor, Social Software in Education

The bi-annual conference of the European Association for Research on Learning and Instruction (EARLI) took place from August 29 to September 3 at Exeter University – “probably one of the best Universities in the World.” Approximately 1600 researchers with backgrounds in pedagogy, psychology, social sciences and educational technology traveled to the South-West peninsular of the UK to discuss educational ideas for “the dawning age of the Internet” (conference program). Delegates came from more than 35 countries and from every continent: Chile, Canada, South Africa, Indonesia, Australia, New Zealand and Europe. The largest contingents came from the Netherlands and Germany, followed by the UK and Finland.

EARLI has a reputation for its high standard of academic contributions and is a must-go-event for many researchers in the learning sciences. Numerous PhD students and postdocs use the opportunity to present their work, discuss research designs, and debate their findings and implications with more senior researchers. This year’s acceptance rate of papers and symposia was about 68%. Overall, the program comprised approximately 600 presentations, 160 symposia, 65 roundtables and 150 posters. Continue reading →

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By Frank B. Withrow

When your digital generation daughter is six she may guide you on the interactions on Facebook or show you how to leave a message on Twitter. It is a part of their lives, and it is an uncharted information resource. It is vast and it is comprehensive, but in many ways it is not vetted. Even primary information is not vetted very well. Nevertheless it is here, and the question is how well can we use it?

We are in a transitional period where we are all learning. As with any new technology there are problems of adjusting to this new cornucopia of information. The iPad and other comparable technologies can give a first grader a library of all the textbooks needed for K-12 schooling. It can be upgraded as new information becomes available. Some people reject the new technology and prefer to use the old guidelines and standards of the print on paper world. It is worthwhile to remember that Socrates worried that writing would interfere with memory. With each new technological advance we must adjust our society to its uses. We must remember that the young are more likely to use the new than the more mature. Often the older people reject the new because it is more difficult for them to understand and use. On the other hand it is second nature to the young. Continue reading →

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By Jim Shimabukuro
Editor

Three items in recent ed tech news caught my eye this morning, more for their implications than their news value.

The first is Sharon Roznik’s “Your Schools: No More Pencils, No More Books?” (The [Fond du Lac] Reporter, 9.15.11). In Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, schools are increasingly opening their doors to allow students to bring the latest personal communication devices such as “laptops, iPads and iPods” into classrooms. One of the school districts, New Holstein, is developing a BYOD or Bring Your Own Device program.

Roznik quotes Carmen Klassy, the Oakfield School District’s director of 21st century learning, who lists reasons for the changes:

• to introduce a mode of learning that “is relevant to [students’] everyday lives”
• to keep “up with today’s technology”
• “to bring the world into the classroom”
• to interact “with business professionals and people from all different cultures”
• to provide teachers with “a whole new toolbox for” instruction

“The possibilities,” says Klassy, “are endless.” Continue reading →

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By Stefanie Panke
Editor, Social Software in Education

[Note: This is the third in a series of articles in which Stefanie explores open and informal learning. See the other articles in this series: Open Learning at P2PU: An Interview with Jessica Ledbetter  and Julia Kaltenbeck: How Crowdfunding and Social Payments Can Finance OER. -Editor]

Stefanie Panke: Tell me a little bit about yourself. Where do you live? Are you in school or working? How old are you?

Billy Sichone: I am Billy Sichone from Zambia and work as program manager for one of World Vision‘s large scale development programs, located north of Zambia, Africa. I am married to Jane, and we have two daughters. My work is very demanding and involves a lot of travel as well as interactions with different kinds of people. I am 41 years old and have been a student of the University of the People for two years now. I am pursuing an online undergraduate degree in business administration. I have found it fascinating and a serious learning point to update my knowledge base as well as acquire new skills. The most interesting thing is that it is 100% online and free in addition to a diverse learning environment with colleagues from all over the world.

Billy Sichone, a student at University of the People (UoPeople), “the world’s first tuition-free online university, dedicated to the global advancement and democratization of higher education.”

Please describe how you first got involved with University of the People!

Sichone: I first got involved with UoPeople in very interesting circumstances sometime in September 2009. I must have subscribed to some online site and stated that my interest was online learning, and then one day I just received a mail from an unknown source suggesting that there was an opening to study with an online university called the “University of the People.” At first I thought it was spam mail but decided to follow the link nonetheless. What I discovered surprised me, and I immediately signed up, commencing my studies in November 2009. Continue reading →

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By Jim Shimabukuro
Editor

Test results for reading and math from the Kyrene School District in Arizona seem to prove that pouring millions of dollars of technology into traditional classrooms may be a waste of money. According to Matt Richtel,* in the last six years the district, “which serves 18,000 kindergarten to eighth-grade students, mostly from the cities of Tempe, Phoenix and Chandler,” has invested $33 million in “technology-centric” classrooms. In a few months, the district will be asking voters to approve “$46.3 million more in taxes over seven years” to continue this program.

If people are surprised, they shouldn’t be. In the photo that accompanies Richtel’s article, we see students in a traditional classroom, lined up in rows and sitting before notebook computers. A large screen at the front of the room projects a page that is apparently on the teacher’s notebook. All appear to be on the same page. This was held up “as a model of [successful innovation] by the National School Boards Association, which in 2008 organized a visit by 100 educators from 17 states.”

However, “as statewide scores have risen,” says Richtel, “the scores in Kyrene have “stagnated.” He concludes, and I have to agree, “The push for technology is to the benefit of one group: technology companies.” Continue reading →

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“What’s the point?” I hear that a lot when it comes to the use of Twitter in education. And, in some cases, I completely agree. But if the beginning of the semester snuck up on you like it did me and you’re looking for quick student engagement wins, Twitter might be able to help. Here are three ideas to get you started:

Number 1 – Current events

As Hurricane Irene barreled toward the East Coast, citizens battened their hatches and concerned relatives rushed to the Web for the latest information. My husband, two friends and I had planned a trip to the Jersey Shore to watch our good friend play in her first roller derby bout with the Jersey Shore Roller Girls. Their bouting venue? On the boardwalk. Obviously, not the ideal place to be with a hurricane charging toward the Jersey shore.

While CNN.com and Weather.com provided frequent updates, the information on Twitter was instant. People reporting wind speeds, flooding conditions and general storm progress updates filled my Twitter stream, and I had some interesting conversations with people who knew exactly what was going on. The trip was ultimately canceled but imagine harnessing this in your classroom. Libya, Somalia, the world economy — we’re living in a time of rapid change, and Twitter can help your students interact with that history.

Continue reading →

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By Frank B. Withrow

In the beginning was the word. Early man developed the ability to share his sensory world through spoken communications. Speech and language allowed mankind to share private sensory experiences publicly. Speech was superimposed on the breathing system, leaving the body free to engage the world. Receptive language was received through the ears. This system was global in nature and did not require light. Essentially the speech and language system was superimposed on the global warning system of the human animal. In fact, the communication system can be detected even in noise. This system worked for mankind and enabled them to share skills and knowledge from one individual to another.

However, the spoken word is a fleeting signal or a capsule in time. Being limited in time it was not completely stable. Some five thousand years ago a major step forward came when mankind began to write. First there were pictographic symbols and then phonetic symbols and codes. The written word bound mankind in space and time with a stable format for communications. Skills, knowledge and experiences could be handed down in time and space. They could be transmitted over distance and from one generation to the next over time. The written word was a tremendous advance in human knowledge, as were the management of that knowledge and its storage in libraries. However, scribes and scholars served as gatekeepers since often they were the only literate members of society.

Continue reading →

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By Stefanie Panke
Editor, Social Software in Education

[Note: This is the second in a series of articles in which Stefanie explores open and informal learning. See the other articles in this series: Open Learning at P2PU: An Interview with Jessica Ledbetter -Editor]

Crowdfunding and social payments are alternative revenue models for (online) content, projects and initiatives that rely on voluntary support instead of consumerism. Web 2.0 platforms such as kickstarter, slicethepie, kiva, or flattr combine fundraising with transparency, networking support and active participation. Julia Kaltenbeck studies software-engineering and economics at Graz University of Technology (Austria). She recently completed her master’s project* on crowdfunding and social payments in the context of open educational resources (OER).

Julia Kaltenbeck

“When Martin Ebner, one of the editors of L3T, an open content textbook on learning and teaching with technologies, offered me the possibility to write my master’s project about this very prestigious project, I immediately agreed,” explains Julia. In total, more than 100 authors and 80 reviewers contributed to the L3T project. Within one year, the first German language textbook on educational technology made it to the shelf – and its online pendant is available for free. Recently, the L3T project has successfully carried out a crowdfunding initiative on the German crowdfunding plattform Startnext. For ETC, Julia summarizes the results of her project. Continue reading →

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By Frank B. Withrow

With each new technology we have pluses and minuses. It saddens me that teenagers are using the social media for criminal and destructive purposes. The slash and flash targeting of all night stores by mostly teenage girls, converging en masse to steal from them, is disturbing. We should be wise enough to counter these events and to use the power of social media for the benefit of young people.

It still takes a village to raise a child. By that I mean a culture must honor and reward the concept of education. For most of our history we have been an optimistic society that believes the younger generation will be better off than the current generation.

So let us begin anew – remembering on both sides that civility is not a sign of weakness, and sincerity is always subject to proof. Let us never negotiate out of fear. But let us never fear to negotiate.

Let both sides explore what problems unite us instead of belaboring those problems which divide us.

Continue reading →

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By Harry Keller
Editor, Science Education

[Note: This article was first published as a comment (8.19.11) to Jim Shimabukuro’s Managing Online Learning: What’s Best Practice?” -Editor]

The problem is that we can’t expect to see this dialogue and exploration coming from technocrats or people who are hired to manage instructional technology. Their survival depends on centralization and a tight rein on all technology. The last thing they want is for teachers to become empowered and independent learners capable of creating their own learning environments from the best options that are available on the living and breathing web. –Jim Shimabukuro

I really agree with all until the final paragraph. It sounds good and would work if theory matched reality. For too many instructors and K-12 teachers, they just don’t know “the best options that are available on the living and breathing web.” Furthermore many don’t even know how to find out. Once they do, they have the problem of evaluation, of technological literacy, which means being able accurately to evaluate technology for a specific purpose and assess costs and benefits.

School technologists can help a great deal and should not be removed from the equation. They understand the technology; instructors understand the pedagogy. Together, they could make intelligent decisions. Continue reading →

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By Jim Shimabukuro
Editor

Stefanie Panke, in the discussion (8.16.11) on her article, “Open Learning at P2PU: An Interview with Jessica Ledbetter” (8.11.11), asks critical questions re performance in open online classes: Why do people drop out or hang in? How does this affect class culture or the facilitators?

I’m not sure what the answers are for the first question, but I’m certain that most who have taught or learned online have an opinion. My guess is that “easy access” is a root cause. It takes little effort to register for an online class, it’s free, and anonymity is an option. Thus when a door is purposely left wide open, many will enter, and this will include those who are merely curious, marginally interested, or lack the necessary time, temperament, skills, or knowledge to succeed.

The paradox is that “easy access” is also the root cause for popularity, i.e., for the same reasons that many will drop out, many will register. Thus we have a case of you can’t have your cake and eat it, too. Continue reading →

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By Jim Shimabukuro
Editor

The road to technological change in education isn’t going to be paved by those who are committed to traditional face-to-face pedagogy. Yet, Ann Taylor, interim director of the Dutton e-Education Institute at Penn State, suggests that colleges “use traditional face-to-face faculty as … lead instructors, but hire part-time individuals to handle grading and daily course interactions” (Mary Bart, “Best Practices Help Dispel the Myths of Online Faculty Hiring Practices,” Faculty Focus, 15 Aug. 2011). This advice will more than likely lead to more of the same old ground-based practices. The instructional base is still the classroom, and from this perspective, change doesn’t stand a chance.

Taylor also suggests hiring a “course manager to oversee … online courses” (Bart). Unfortunately, for the vast majority of colleges, this is the model for online classes. This, too, is a perpetuation of practice that’s proven inimical to change. The problem is that the only person who can and should manage a class, online or F2F, is the instructor. Adding a layer of bureaucracy isn’t the answer. This is an extremely costly stopgap and simply postpones the need for teachers to manage their online courses. Continue reading →

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By Stefanie Panke
Editor, Social Software in Education

[Note: This is the first in a series of articles in which Stefanie plans to explore open and informal learning. -Editor]

Introduction

The peer-to-peer learning community, P2PU, was founded in 2007. Since then, it has grown to approximately 1000 members. The credo “everyone has something to contribute and everyone has something to learn” guides the design of this informal university. Users can create their own courses or choose to subscribe to an existing course – either as active participants or as followers. Courses run for several weeks at a time and are open for enrollment during this period. Course organizers can set up a list of tasks, link to online material or work through a book.

Jessica Ledbetter

As an example, one class I am currently following reads Ivan Illich’s Deschooling Society. Participants are supposed to reciprocally review their takes on the learning tasks, giving mutual support and helping to improve each other’s work. Though no traditional accreditation is provided, P2PU is currently developing a badging system together with Mozilla Foundation to recognize informal learning, in particular, in the field of web development (Kamenetz, 2011, p.85). Continue reading →

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By Jim Shimabukuro
Editor

South Central is a rural school district in South Dakota, and next year it will be offering science classes without science teachers (Josh Verges, “Four Rural S.D. Schools Let Students Run the Show,” Argus Leader 23 July 2011). “The teachers,” according to Verges, “are not expected to know the science curriculum; they just have to know students and how to connect them with resources and experts who can teach it.”

The emphasis will be on STEM (science, technology, engineering, math), and the approach will be project-based: students work in small groups on a real world problem, and much of the learning is done online. The groups work independently, and teachers intervene only when needed.

The motivation for this change is economics – small, remote schools can’t afford to hire qualified science teachers. However, it puts a new twist into an old saw: Necessity is the mother of innovation. With this one decision, South Central steps out of the 19^th century and into the 21^st. Continue reading →

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