Headphones, Computers, and the Web

Jim ShimabukuroBy Jim Shimabukuro
Editor

Note: The primary reason for selecting this subject for the second article in ETC’s “Extracurricular” series (see John Adsit’s “The Great Technology Controversy Follows Me into the Caves“) isn’t so much to share information about what I consider an enjoyable hobby but to underscore the fact that the entire pastime is built on computers and the web. All of the equipment was researched and purchased on the web – out of necessity because, for the vast majority of enthusiasts, it’s not available in stores within driving distance. I think I can fairly say that this hobby wouldn’t be possible without the internet and that it owes its survival and growth to a community that’s defined virtually rather than geographically. -js Continue reading

College Prepared to Go Online When Disaster Strikes

Totally Online, by Jim ShimabukuroThe title of this press release caught my eye: “Ancilla College Ready to Go Completely Online as Part of Emergency Preparedness Plan”[1]. In case of emergency, the college can break the glass and press the red button that says “Campus closed. We’re now completely online.”

Ancilla is in Donaldson, Indiana, about 90 miles southeast of Chicago, and the college has hired The Learning House, Inc., to develop OPEN, which is an acronym for online preparation for emergency needs.

With OPEN in place, the college is now prepared for anything and everything that spells disaster, including flu pandemics, snow storms, floods, hurricanes, and heavy rains. Officials can now shut down the campus without worrying about disruption in learning. Like an emergency generator, all the classes shift into online mode and continue with learning as usual.

What happens if the campus shutdown lasts for months? Not a problem. From the moment OPEN, the emergency backup system, kicks in, it can function until a couple of weeks after the official end of term.

The heart of the OPEN system is Moodle, or modular object-oriented dynamic learning environment. It’s open-source and free, and it serves as a CMS, or course management system — aka as a learning software platform, LMS (learning management system), or VLE (virtual learning environment).

University of Iowa - building on campus flooded

Faculty “pre-load” what are called Moodle “course shells” with all the stuff that’s associated with learning, such as lessons, schedules, readings, lectures, assignments, activities, discussions, resources, etc.

Students, instead of reporting to their classrooms on campus, use their computers and internet connections from home or other locations to log in to the online counterparts of their classes and continue their education.

Interestingly, nowhere in this article does the writer say, directly or indirectly, that the online classes are in any way inferior to F2F (face-to-face) classes. The implication is that nothing in the way of quality is lost, and students continue to receive an effective education.

Don’t get me wrong. No one, including me, wants to see Ancilla shut down by a disaster. However, suppose it does happen in the first week of instruction and extends to a week after the last day of instruction, and suppose learning continues completely online without disruption and student achievement and satisfaction with the online classes are neither more nor less than with F2F classrooms.

Would the college pour millions into reconstructing the F2F campus and continue with business as usual, returning to the classroom-based model of learning and abandoning the online model until the next disaster strikes? Or would it pause to take stock of online learning as a viable alternative?

My guess is that it might take a disaster of this magnitude to change the way colleges view totally online classes. And once they do, they’ll never return to the mindset that classrooms are the only way to teach effectively.

BTW, this article is the first for this column, “Totally Online,” and in coming weeks and months, I’ll be publishing others that touch on the subject of completely online instruction. Other editors and writers are also debuting their columns this week in ETC: Jessica Knott, “ETC, Twitter and Me,” and John Adsit, “Meeting the Needs.”

Computers – The End of an Era

kimura80By Bert Kimura
Editor, Ed Tech in Japan

[Note: Bert Kimura posted the following as a comment on 19 June 2009, in response to “‘The College of 2020: Students’ – A Chronicle Report.” We’ve decided to publish Kimura’s comment as an article to facilitate further discussion. The original comment has been expanded to include a note from his email message to me on 6.20.09. -JS]

Jim, thanks for posting the summary. From my own experiences teaching online classes at UH-Manoa in Educational Technology and also having tried such classes with Japanese students, the items summarized certainly make a lot of sense.

There are three items that I believe will become important by then, if not, perhaps passé by then:

1. The 2020 students may not have had any familiarity at all with desktop computers and traditional operating systems. Instead, all of the communications, creation, and retrieval of info will be done with mobile devices. I also believe that, as may of us have two or mobile notebook computers today, 2020 students will have multiple devices to accomplish their online tasks. The proverbial “toaster” could still be one of them. :-)

The idea of the end of the desktops should also be attributed to Alan Levine, CTO of the New Media Consortium. He also does a very informative (with a unique perspective) blog: http://cogdogblog.com/. Alan was formerly the instructional technologist for the Maricopa CC system and was tremendously influential in getting faculty in the system to adopt technology in teaching and learning.

2. Texting such as this comment will be replaced by or, at least, on par with verbal, visual or multimedia communication modes. Consequently, faculty need to be able to reach visual learners in an effective pedagogical manner as well.

3. Internationalization will enable many more distance learners to participate in online courses, and thus the online student community will be more multicultural than the current group. I believe that this will result in a much richer student experience.

Ineffective Use of Computers in Schools

Harry KellerBy Harry Keller
Editor, Science Education

On Tuesday, December 9, 2008, the New York Times columnist David Brooks wrote, “Obama wants to put more computers in classrooms, an old idea with dubious educational merit”[1].

It’s true that people have been putting computers in classrooms for many years. It’s also true that the impact of these computers has often been less than wished. However, neither of those facts tell us that we should stop. Rather, they tell us to review how and why computers are being used in those classrooms.

In my own visits to schools across the country, I have seen those computers being both underutilized and over-utilized. In some schools, the computers sit idle while traditional instruction continues. Occasionally, students are allowed to use the computers, and they get to use the standard business tools available such as spreadsheets and word processors. Sure, it’s nice that the students are learning to use those tools, but are they helping students learn their subject? I think not.

In other schools, I’ve seen computer rooms fully booked so that some teachers are unable to use them at all for their students. Upon inquiry, I discovered that math and English classes have priority because of high-stakes testing. The computers have various programs on them that drill the students on concepts required on those tests. In my opinion, these schools are wasting a valuable resource.

Computers slowly and quite certainly have revolutionized many businesses. Lawyers, among the last to succumb, now cannot live without their word processors with the ability to rewrite accurately, insert boilerplate, and check spelling and grammar. Software has been created to support the advances in productivity that we’ve seen in many industries. So, what’s the matter with education?

keller04The larger class sizes we see in schools are not the result of improved worker productivity; they’re caused by budget shortfalls. Clearly, computers have not improved teacher productivity. Students aren’t learning better. Just look at any number of international measures of student success in mathematics and science. We (the United States) are losing.

At least in traditional classrooms, neither the quantity nor quality of product has improved in this age of technology. Charter schools are making some headway mostly because their employees work multiple job descriptions and long hours. Generally, online education works because students self-select based on study skills, and teachers have tools to allow them to have slightly larger numbers of students. Those tools come with “learning management systems” (LMS) that online schools use to handle administration of classes.

To be fair, the United States has over 50 different sets of standards for education and administers those standards from a very large number of individual school districts. That fact makes creating software usable across the entire country quite difficult. Turkey has committed its education system to online learning and doesn’t have the same problems. The software I’ve seen from Turkey is first-rate and shames our own home-grown efforts.

If we don’t get moving on real innovation in education right now, we may find our children learning from online schools headquartered in Turkey, Israel, and Singapore quite soon. Teachers, like factory workers, will see their jobs disappear overseas.

Instead of waiting, as the automobile industry did, until it’s too late, begin today by merging the various state standards, requiring teachers to use good computer-based learning tools, and having our federal government support innovation that uses technology to make a real difference and that’s not just drill repackaged or textbooks converted to online format with animations and sound or other similar old methods with new facades.