Kim’s Ventures in Educational Technology

While reading one of my email feeds, I came across a story that I found fascinating about a teacher who is out on medical leave and is using a webcam to conference online with his students. Frank Wilson, government teacher at Bishop Watterson High School in Columbus, Ohio, recently had knee surgery and didn’t want his students to fall behind while recovering. Wilson is a veteran educator of 47 years and teaches his Advanced Placement (AP) government students from the basement of his home.

According to the article in the Columbus, Ohio newspaper titled “Government teacher conducts class from home basement“,

With the support of Watterson administrators, class was in session live from Wilson’s basement.

The Web cam allowed Wilson to see, teach, and carry on discussion with his students from his basement, Winters said. They could see him on the projector screen, and he could see them on his computer.

“My students all have Tablet PCs, and our government classes are almost paperless,” Wilson said.

“We use the computers for everything, including testing online.”

“To be honest, this program has allowed me to continue to teach,” he said, adding the classes went well with minimal disruption.

“I could not have done this without the support of our technology department and individual staff members who were willing to sit in the classroom and take attendance for me.”

For liability purposes Wilson had an adult in the classroom at all times but I can certainly relate to being concerned that your students will not progress or lose direction whenever you out. Twenty years ago when I  first started teaching we were out of the classroom for staff development quite often. It was always difficult to pick up the pieces upon my return and leave meaningful instructional activities while I am out. Several times throughout my career, I have been asked to step in and take over a class while a teacher is ill or on maternity leave. A teacher cannot risk not having students adequately prepared for performance on high stakes tests and trust part of the preparatory work  be done by a substitute teacher. We all know good subs are out there although they are hard to find and keep for an extended period of time. The idea of using webcam to minimize a loss of instruction is a novel idea, although not brand new.

Teachers/trainers have been using webcam/videoconferencing equipment to provide distance education for a number of years. The number of virtual high schools is growing by leaps and bounds and the use of this technology greatly benefits small, rural districts that have limited funding and a lack of teachers specializing in the math/science content areas. I have become a huge fan and proponent of using this medium to enrich instruction and started a wiki to serve as a repository of resources, training and discussions at http://caisefiles.wikispaces.com. I would love the opportunity to teach or facilitate a class online – certification issues and not having a master’s degree have hindered me personally in this area but the opportunities are out there.

While Wilson finishes recuperating at home, his students are benefiting from the interactive technology he is  using to deliver his government lessons online. The success of this venture comes from the support of the administration, network infrastructure to facilitate this endeavor and the dedication of the teacher and students. A deficiency in any one of those areas will severely impact the project but when each piece comes together to provide interactive and quality instruction to students there is no finer instrument to provide distance education.

I knew it wouldn’t be long before Google somehow combined resources with Wikipedia. Sure enough, there is now a search tool called ‘Googlepedia’ for Firefox/Mozilla browser users. I use Flock exclusively and added the Googlepedia add-on to my browser and gave it a trial run.

After performing a search for Googlepedia , I received the following search results:

Links to sites resulting from my search are listed on the left and on the right side of the page is a Wikipedia entry on the keyword used in the search. Often times I have wanted a definition as well as sites that used a term I was searching for and with this add-on I am able to have links to websites featuring the searched term as well as any related Wikipedia entries. I will definitely use this feature often and so excited about this time saving feature in search results. Thanks Google!

I just bought a new laptop. After much consideration I decided to stick with Windows. I wasn’t a fan of Vista but after using it for a week I haven’t had any problems or difficulties. I am not sure what all the negative hype was about Vista but so far so good.

At present time I don’t have MS Office installed. The laptop came with MS Works although I am not a fan of this program. I considered downloading and using Open Office 3 but heard there were difficulties opening some files, especially Office 2007 files. I just recently read a post by Harold Shaw, “Life Without Office” in which he details his use of Thinkfree Office 3.

I checked out Thinkfree and learned Thinkfree isn’t free, the version linked above is $49 which pales in comparison to the Office 2007 price. With Google docs, Zoho and many other free web applications I am not sure that I would need Office. I do want and miss not having MS Outlook for email as I miss not having folders to store email. I am using gmail right now but don’t like being limited to only labels and filters in gmail. I haven’t tried Thunderbird but may look into that as using gmail is getting a bit tedious with the organization.

What are your thoughts and opinions on using Open Office or other web applications instead of using MS Office? Will I miss Office? Is there life without MS Office?

Alas, I have finally written the last part of this four part mini-series on awesome technology tools that you can use in the classroom or create instructional materials for use with your students. This blog post features the recently discovered website, www.jogtheweb.com. A few weeks ago as I was reading the plurks of my professional learning network at plurk.com, someone plurked about a track created at jogtheweb.com so I decided to venture to the site and see what jogtheweb was all about.

Jogtheweb started in 2007 and allows users to create a ‘track’ at the website. Details and comments about the websites featured in a track are displayed as the user jogs along the track of websites. Tracks are generally created around a theme, skill or features of a specific website. Two tracks are featured below:
Exploring New Worlds by ProfB
Web 2.0 by Yennyg

Source: Jogtheweb.com

The image to the right shows a basic track. Viewers ‘jog’ along the track from website to website with a description of each part of the track displayed. At jogtheweb.com a variety of tracks have been created. Many have been created for educational purposes so you may want to look the tracks in case one has already

Source: View of a track at Jogtheweb.com

been created on your topic. One user in my PLN created one about the features of her district intranet and where to find district resources. I created one on technology tools that can be used in the classroom and once finished I will send the link out via Twitter and Plurk. Next time you are searching for a creative way to display content or technical information, consider creating a track at Jogtheweb.com. I think you will find this a great resource to add to your technology toolbox.

As I stated in the previous two parts of this four part series on instructional technology tools that can be used in the classroom to enrich learning, I actively participate in a personal professional learning network using Plurk and Twitter. Through these two web services I have learned copious amounts of information, training and resources in the past six or seven months than I have in just about all 19 years of teaching. It is amazing and I wanted to share some of the tools that I deem extremely useful to enrich learning in the classroom.

The third tool I want to share is Dabbleboard. I have written about this unique tool before but I wanted to share it again with you. At first glance, Dabbleboard looks like a limited version of Inspiration or CMAP. While that may be partially true, the biggest asset of Dabbleboard is the ability to collaborate and share a diagram with a team of students. Students can be at different computers, different locations, and work on the diagram at different times. Dabbleboard diagrams are shared by the use of an invite via email and now a URL generated by the site. Several enhancements were made with the most recent release.

Within the Dabbleboard layout, any previous diagrams created are stored in the library and can be reused and imported into new diagrams. When I logged into Dabbleboard, the diagram that I originally created back in July was automatically loaded for me. I can continue with that or begin a new diagram.

Dabbleboard is an excellent way to brainstorm story maps for digital storytelling, generate a hypothesis to test as part of the scientific process or create a flowchart depicting a process or steps of a group project. You can create a template for students to access with the capability of adding weblinks, images, and sharing with others in real time. New features have recently been added such as rotating or flipping images and auto detection of shapes drawn by hand to create resizable, neatly drawn objects.

To the right is the original diagram I created in July. If you click on the thumbnail image, it will take you to the public link of the diagram. Take a few moments and experiment with the diagram and move items, change colors, etc. to see the full capabilities of Dabbleboard. Dabble with Dabbleboard!

As an ed tech educator, we teach students about creating a digital footprint on the internet. Wikipedia defines a digital footprint as,

Digital Footprints are traces left by someone’s activity in a digital environment. There are two main classifications for digital footprints, passive and active. A passive digital footprint is created when data is collected about an action without any client activation, whereas active digital footprints are created when personal data is released deliberately by a user for the purpose of sharing information about oneself.

I was reminded of this concept as I was reading the local newspaper online and came across this article entitled, “E-mails detail UTSA professor’s fantasies“. Through the open records act, all of the professor’s emails were obtained and are posted online depicting his fantasies involving the students in his classes. Although this isn’t an example I would share with students, the article clearly demonstrates the importance of being aware of the nature of the digital footprints that one leaves on the internet. How unfortunate for this professor to learn this lesson firsthand in the public eye.