“It takes putting kids and adults into a shared community in which they are all members, albeit with different levels of responsibility and skill, different kinds of authority, with each accountable for different parts of the whole. And it takes trusting in our children’s vast intellectual potential along with our innately human drive to understand and master.” Deborah Meier – In Schools We Trust
Google docs go offline
This just in from Google – Google Docs will have an offline mode very soon. The rollout of all the features is happening over the next few weeks, but soon it will mean that you can edit your Google docs when you do not have an Internet connection. This is a long awaited feature for many users!
To keep up with all the new Google Docs offerings, be sure to subscribe to the Google Docs blog and the new Google Channel on YouTube. There are many videos from Google explaining features of the various Google tools, but also videos uploaded by users (including many teachers).
Here’s how Google Docs offline works:
Sylvia
Student-written help guides
Kern Kelley’s students in Maine have created a web-enabled comic book style help guide for the Google Doc applications they are using. Kern blogs at The Tech Curve about his students involved in student-centered ways to use technology.
This is a terrific project for students, and useful for a school! Since you create it yourself, students can add customized details about your server and network, remind readers about the Acceptable Use Policies, and make suggestions for using these tools.
I’ve blogged about student-created video help guides before, and all the reasons that these are terrific projects for students. These comic-book creations are another idea to accomplish the same goals!
11-year old network administrator
Via Steve Hargadon:
When Victory Baptist School, a small private school in Millbrook, Ala., was struggling to keep its computer network together last year, an 11-year-old student named Jon Penn stepped in as network manager.
Eleven? Yes, eleven.
Jon not only runs the network, he fixed the virus and filtering problems, upgraded the computers to run faster and better, and helped write the school’s web policy.
The lesson here is not that Jon is a one-of-a-kind special kid. Of course he is. But he’s not THAT uncommon. The uncommon thing is that someone let him have this opportunity. Many, many schools have students with this potential. Given the opportunity, students can provide reliable, thoughtful help with school technology.
Suffering with a school network that lacks resources? The answer may literally be right under your nose.
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Preteen steps in to install security gateway, grudgingly agrees to MySpace blocking.
When Victory Baptist School, a small private school in Sherwood, Ark., was struggling to keep its computer network together last year, an 11-year-old student named Jon Penn stepped in as network manager.
Slideshow: He’s 11…and it’s his network!
Penn did it to help his mother, Paula, the school librarian who had computer support added to her workload a week before the school year started when the existing IT systems overseer suddenly departed. For Jon — who says his favorite reading material is computer trade magazines — it’s been the experience of a lifetime, even getting to select and install a gateway security appliance largely by himself.
“This is kind of a small school, and I’m known as the computer whiz,” the sixth grader says. “We spent $2,158,” says young Penn, describing how he picked out the McAfee Secure Internet Gateway Appliance after evaluating it in a 30-day trial. He also looked at the Barracuda box — a tad more costly — and tried the Untangle open source product, which he said didn’t meet the school’s needs as well.
His school needed a gateway to protect against attacks, filter viruses and spam, and block inappropriate sites. Keeping costs down is important since the school is operating on a shoestring budget to keep its 60 aging computers, a donation from years ago, working for the roughly 200 students permitted to use them, along with the teachers.
The first thing Jon found as he leapt into the role of network manager was that he had to map out the network to find out what was on it. He bought some tools for this at CompUSA and realized there was an ungodly amount of computer viruses and spam, so he pressed the school to invest in filtering and antivirus protection.
“These computers are so old they don’t support all antivirus programs,” Penn says. The school took advantage of a Microsoft effort called Fresh Start that offers free software upgrades for schools with donated computers, switching from Windows 98 to Windows 2000.
One reason to do this was the hope of one day centrally managing the school’s computers so Jon doesn’t have to change them individually. To install Windows 2000, he removed obsolete network interface cards, Ethernet, video, print and sound drivers with the intent of having a better computer base by next fall.
While Jon says he spent some time evaluating antivirus products — he admires Kaspersky Lab’s software especially because it’s “lightweight running.” In the end the decision was made to get a gateway appliance to filter and block viruses and spam.
For his technical recommendations, Jon has had to present his suggestions to the school’s management for approval (“Because he’s not an adult, I’ve been hovering around,” his mother says.)
Along with school staff, the younger Penn has gotten involved in contributing to school policy on Web access. While blocking access to social networking sites such as MySpace wasn’t popular with many fellow students, he had to agree the school really didn’t need it.
Penn is now the technical support much of the time on everything from printer jams to setting up an external drive to backing up the school’s most important server. He was allowed to give a few lessons to his class about basic computers, having his classmates pull out a few components from old machines.
His father, Dave, a civil engineer, says: “I knew when Jon was three and could boot up my laptop, sign in and open Paint, that he had a knack for computers. But I never dreamed he’d be a network administrator at the age of 11.”
Penn’s parents both believe that technical people must have “integrity and character,” and should use their skills for beneficial, not malicious purposes.
Her son is precocious when it comes to computers but Paula says in the final analysis she hopes the experience with the school’s network helps him realize, “It’s his job to fight the bad guys.”
As for Jon, he says he loves testing virtualization software like VMware and wants to obtain “A+ certification” by passing the computer-technician exam by that name developed by trade group CompTIA. “Hopefully, I can do that this summer,” he says.
Conference 2.0 – changing how sessions are selected
I blogged about EdubloggerCon West the other day as an example of an “unconference” (Conferences must change with the times) and discussed how conferences must move forward to become more dynamic, timely, and better meet the needs of attendees both physical and virtual.
How conference sessions are selected sets the tone for the event. Right now, most conferences select sessions based on a review system created for academic conferences. This system usually consists of a group of readers who rate the proposals. The submissions that score the best from the most reviewers are accepted.
Sounds fair, right? But read on…
Session selection – a bit of history
For academic conferences, session selection is part of the process by which accepted papers are published as proceedings, which enhance the reputation of an academic (publish or perish). The process weeds out papers that don’t meet the conference or journal criteria, makes sure that relevant research results are properly cited, and that the papers form a serious, robust representation of the most current research in the field.
However, conferences that aren’t based on academic publishing tend to retain this legacy. It has become a tradition that no one questions. So the question is — is this unchallenged system really work?
What’s wrong with this process?
I was surprised to find a strong, well-researched argument against the standard session review process on a website from KGCM 2008 (the 3rd International Conference on Knowledge Generation, Communication and Management.)
Now, I don’t know these people at all, but the organization is interested in learning how people learn at conferences. Who knew there was such a thing!
For their own conference and journal, they found that the tried-and-true method of paper and session selection was deeply flawed. Their conclusion – the standard review process is “faulty,” “unreliable,” and worse, tends “…to refuse good papers because of the reviewers’ bias against new ideas or new paradigms.”
“So, it is evident that acceptance policies based on the positive agreement of reviewers will increase the probability of refusing good papers.”
Bias against new ideas
This is bad news for educators going to conferences looking for big ideas that will fundamentally change education. The session selection process works to deny you this opportunity.
Let’s be honest — it’s human nature to resist change. One bad score from one reviewer could easily mean a session is declined, even if other reviewers score it well. It’s why Olympics-style judging throws out the high and low scores.
It’s also natural to want to fit in with the group. When reviewers work together to rate sessions against a rubric, it’s hard not to favor sessions that you think will fit in and make the conference organizers happy.
So in looking at session selection policy, is it any wonder that this method leads to homogenous, cookie cutter selections that represent the acceptable norm? Shouldn’t we be concerned that in times that call for radical change, the standard method for conference session selection is biased against radical proposals?
So what to do instead?
The method this conference uses is different. Instead of scores, they rely on reviewers to recommend either accept or deny. Then:
- The majority rule, when there is no agreement among the reviewers with regards to acceptance or non-acceptance, of a given submission.
- The non-acceptance of the submission when there is agreement among its reviewers for not accepting it.
- Acceptance of the paper when in doubt (a draw or a tie among the opinions of the reviewers, for example).
This seems like a tiny change. Yet the outcome could be completely different.
Would this mean too many accepted sessions? Maybe. But I’m sure there are creative ways to solve these problems. If you read the research-based methodology from KGCM, they have a process designed to pare down the selections. Technology could be part of the answer too. Presentations could go online, for example. Many conferences are also experimenting with shorter sessions, blogger cafes, open forums, and other innovations.
I don’t claim to have “Conference 2.0” figured out, but I think a necessary first step is to challenge our assumptions about how conference programs are assembled.
Sylvia
Paradise Valley Mediafest
I’m heading to Phoenix, Arizona tomorrow morning to visit one of our Generation YES districts, Paradise Valley, a fast growing suburb of a fast growing city. Paradise Valley is hosting a Mediafest tomorrow night to showcase their district’s technology efforts.
The 2008 PVUSD MediaFest will showcase technology and how it impacts — and adds value to — the classroom, as well as to thank parents and citizens who supported the Paradise Valley Unified School District’s capital budget override.
There are 17 schools in this district doing GenYES, where students are responsible for helping teachers with technology integration. These students are a big part of how PVUSD defines successful technology integration now and in the future. I’m looking forward to seeing the students in action.
The smart thing they are doing is making sure that the parents and citizens of Paradise Valley can truly see that the money they gave the district was well spent. This Mediafest will show how technology can be used for appropriate, academic purposes by students and how it’s making a visible difference in every classroom, grade level and subject area.
I think the ONLY way to convince people that technology belongs in the classroom is to show them what it looks like, and make it so good that it’s undeniable.
Plus, thanks to Twitter, I’m having dinner with some people I’ve never met in person before! Very cool.
Constructivist Celebration at NECC – Sold out!
The second annual Constructivist Celebration @ NECC 2008 in San Antonio is sold out!
I didn’t even get a chance to post it here. That’s why I’m almost afraid to write this – don’t hate me! We sent an announcement email to the list of people who had signed up on the Constructivist Consortium website, and emails to the customers of the six member companies. It got out on Twitter, too, and the event instantly filled up. Seriously, that fast.
The good news is that it’s going to be a great event celebrating creative, constructive software use by educators from around the world.
Sylvia
Conferences must change with the times
When you work with schools across the nation, you soon realize that February and March are never going to be your own again. These are the months where many states schedule their state educational technology conferences. In the last couple of weeks, I’ve been to Texas (TCEA), Washington (NCCE), Washington DC (CoSN) and of course, my home state of California (CUE).
If I could have cloned myself, I could have gone to Florida (FETC), Illinois (IL-TCE), Arizona (MEC), Michigan (MACUL), New Jersey (NJECC) and probably more I’m forgetting. (I can’t even bring myself to find all the full names and links to these terrific conferences! Bad blogger!)
These conferences give technology-using educators a chance to reflect and recharge, hear inspiring speakers and talk to colleagues from near and far. This year, more than ever, I met folks who previously have only been virtual avatars, Twitter buddies, or names on blogs. The opportunities to use Web 2.0 tools and social networks to build a Personal Learning Network has changed many educator’s lives, and brought new spark to a traditionally isolated profession.
I believe conferences must change as well, or risk being a relic of the past.
At CUE, I participated in a day long “unconference” event called EdubloggerCon West run by Steve Hargadon of Classroom 2.0 (a social network for educators.) Instead of submitting session ideas months in advance, and a faceless committee deciding which sessions are presented, the attendees shaped the day to our own needs. A wiki was used to plan the event. People signed up, and added their ideas to another page for ideas about what to talk about.
At the event, the first item on the agenda was to decide what the day would become. Imagine that, the attendees shaped their own day of learning to their personal needs!
Someone volunteered to edit the wiki, and an agenda emerged on the fly. Some people wanted to talk about technology and language development. Some people wanted to talk about project-based learning. Concepts got merged and people stepped forward to offer new ideas. There were some mini-sessions (5 minutes!) on various tools. At the end of the day, the wiki stood as both a record of what happened, and links to the tools and ideas we talked about.
It was an interesting day, both for the learning taking place and the concept that conferences could change and adapt to new technology that allows more personalized learning. It felt like a mash-up of the best conference sessions you’ve ever been to, combined with the most interesting conversations you tend to have when committed, passionate educators gather after-hours.
While this exact format might not work for thousands of attendees, there are certainly elements that can be adapted and experimented with. Conferences as we know them today are going to change as technology and culture change — or become obsolete.
Steve is getting to be pretty good at structuring these events. It’s an interesting combination of leadership, experimentation on the bleeding edge of technology, herding cats, and stepping back gracefully to allow others to share the spotlight. It’s one of those skills that looks magically effortless when it’s done right, but isn’t. Sort of teaching.
These days, change happens quickly, even for those who feel ready for it. In fact, the name EdubloggerCon seemed cutting edge a year or two ago, but now it’s too focused on one tool in a universe of possibilities. It’s really about changing education for the modern world.
Congratulations to CUE and executive director Mike Lawrence for allowing this experiment to take place and not being afraid of the future.
If you are attending the National Educational Computer Conference (NECC) in San Antonio in June, there is a similar event being held two days before NECC starts. More information here.
This just in…
Stop the presses – having just one teacher who cares about them can stop a high school student from dropping out.
Obvious? Sure. But how many obvious things aren’t we doing in schools?
Among the conclusions:
- Students generally like school and want to graduate.
- Some feel financial pressure to drop out and get a job.
- Some are driven out of school by a fear of violence.
- Students believe that some of the challenges they face are caused by a lack of resources in their school.
- Students who believe a teacher or coach cares about them are more inclined to stay in school.
Here’s the full report from the California Dropout Research Project. You can download the entire report or a condensed version there, and see a series of video clips of student interviews here.
Student perspective – all you have to do is ask
Ryan Bretag:
The last two weeks, I had the opportunity to begin involving students in these discussions: How do they feel about the infusion of technology into the classroom? What do they know about all of these “emerging technologies”? What should the learning environment look like in the future? Why do they feel, if at all, technology is of value to their own learning? What is the connection between their current use of technology and the technology educational technologist long to see used in the classroom?
Their thoughts, ideas, and insights offer much to the discussions occurring about educational technology. Will we listen? Will we begin having these discussions in our own school? Are we willing to challenge our own beliefs about technology based upon their beliefs?
Find out what these students said at Ryan’s blog
Congratulations to Ryan for walking the talk about student voice!