February 7, 2010

This is a great model of a resource repository. It is developed by Obe Hostetter in Rockingham County, Virginia. Obe is the Instructional Technology Resource Teacher and my co-administrator on the Smartboard Revolution Ning site.

Obe’s website is based on the Virginia Standards of Learning (SOL). There are links for each grade, then subject. Then on each subsequent  page the SOL are at the top with links to resources for each one. Obe has collected PowerPoints, Inspiration/Kidspiration files, SMART Notebook files, video clips, websites, and more for each group of SOL. Most of the resources are created by the teachers he’s worked with.

What I like about this site is that is such a great lesson planning resource. A teacher can go to one place and find all sorts of resources for a lesson. If integrating technology into lessons is the goal, then this is the way to facilitate it. There is so much out there that it can be overwhelming when looking for resources. This site narrows the scope. If you are designing lessons around the SOL (or ILS for us) then this is the way to organize it. The learning standards aren’t going to change, but textbooks will.

Another great thing is that most of these resources are created by colleagues. That adds a trust factor to the other teachers in Rockingham county, the main users of this repository. This is the kind of site I’d like to see in my district. As of now, we have an internal access to a shared volume with some Smart Board lessons housed. It isn’t very widely used because of the slowness of the server, and the fact that it is only available in-district. Many teachers like to sit and watch TV and plan lessons. They can’t look for district created files from home. The web based approach is definitely the way to go.

I’ve kind of modeled my math page for this year around Obe’s model. Since I’m using Edublogs, and only have 20 MB of space for files, I can’t make links to my Notebook files or other resources. But I copied the ILS and the assessment frameworks and am finding websites to go with them. I’ve also added chapter sub-pages, but haven’t been too faithful in developing them since I won’t be at this grade next year.

When I’m in charge of the website, then this will be the model that I adopt to get resources to teachers and make it easy for them to plan lessons based on the standards.

In the completion of the WebQuest IQ assignment I ran across a couple well done WebQuests and some not so well done ones. As stated on page 28 of Curriculum Webs, “…many more examples [of WebQuests] exist that do not require higher-order thinking at all, and in fact that primarily involve mere regurgitation of already existing information.”

And that’s exactly what I found when I searched for WebQuests about the American Revolution. At first, I looked at the resources section of the IQ WebQuest for sources of WebQuests. I found maybe one about the American Revolution. So I googled “american revolution webquest.” Then I used the next nine links in order to evaluate.

First, the bad news. This was the worst of the bunch. It’s called “A Revolutionary WebQuest.” It is not a WebQuest at all. It doesn’t have any of the parts (task, process, etc.). It is a list of resources that look like they were written by the site author. Several of the pages, especially the ones about the people, are just lists of facts that somehow students contributed to. It’s a disgrace to the term WebQuest! We should storm the server and burn it down!

Now the good news. The best example of a webquest is called “American Revolutionaries.”  This WebQuest, for high school seniors, explores propaganda in the historical context of the American Revolution. Then it asks how propaganda is used today to advance a cause. Students are to pick a cause and produce propaganda material to gain support for their cause and become the “Class Revolutionary Leader.” To win that title, they have to convince their peers about the rightness or importance of their crusade. Then they have to win a vote for the best cause as presented by the propaganda material.

The task requires higher-level thinking, students asking their own questions, testing hypothesis, drawing conclusions from those tests, and taking action based on those conclusions. It is a great example of inquiry in action.

between these two were several “Answer all these questions to learn facts about the Revolution” WebQuests. One had a huge list of resources that were poorly organized(scroll down) and so numerous that the students would have a hard time finding appropriate links.

I’ve created a WebQuest for another class before. It is hard to do it right. At least it was hard for me. But the benefits to the students made it worth it. When we completed it before Christmas break, my principal was amazed by some of the presentations. That said, there is nothing wrong with Web Scavenger Hunts to find information and build background knowledge for a unit. But don’t call it a WebQuest.

The internet is over 40 years old. It started as a research and communications tool for the Defense Department and university partners. There have been teachers using email, listserves, and bulletin board services on the Net for educational purposes even before the dawn of the World Wide Web in 1993. As the Web started to flourish as a “Information Superhighway” (Thanks, Al) more and more teachers started looking to the Web for timely resources to augment the, generally, outdated textbooks. Then video and audio came to the Web, and another source of learning materials became available. Now, anyone can publish on the read/write Web thanks to Web 2.0 applications. Video/audio conferencing can connect students to experts or other students virtually anywhere in the world. The possibilities for collaboration are endless.

The internet is here to stay in education. The resources that are, and will become, available are incredible. The value of internet resources available is undeniable. Yes, there’s the issue of teaching kids to evaluate the reliability of sites, but that’s becoming a more and more difficult proposition. With the website creation software available these days, anyone can create professional looking web pages.

Look at this example I found while doing the WebQuest IQ assignment.

The Url is theamericanrevolution.org. It looks very professional and reliable. But there is no way to tell who put this page together. There is a contact link on the other pages.

That still doesn’t really give you the qualifications of this person to write about the American Revolution. It would be very difficult, without some real digging, to determine the reliability of this site.

Yes, there are dangers to kids using the internet. But that’s not why I think that the internet, as an educational resource, is still not living up to its promise. The biggest issue I see is the availability of computers. I have 11 connected computers in my classroom. With 19 students, I nearly have a 2:1 student to computer ratio. I can have individuals or partners all at a computer at the same time. I’ve achieved that ratio by bringing in two of my old computers from home, eight computers from the E2T2 grant, and one cast-off by another teacher. Other classrooms in my school building have six or seven from the E2T2 grant. They have a 3:1 student to computer ratio. But other schools in my district have closer to a 10:1 student to computer ratio. I couldn’t do many of the things I do with students in a situation like that. As a matter of fact, a friend was trying to get me to transfer to her building this year. I would have had one student computer in addition to the SMART Board presentation computer. I told her I couldn’t do it. Sure, I could have brought my two from home as well, but that would still only be four.

To do a webquest takes a lot of computer time. With only one or two in a many classrooms, the teacher has to rely on lab time. Now scheduling issues come into play. My brother-in-law is a high school history teacher. He avoids using the internet in classroom activities because of the whole scheduling issue. He can get the lab 1st, 2nd, and 4th periods, but not 3rd. The next week he ca only get it 1st and 3rd periods. So he can’t do the project with all four American History classes. It makes a webquest very difficult to do.

Until access is ubiquitous in classrooms in this country, the internet will continue to be an occasional add-on to curriculum for many classrooms and schools. With Netbooks, iPod Touches, low-cost desktops and laptops, and a quasi-return to workstation/thin client computers coming, ubiquitous access may be not too far down the road. But then, everything takes longer to hit education.

2/21/10 Post 6

I joined the bandwagon of technology using educators and got a (second) life. As a whole, it was a good first experience. There were a couple of interesting places I visited. The voice chat was nice. And performance on my home wireless connection was good.

After we, my college class, all got in and got oriented we partnered up and went on field trips. My partner and I went to a space exploration site. We got to see full size renderings of current and historic rockets. I saw the new NASA Ares V cargo launch vehicle. It is the largest launch vehicle that NASA ever made. It is a little taller than the Saturn V that took astronauts to the moon. I found it on a separate trip while writing this. Though I tried to take a snapshot and hung Second Life. Next to the Ares V was the even larger ill-fated Russian moon rocket the N-1. They launched two or three in an attempt to beat America to the moon. They all exploded before reaching orbit, thus ending their journey to the moon. I will say that I was more impressed the second time I visited. If it wasn’t for the hang, I’d have a picture to share.

Then we went to the tsunami location and were underwhelmed. It wasn’t that impressive, but we didn’t have too much time to explore.

The ability to use voice chat was nice. When the whole class was together we could talk freely. Using the built in microphone on the laptop was a problem though. It picked up all the background sounds. There is a push-to-talk  feature. That cuts down on the extraneous noises, but makes it harder to have a spontaneous conversation. If one was to spend any real time in SL, a headset would be essential. The only problem I had with the voice chat was the 20 M range. When my partner and I were exploring, we got separated and couldn’t hear each other. We reverted to text chat to find each other and reestablish contact. I can’t fault the 20 M range because without it, you would hear everyone’s conversations. It is a semi-realistic distance for voice conversations. But it sure beats typing everything.

Performance was fabulous on my wireless connection. Of course I banned my son from hogging bandwidth with his X-Box live connection while I was on. I’m sure there would have been issues otherwise. I was on a public wifi connection when it hung tonight. Performance was pretty good. It started out slow but seemed to pick up. Oh yeah, it was 3:00 am when I was on. I was at the PADS shelter in Glen Ellyn. I was the only one using it.

But what about using this in education? At first I was skeptical. Getting around takes some getting used to. It’s easy to get disoriented. For example, when the class was in one of the buildings, I saw someone stranded outside. I easily went out and found her. I had to walk through some bushes which obscured my view briefly, but I found her on the other side. She teleported to the class, and I started walking back. As I went through those bushes again, I got spun around somehow and couldn’t find the building again. All of a sudden I was lost. If I was alone, it could have taken a while to find the building again. That could easily happen to students.

I wasn’t that impressed with the rocket display the first time either. However on my trip tonight I got a greater appreciation for it. I still wasn’t able to get the Gemini flight to work, however. I did find the Saturn V in a different section. What I liked this time was being able to walk the steps of the launch structure to the top of the rocket and walk the access arm to the command module and sit in it. Making the walk gives a true appreciation for the enormity of the thing. You could create a CG model and video of the same thing, but having to use the controls to actually “walk” it made it impressive.

There was also a lunar module that you could pilot. However I didn’t have the L$1,200 to pay for it. If the exchange rate Craig said was true, that’s only UD$ 4.80. But still, That’s part of the problem for education. Some of the things cost real US$. That’s not a luxury we have in schools. Also, for a school or teacher to use this with students there would be real cash involved to buy land and buildings and such.

If I understood Craig correctly, Science Sim would be free to build and get land for education. If that’s true, it makes it a viable alternative. If you could build all the educational experiences for free, then there’s value in it for education.

I know the argument is that kids are using SL anyway, so how can we redeem it and use it for education? I see value in that. There are some cool things you could do with it if you had the time and resources to build something. A simple example, and one I think Craig was talking about, would be to have a building with rooms or just posters on the wall. As students click the pictures they can go to the webpage to do their research. So instead of a resource page, they would just use the wall. If you could find, or build, resources like the rockets to use for research, that would add to the experience like I discussed above. It would be a pretty cool way to complete a webquest.

However I see huge issues with making students create SL accounts. Sure, we can control where they go with them while at school. But the parents would have one more thing to worry about how they are using the internet while at home. It’s not something I would like to tackle at my school. If it was just Science Sim, which is supposed to be safe, I might attempt it. However, I don’t see it being useful below 5th grade though. And that may be still too young.

The funniest thing happened the first time I went in to SL. I signed up through ISTE and played around their orientation area a bit. Then I used the map to start looking at other areas. At one point I clicked a random area with one dot off by itself. I teleported there and landed in the middle of the ocean. I flew out and used the map to head in the direction of the dot. I saw an island coming into view and a solitary avatar standing there. I landed and went up to the guy. He was on crutches. I asked him what he was doing out here all by himself. This is what cracked me up. He said, “I just felt like coming out here and relaxing alone for a while.” Maybe I’m not a sophisticated Sler, but I was thinking, “If you want to be alone and relax, then shut off the computer or logout of SL. Just turn it off.” It wasn’t like he went there and left the computer. He was just standing there AND sitting at the computer still monitoring his avatar. Sure, maybe he just got there or was just going back, but it was still a funny exchange.