Are You Paying Attention?

Posted on October 8, 2007 by Alvin Trusty

I watched the pre-conference keynote presentation by David Warlick today.  There are video and audio versions available for download.

There were topics in the talk I expected to hear.  There was a lot of the “times have changed” and we need to understand we are educating children for a future that is uncertain to us.  This is an online-educational-technology conference and these topics go with the territory.  There was a lot more content in the presentation.

David’s talk spent a lot of time talking about how our students have a higher understanding of digital content.  They know how to manipulate digital information into new content.  They can create new learning experiences by reshaping content.  Using technology we can enable teachers to teach more effectively in this new environment.

And he summed it up with this line (about 35 minutes in).

“It is so much within the grasp of those of us who are paying attention.”

To invent new boundaries, many of us are going to have to pay attention.  As we are exposed to new instructional tools, we must identify the ones that can make a difference in the way we teach.

Technology is empowering.  Using technology a few people can make a great impact on education.  These people can even be students because our students can take learning into their own digital hands. 

As a teacher there is nothing better than a student excited about learning.  Are we paying attention?

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The K-12 Online Conference

Posted on October 7, 2007 by Alvin Trusty

This week is the start of the second annual K-12 Online Conference.  This is a conference you don’t want to miss.  The theme is “Playing with Boundaries” and registration is free.

There are only a few live events (schedule is here) so scheduling shouldn’t be a problem.  The pre-conference is this week followed by two weeks of the regular conference.  The strands for the regular conference are here.

If you are looking for ways new technologies are being used in schools, give this conference some of your attention in the next few weeks.

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Polar Bears at Toledo Zoo

Posted on October 6, 2007 by Alvin Trusty

We managed to make it up to the Toledo Zoo today to see the new polar bear cubs. The exhibit is very nice. They have one mother with two cubs and a second mother with one cub.  All the cubs are almost a year old. We snapped off a few pictures. Here is one of the cubs.

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First Online Class

Posted on October 5, 2007 by Alvin Trusty

I teach a face-to-face course that is more or less a part of a freshmen block.  Traditional first-semester freshmen take my tech class, an introduction to education and a special education course.  The instructors for the three courses try to coordinate activities so that one course’s field experience doesn’t leave everyone else with an empty classroom. 

Last week most of the students were in the field.  I have a few online activities in the tech course so I planned an online class for Thursday.  Since my students were in the field during regular class hours, I had to have an asynchronous activity.  Most of my students had no high school experience in online courses, so this whole process is something new for them.

I recorded (voice and screen recordings) some background material using Elluminate and made it available to the students.  I created a discussion board and asked that all communication about the activity take place in the discussion board.

As is typical for this first online assignment, a few students can’t avoid emailing me their questions.  I kindly explain that other people will probably have the same questions and for that reason the questions should be asked in the discussion board. 

The more difficult problem for the students is creating the proper context for the question.  I see posts like:

I keep getting an error.

There is no sound.

I can’t save the file.

These “one liners” don’t give me a lot of information to work with.  I don’t know if the question concerns the resource material or the construction of the artifact.  I have to add a followup question to the question (which I don’t like to do) just so I can have enough information to understand the context of the question.

I have come with a three-step-bop for online course questions.

1 – Tell me what you are doing.
2 – Tell me what you expected to happen.
3 – Tell me what you observed happening.

Those first two items are usually absent from the post, but are needed to give me enough information to understand what is being observed.

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Internal Family Matter

Posted on October 4, 2007 by Alvin Trusty

Yesterday was a hot day for a high school class in Norwalk.  The students were suppose to learn how a bill becomes a law from a presentation by an Ohio legislator, but instead the students saw a picture of a topless woman.

Rep. Matthew H. Barrett thought he was opening a PowerPoint that was saved on his USB drive.  Instead he opened a picture of a nude woman.  Investigators found a folder full of similar pictures on his “flash” drive.

Barrett got more attention for his “government” lecture than he anticipated when he found himself face-to-face with local police, the State Highway Patrol and television cameras.  He said the USB drive was a gift from the State Library of Ohio.  A spokeswoman from the library said the drive was blank when Barrett received it.

At first Barrett said he didn’t know how the picture got onto the drive.  Last night he released a statement saying he wanted to “put the matter behind him” and it was “an internal family matter.”

The last major story I remember dealing with a teacher accidentally showing inappropriate pictures to students ended with a guilty conviction and a teacher (Julie Amero) facing a 40 year sentence.  The circumstances were different.  Amero didn’t intentionally download inappropriate pictures at home and save them to a USB drive that was then transported to school and intentionally projected onto a screen in front of students.

Amero had the wrong defense.  She should have said it was an internal family matter.

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