Dabble in Dabbleboard

As I was reading the Twitter posts from people I follow, Justin Reeve, author of the “Insights into Educational Technology” blog, submitted a post about Dabbleboard. I decided to check it out and was so glad that I did! Often times I had said to myself that I wish there was a way to show someone on the internet how to do some type of process, demonstration, diagram or facilitate an activity on a virtual whiteboard. Dabbleboard is one such tool.

When drawing a diagram using Dabbleboard, you can use the mouse to draw a circle or rectangle and Dabbleboard automatically converts the object to a typical diagram object. Use can also use the freehand tools to draw objects as well. You can resize and move objects as well as add text anywhere in the diagram by clicking in the whitespace and typing. I created a very basic diagram to demo some of the features of Dabbleboard below.

Make sure you click on the diagram image. It will take you to the public link (hopefully since the link was associated with my email). While there, manipulate a few of the objects and try some of the the tools. I tried several images of the screenshot but haven’t been able to find one that doesn’t look blurry to me. Anway, the resolution of the actual Dabbleboard diagram is much better.

The main feature that I liked is the ability to share the diagram created. I haven’t played with the feature yet but from the video tour it appears that several people can collaborate, edit and view the same diagram. You can import objects into the workspace for additional collaboration.

One think I had to remember was to click on the object to activate the selection handles to move or resize. Overall, this is a great free tool that I will definitely use with students and when collaborating with colleagues. I see endless opportunities to use this tool. Thanks Justin for sharing!

Teacher Prep Program Completed in Two Days

I just finished reading an astonishing blog post commenting on school districts that are resorting to shortened teacher prep programs, if you can call it that, to ease teacher shortages.

Recently I was surprised to hear two different school districts in major cities advertising for “anyone with a bachelor’s degree” to apply to teach. The advertisements stated that the districts were desperate for teachers and could certify anyone with a bachelor’s degree. One district even said certification could be accomplished in only two Saturdays of preparation.

In Texas, a candidate with a bachelor’s degree can participate in an alternative certification program. After teaching for one school year and attending classes on evenings and weekends during that year, provided he/she passes the state certification exam, a candidate can become a certified teacher. In my city with many school districts, primarily only the smaller school districts hire candidates in alternative certification programs. In my experience, those districts are have a difficult time attracting highly qualified teachers due to poor working conditions or low performing campuses. Although that isn’t always the case, it happens more often than not.

After having been asked to step in and ‘assist’ teachers in these alternative certification programs, my experience has found the caliber of teachers generated by these programs to be of a lesser quality. Especially those that retired from a military career. Teaching is on the opposite spectrum of careers and the candidates I taught with had a hard time dealing with disrespect from students, managing a classroom and being flexible with schedule changes. If I were a parent I would not have wanted my child to be a student in their classrooms as their students definitely suffered academically. One year is not enough for some of these candidates for preparation much less ‘two Saturdays’. For some, no time period will assist them in becoming a highly qualified teacher according to NCLB standards.

Not all teachers that go through alternative certification programs are indequate or ill equipped. I taught with a two teachers in particular that were so successful I had no idea they were a product of alternative certification programs until we had a conversation one day during a grade level planning session. They are natural teachers with great classroom management and those two traits cannot be ‘taught’ in any educator prep program. Either you are cut out to be a quality teacher or not and generally the skills that makes awesome teachers awesome cannot be taught or even defined. Great teachers have ‘it’. Students, parents and colleagues know if a teacher has the ‘it’ factor and everyone knows if a doesn’t doesn’t have ‘it’.

Ever read about or seen the movie, “The Ron Clark Story“? He took over a deplorably behaved class and transformed their achievement, behavior and attitudes. He definitely had ‘it’. Without being overly confident I know have ‘it’. Do you?

Leaving Digital Footprints

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 others, the article clearly demonstrates the importance of being aware of the nature of the digital footprints that one leaves on the internet. How unfortunate to learn this lesson firsthand in the public eye.

“Teachers are Missing the Mark in Math”

I came across this article last week entitled, “Teachers are Missing the Mark in Math“. The article reviewed a national study about the capability of teachers to teach mathematics, primarily at the elementary grades. The study recommends that colleges and universities develop more difficult tests to certify teachers upon graduation of teacher prep programs. The study attributes the poor preparation as the reason that US students perform much lower on standardized mathematics tests.

Because teachers are not prepared to teach elementary students math, Walsh said American elementary school students continue to lag internationally in math and science rankings.

The study looked at professors’ syllabi and textbooks to make the determination. While I am a novice researcher, I am not sure that one can gain great insight into the instructional strategies and practices professors used to design and deliver instruction. The study found the following:

. . . that 87 percent of schools studied, including all three Texas schools (the University of Texas at Dallas, University of Texas at El Paso and West Texas A&M University ), failed to adequately prepare elementary teachers for the math demands of the classroom.”

After teaching elementary and middle mathematics, I concur with the findings that many elementary teachers struggle teaching math at a level that helps students develop a solid foundation of mathematics concepts, algorithms, properties, etc. As a result, students progress to the next grade level ill prepared. Today, as I am sure you are aware or you wouldn’t be reading this post, there are tons resources available to assist teachers in designing effective math lessons.

I find it very interesting a comment made by Scherry Johnson who is the UT-Dallas Teacher Development Center Director. She oversees the teacher prep program at UT-Dallas.

. . . nobody at UT-Dallas knew that the National Council on Teacher Quality was evaluating the school, and suspects the study is full of mistakes because it looked only at syllabi and a textbook.

Unfortunately, many college professors have not taught elementary grade levels and have only experienced the result of poor mathematics at the elementary levels when the students reach them in secondary grade levels. In my opinion, elementary teachers carry the burden of providing students a foundation in all content areas without being able to focus solely on mathematics as in secondary grade levels.

When I taught middle school math, the level of instruction I delivered was much higher than when I taught elementary grade levels as I only had to focus on my math preps. I hate to admit it but my students didn’t receive quality instruction in content areas that were not tested with a standardized test. Although I was responsible for teaching social studies, social studies lessons and activities took a backseat to language arts and mathematics.

Over time, I became skilled at integrating content areas into the areas of instruction that were assessed by standardized tests exposing my students to effective lessons in all content areas. It was difficult and time consuming but I felt my students were well rounded as a result. Integrating technology components definitely upped the efficacy of activities, lessons and units that I designed.

I say this to make a point. Read the following quote from the Scherry Johnson from the article:

“I was totally surprised,” said UT-Dallas Teacher Development Center Director Scherry Johnson. “Right now, I’ve been sitting in on that methods class, and I am just blown away. They use manipulatives so the students are learning hands-on math, which is the best way for elementary students to learn math concepts.”  (Italics and bold styles used for emphasis)

“Blown away” by using manipulatives? Surprised by the instructional strategies the professors employed in the teacher tech program which she oversees? Teachers in the elementary prep program only have to take one class on teaching mathematics and Johnson was commenting on “…that methods class…“. No wonder teachers are ill prepared when supervising advisors and professors have not kept up with trends, instructional strategies and technology tools to enrich instruction. Teacher prep programs are only as good as the professors. If the professors, or faculty members are experienced with many years in education but have not kept up to date on the latest educational trends and strategies to improve instruction teachers just entering the profession will struggle and quickly become frustrated and leave the profession.

Statistics show the turnover for teachers in the first five years is very high and I am sure the number is growing each year. I am not a professor and don’t proclaim to know all there is to being an effective teacher but I definitely make an effort to reflect, grow and learn to employ strategies that are research based to improve instruction. Incorporating technology components is a big focus in my lessons and activities although I have worked with ‘dinosaurs’ that believe in paper/pencil instruction and working out of the textbook with out supplementing with quality, motivating activies. It is a vicious cycle of generating ill equipped teachers producing ill equipped students who become ill equipped teachers over and over. The question now is how do we stop this cycle and generate effective teachers producing students who received quality instruction at each grade level? What are your thoughts?

Is your dance card filled?

While my ‘dance card’ isn’t necessarily filling up as others have posted on Twitter, I was pleased to receive notification that my presentation proposal was accepted for TCEA 2009. My presentation will be about using webcasting/live interactive videoconferencing with students to enrich learning. I have presented at TCEA on several occasions and it is always a great conference. In previous years hearing Ron Clark, Disney Teacher of the Year, and Erin Gruwell, Freedom Writers, speak was so moving and uplifting. As the saying goes, attending those years was ‘worth the price of admission’!

At TCEA 2008, I was honored to be asked to present as part of the Technology Applications Teacher Network of Texas (TTAN) presenters and presented a variation of the session that I will be presenting at TCEA 2009. TTAN sessions are held the day prior to the TCEA conference when funding permits. Teachers are asked to present high quality technology lessons that teachers of all abilities, content areas and levels of experience can implement in their classrooms. Presenters share their strategy and show student products, projects and samples. I have found this one day to be even more beneficial than the regular TCEA sessions. The sessions that I attended the past two years were fantastic and if you are able to attend TCEA and TTAN is hosting presenters in 2009 I highly recommend you make time for these sessions.

Adding the full day of TTAN sessions to your TCEA registration, which opens in September, adds nothing to your total as all sessions are free to conference attendees but you must indicate the session on your registration. It is listed with the paid workshops although the TTAN sessions completely free. After the closing session at 4pm, those in attendance receive a cd with all of the handouts, lesson plans, and activities listed according to grade level and content area. The TTAN site has presentations from prior years and lots of other resources for teachers to use any time during the school year as part of their Best Practices Units resources. Hopefully they will offer a day of sessions for TCEA 2009 - we all know how iffy tech funding and tech budgets are nowadays and hopefully my ‘dance card’ of conference presentations will begin to fill to capacity!

ISTE - 0, Podcasters/Vodcasters - 1

In case you hadn’t heard latest backlash and outrage by citizens of the edublogosphere and twitterverse amidst the many emails flying back and forth to ISTE and edubloggers’ posts, ISTE has retracted part of their new audio/video recording policy and is allowing podcasting/vodcasting and streaming of presenter sessions at NECC2008.

Miguel Guhlin shared on his blog the response he received from Leslie Conery, Deputy Chief CEO of ISTE. Portions of Leslie’s email response in listed below in intalics and bolded for emphasis with Miguel’s personal comments below Leslie’s.

• We …have had great internal conversations in the last 24 hours about how best to respond. We needed to listen to and address the valid concerns of ISTE members while also protecting the rights of the people who have agreed to present at NECC. What valuable admission is this from the ISTE Organization and what a powerful message it sends to the membership.

• Post NECC2008, we are planning to convene a discussion around the issue of broadcasting presentations and to work together collaboratively with podcasters, bloggers, presenters, and other stakeholders to develop guidelines for NECC2009 that meet the needs of the education community. We’re invited to participate in a discussion about our content. While it’s obvious that such conversations are necessary, how many organizations do you know that seek to work collaboratively to develop guidelines? This is the ISTE I’m proud to be a member of!

• For NECC 2008, ISTE’s permission is not required for non-commercial video and audio recording of sessions and workshops.That takes care of the education podcasters I was concerned for. Great.

• …for NECC 2008, written permission from the session or workshop presenter is required prior to capturing a video or audio recording. Any permitted recording should respect the presenter’s rights and not be disruptive. Not a problem. Does anyone have a form they would like to share?.

Feel free to visit Miguel’s blog read the entire response Leslie sent to Miguel shortly after he emailed her. Response time was quick - less than 24 hours.

What I found extremely interesting is a comment left by ISTE’s Donella Evoniuk (Email:devoniuk@iste.org) on Charlene Chausis‘ blog,

I must add that it is unfair for the blogosphere to unload on ISTE over this. We are so sososo supportive of the amazing sharing and communication AND collaboration that is possible with 2.0 tools. The response at NECC 2007 blew our minds and reinforced all of our beliefs about the power, potential, and excitement that is generated by facilitating educators-as-creators-of-content.

‘Unfair for the blogosphere’ to unload on ISTE? If this was unfair to ISTE then I don’t have the correct definition of unfair. Unfair is how this policy was announced to the blogosphere with little time to meet their conditions to record audio/video of presenter sessions. ‘Blew your minds?’ This policy announcement blew the minds of the authors of the blogsphere that a policy like what was originally suggested wouldn’t cause a negative reaction.

Many educators rely on the podcasting from the conference to attend virtually and with the previous policy that would have been severely limited if not nixed altogether.

My question is this: was the timeliness of the notice sent to presenters knowing there would be very little time to seek permission from presenters much less from ISTE personnel who was and is currently traveling to San Antonio and would be unavailable for several days? I would like to think it was merely a coincidence and a decision not properly thought through versus a deliberate decision made late so that permission from presenters and ISTE would be so difficult to obtain PRIOR to NECC people wouldn’t even bother? That’s what I would like to believe. But the fact that they changed the audio/media coverage policy indicates that 1 of my 2 suppositions stated above is correct. Which one remains to be seen since the policy will be readdressed by ISTE post NECC 2008.

So for now, the score is ISTE = 0, Podcasters/Vodcasters 1. Hopefully this doesn’t mean that the ISTE members have won the battle but not the war.

NECC Takes Two Steps Backwards

In case you hadn’t heard, it seems that NECC/ISTE have taken two steps backwards by announcing the implementation of their new media coverage policy of presenter sessions. With a little over a week, ISTE recently announced that is limiting the sharing of presenter sessions unless attendees jumped through multiple hoops to get permission to share sessions via podcasts or vodcasts prior to NECC.

Wes Fryer and Miguel Guhlin both wrote blog posts featuring the enactment of this new policy. Essentially, the policy states,

Full video/audio capture of NECC sessions and activities is strictly prohibited without express written permission from BOTH: 1.) the session presenter/s, and 2.) ISTE. Those holding official ISTE-issued press credentials may capture footage for media coverage purposes only.
Source: as cited at SpeedofCreativty.org

While ISTE has been an institution known for promoting higher standards of technology skills for students and teachers, this policy seems to be a step in a direction different than in past ventures. The ISTE NETS for students and teachers call for creating and developing innovative activities that will revolutionize the students educators turn out after graduation regarding technology use and preparedness for the business world. ISTE calls this ‘refreshing’, educators consider this a continuation, and others consider this elitism. My viewpoint: a combination of all of the above.

Although I live in San Antonio, I still had not made up my mind to attend NECC. I know there are many educators that would like to and cannot attend due to finances, prior commitments or a host of other reasons and rely upon the podcasts shared by many of the edubloggers. I know I personally rely upon the edubloggers’ to share, but just as important, to share their ideas, viewpoints, and perceptions of sessions attended at educational conferences. Those viewpoints help me to decide if the technique or trends presented at a conference are a phase, impractical or truly innovative and assist me in developing my own bag of technological tools of the educational trade. ISTE’s policy seems to be designed to thwart these very efforts of those wanting to collaborate, share and expound educational technology developments.

For most educators, NECC is a conference full of sessions of the latest and greatest regarding educational technology. However, this effort at stifling positive and growing movement in ed tech by this policy does not seem to be a move warranting notoriety of the latest of greatest of the ed tech industry.

In Miguel’s post, he encourages educators to contact ISTE’s Don Knezek (dknezek@iste.org) or Leslie Conery (lconery@iste.org) with a sample letter. I plan on doing so and have included Miguel’s sample letter below as I haven’t written mine yet (still in a bit of shock by ISTE’s latest move).

Sample Letter:

Dear Don and/or Leslie:

As an education blogger and podcaster, I was disappointed to read that full video/audio capture of NECC sessions and activities is “strictly prohibited” without the “express permission from BOTH: 1) the session presenter(s), and 2) ISTE.” This severely compromises the ability of education bloggers and podcasters to broaden the reach and impact of information, ideas, and best practices shared at the event, limiting us to simple text narrations. In fact, allow this to be a decision that the presenter makes in conversation with his/her participatory audience.

NECC 2007 proved to be an exciting learning experience because educators embraced disruptive technologies and were open to sharing their ideas as blogs and podcasts. ISTE and NECC Organizers have missed the boat in capitalizing on the use of communication and collaborative technologies. In essence, NECC 2008’s policy is to ISOLATE rather than enable educators to COMMUNICATE and COLLABORATE. When I consider the words of Dr. Don Knezek at in 2007 about education no longer being an isolated act of teaching, learning and leading, and juxtapose that intent with NECC 2008’s approach, I am aware that ISTE and NECC are no different than K-16 schools today…struggling to escape the past.

Even as schools and organizations reach towards the future, old fears and habits keep us from moving forward, keep us from being who we desire to be and have said we want to be as reflected in the ISTE NETS-S. It’s difficult to find a new way, and I had hoped that ISTE and NECC would provide the leadership for all state organizations (e.g. TCEA) but I see now that my hope may have been misplaced.

As an educator–teacher, administrator, edublogger and learner who has internalized the ISTE Standards–I challenge you to set aside your fears and reconsider your policy. I intend to encourage all educators to reconsider their participation in future NECC Conferences.

I encourage you to respond to this letter via my blog, Around the Corner, at http://mguhlin.net or to post a response on your own ISTE Blog. If I have misunderstood the policy, I hope you’ll set me straight. Thank you for taking the time to review the contents of this email during such a busy time.

Wishing you well,

Miguel Guhlin
mguhlin@gmail.com
http://mguhlin.net

As I am writing this post, there is tremendous outrage about this move by ISTE on Twitter. It seems that I am not the only one with reservations about ISTE and NECC.

Edublogs as Instructional Tools

As I was reading Twitter and blog posts, I came across the blog from Jeff Felix who researched using blogs as an instructional tool in the classroom. The blog post that caught my attention is entitled, “The Study on Blogging Educators is Complete!”, and was created for the following reason:

“This blog is posted in order for people to benefit from the research I conducted on the phenomenon of blogging and, in particular, blogging as an instructional practice in the K-12 classroom.”

As Felix summarizes the results from his disseration study, I am reminded that ed tech teachers knew the following occurred with students and it is fantastic that there is research to use with administrators, directors, etc. to quote when making a pitch for using or integrating tech tools into daily curricula/instruction.

“The study shows that teachers perceive a significant increase in student learning through motivation for assignments and through deeper thought processes. Students seem to enjoy the connectiveness of their work to other subjects and to each other. This collaboration encourages a deeper relationship with their peers and with the teacher. Other studies have shown these relationships produce more student learning especially in minorities and students of low socioeconomic backgrounds. It also seems that teachers see the benefits of this practice. They have increased their use of blogging year after year, which seems to show they feel blogging has great relevance as a classroom tool.”

As I was reading one of the comments to the blog, I was reminded that the district that I was recently affiliated with blocked all blogs until this past March and then only the CIT blogs for each campus and the district ed tech blogs were accessible. It is so disheartening to think of the many opportunities and activities that could have been done to develop the rigor and relavance and make learning more meaningful for students.

Intially, when the CIT’s asked the director if we could use blogs with students we were told no as students would need email accounts. At that time, we were wanting to use the blogging portion only of Gaggle.net. A generic email account/login could have been used with the email portion of Gaggle still blocked if that had been actual concern. Then a week later the director’s spouse began using Classblogmeister and suddenly the world of blogging became available to the CIT’s only. Use with students wouldn’t be allowed until this upcoming school year. The other CIT’s didn’t use, know how or receive training on how to effectively use a blog with staff. Discussion of ways to use, maintain, implement and promote the blogs never occurred as the directors themselves did not know how or even experience reading blogs. RSS feeds and blogging were so foreign that the CIT blogs had no posts, comments or activity from teachers on their respective campuses. It is so unfortunate the awesome things that could have been done to involve the students and community with blogs. Hopefully that evolution will take place and that area of expertise will expand and grow. I have shared my own (small but evolving!) blog and other educational blogs by superbloggers so hopefully the spark will light a fire for the district instructional technology personnel.

Another Blast to the Past

Speaking of blasts from the past, I recalled a Twitter tweet last night regarding the origin of Twitter. Twitter is one of my new pastimes and I have gleaned a great deal of new ed tech information the past few weeks that I directly attribute to reading Twitter posts.

Originating as Twittr, Twitter has evolved into an awesome tech tool reaching millions of Twitter users each day. The founder shared how this concept evolved into the ‘Twitter-verse’,

We’re calling it twttr (though this original rendering calls it stat.us; I love the word.ed domains, e.g. gu.st). It’s evolved a lot in the past few months. From an excited discussion and persuasion on the South Park playground to a recently approved application for a SMS shortcode. I’m happy this idea has taken root; I hope it thrives.

We hope this blast from the past thrives as well. Tweet tweet!

A Blast to the Past

As I was reading some of the Twitter tweets from people I follow, I came across this post:

Click on the image to access the referred to website and make note of the date the article was written as shared by Digimom. Digimom authors a blog entitled, “Tech Chick Tips” thinks the article missed the mark. What do you think?