iSean

i am a co-Chair of a special interest group on Mobile Learning for the Society for Information Technology & Teacher Education (SITE). we are a fairly new special interest group and recently started a website and blog centered around mobile learning. i won’t normally copy my blog posts from there to here, but i will this time to help generate interest in our site and our Twitter account on mobile learning (@MLearningSig). here is my latest blog entry from the site:

Last month I made a blog post discussing the need to explore 21st Century Literacies as part of a 1-to-1 computing program. I suggested that schools define what they mean when they refer to 21st Century Skills and then develop the means to measure those skills. This is no small task, but the data can potentially be quite valuable in justifying a 1-to-1 program.

Almost as if on cue, I read an article this week that just came out and fits perfectly with this theme. The citation is as follows:

Bebell, D, O’Dwyer, L. M., Russell, M., & Hoffman, T. (2010). Concerns, Considerations, and New Idea for Data Collection and Research in Educational Technology Studies. Journal of Research on Technology in Education, 43(1), 29 – 52.

And, while the title implies data collection in educational studies, the reality is that these recommendations apply to any kind of program evaluation — particularly to school implementing 1-to-1 programs. I encourage anyone starting a 1-to-1 program or involved in a program to read the article, but I’ll provide a few highlights as an appetizer. 

Early in the article, the authors note that very little research exists between the causal relationship of technology and student achievement. This was something I noted in my first blog entry and why I suggested that we also look at skills beyond typical measures of student achievement. The article even explores dynamic phrase, “technology use.” Early in the history of technology in education research, many researchers wanted to measure the use to technology and they remained very general (e.g., a teacher who sometimes used technology with students = technology use). As technology use has picked up, the researchers have become more specific and stringent in who is using technology and how often they use technology (e.g., most definitions now expect students to also use technology; not just teachers). Research has also moved from many students sharing to 1-to-1 computing in many studies. Beyond use, the types of technology being used have changed quite drastically over time. We have some schools with big computer labs and desktop computers while also having schools where students are using mobile iPads ubiquitously. The nuanced uses of technology can vary greatly from school to school, teacher to teacher, and student to student.These evolving definitions make it hard to compare changes in actual technology use across place and time.

The article also has a discussion of standardized testing and technology. This discussion is fairly extensive, but a good recommendation from this section is that most standardized testing takes place using paper and pencil, which fails to reflect to the use and benefits of technology. For example, students who use technology tend to write lengthier and higher quality essays than similar students using paper and pencil. In other words, if you want to test the effects of computers on writing then you should also test students while they are using computers for writing.

Finally, the authors discuss the context in which educational technology takes place. Measuring the effectiveness of technology on a particular student can fail to take into account the classroom technologies available and rules; the schools policies and technologies; and the district technologies and vision for technology. The research often fails to look at how students are using technology at home as this use can also impact school use. This type of comprehensive analysis is referred to as examining the hierarchical structures. More meaningful data collection takes into account the big picture and the authors of this article suggest that future research try and include these deeper levels of context. 

I encourage school leaders and individuals involved in 1-to-1 computing initiatives to find this article and delve into it if you can find it.

i have 2 Twitter accounts. one is a professional account that has a focus solely on what i do in my career (largely ed tech stuff). the other account has nothing to do with ed tech stuff so i figured i’d just have a second twitter account for it. on this other account, i am just silly. i post infrequently but what i do post is intended to be funny. i have 62 followers and i follow about 12 comedians and folks i find interesting. this account is for entertainment only. my professional account is used to follow 23 folks who post about ed tech stuff. i am very careful about who i follow on both accounts and i don’t automatically start following someone just because they choose to follow me — i try and control the feed i get.

now, the problem i have with Twitter is that it’s very difficult to use this tool professionally. i can try and follow folks who add interesting ed tech stuff, but that doesn’t mean that the people i follow will stick to ed tech stuff; they don’t. some people view their Twitter participation as an invitation to tweet professionally and personally all on the same account. fine — there aren’t any rules against that, eh? but this kind of participation means that for me to get the ed tech stuff i also have to sift through learning about what is being cooked for dinner and how little Tommy Jr. is flying a kite. Twitter doesn’t have a feature that allows me to only get the professional stuff. i could fire people who choose to post whole life tweets, but then i’d miss the valuable ed tech tweets. so, for the time being i’ll continue sifting through the tweets about someone sitting at the airport, but i’ll keep my fingers crossed that Twitter is exploring a way to make Twitter more friendly for professional users. i am not holding my breath . . . the bottom line is that it’s probably up to the users to police themselves. then again, maybe i am in the minority and everyone else loves reading tweets that run the gamut from professional to personal???

i previously had a blog post explaining that i didn’t really get Twitter and the attention it was receiving. well, that was before i had played with Twitter enough to start seeing some of the application potential it contained. i am rapidly enjoying my Twitter account. let me explain how i use it and how it’s becoming helpful to me. first, i am making it a point to only follow people who i think i can benefit from following. so, as people start following me, i don’t automatically start following them. and folks who i follow who dominate the my feed with tweets might get dropped as well if their tweets aren’t of use to me. i control who appears in my feed so i might as well cater it to what i want and that’s largely ed tech related content. little life updates (e.g., “am thinking of grabbing some lunch”) is a quick way to get removed from my feed. i also won’t post that kind of meaningless stuff either. so, i have tweets coming in that direct me to new ways to use particular software or tools (e.g., Drupal) or direct me to a helpful web 2.0 tool or news item. that’s great. unlike an RSS feed from blogs, the tweets are short and succinct and i can scan through bunches in no time at all and then just choose the most interesting to follow up on. good stuff.

but the real benefit of Twitter occurred this week. my wife was using Blackboard 9th generation, which is the latest version of Blackboard — perhaps in beta. Our university upgraded this spring/summer and I think we’re beta testers. i barely use Blackboard, but my wife relies on it pretty extensively. she had a class discussion set up and went to use Firefox to view student posts. something was way off and the current student’s post was appearing as text written over the list of responses. so, she couldn’t really read the overlapping text and she also couldn’t click on many of the discussion responses. she quit Firefox and switched to Safari yet the problem persisted and she still couldn’t participate. the next morning things were looking better but the the problem was still slightly apparent, so i took a screen shot. i posted the problem and then the screen shot to Twitter in a series of tweets. immediately, IT at my university who is following me responded and an email follow up came to me as well as many other IT folks. at the same time, engineers from Blackboard also responded almost immediately. interestingly, the guy from Blackboard noted that i had posted a screen shot that also contained student names. i was so blinded by the error that i wasn’t even paying attention to what was beneath the overlapping text. here’s a bit of the screen shot i posted; however, i had failed to blur the student names in the tweet:

Blackboard error - students blurred

i was able to immediately take the picture down and get things fixed (as i’ve done above with the student names blurred). i’ve now had follow up discussions with my university IT folks and the problem is being addressed. and the twitter exchanges happened within seconds at night. i have changed my mind on Twitter — it can be very useful. ;~)

okay, so wolframalpha is not a Google killer after all. heck, it’s not even a search engine; rather, it’s a “computational knowledge engine.” i spent some time playing with it today. it doesn’t know who i am even though Google has me #1 on their results page. fine, i am barely a blip on the internet radar and it’s not likely that anyone other than me will ever search for me. so instead i decided to see how Grand Rapids, Michigan compares to Seattle, WA in terms of annual cloudy days. i got nowhere with that. so i tried precipitation — again, not recognized. i then tried [ Grand Rapids, Seattle, rain ] and it gave me my two cities but also added the city, “Rain, Bavaria, Germany” instead. hmmm. i can apparently compare cities, but just not on my terms yet. that being said, the service does appear to be valuable if what you seek fits into their parameters. to get an idea of what those parameters are, check out their exmaples page: http://www.wolframalpha.com/examples/

apparently so. i stopped using turnitin a few years ago because i thought submitting my student’s papers seemed a bit unethical. a federal appeals court has ruled that turnitin storing student papers is just fair use. i guess i was wrong.

The court stepped through the fair use analysis, dropping positive notes here (commercial uses can be fair uses), here (a use can be transformative ‘in function or purpose without altering or actually adding to the original work,’ citing Perfect 10 Inc. v. Amazon.com Inc.), and here (fact that turnitin.com used the entirety of the plaintiff’s work did not preclude finding of fair use). And it turned back a lot of other, small-bore challenges to the district court’s fair use finding.

while it still doesn’t feel right, i suppose i can take some solace in the fact that “fair use” is getting a win.

i love Google Maps. i love Google Earth and all sorts of tools along these lines. that being said, Google is now rolling out a new feature for their maps . . . web cam video from cameras on the spot. right now these web cams are just particular public web cams as tracked by webcams.travel but i bet it’s not long before other web cams find their way into our maps. kind of freeky and neato geeky all at the same time, eh? you can read more over at techcrunch.

i received this link via email and the sender thought this would be worth sharing. at first, i assumed it was spam. then i looked at the lectures included long enough to see a TED video included. i love TED videos so i’ll pass this along . . . view at your own risk, but potentially there are some nice videos here. click for the link.

so, if you are anything like me, you find yourself visiting many sites and maintaining many different sites (e.g., facebook, blog, twitter, etc.). that means a lot of tabs in your browser and then checking back and forth for new comments. tedious stuff, eh? well, tedious no more. Disqus is there for you. what is it?

Disqus, pronounced “discuss”, is a service and tool for web comments and discussions. The Disqus comment system can be plugged into any website, blog, or application. Disqus makes commenting easier and more interactive, while connecting websites and commenters across a thriving discussion community.

it’s a site that brings the various comments and communications you have into one place.

Threaded comments and comment ratings

Powerful moderation and admin tools

Filter out spam, trolls, and unwanted commenters

i have just started using it so i can’t give a good review, but the concept is something that appeals to me. hopefully this site can work as described. we’ll see.

i have been on twitter for a few years now. i have “twittered” about 5 or 6 times in 2 years so i am really not into it. however, i’ve noticed twitter gaining much attention lately in the news. an NPR report the other day noted that they are still trying to make money on the site and that they’re being supported by venture capitalists. fine. i still don’t fully get why this site is gaining popularity. perhaps i need to follow someone. i have about 8 people following me (obviously, masochists). i heard that Shaq had a nice tweet going . . . but i visited his site and it was all @this poster or @that poster responses. pretty mundane stuff. i am still trying to figure out how twitter is any different than facebook status updates. like i said, i have barely used twitter, but now i am thinking that i should put some effort into seeing what it is. perhaps i can use it in my teaching??? in any regard, i’ve added my tweet in my sidebar there on the right. enjoy . . . or not.

ASUS Eee PC

Originally uploaded by sean lancaster

so, i have a Flickr pro account and am just figuring out that i can post my Flickr photos straight to my blog from Flickr — and even add some annotations. so, here’s my son testing out an ASUS Eee PC that i talked about back here.