I have thoroughly enjoyed teaching Integrating Technology into the Secondary Curriculum here at my uni. Not having taught this course before presented a number of challenges associated with the types of assignments that might be most beneficial for students as well as determining what types of skills might serve students best.

I initially started out by focusing on teaching and learning basics, lesson plan design, and instructional strategies (i.e., pedagogical content knowledge), with the idea of inserting technological pedagogical content knowledge through different learning experiences and class activities. I found after the first few weeks that I was spending too much time teaching students how to create lesson plans and not enough time showing how technology might be integrated into the lessons they were creating, as well as giving students opportunities to practice what they have learned. Assignments were constructed in such a way as to have students actually using technology experientially (e.g., weblogs, wikis, PowerPoints, Moodle, Googledocs, Google forms, polls, spreadsheets, YouTube, Slideshare, Flickr, discussion forums, podcasts, Wordle) on a daily basis; however, students seemed unaware of how what we were doing transferred to the lessons they were creating. After much reflection and one bungled lesson plan assignment, it occurred to me that I was trying to do too much. The mid-term evaluation I asked students to complete showed me that I was doing well on many fronts, but that I was moving too quickly. Students wanted the opportunity to slow down so they too could have some time to think more deeply about what we were doing and how they might apply what they've learned. Armed with this new knowledge I made a few adjustments to the syllabus so that we could concentrate on why and how technology could be used effectively in a teaching and learning environment. As such, students have warmed up considerably to our new pace and are showing me and each other a number of new ideas and strategies that indicate that the content we are covering is beginning to become their own.

I also took some time to talk with my colleague who teaches a similar class for elementary education students to see how he managed both the course in a way that seemed to benefit students best. I quickly picked up a few strategies that I will incorporate next semester, including adopting Jonassen's Learning With Technology text and having students "teach" the text to each other. This term I chose Bransford's How People Learn as the course text which seems to be serving the students well in terms of providing them the requisite pedagogical knowledge necessary to talk about how to teach students. I believe combining this text with Jonassen's next semester will give students a solid foundation and understanding of both pedagogical content knowledge and technological pedagogical content knowledge that is clearly the goal for this course. I have also been supplementing students' reading with selections from TED, Henry Jenkins, Clay Shirky, danah boyd, Will Richardson, and others which allows us to keep abreast of the social complexities associated with teaching, learning, and technology in our brave and ever-changing world.

Overall, I feel I've come to a greater understanding and appreciation for going deep as opposed to going long. In other words, it feels like both the students and I are getting more out of the class when we take our time and truly explore course concepts deeply as opposed to covering more, if that makes sense. I am finding that I sometimes forget what it's like to be a beginner and end up approaching the class too much like an expert which in turn does not help students new to teaching and learning with technology. I am also glad I am able to take some time to reflect on my thinking. I want students to feel confident about when, where, how, and why to use technology in their classrooms and I want to be able to model it for them so they can use their experience with me as a powerful example as opposed to a powerful non-example. We still have a several weeks to go in the semester and I am happy to be able to take what I've learned and make the necessary adjustments to make this experience better for them and me.

Image: Ode to Joy

Yes, I am still here!

I apologize for not writing more. I have been beyond busy during the past 15 weeks writing up research findings for my study. My goal is to hand in the first draft of my dissertation to my advisor next week. The study identifies specific advantages and limitations within which teachers' learning might be supported online, so needless to say, I am anxious to share the results with an edublogging audience.

Once I've received the green light from my advising team, I will begin to post chapters in pdf form here in Eduspaces. I am also considering creating a wiki to house the final product to make the content more accessible to the public and open to social judgment and adjudication. There are scholars all over working on projects that could benefit more than their peers if they opened up their work to a larger audience using the freely available social media tools. I understand how funding for research and scholarship works and that you cannot always have your cake and eat it too. So in the spirit of seeking balance, I will do what I can to always make my scholarly efforts public.

 I have also been quite busy developing content for a course I am teaching this fall titled Integrating Technology into the Secondary Curriculum. I have two sections of 16 and 22 undergraduate education minors finishing up their careers in college. Some are truly gung-ho and interested in teaching and learning. Others less so, but are willing to play along in the name of learning something new about themselves. I was hoping to share more of what is going on in these classes in this space, but with course preparation and the dissertation, my attention is needed in the latter.

In the meantime, I have not completely fallen off the map. The wonderful bits of minutiae that I find in my travels I have been posting to my Tumblr blogs.  So in the spirit of Friday, I give you a literal translation of A-ha's famous pop fodder Take On Me. Cheers!

I enjoyed reading this article, Connecting informal and formal learning: Experiences in the age of participatory media, by Bull, et al. (2008) from CITE -- a journal that focuses on technology and teacher education.

While it is true, schools and teachers are limited by a number of factors associated with an academic enterprise, the gist of the authors' argument can be boiled down to this key sentence:

Gen-Y teacher education students who are developing pedagogical and content knowledge can serve as collaborators in determining methods for adapting emergent social media and communications technologies to classroom use.

The authors of this editorial suggest that in working with teacher education students who are more familiar with social media, today's teacher educators can become better equipped to meet the demands of a media-rich participatory culture.They conclude with the following statement:

The informal learning that occurs in the context of participatory media offers significant opportunities for increased student engagement in formal learning settings. The experience with communication technologies that teenagers today possess must be tapped by educators and connected to pedagogy and content, however, in order to address learning objectives in schools. Teacher education faculty members are experienced in this arena. We are currently at a moment in time in which the current and next generation of educators each can make a genuine contribution by working together." (Bull, et al, 2008).

I found this paragraph to be both awkwardly worded and perhaps easily taken out of context. I agree with the way the authors start by noting that students' background knowledge of social media is a great resource to tap to build new knowledge and understanding. My problem comes with the statement:

Teacher education faculty members are experienced in this arena.

I would like to see the research to back this up. Are the authors referring to educational technology professors when they say "teacher education faculty members?" Based on my experience working in a college of education and with teacher education professionals from other institutes, corporations, colleges and universities, the number of teacher education faculty members experienced in collaborating with their students using technology is perhaps a tenth of a percent of the number of teacher educators practicing today. That is to say, use and affordances of social media are clearly documented in the literature and on the Web, but the question remains: are teacher educators and pre-service teachers facile with this knowledge and content?

More than simply using Internet and communication technologies in the classroom because (a) they are a part of education standards and (b) because the kids are using them, it is more critical for educators to understand not only what should be taught, why is it important, and how should this knowledge be organized, but also

• How does learning connect to what goes on outside the classroom?
• What kinds of things and people might learners want to be in contact with in order to learn?
• And how can students, teachers, parents see if learning is effective?

I guess from my position as a teacher educator I am concerned about some of the ways I still see and hear how technology is still considered a disruption in the negative, resource-soaked sense, rather than as a disruption that allows us to re-think what we are doing as educators. Not that the Bull, et al. (2008) article paints integrating technology in a negative sense; I guess it saddens me that the Bull article still needs to be written in the first place, reminding many of us that the train (to use an historical and paradoxically-charged metaphor) has left the station and that you still have an opportunity to hop on board. I suppose this trend in teacher education and technology integration articles will continue for some generations. And I suppose there will always be people like me asking similar questions hoping that one day we'll all get a little closer to where need to be.

References:

Article:
Bull, G., Thompson, A., Searson, M., Garofalo, J., Park, J., Young, C., & Lee, J (2008). Connecting informal and formal learning: Experiences in the age of participatory media. Contemporary Issues in Technology and Teacher Education, 8(2). Retrieved 23 September 2008 from http://www.citejournal.org/vol8/iss2/editorial/article1.cfm

Photos:
top- via http://designyoutrust.com
bottom- http://www.artofmarkbryan.com

"The artist is the one who never gets it right." --Mose Allison

So you may have noticed things have been a bit quiet on this Eduspaces site as of late. I just came back from a much needed vacation and am feeling renewed, refreshed, and revived (the ocean air can do that for you).

I am starting out a new school year teaching two sections of an undergraduate education course titled Integrating Technology into the Secondary Curriculum. The course is a requirement for those students minoring in education and who are thinking about teaching students at the secondary level (US grades 6-12; ages 11-18). As I work through putting together a meaningful experience for all involved, I will be sharing ideas, observations and reflections about the course, the students, and other items as they arise.

One item I am keen on sharing is a new weblog I've been working on. I have always wanted to write a book about metaphors associated with learning and teaching. The catch is, I didn't want to write it in the conventional sense. I wanted "the book" to be a jumping off point, a picture book, designed to spark conversation, reflection, and debate. I wanted the book to be fluid, dynamic, editable on the fly, allowing me to add images as I find them. Perhaps a wiki might be a better option in terms of organizing content in a more user friendly way. On the other hand, I like the notion of simply browsing and viewing images at random. Please let me know what you think.

Finally, I am happy to announce that I have outlined my dissertation and have begun the blissful task of writing up the first complete draft. I should have this completed in about six week. I am standing here beside myself with happiness and cannot wait to share the results with you. Stay tuned!

 Image: play station

While conversation may indeed be king, meaningful conversation requires that we check to see whether the king is wearing any clothes.

In my research on using social or participatory media applications to support substantive educator knowledge development, it is clear conversation or professional talk is a powerful element or factor that can lead to deeper knowledge and understanding of one's practice (Hargreaves, A., 1994).

In my initial examination of participant posts and comments within an online professional learning community designed to support knowledge building among geographically separated participants, I have noticed that conversations fall into two general categories with some occasional subtle overlappings. In general conversations in the online learning community fall into two types: thin and thick.

Thin conversations are those that provide little in terms of reflection, feedback,  expansion and or examination of the initial ideas presented. Thin conversations suggest the emperor is threadbare and thus offers no redeeming substance or value (i.e., the conversation is powerless).

Thick conversations offer not only the thoughts and ideas of the participant but they build and expand upon thoughts shared from the initial post. Thick conversations also provide a sense of deeper reflection and emotional cues that offer insight into the participant's sense of self. Thick conversations are not necessarily verbose; they can be short, triggering statements that lend themselves to deeper reflection and deeper contemplation. Thick conversations are the robes and raiment that make conversation king.

In my initial analysis, where these two categories overlap is where conversation may be thin, but attached resources and artifacts associated with the thin conversation are thick and rich. There are multiple examples within my study that show participants offering little in terms of content-rich, back-and-forth dialogue and conversation, yet attach multiple rich resources or artifacts to their post that serve all participants in the community exceedingly well. The conversation is thin, but the knowledge and value associated with the post appears to outweigh the apparent veneer.

Perhaps, this requires a clearer definition of what conversation in a social media supported environment affords participants. Clearly, meaningful dialogue and written exchange can be valuable to knowledge development. Yet conversation can also trigger references to artifacts outside the immediate conversation that can also provide additional meaning and value. Given that the platform being used to serve and support conversation in this instance also allows the exchange of physical artifacts, conversations can be thin in initial substance and thick with associated attached resources.

Hmmmm....

Your thoughts and feedback are clearly warranted!

Reference:
Hargreaves, A. (1994). Changing teachers, changing times: Teachers' work and culture in the post-modern age. New York: Teachers College Press.

My colleague, Erik Black, and I had a great summer teaching an Introduction to Educational Technology course to undergraduate students ranging in disciplines from telecommunication studies, journalism, sports management, public relations, and education. The course was designed to be an overview of the interplay between society, education, and technology. Lessons were divided into thematic units that covered topics such as online identity and impression management, Internet safety, learning theories and learning styles, visual and information literacy, participatory media, social networking, games, and virtual schooling. Activities included developing a web presence (learning Dreamweaver), photoshop basics, using del.icio.us and a host of student-selected social software applications.

The uni requires that I give an exam, so I thought I would share it with you all to see what you think. Erik and I are thinking of requiring one of these questions to be addressed by all participants, then having participants select two of their own choice to tackle. I have a rubric that I use to assess student's work here. If you're interested, let me know your thoughts. As always, I am amenable to suggestions.

EME2040 SumC Potential Exam Questions

1) Online identity management: are you managing your digital footprint?

Enter your name into three search engines (e.g., Google, Yahoo, Dogpile, Cuil).

    * What shows up?

    * Are you suprised?

    * What actions can you take to ensure that you do not leave to chance your online reputation and personal brand?

2) One current concept in contemporary education is 21st century skills.

Utilizing the your web-based search and information analysis capabilities, develop a personal working definition of 21st century skills, then describe your progress towards the attainment of these skills. What have you done in the last few years to add to your 21st century skill-set and what do envision doing in the future to continue to develop these skills?

3) Social Media and You

Utilizing the Internet, select and describe a freely available online application that would be useful for individuals in your 'field of choice'. Describe how you envision utilizing the application in a professional setting? Why is this application specifically relevant to your field of interest? What do current users of the application have to say about it's strengths and weaknesses?

4) Weekend at Bernie's

Using current examples from Internet, which should include links and references where appropriate, present a thoughtful structured argument for why you feel that the University of Florida is or is not the #1 party school in the nation.

5) Social Software Application Design

Facebook allows individuals and corporations to develop custom applications for Facebook users (eg: scrabulous, superpoke, funwall). If you were to design an application for Facebook, what would you design? Why is this application needed? Who would use this application?

6) Blogging as Journalism

Utilizing your Internet search skills, provide a brief synthesis of what bloggers are saying, pro and con, about the genetic modification of plants and/or animals to increase food supply in the United States and/or abroad. Provide a listing of the blogs that you visit and also verify the credentials of the bloggers who are posting. Identify a blogger who you feel is particularly well informed and has the credentials to make commentary on the topic (explain these credentials). Identify a blogger who you feel is not particularly well informed and does not have the credentials to make commentary on the topic (explain the lack of credentials).

7) Employment Screening

Employers have increasingly begun to use Web sites like MySpace.com and Facebook.com to screen applicants and current employees. Should employers be allowed to do this? Provide a thoughtful, detailed explanation of your thinking below. Be sure to articulate possible social, moral, legal, and ethical consequences of such actions.

8) What does it mean to be literate in the digital age?

Read the following article (NYT Literacy article) and reflect on the different arguments for and against reading books and reading online. Is there a clear correlation between the decline in reading test scores for teenagers and the increasing use of the Internet? Show evidence from the article in your response.

9) Social Media and Marketing

You work for a chain of gym and fitness centers that are ready to expand nationally.  Your boss has asked you to identify three strategies for using the Internet in the new advertising campaign. Your job is to select three ways you would incorporate the Internet into the campaign and then write a memo to your boss ranking them in priority from the most to least appropriate match for the campaign.  You need to clearly explain why you selected each particular strategy and what you think it brings to a national marketing campaign.

10) Serious Gaming

Neuromatrix is a new educational video game that's designed to teach people neuroscience. It's marketed to ages 9-15. The developer, Morphonix, writes that they "are developing a series of video games which make abstract concepts of brain science fun and comprehensible to children and teens. Many software games spur kids to use their brains, but this is the first series of video games which also teaches children the science of their brains." From the game description:

You play a secret agent infiltrating a top-secret neuroscience research facility. Your mission: to track down and root out the Nanobots that have invaded the brains of the scientists there. If you fail, the Nanobots and the secret entity that spawned them will take over the Earth, reprogramming the human brain into docile submission.

Write a letter to your school principal explaining why you want to incorporate this game into your curriculum. What would be the costs, benefits, risks, and potential consequences associated with using the game?

On the other hand, if you do not want to see such a video game used in your school, provide a rational argument against its adoption and inclusion.

11) Fielder's Choice

Throughout the summer you've been introduced to many different topics, the majority of which have only been covered in a cursory manner. Select a topic, concept or idea that was discussed in class or in the online materials that you are not familiar with and find interesting. Utilizing the Internet and your web-based search and information analysis capabilities, develop a personalized learning plan for gaining a better understanding of this topic. Provide links and references that will demonstrate that you have given critical consideration to the concept and have used the social affordances of the Internet.

Computer and video games are a cultural and economic force drawing increasing attention from educators, anthropologists, economists, media scholars, journalists, and art critics (King, 2002; Perron & Wolfe, 2003; Poole, 2000).

Computer games have grown in sophistication and brought innovative models of interactive storytelling that is entertaining and inspiring millions of people.

Games have grown not only into an important economic force (grossing roughly US$11 billion), but a cultural force -- a medium of choice for many members of the millennial generation that educators should understand.

While some educational critics have derided games as pointless, it is still important for educators to understand why games have such appeal and understand what design principles underlie them.

Dodlinger's (2007) academic literature review focuses on 35 publications addressing educational video game design spanning the last ten years in order to "identify elements of game design that promote learning as well as the learning theories that conceptualize how video games foster learning" (p. 21).

Dodlinger notes that "While there is widespread consensus that games motivate players to spend time on task mastering the skills a game imparts, some disagreement over the specific characteristics that provoke that motivation exists" (p. 28).

Elements of game design that promote learning

Moreover, Dodlinger's (2007) review identified six distinct design elements that could be deemed necessary to stimulate desired learning outcomes. These elements include:

• Narrative context -- for situating and contextualizing learning -- the storyline
• Goals and rules -- objectives and guidelines - short term, medium term, long term
• Rewards -- (associated w/motivation) -- signals achievement
• Interactivity and multisensory cues -- direct attention, introduce new sensory perspectives, provides feedback cues for error correction

Learning outcomes from educational video games

In terms of learning outcomes from educational video games, Dodlinger (2007) points to research that suggests that well-designed games support the development of 21st century learning skills (e.g., play, performance, navigation, resourcefulness, negotiation, synthesis, collaboration, team work, judgement, discernment) but also other higher order thinking skills such as deduction and hypothesis testing, complex concepts and abstract thinking, and visual and spatial processing.

While exploring the potential for games in educational contexts, there seem to be a handful of challenges to widespread adoption and game integration:

• Understanding the value of games
• Finding appropriately designed games
• Getting games into educators' hands
• Integrating games into curricula, i.e.,  getting them into kids' hands
• The ethical roles and responsibilities associated with gaming
• The lack of clear evaluation standards associated with work produced utilizing games
• How do we guarantee that the rich opportunities afforded by the expanding educational gaming landscape are available to all?

[I'm sure there are more, these are just a few that sprung to mind.]

Class activity:
Let's take a look at a couple of online educational games and see to what extent they incorporate the six design elements listed above.

Examples:
Tut pup --  basic math and spelling games -- http://tutpup.com

Getty Games -- basic puzzle games based on museum pieces in the Gettty collection --  http://www.getty.edu/gettygames/

Villany, Inc. -- Thwarting World Supremacy through Mathematics storytelling, problem-solving and mathematics -- http://villainyinc.thinkport.org/mission1/default.asp?autoload=1

Free Rice -- social action and educational game -- http://www.freerice.com/

ADDENDUM:
More Educational Games:
Games Multimedia Materials -- a wiki housing several good examples of educational games.

Game Research Site:
Game Research - The art, business, and science,  of video games.

Major Reference:
Dondlinger, M. J. (2007). Educational video game design: A review of the literature. Journal of Applied Educational Technology, 4(1): 21-31. Retrieved 23 July 2008 from http://www.eduquery.com/jaet/JAET4-1_Dondlinger.pdf.

My del.icio.us "games" links
 

[Note: This post is a brief introduction to video and computer-based games in education. It is the basis for a lesson plan associated with EME2040 Introduction to Educational Technology Summer C 2008.]

Image from 1up.com.

What happens when punk rockers get old?

Well, they change, right? And they start country bands, take side gigs as movie and t.v. actors, and become law-abiding, taxpaying citizens. Oh, and they do spotlight interviews for the Sundance Channel.

Uh-huh.

Well, if you don't already know of him, meet John Doe.

John fronted a band in the early 80s called "X." Their sound was rich, snarling, ready for a fight. The first time I heard X was on MTV when I was 15. I had learned to play the guitar well enough to put together a handful of bar chords. And while I tried to emulate Jimmy Page and Angus Young, X stepped on stage and rearranged what rock music was in my mind. They weren't punk in the sense that they threatened "Anarchy in the USA," but their music, lyrics, and stance were clearly a reaction to the music heard on Top 40 radio. While punk music packed a lot angst, it was music aimed straight at the kids. It said, "Hey you! You don't have to listen to that shit on the radio. Rock the f_ck out! We did it. So can you." Bands like X, the Minutemen, the Dead Kennedys, the Clash, started as art school boys and girls getting together and finding a means to express themselves through a web of music and recordings, creating a platform to spread their message world wide.

This sense of youthful idealism, this sense of me and my mates against the world, against the system, against the improper use of power and authority, could be channeled through amplifiers, through the gift of music. What fun! I subsequently started and/or joined a number of musical outfits all in the name of Do-It-Myself. Similarly, it was this same ethos, this same sensibility, that led me to teaching, of changing the world one or two kids at a time.

I also bring this story up as it relates to changing the face of education through participatory media. The changes many of us want to see, have to come from the kids. They start small as garage bands playing locally. Like musical hits, some changes take immediate traction and spread far and wide quickly, ushering in wider audiences and broader acceptance. Thus, the key to educational change, I believe, is one band of kids at a time. They don't need me or you or any educational technologist to tell them what to do. They will simply do it.

The same goes for you, you old puke.