Summary of Learning

I'd like to take a minute to thank to everyone for their comments and help throughout the course. I enjoyed being a part of ECI-831 and seeing everyone's excellent work! I think that our students are in great hands when I see what people are doing with technology in their classrooms. Finally thanks to Alec and Katia for putting together such an interesting course. I really enjoyed making this summary of learning and I enjoyed the different types of assessment you employed in this course. This being my 8th course in my M.Ed it was certainly nice to break away from the paper/presentation/final paper routine.

I made my video on ComicHead, an app I use with my students. The recording was made using Explain Everything. I recommend trying both out. Very easy to use.

Stay in touch, and I'll see you all online!

School Systems and Silicon Valley - Why the Extreme Differences in Workforces?- Audrey Watters

This presentation was most certainly an eye opener for me. The idea that women online were much more likely to be harassed and abused, even academic professionals, was something I had never considered or really thought about. When Alec pointed out he had never been victim to the type of Twitter abuse that Audrey experiences it really got me thinking about how the social media medium just became an easy conduit for sexism to keep rearing it's ugly head. I've always known about the racists, trolls and other such people that live to harass and be racist online. Even last week I was shocked at the tweet from the New England Patriot's Official Twitter account, with over 1 million Twitter followers. Take a look:



This tweet was sent out to 1 million plus followers.

The tweet was quickly deleted and the Patriots and they apologized for their software, which auto generated the tweet with the 1 millionth follower. Trolled.

Silicon Valley and School Systems

While I resonated with much of what Audrey had to say, I was critical of using the hiring practices of major corporation such as Facebook, Google, Microsoft and so forth. Many of the companies had in the 70-80% range of male employees. Figures from the Computing Research Association Taulbee Survey indicate that less than 12% of Computer Science bachelor's degrees were awarded to women at U.S. PhD-granting institutions in 2010-11 (Retrieved from  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_computing). The hiring is simply based on the available workforce. However Alec was quick to point out that this was just further indication of an issue in technology sector, and society and culture as a whole.


I also instantly thought of our school systems.

The male proportion of the full time educator workforce nationally dropped by 41% in 1989 to 35% in 1999, and is lower among younger educators. However, over longer time frames, the percentage of men in teaching has gone both up and down; women were a higher percentage of educators much earlier in the century. And there is continuing concern about the ability of women to play leadership roles in teacher education (Acker, 1997) and in the profession (Gaskell & Mullen, 2006). (Retrieved from http://www.oise.utoronto.ca/ite/UserFiles/File/CharacterizingITE.pdf)

 

One thing that is noteworthy when it comes to systemic sexism is that both sectors have a disproportionate amount of men in higher positions relative to that of their workforce.

I need your help ECI. I have some thoughts but I want to open it up to you first!

Why is it that so few women enter computer science programs?

Why is it that so few men enter the education field?

QR Codes in the Classroom!

Depending on the technology deployment in your school, QR codes can be a valuable teaching tool. QR codes is short for Quick Response Code. They are essentially a graphic representation that cameras on devices can read and take you to different websites or guide you through various activities on your device. Read more about QR codes here.

Example of a QR Code. This one takes you to my classroom blog.

Our school division rolled out new Lenovo tablets this year that are app based and thus we are able to take advantage of QR codes.

Each school has a minimum of 32 tablets

QR codes are a great way to get students to selected websites very quickly. This is especially useful in the primary grades, when getting each student to a particular site might be very time consuming.

With our setup the each tablet has an app named QR Droid that allows students to read QR codes and get to any website in a click of the camera.

Students in my classroom using QR codes to get to 3 websites for inquiry based learning
 

Making and printing the QR codes only takes seconds. An easy to use QR code generator is found at http://goqr.me/. It can make any type of QR code and is free and easy to use.

We have also started having the students make their own QR codes to link to their online content. For our business expo where each student will be setting up a booth and selling a product, they were required to make an online radio commercial add using a great online voice recorder (which hosts for free) at http://vocaroo.com/. Then the students have to generate a QR code and place it on their business signage. When we are evaluating the students at our expo, the teachers will be using our devices to scan and listen to their radio ads.

Just a couple ideas about how we are using our new technology at school. Please feel free to add any uses you can think of or that you have used with this QR code technology!

 

 

 

 



 

 

 

November Cleanup- Triple Facepalm.

Last week's session proved to be very enlightening. Although Katia and Alec and the rest of you fine ECI 831 folks very kindly mentioned what you liked about my blogs so far, I really appreciated the constructive criticism when it came to the image copyrights and my two blogs being separated and not easy connected to each other.

When Katia, Alec, and ECI 831 first looked at my blogs this is the scene that I imagined in my head:

Katia eyes wide open in shock while Alec and other ECI members respond to my total disregard to Copyright.
Photo Credit: akulawolf via Compfight cc



 

So I decided I needed to pick up my socks and clean up what I'm presenting online. Firstly, I chose a more suitable and eye catching template for my pages. I then created links to each part of my blog and sat down and watched Alec's youtube video on blogging to help better figure out this citation of photo issue so I could avoid "copyright jail".

 

I wish my arrogance hadn't stopped me from watching the video before. I thought I was pretty much set when it came to blogging, but yet lacked some of the basic knowledge. If you haven't, I highly recommend!

 

After learning how to properly cite photos with Compfight I went back and changed some of the pictures that I found suitable replacements for. While I find the selection much more limiting, it is nice to know that I'm following the correct internet protocol and respecting other people's work.

 

Finally I updated my Twitter account and cleaned that up a bit to. All in all it was nice to get back on track and do a "winter cleaning".

 

I'm looking forward to getting back to blogging about my final project now that's finally completed and I have received my certificate from Duke!

 

 

 





Trolls, Internet Tough Guys, and Digital Citizenship

During last week's online session I was surprised at how many people in the class had never heard the term troll with regards to on-line behavior. But with a little further reflection I guess I really have only come across the term when I'm doing something probably not many in this class do, and that's online gaming. So I thought I'd take a different approach to my blog this week and write about my experience with internet trolls.

Having played online games for years such as World of Warcraft and now Dota 2, you really get a good idea of a lot of internet slang. And the trolls, oh my the trolls. It is unfortunate that when I do actually have 30 minutes to unwind these great games are usually taken over by trolls and you basically have to ignore chat altogether. To show examples of this I literally only had to go to my last game played and take some screen shots.

If you can't make it out, "tunker" asks if a player doing poorly is from poor country (he knows he is because you can check in the profile even in game) and harasses him about being from Peru and that he hates having "banana farmers" in his games.

As you can see in the chat in the middle of the screen our troll "tunker" is unhappy that he is losing.
Often times when a player is doing poorly or hurting the team he is harassed in the worst way possible. In Dota 2, which takes place on the Steam gaming network, people can see what country you are from. In this case "tunker" decides to make fun of the country the player he is trolling is from. The harassment can often be done with swearing, with extreme racism, and basically anything one could type to get someone else angry.

There isn't a lot someone can do to fight back this harassing in game. You can ignore all chat, but sometimes that leaves you in a tactical disadvantage. Thankfully they implemented an ignoring a specific player feature which blocks all communication from them. You can report the offenders in game, but the worst penalty I've seen handed out was a 24 hour ban from the game.

With the anonymity of the internet you almost daily see people act totally differently than how they would act in real life. It's unfortunate but it's a reality.

We all know the extreme pains that bullying in any form can cause, and online bullying is no exception. In our school division we are required to teach "Digital Citizenship" lessons each year to our students to show them how to properly behave when online.

This poster basically sums up the main ideas of the lessons. It's a great resource and the lessons we have are fantastic. If you would like to take a look at the lessons they are available at http://elementarydigitalcitizenship.weebly.com/

When looking at what people were adding to the last slide Tuesday about what they would like to imprint on their students, someone shared they would like to create respectful and caring digital citizens. This is an area that is truly important with our children spending more and more time online and making sure they know what's appropriate in their "digital lives".

Google Doc's Vs. Office 365

Last Tuesday's session was an extremely interesting one. I loved actually getting to work together on on-line documents and testing out the software first hand. After the session I was convinced of it's value, but had to start to weigh the benefits against what our school division has to offer. The school division is using Microsoft Office 365 as a comparable software to Google Docs.

I decided to wait on posting this because I wanted to talk to a couple people in the technology department at Regina Catholic. I talked to two people directly, our supervisor of IT and our supervisor or digital design. After talking with them here was some information that I came across that I thought was important for me to weigh when looking at the software I was going to use with my students:

• Microsoft Operating Systems, Microsoft Office, and Microsoft Office 365 were all purchased by the Ministry for school division use.
• For a school division to use Google Docs and google to house student accounts there is significant corporate fee.
• Just because it was free didn't mean our school division just jumped right into 365. The IT spent significant time doing a comparison of the two products (Docs and 365). Google docs was ahead of it's time 3 years ago. However with the newest version of Office 365 there was no significant differences in functionality. Microsoft had taken the best of Docs and incorporated it into 365.
• Using Google Docs as a corporation as opposed to 365 would result in significant back end problems with the technology department. It just doesn't have the complexity of the Microsoft software. This includes security features.
• Using Google docs is certainly an option separate from the school division, as it has many great features. A hindrance to this is that google docs users need to be 13 years of age. If they are not they require parental permission. A lot of extra work for teachers to get no extra functionality out of the software.
• The student accounts in my division are now linked through Microsoft 365 and sharing files, collaborating on-line on a document, and emailing them all is only clicks away and all this software is supported by our IT.

In the end I love google docs and the pioneering they did in this area. However, it doesn't make sense to use docs when 365 does everything I need it to......


Google Doc lovers, let me know what I'm missing and change my mind in the comments!

Week 2 Thoughts and Rick Schwier

Week 2 already! The past week flew by for me and I managed to post about my thoughts on week 1, find a couple MOOC's that I was interested in and then skim through the courses. More MOOC's to come later in the week as I get more time to explore.

On Tuesday one of the "set" slide to our lesson was about our earliest memories of educational technology (ET). From my days as an elementary student in the mid to late 1980's I remember the slide show with cassette tape to tell stories. It made such an impression on me I still remember hearing the story of "Rumpelstiltskin" for the first time. I also enjoyed the classic title in our new computer lap in 1992, "Where in the World is Carmen San Diego".

While these memories are early uses of ET, I enjoyed the historical reference to the earliest mass production printing presses, and how that to is considered ET. I had to agree with Rick that while our discipline is changing rapidly, it's hardly new. It makes sense when you think about it, teachers have been using the latest technology to enhance learning for a long time.

I was also interested in Rick's analysis of the new types of ET, with social media and social software to enhance group learning being the current focus...... I found myself interested in what software in particular could be useful with students and what form that would take.

I also enjoyed rick's obvious knowledge and enthusiasm for the ET and took some valuable knowledge away from the session.

So far I've enjoyed the online class learning feel and it's flexible learning times. The connections are useful PD (on twitter especially). It's only been two weeks and I feel I've learned a lot. I'm looking forward to seeing what the MOOC's I take have to offer as well and look forward to blogging about that experience!

Thoughts from ECI 831 Week 1...

I decided to enroll in this class because of recommendations made from excellent colleagues of mine. I've seen several of my colleagues in RCSD start making significant connections through this course and via twitter and other social media, and in doing so, enhance their professional reputations and more importantly connect with other professionals to further their own development.

After I read the initial class email, I installed Java, joined the google plus community and took a look at the class documents.

My immediate first impressions was that I could see that the class would be a breath of fresh air compared to my previous masters courses. There is merit to the lecture/seminar/paper/presentation/final paper course set up and significant learning can certainly take place, however this course represents a greater feeling of choice of what topics we can explore, and in doing so experience the online learning community first hand.

After the online session I felt even more comfortable with the course. I was looking forward to picking out a MOOC, setting up a blog, and diving in, which leads me to the epic conclusion of my first blog about EC&I 831!