Category Archives: Educational Technology

09May 2013

In an age of computers, the pen is back!

⋅ 1 Comment
Twitt

Those who know me know that I love pens. A plethora of them. They are everywhere, as my wife can attest.

I have a nice pack of them ready for whatever writing situation is out there (I own a bunch of these on the left…you should own them). All I really need is to have Legolas’ magic quiver of pens and that would be the ultimate.

Now I am getting my students involved. I want them to take pride in their writing, and one great way to take pride in their writing is to take part in what they are using.

I have noticed that students who have a special pen are more prone to focus on what they write…or will write more than simply using something that was bought on a casual whim.

My love of pens started with my English teacher, who ripped into me for my horrific handwriting. It was bad…I mean bad. It was suggested to me to get a fine point pen to help write smaller and clearer. It helped. But that also released the pen beast, and now it appears I may be passing this on to a new generation.

My handwriting is still a bit scary, but it is readable now, and in some cases, it has font-like quality, which I consider pretty cool. However, the more I have been involved in technology, the more I rely on pen and paper. I now carry a notebook everywhere. Thanks to sketchnoting, I am a much more avid note taker.

The paper is fine, but my pens are critical. My favorites are Signo UM-151 0.38, Sakura Pigma pens, Staedtler Triplus Fineliners, and Pilot Hi-Tec-C’s. All are 0.4 or less, and plenty of color.

I bought a black Triplus Fineliner for my emerging sketchnote students, and they not only use it religiously, but a couple of them ran to Blick’s to buy some more. Their creativity has also exploded in the process. They are drawing more and writing more (even if it is on a computer).

There are a growing number of pen blogs online (yes, I review these daily…I can’t help it), and that in itself shows that rather than pens going away because of technology, the use is increasing.

Pens rule. Period.

Now, get off this post and go to Jetpens.com and go buy a special pen. Now.

Let me know what you think!

 

 

10Jan 2013

The Right Risks

⋅ Leave a Comment
Twitt

Who would have thought a phone in the classroom would be effective (especially just a mere five years ago)?
I have to admit, I was one of those who snarled at those students who felt their phone had more relevance than my lecture. As I have learned in the recent years, there were a few times when their phone was more relevant than my long lectures, even with some comedic insertions.
It has been so fun to see my students actively engaged in using their smart phones in melodious conjunction with laptops and tablets  for deep and rich discussion of literature, history and social analysis these past couple of months.
It also has made this year a resurgent one for me as an educator. Yet the innovations in the classroom are not what have made this an exciting year. It is the blessing of having an administrator (thanks Ms. Taylor!) who believes in letting teachers take appropriate and planned risks and trusting that it will have a positive impact on student lives.
It is a freedom that has unfortunately been stolen from too many good educators in the name of standards, pride, or policy. Seeing students at our school growing (in some places by leaps and bounds) is what makes this career so rewarding.
I believe there are a significant number of teachers out there who, if given just enough freedom, could do more to change education than all the policy that has been put into place in the last twenty to thirty years. To me, any teacher who cares not only about kids but about growing as an educator will do the right things (training, research, planning) to provide an excellent education for their charges.
Just like we have moved past the fear of phones in the classroom, maybe it is time to get rid of the fear of innovative and creative teaching.

13Feb 2012

The Education (and Tech) gap widens…

⋅ 2 Comments
Twitt

by Cary L. Tyler

Just when one thought it could not get worse in education, it appears it already has.

Just as Malcolm Gladwell stated in his book, Outliers, opportunity may well be the one major factor in how a child succeeds. Take away some or all of those opportunities, and no matter how potentially bright that child might be, their chances of success will be limited.

In a recent article in the Atlantic online,  Jordan Weissmann reviews the research of Stanford professor Sean Reardon and his findings that, since the 1960s, the difference in test scores between the rich and the poor (Weissmann was more delicate, calling them “affluent and underprivileged”) has grown 40 percent and is now “twice the gap between black and white students”.

Weismann remarked it may not just be the rich getting richer, and I agree. The Great Recession could not have come at a worse time for everyone, but especially in education: Just as educational technology exploded and schools ramped up their use of tablet and web-based technologies in the classroom, education budgets were slashed, teachers were sent packing, and suddenly schools that may have had students a grade or two behind may have ended up with students two or more years behind.

Just read this recent Chicago Tribune article: http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2012-01-25/news/ct-x-digital-divide-0125-20120125_1_computers-consortium-for-school-networking-poor-schools . Even with  special opportunities and grants, it is a long hard road for some schools to even catch-up let alone move their students ahead.

(Oh, by the way…if one thinks this gap is a new thing, read this 1985 article in the Chicago Tribune for even more context: http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1985-02-19/news/8501100294_1_computers-center-for-social-organization-schools)

The divide is strongly illustrated where I teach, an urban private Catholic high school in Portland, Oregon where two-thirds of our sophomores tested at a seventh grade reading level or worse this past Fall. Oh, and yes, most of our students are minorities.

Contrast this to the environment of my former students, who are now juniors and seniors at Gilbert High School in Gilbert, Arizona, have for education. They may have been hit by the recession with the loss of teachers and other cutbacks, but there are still pretty nice computers available for them…if not at school, definitely at home.

I know a good bunch of them have smart phones, maybe an iPad or Kindle, and more. The only drawback that will hold some of them back is a careless regard (if at all) for education either personally and/or at home. However, I know the opportunity is there.

Meanwhile, at my current school in Portland, there is one computer lab and one mobile lab, all using Windows XP, and for about 40 percent of the 300 students at the school, that is all the access they will have.

Yet the microcosm carries:  Even in this environment,  the parents who have managed to make a little more have made sure their children have internet at home, a laptop or desktop, and some have the latest smart phones and tablets, which gives them hours more access to my classroom web site and the added curriculum I provide online for my students  than some of their friends.

If not for the weekly work experience our school provides them at local companies, they would far and away be separated from a shrinking number of students having at least a decent educational in place for possible future success.

Direct link to Weissmann’s article: http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/02/occupy-kindergarten-the-rich-poor-divide-starts-with-education/252914/

17Jan 2012

End the (Educational) Fear of Wikipedia

⋅ 1 Comment
Twitt

by Cary L. Tyler

In part three of my look at “21 Things That will be Obsolete in 2009”, timing could not be perfect than examining the role of Wikipedia in education, especially as the website goes on blackout for a day (January 18th) in protest of anti-piracy legislation.

That is an issue for another day, but one of the common comments from educators has been the “do not use Wikipedia” crusade.

Shelly Blake-Plock said this about the online and free encyclopedia: “Wikipedia is the greatest democratizing force in the world right now. If you are afraid of letting your students peruse it, it’s time you get over yourself”.

I used to be on the “Thou shalt not use Wikipedia”. Now, I actually still say it, but for a different reason. Wikipedia may be too much for some students without basic instruction.

Case in point: Our school’s physics teacher, who has a PhD in Physics and is a retired Intel employee, recently told his students to be careful of using Wikipedia, not because it is shallow, but because the depth of how it explained physics terminologies.

To paraphrase him: “It had better information than in their text”.  (For a sample, look at how Wikipedia handles the concept of “absolute zero”: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Absolute_zero.)

For the English teacher in me, I looked up “metaphor” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metaphor) and found a pretty solid overview of the concept. Again, it is so technical that I would ask some of my students to take in only a chunk of the information on the page, but for my Advanced Placement students, it would not be a bad resource for them to attempt to deepen their knowledge of the concept of “metaphor”.

Of course Wikipedia cannot serve as a primary source, and should not. However, on well-constructed pages, there are a number of references and links to primary sources. I have taken some of these sources, gone to the university library online or Google Scholar, and found the primary information I need for a viable research paper. It often has been easier for me than wading through an initial Google search.

In light of rising costs of textbooks (and also, especially at the secondary level, textbooks that have been gutted or are too full of graphics instead of viable, at-level or above information), why not steer students in the direction of Wikipedia? With some basic instruction on how to use it, it could prove to be a valuable resource, especially considering that textbooks are not primary sources either.

Educators, students, for a little more on how to use Wikipedia in the classroom, visit this site: http://edudemic.com/2011/12/wikipedia-in-classroom/.

Also, visit this blog post from Macleans: http://oncampus.macleans.ca/education/2011/12/21/why-smart-profs-want-students-to-use-wikipedia/

24Jul 2011

Shifting to an Online Environment

⋅ 1 Comment
Twitt

Cary L. Tyler
Ed Tech 522/July 22nd, 2011

Upon completing my interview of a student who had taken a hybrid class, and conducting a little research behind it, it was interesting to see one of the nation’s largest universities not only taking an aggressive role in moving to a solid online presence, but expecting to profit well from it.

Arizona State University, which cracked 70,000 students and has more than 56,000 undergraduates, wants to have 30,000 students fully online by 2020. Anne Ryman, in an article for the Arizona Republic in June of this year, discussed how the university made $6.2 million in profit from online instruction this past year, and expects to make $200 million (or 7 percent of the university’s revenue) by 2020 (AZ Central).

Currently, only 3,000 students are utilizing some form of online instruction at the university, while Northern Arizona University, which is three hours north of Phoenix and had 25,000 students in 2010, had nearly 3,000 students online. Grand Canyon University, a for-profit institution in Phoenix, had more than 10,000 students enrolled online.

The question that has jumped into my mind is this? Will the proliferation of the online courses eventually establish the “super university” and doom some smaller universities?

It is clear that online is cheaper than brick-and-mortar.  It is simple semantics: classrooms require electricity, heating and air conditioning. Parking structures cost money, as do buildings and space for students and offices for teachers. If online instructors are given solid internet access, good hardware, and tools such as those utilized this semester within this course, their office can be anywhere (and living in the Pacific Northwest, I am good with that).

Jumping from this into the hybrid mode…another question I have is the viability of hybrid when universities such as ASU want a “fully online” experience for their students. It appears that the university expects older, more part-time students, but also may be thinking that the younger generation of students, especially college students, are tech savvy enough (and also becoming distant from their conceptualization of what the traditional classroom represented) to embrace a fully online experience as well.

It almost appears that the hybrid may be serving some colleges as a transition vessel to move more and more students to a fully online model.

It will be interesting to see what happens with this approach…if I had the opportunity, I would love to rekindle my undergraduate days and sit in a classroom, but with the chance to prop my laptop on the desk and frantically take notes. However, I am a full-time professional with a family, and I do not have time to fight Portland’s rush hours to get to a university, nor do I wish to move to Eugene or Corvallis, or even Boise, to get this experience.

I am perfectly content sending this via my blog and chatting via e-mail or Skype. My social experience in college was complete in 1987, so I do not feel like I am missing anything.  Somehow I highly doubt colleges are going to want their undergrads all taking classes from places other than the home campuses…especially when there are sports to be had, but that’s another argument for another time.

17Jun 2011

Online Instruction Quandaries

⋅ Leave a Comment
Twitt

In the text, Teaching Online, a Practical Guide, a few questions fit in with the investigation my EdTech 522 class at Boise State University completed on online education sites. They may not be the obvious ones for those new to online instruction or have not had a variety of presentation methods for online instruction.

The questions queried here are “Who teaches them?” “Who put the courses together?” and “Is there any training in place for those who want to teach online? If so who offers it —faculty development, academic departments, academic technology, instructional design units” (Ko, Rosson Chapter 2). As one of my professors mentioned when I attended Grand Canyon University, simply being a veteran instructor does not mean one is able to dive into teaching an online course. Not only does the androgogy take deep precedence, but also, as Ko and Rosson state, “mastering new skills” and the “cycle of review, reflection and continual revision” that instructors must be involved in. In my analysis of my wife’s sociology class, a review of the professor’s “Rate My Professor” showed a solid rating for the instructor for her site-based courses, but the reviews began to drop off when related to her online courses. Several students in the class said they would be hard pressed to evaluate her well based on the lack of teacher-to-student interaction and feedback. Office hours are available, but for many who are taking instruction online, physical gatherings are often difficult, or in the case of many of us in the Boise State University program, impossible based on the distance learning many of us are undertaking.

In an article by Kyong-Jee Kim and Curtis J. Bonk in 2006, entitled “The Future of Online Teaching and Learning in Higher Education: The Survey Says…”, the second most common factor that would “most significantly affect the success of online programs” was the “pedagogical competency of online instructors” (the first, of course, was money).

The recession and the rush back to the classroom to reinforce or get a better education may have indeed created the “low readiness” or “middle readiness scenario” (Ko and Rosson) that some colleges have been dealing with lately (this reminds me of the same issue my undergraduate alma mater, New Mexico State University, dealt with in the 1980s as the personal computer exploded on college campuses and computer labs were filled, to coin the vernacular, “24-7” with students during peak learning times). During my two years at Grand Canyon University, there were at least three major course management server issues that came during (Murphy’s Law) bad times. The problem in at least one case: too many students but not enough server or bandwidth to handle the strong online presence Grand Canyon had established. To illustrate, GCU shifted to a powerful online presence in 2005, and blew up to between 12,000 and 15,000 students by 2010, according to Grand Canyon University’s web site (http://online.gcu.edu/index.php?page=faqs). To be fair, the university has found the funding it needed to reach the high readiness solution quickly, and the last semester (January 2010), the technical difficulties appeared to be resolved, with only the routine slow-downs and breakdowns that were handled fairly quickly.

Yet, even with a “high readiness solution” in place, the use of the solution still rests in the hands of the instructor. Jenny Hays, a former colleague of mine from Arizona, teaches both high school and at the University of Phoenix in Arizona. She told me recently that it is not uncommon for teachers to simply teach exactly what is presented them. In essence, they regurgitate the curriculum, which as several of my former high school students have told me, makes the course monotonous and “boring.” Even as a high school English teacher for seventeen years, whenever teachers were told they needed to jump into  a restrictive mold, it created a frustrating situation that even caused a few teachers to walk away from that school or district. It can be frustrating for an instructor, and also make the online experience difficult not only for the student, but for the teacher. It is evident, at least in the two Ed Tech courses I am taking right now, that although there is a solid template with the use of Moodle, instructors are, as coined in Ko and Rosson “encouraged to explore and experiment with new technology tools”.

Kim, Kyong-Lee, & Bonk, Curtis. (2006). The future of online teaching and learning in higher education: the       survey says…. Educause Quarterly, 29(4), Retrieved from http://www.educause.edu/EDUCAUSE+Quarterly/EDUCAUSEQuarterly
MagazineVolum/TheFutureofOnlineTeachingandLe/157426

08Jun 2011

Diving into the world of Educational Technology

⋅ Leave a Comment
Twitt

In 1992, I broke out my Macintosh Classic and started making some handouts for my students at Van Buren Middle School in Albuquerque, NM.

I had some ideas about the Internet already; I was blessed to have attended a journalism symposium in Tempe, Arizona where an Arizona State University professor told us about the Internet and the future rise of personal computing in every day life. We were amazed, especially with the future release of the 14.4 k modem.

By 1996, I had a website, first for my cross country team, and then by 1998, I created dothgrin (“doth grin” is a Shakesperian comedy term, basically meaning to laugh at one’s misfortunes…my students said that instead of getting mad or yelling at them for a deliberate mistake, I would grin at them devilishly. They knew it was not personal, and they told me to keep the moniker…and I still use it to this day).

I have had a web site ever since, and it has improved every year so much so that students expect me to have it up, it has been a part of the Advanced Placement list serv list of sites for several years, and former students still look for it either out of nostalgia, or for materials.

(I have actually moved away from a full web site to a blog-style site in recent years, and this year, I went to Google Sites for my instruction…more on this later)

However, I have to admit I feel like I have been falling behind in some areas instead of staying close to the curve (I used to be able to be ahead of many educators…at least until around 2004…but the new generation of teachers has risen the stakes, which I like!)

Thus, I am here, going after my second Master’s (and possibly a Ph.D or ED.d). The fun in this is I am completing my 20th year of teaching, yet I want to be as fresh as possible. I want to be able to transfer my years of experience to a new generation of educators, but be able to have those teachers be able to fully use whatever tools are at their disposal.

So, I go from being a New Mexico State Aggie, briefly a New Mexico Lobo, a Grand Canyon University Antelope, and now a Boise State University Bronco (I love the Denver Broncos, so this makes it easier!

(Oh, on a personal note: I started out as a newspaper reporter, split my time as an educator and a free lance education columnist and prep/junior college sports reporter. I love design and picked up on some of the latest concepts via my three years as a Gilbert High School- Arizona – yearbook advisor prior to moving to Portland. I lived in New Mexico for 32 years, Arizona for six, and now my new home is beautiful Portland)