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Higher education is exploring course material via cell phones as smart phones gain traction among students

Source: eschoolnews.com

By: Dennis Carter

U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan says schools and colleges should deliver course content to the cell phones that students use to talk and text every day. Some campus officials are listening, and classes via web-enabled cell phones could be mobile learning’s next evolution.

“Kids are on their cell phones the 14 hours a day they are not in school,” Duncan said in a recent interview with eCampus News at Education Department (ED) headquarters in Washington, D.C. With teenagers and young adults using cell phones constantly, Duncan said, technology officials should find ways to send homework, video lectures, and other classroom material so students can study wherever they are.

The first reported use of cell phone-enabled college courses originated at Japan’s Cyber University, which used SmartBank 3G smart phones to deliver electronic course material in November 2007. (See “Next ed-tech frontier: Classes via cell phone.”) The 2,000-student university that offers 100 online classes lured students by offering the first course via cell phone free of charge if the student switched providers and bought the SmartBank smart phone.

Some American campuses have joined the classes-via-cell-phone trend, including Louisiana Community & Technical College System and Ball State University in Muncie, Ind.

Ball State nursing students began using mobile devices last school year, and downloading course material has literally taken a considerable weight off of students’ shoulders. Brandon Campbell, the nursing school’s lead technology services specialist, said electronic nursing manuals accessed on a mobile device replaced a two-foot stack of reading material that students once lugged around from class to class.

Campbell and Kay Hodson-Carlton, coordinator of learning resources and extended education at Ball State’s nursing school, said acceptance of cell phone-based course material was nearly ubiquitous among faculty and students.

“I don’t think we’ve had any real negative push against it or anyone refusing to use it,” Campbell said. “The biggest issue is getting the initial faculty buy-in … and we were fortunate our faculty were eager to hop on the bandwagon. I don’t see why [cell phone college courses] couldn’t go nationwide, probably pretty easily.”

Ball State’s 800 undergraduate and graduate nursing students are required to buy an AT&T mobile device so they can access lab books, medical dictionaries, diagnosis literature, and other resources throughout the school year. Students can download free updates of course material, but they have to pay for new text editions after that, Hodson-Carlton said. Students pay about $250 for the cell phone-enabled texts, officials said, adding that those course materials can last a student throughout his or her undergraduate studies at the university.

The convenience of nursing manuals via mobile devices has become so appealing at Ball State that professional clinicians at the university often ask nursing students to use their cell phones, Hodson-Carlton said.

“They’ve really caught on,” she said.

Louisiana Community & Technical College System became one of the first institutions in the United States to use cell phone-enabled course material when officials unveiled LCTCSOnline in November. The web-based education program was launched in response to spiking enrollment–something seen at two-year schools nationwide this year. The community college system projects a 300-percent jump in enrollment this year.

With development from Pearson Custom Solutions, LCTCS will be able to cater to students without crowding its campuses with tens of thousands of new students, school officials said.

The fact that nearly seven out of 10 Louisianans have cell phones “means there are a large number of individuals to whom we can offer an opportunity to take courses, earn a degree, and have better quality of life in a more convenient way,” said LCTCS President Joe D. May.

Duncan’s advocacy for cell phone use in higher education comes as smart phones–iPhones, Blackberrys, and other devices that can access the internet–become more common in college lecture halls. A Ball State University study released in April showed that 27 percent of 300 college students polled owned a smart phone, compared with 19 percent of the general population.

“Smart phones, which are simply minicomputers that often feature touch-screen applications, are popular with college students because the larger screens allow for more entertainment uses,” said Michael Hanley, an assistant professor in the university’s journalism school and leader of Ball State’s mobile communications research program. “I think the communications industry will build on this popularity among technology-savvy young people, adding more types of emerging media applications.”

Hanley, who called the emergence of smart phones in college a “game changer,” said his twice-annual surveys of students’ cell phone use has shown that young adults use the devices constantly. Fifty-nine percent of students said they keep in touch with family and friends via text message, and cell phone camera usage has jumped from 4 percent in 2005 to 39 percent this year, according to Ball State statistics.

Source: star-telegram.com

By: Gene Trainor

One student is putting on lipstick in class while another has headphones on. A third student talks to his friend sitting next to him.

The teacher’s challenge: Try to engage these teenagers.

When the teacher suggests that the students do a worksheet, a girl puts her head on the desk.

So begins a computer program designed to prepare teachers for the modern youngster and help stem the flight of educators from the nation’s classrooms.

Fewer than half of first-time teachers remain in the field for more than three years, said Tandra Tyler-Wood, associate professor of educational psychology at the University of North Texas. And the rate is even lower for special-education teachers.

So UNT researchers are studying the simSchool program with a three-year, $300,000 grant from the National Science Foundation. Future teachers play what amounts to a game where they must respond to simulated classroom situations and students with a range of characteristics. The results look promising.

“I think it lets teachers see that you’re not going to be successful with all children all the time,” said Tyler-Wood, who is leading the research. “You’re going to have to try different things to become a successful teacher.”

‘It’s like life’

Teachers often leave the field because they don’t believe they’re in control of their classrooms or meeting student needs, Tyler-Wood said.

“They don’t have the skills to keep children on task and to keep them from having discipline problems,” she said. “That’s where simSchool comes into play.”

In simSchool, developed by David Gibson, a Vermont entrepreneur, prospective teachers are given profiles of students or can make up their own. Characteristics include expected academic performance, openness to learning and emotional stability. They can also factor in whether students have difficulty seeing, hearing or moving their bodies.

Teachers choose from a number of lessons and then see how students respond. Teachers can also interact with students in several ways. If they want to go over last week’s lesson, some students will ask to go to the bathroom. Some will do homework from another class. Some will ask their neighbor whether they’re in a remedial class.

The program ends with a graph that follows the effectiveness of the assignment and the teacher’s comments with each student. Prospective teachers usually start off with no more than five students, but they can teach up to 18.

The program gives no grades, however.

“It’s like life: There’s no perfect answer for everything,” Tyler-Wood said.

Research shows that prospective teachers who used simSchool rated their teaching skills 30 percent higher than those who didn’t use it. Users were also 41 percent more confident that they could teach students regardless of outside factors, such as home environment.

UNT senior Amber Ellison, 24, plans to teach math to middle school students after she graduates in December. She said the program prepares prospective teachers for the variety of ways students learn and behave.

“It helps you see how much attention you need to pay to each individual student,” said Ellison, who has written a paper on simSchool.

‘Such a big range’

The study began in October 2008. Much of it focused on students with special needs, such as those with seeing and hearing disabilities. Teachers will need to adapt to such students because more schools are integrating them into regular classrooms, Tyler-Wood said.

Denton special-education teacher Brenda Barrio, who received her master’s degree from UNT in December, said teachers sometimes don’t know what to expect when they start their careers.

“I would have never thought there would be such a big range of behaviors in one classroom,” said Barrio, who is now translating simSchool into Spanish.

The researchers, about a dozen in all, have recently introduced science assignments to try to understand why so many students find science boring and difficult. Through the program, prospective teachers might better understand how to tailor lessons to keep students engaged and interested in what they’re learning.

“We’re losing females,” Tyler-Wood said. “We’re losing students with disabilities. We’re losing English-language learners. We’re also losing average kids. They’re not going into science.”

Though the study has funding only through next year, Tyler-Wood hopes to find money to continue the research.

“I think what simSchool is allowing teachers to do is to mature a bit more rapidly,” she said. “Maybe that will give them the skills that they need to keep them in the field as opposed to having them meet with failure the first couple of years out there and saying, ‘Wow, this is just not working for me.’ ”

College officials say mandates for expensive equipment to watch online test takers could have been devastating during recession

Source: eschoolnews.com

By: Dennis Carter

Web-based college programs won’t have to buy pricey monitoring gadgets like cameras and fingerprint or eye scanners to satisfy the requirements of a section in the recently reauthorized Higher Education Act, federal officials say. Instead, they say, exam proctors and secure logins will suffice to ensure honest test taking.

Higher-education policy makers and IT directors had worried that the latest version of the Higher Education Act, which Congress enacted last fall, might require web-based programs to spend millions annually for advanced 360-degree cameras and other surveillance technology that would watch students take tests on their computers. Their concerns stemmed from a section of the law mandating that providers of online education validate the identity of students taking online courses and exams–a practice referred to as “validated learning.”

University budgets and endowments have been hit hard by the current recession, and such a demand from the federal government would have been impossible for many schools–forcing them to trim back on classes, increase tuition, or shut down completely–if they had been required to implement new technology, many school officials said.

Campus IT officials say guidance on implementing the new validated-learning requirement, unveiled by the federal government not long ago, came as a relief for most colleges with online programs. Assigning college faculty and staff to proctor exams taken on computers at off-campus learning centers has always been a reliable method, many said.

“To provide that kind of equipment would have been very cost prohibitive,” said Thomas Peterman, vice president for distance learning at Park University in Missouri, which launched its online program in 1996. “And we didn’t feel it would provide a better service than we already have. There’s nothing more efficient than to have someone there watching a student take an exam.”

Peterman said scheduling proctors for tens of thousands of students who take an online test every semester has proven “cumbersome,” but “I haven’t found any other way that does the job any better.”

John Ebersole, president of Excelsior College in Albany, N.Y., said online schools like Excelsior were largely pleased with the Education Department’s validated learning requirements. Mandating surveillance equipment, he said, could have made distance learning unaffordable for many students after campuses allocated declining funds to cameras and fingerprint scanners.

“This is a win for students, financially,” he said, adding that Excelsior nominated a negotiator to work with ED officials in creating the final set of validated learning rules for web-based learning. “At the end of the day, we felt like the Department of Education was responsive to the concerns we raised.”

Higher-education representatives who negotiated with federal policy makers on the details of the Higher Education Act argued against use of the phrase “widely used technology” in determining what schools should use to verify student identification, according to ED documents.

Federal negotiators had “reason[ed] that a technology or practice would not become widely accepted and used unless it was affordable,” but the phrase was ultimately left out of the final validated learning guidelines.

“The Department originally proposed specifying that institutions should not use or rely on technologies that interfere with student privacy,” according to ED documentation of the negotiations, but some college representatives lobbied for the “rephrasing [of] the language to present the concept more positively.”

While many college officials were relieved that their IT departments would not have to purchase hundreds or thousands of cameras this year, some campuses are experimenting with monitoring technology. Troy University in Alabama is watching about 500 online graduate students with small web cameras, or “remote proctors.” The university first piloted the devices last year.

The technology requires students to submit to a fingerprint scan, and it locks down a student’s computer and disables internet and database searches to prevent cheating. The camera is pointed into a small, reflective ball, so a professor can have a 360-degree view of the test taker’s surroundings, making sure he or she isn’t taking a peak into a notebook or textbook.

The remote proctors cost $150, and Troy officials said students can sell them to their peers once they no longer need the device. Officials said the university might help facilitate sell-backs in the coming years.

Troy University, along with other schools that specialize in online degree programs, has been in talks with remote proctor vendors for several years, well before the College Opportunity and Affordability Act was passed last summer, said Deb Gearhart, Troy’s eCampus director.

“Distance education has always had to jump to higher standards than they do in the regular classroom,” said Gearhart, who added that Troy had no documented student complaints about test-monitoring privacy violations. “We have not had one issue with anybody concerned about privacy.”

Officials at Western Governors University, an online university based in Utah, said web-based exam validation can be two-pronged–combining advanced technology with traditional human monitors. WGU recently spent about $45,000 for web cameras with facial recognition capabilities, meaning students’ faces would have to match previous pictures taken by the camera. A test proctor also would compare student pictures each time they take a test.

“We know the technology can’t pick up on every aberrant behavior, and the human eyes are very important,” said Randall Case, the university’s manager of objective assessment development. Case added that WGU would continue to buy web cams for its 14,000-student population.

But many higher-ed officials said they are pleased to see the use of such technology is optional, not required. Leaving the use of more stringent, expensive exam-monitoring measures out of the validated-learning guidelines, campus IT officials said, could be taken as a sign that online learning is gaining acceptance among federal officials.

“I think you have the same kind of responsibility in face-to-face learning,” said Peterman from Park University. “You have to make sure you validate that the person who is taking the test is the person who is getting the grade. … To validate [exams] takes some work either way.”

Source: the journal.com

By: Scott Aronowitz

In an effort to make its vast collection of digital educational resources available for in-class use, PBS has announced the launch of the PBS Digital Learning Library, a comprehensive source of digital video, still images, audio, games, and interactive simulations for teachers to use to augment their lessons. PBS made the announcement at last week’s National Education Computing Conference (NECC) in Washington, DC.

Drawing from its archive of full-length series and specials, PBS has created a diverse collection of shorter video and audio pieces edited specifically for teachers to integrate into lessons on a broad array of subjects. In addition, member stations throughout the PBS network will use the library, including their own locally produced and targeted material, to develop content especially for their respective local and regional education communities.

Although local PBS stations have been developing digital media for classrooms for many years, said PBS vice president of education Kimberly Smith, until now “there has been no way to share these rich resources across the system. For the last two years, we have been working in partnership with our local stations on the planning and implementation of a repository focused on cataloguing purpose-built, teacher-tested digital content.”

Several PBS member stations have committed to helping develop the library, as well as to offering new services and content geared to their communities. Examples of such services already serving their communities are Maryland Public Television’s Thinkport and WGBH Boston’s Teacher’s Domain.

“The PBS Digital Learning Library will aggregate a growing set of learning objects that teachers and students will be able to interact with, assemble, share, and modify to create truly engaging and transformative educational experiences,” Smith said. “And the best part, access to these rich resources will be offered through customized digital services provided by local PBS stations.”

PBS expects the Digital Learning Library to be accessible throughout the areas its network serves beginning this fall.

Source: www.kansas.com

By: Suzanne Perez Tobias

Liz Sothman first heard about Twitter during a writing class at Wichita State University.

Someone from a local advertising agency was explaining how companies use the microblogging site to communicate, market or promote their wares, 140 characters at a time. Sothman was dubious.

“I remember being in the back row and saying, ‘This is so ridiculous,’” said Sothman, 21. “I did not want to be on this bandwagon.”

But a subsequent class, which required her to join Twitter and participate, made her a convert. Now she thinks social media tools will transform college life and the way students learn.

“I can see so many ways students and teachers could use Twitter to talk or share information,” said Sothman, who graduated in May with a bachelor’s degree in strategic communication.

“It’s only going to grow from here out.”

Adapting their teaching to take advantage of new technology, a growing number of college professors are using Twitter as an extension of the classroom — asking students to raise questions, hold discussions online, keep up with breaking news and share links to interesting stories.

Some, like Mary Knudson, who teaches writing at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, use Twitter to encourage students to write concisely. She thinks the limited number of characters helps writers remember to choose words carefully, cut clutter and realize how much can be said in a small space, like a haiku.

Others say experimentation with Twitter is the latest sign of a real shift in education, away from a professor lecturing students to a more democratic and wide-ranging exchange of information.

“It changes the dynamic of the way people teach and the way people learn,” said Monte Lutz, a visiting professor at Johns Hopkins. “It encourages people to connect with each other. It can be almost a Socratic dialogue, in real time, in the class.”

Lou Heldman, distinguished senior fellow in media management and journalism at WSU, taught a class last semester that explored social networks and new media. He required students to join Twitter and use it to post links to articles relevant to the class.

“There’s a real advantage when people have to express something in the limits that Twitter provides,” said Heldman, former president and publisher of The Eagle.

“But it’s also terrific in that you can very rapidly see what a lot of other people are saying. I use Twitter almost exclusively to follow news and developments that are of interest to me in teaching.”

Last month, Heldman attended — and posted to Twitter from — an academic conference in Washington, D.C. His updates, or “tweets,” included statistics, quotes from speakers, links to articles and personal reflections:

“New trick for search.twitter.com… include emoticons in search,” Heldman wrote.

“I often will tweet the content of a seminar while I’m listening because that’s a way for me to actually focus more on what’s being said,” he said. “And it’s sort of like sharing … in real time.”

That means, of course, that students can also tweet from class, potentially broadcasting a professor’s comments across the globe.

“It’s something I’ve learned to accept, but it’s hard,” said David Kamerer of Wichita, assistant professor of public relations and new media at Loyola University Chicago.

“They might be IM’ing or on Twitter, commenting on the lecture, and I have no way of knowing,” he said. “It’s a little unnerving, but slowly it has become an accepted part of academia.”

Heldman said he doesn’t mind students texting or tweeting from class.

“What does concern me,” he said, “is what all these electronic forms are doing to attention span.”

Researchers call the phenomenon “continuous partial attention” — doing so many things at once that you don’t pay full attention to anything.

“It’s not something to decry, just something to understand and adapt to,” Heldman said. “There is a feast of information out there like our culture has never seen.”

Source: http://www.okc.cc.ok.us

By: Haley Jackson

More than 1,800 OCCC students have chosen to forgo coming to campus and instead, take online classes, said Stu Harvey, executive director of Planning and Research, in an e-mail.

There has been a significant increase in the number of online classes taken, Harvey said.

“[There’s been] more than [a] 66 percent increase in the number of students and 78 percent increase in the number of credit hours in the last five years” he said.

Bertha Wise, English and online humanities professor, said she has taught 10 online courses. She said online classes are helpful for a number of reasons.

“Online classes work for some students very well because of work schedules, their family responsibilities, or other factors that prevent them from being able to come to campus,” she said in an e-mail.

OCCC sophomore Daniel DeLaRosa, 23, agrees. He said he has taken six online classes during his time at OCCC and likes not having to go to a classroom to learn.

“I move all over the country and I love that I can take classes wherever I choose to call home,” DeLaRosa said in an e-mail.

Wise said one of the largest challenges students face with online classes is using their time wisely.

“Time management is the biggest struggle for many online students, probably because they underestimate how much time they will need to spend studying and completing assignments in exchange for not having to drive to campus and sitting in a classroom,” she said.

Learning to deal with the challenge of not putting off work until the last minute also is hard, DeLaRosa said.

“Sometimes I know an assignment is due a certain day, but I’ll wait until the last minute to do it,” he said. “It’s bitten me in the ass a couple times, so I’ve had to learn to budget my time correctly.”

Wise said online classes can be even more challenging than traditional ones. She said students don’t always realize “online learning is more demanding of each individual student and requires a great deal of self motivation.”

“Be sure the online class style is for you,” Wise said. “If you need to be able to talk to your teacher or listen to the teacher’s lecture, then online is not for you.

Wise said students need to plan ahead.

“Set a schedule for doing assignments,” she said. “This will allow you to not get behind, get rushed or miss deadlines.”

Students also need to work on other organization skills, Wise said.

She said being organized covers everything from enrolling early so students can enroll in the online course section they want, getting a calendar for deadlines and ordering books early so they can be ready to go first day of the online class.

Even with the growing availability of online degrees and those seeking them, Wise said she does not see colleges doing away with traditional classes.

Harvey said he agrees but also believes “the use of streaming video, video telephony and other interactive technologies to allow for more personal interaction between students and faculty will become the norm.”

“The sky’s the limit,” he said.

Source: www.theenterprisebulletin.com

By: Ty McNae

To paint a profession, especially one as diverse as the teaching profession in one wide brush stroke as to say “Technology may be ‘too scary’ for teachers” (Wednesday, June 10, Enterprise-Bulletin) does a disservice to the profession and to teachers. There are incredible activities and discussions taking place and being completed with amazing technologies within our schools with limited resources, limited funding and continual technological challenges. Our Information Technology school board employees work hard at maintaining and implementing this technology.

At Stayner Collegiate Institute we are actually losing an entire computer room this coming fall through the complicated reasoning of the Provincial Funding formula. It will now be even more difficult for teachers to sign out a computer room for their classes to use the teacher’s website, wiki, blog, and other on-line resources.

We have two Simcoe County District School Board funded SMART Boards at SCI, one that is portable and one that is mounted. The SMART technologies are being promoted by our school board and are wonderful teaching tools. There is one other that has been funded by an outside agency, which is mounted to the wall of a classroom. It is extremely cumbersome and time consuming, especially between classes, to get the portable SMART Board into a small elevator to access any of our second floor classes. Personally, I am not afraid of the SMART Board technology.

However, because the technology is not readily available and easily accessible when and where needed, it becomes an inefficient use of time to implement the technology.

Teachers do their best to make technology work in the classroom when and where it is available. There are teachers using their own iPods, home CD/DVD burners and USB memory sticks in the classroom with existing TVs to transfer relevant video clips and information to view in class. Many of these video clips can only be researched, made transferable at home, and then brought to school because many relevant and appropriate websites are blocked on our school computer systems.

I have heard rumours that our school board computer system may soon have a new, more effective Internet screening system, which would be greatly welcomed.

The use of the word technology confuses me in the Enterprise-Bulletin article. What is meant by the use of the term technology? Is it the latest cell phone, the latest iTouch, or newest YouTube video about the newest technology, or does technology mean the theories and applications of quantum computing, nanotechnologies or robotics (SCI has the only FIRST Robotics Team in the SCDSB)?

Technology is changing exponentially. A human being cannot keep up with all the ever-increasing advancements in technology. We need to rethink our educational model of delivering knowledge that can be easily acquired on Google and as a video on YouTube. We need to guide students to critically analyze the information and skills being shown to them. In my classes I need to teach students how to effectively and critically use a search engine like Google. They have known and used the Internet their wholes lives. But, just like me, they know some technology and I know some technology. We cannot know ALL technology. We must remember that technology is a tool.

I would be naïve to believe that I know more than my students about certain technologies. I do not find this to be scary. Today’s classroom needs to be a shared experience of learning, application and wisdom. Focusing on producing a worker for the work force is an outdated concept, which we still are using. Our current model of education is still based on producing workers for the Industrial Revolution of the 1800s. “It’s estimated that a week’s read of the New York Times contains more information than a person was likely to come across in a lifetime in the 18th century.” (Saul, R. et al; Information Anxiety 2, Published by Que, 2001). Imagine that, more information in one week than an entire lifetime! With so much information and so many skill sets available at the click of a mouse button it would be foolish and arrogant to think that I know more than some of my students in many areas. It is a big connected world out there and I believe I am a Guide. We must remember that technology is a tool.

There needs to be a balance of technology. We must learn and know when to turn off technology to be present in the living world that sustains us. Technology is not our entire life, only part of it. When it becomes our lives then it becomes a status symbol, an escape, an addiction. Modeling and teaching balance is extremely important in our world. It would be wise for all of us to realize and treat technology as a tool.

We are a community of learners and as such we can learn from each other no matter what age, what background and what profession we come from in this ever fast paced and information packed world.

Source: thejournal.com

By: Ruth Reynard

Web 2.0 tools have critically elevated the social networking activity and skills of individuals. Not only are young people highly active in social networks, but older individuals are also showing a huge increase in their use of these tools. The attraction of older age groups is, of course, social connection and community building among professional and casual peers and friends.

The following graph of a Pew Internet study shows the various age groups and the increase of use.

Much has been written recently about the impact of social networking tools in teaching and learning and how educators can build on the skills of their students in using these tools. My discussion here does not negate that good work but introduces the idea that social networking is only the beginning of a longer and more complex process of socially constructed learning and ultimately collaboration and knowledge building. That is, if educators only integrate the ability of students to connect and socialize, deeper points of learning will be missed. While good teaching and learning rests on effective relationships (Cummins, 2000), in an active learning community, those relationships should evolve into actual idea exchange and knowledge construction.

What Social Networking Offers to Learning
The most effective pedagogical approach using new technology is social constructivism, as it builds on social interaction and engagement, which is at the heart of Web 2.0 technology.

As I have already mentioned, the rise in social networking is not only with younger generations, but it is the younger generations who are actually changing how instruction is delivered and evaluated based on their high level of social engagement using technology in various aspects of their lives. In general, social networking provides new ways to connect and share information and create networks of interest. So, while in more traditional learning environments much of this must be orchestrated and planned by the instructor and organized through the grouping and pairing of students, when using a social networking tool this level of connection can happen immediately. It is often considered quite “cool” by students when teachers also have Facebook links and provide a shared group for the class online. A note of caution here: Sometimes, if the instructor’s presence is only social in nature, it can seem “creepy” to students and an intrusion on their social space. Owing to this, specific instructional use is more effective and acceptable for students to understand why the teacher has created the space.

What Social Networking Does Not Offer to Learning
While this level of connection and shared information is a great first step in community building, it does not necessarily lead to learning communities or the sharing of ideas. This must happen intentionally and is where the instructor is very much a necessary support to the process.

The following are several important steps an instructor should take in order to engage students beyond social networking to the social construction of knowledge.

• Maintain a constant presence: Understand that younger students’ view of social networking is constant, not a “9 to 5″ kind of connection.
• Use a variety of supporting tools to process information. Also understand that younger students are used to the whole multitasking idea and can, therefore, utilize a variety of tools at once (blogs, wikis, microblogs, etc.). This maximizes variety in how information is processed and applied.
• Actively synthesize broadly scoped ideas into workable focus areas: Teacher intervention is crucial in making sure that ideas are “managed” and grown and that students stay focused on their goal. Synthesis is also a high level skill that students can benefit from observing, so showcase your methodology throughout.
• Continue to engage students: Stay aware of all your students–how each one learns and how each one needs your coaching. As varied as the tools, keep your approach customized to each student so that every individual feels connected to the subject at hand. Frequently, integrate the new ideas that your students offer as part of this engagement so that they understand their participation in the learning community.

A recent 2009 case study explored the instructional benefits of social networking tools in building learning communities (TCC 2009: Using Social Networking Tools to Build Learning Communities: A Case Study of the Punahou Technology Lab School Ning, posted by April Hayman, April, 2009) The study worked with school children in grades 4 through 10 at a school in Honolulu, HI. What was discovered was that while there were the usual challenges with new technology tools, such as orientation and lack of student confidence in their use, there was an increased challenge to actually “present” ideas publicly. While the technology proved incredibly useful in terms of hosting a variety of media resources and storing large amounts of information, the challenge was with the students becoming “learning community participants.” That is, seeing their own ideas as valuable to the wider community and sharing those openly. I would suggest that this is not new to instruction as it is a continuing challenge to all teachers to encourage confidence and learner autonomy and to develop collaborative learning skills that will benefit the students throughout their entire lives. What social networking tools provide is a forum for this work to take place but only with relevant and expert intervention by the instructor.

How One Skill Can Lead to Another
As we begin to focus more on the learning process, it becomes evident that various skills are developed as a result of using specific tools or applying ideas to a specific context. For example, the skills of discussion and dialog can be enhanced through in-class or online discussion groups, and collaboration can be developed through ideas sharing and concept building.

It is important to recognize, however, that with Web 2.0 tools a host of skills can be developed, sometimes sequentially and sometimes simultaneously. Blogger, Marcia Connor, posted the following Sunday Oct. 19, 2008: “These new literacies almost all involve social skills developed through collaboration and networking. These skills build on the foundation of traditional literacy, research and technical skills, and critical analysis hopefully addressed in each classroom and every home. Our goals should be to encourage children and youth to develop the skills, knowledge, ethical frameworks, and self-confidence needed to be full participants in contemporary society.”

Among those listed by Connor (quoting from MIT and other sources) are skills in:

• Simulation: the ability to interpret and construct dynamic models of real-world processes;
• Collective intelligence: the ability to pool knowledge and compare notes with others toward a common goal; and
• Negotiation: the ability to travel across diverse communities, discerning and respecting multiple perspectives and grasping and following alternative norms.

While these are clearly social in essence, we must realize that they can be developed in a variety of ways and as a result of a variety of technology uses. It is interesting that these skills and those also listed in the blog are not isolated, but each one is interrelated in some way. In other words, rather than an activity being task-based with only one method of completion, if students are provided with a problem to solve or information to research and discuss using a variety of tools, many related skills will be developed. Therefore the actual process of learning becomes rich and diverse and much more likely to meet more learning needs of students.

So social interaction and relationships can be an integral part of learning more than ever and can certainly enrich the learning experience for our students. What is vital to realize however, is that the motivation created by these kinds of networks must be maximized by the instructor to benefit the students in their growth and development as learning community participants. It is important to move students beyond social interaction to the kind of learning communities that are dynamic, rich, and very much reflective of the students who are participating.

Source: www.normantranscript.com

By: Sandy Garrett

Learning is no longer confined to four walls and a chalkboard. In today’s classrooms, laptops, PDAs and other technologies have broken down the walls for teachers and students, literally bringing the world to their classrooms.
Technology is making a positive difference in schools and revolutionizing the way educators teach and children learn. Just this week the U.S. Department of Education released a study indicating online education — along with traditional face-to-face teaching — is an effective strategy for 21st century education.

Today, 98 percent of Oklahoma school districts use computers for curriculum, assessment and administration. In the last eight years, the number of computers in schools has more than doubled.

This is impressive considering the funding for hardware, software and connectivity has come primarily through local bond issues and federal funds, grants or Education Rate (E-rate) discounts.

According to the State Department of Education’s annual “School Technology Survey” released at the regular June State Board of Education meeting, in Oklahoma:

� Schools spent more than $105 million on technology during the 2007-2008 school year;
� One-third use interactive whiteboards and PDAs;
� 50 percent of schools subscribe to digital streaming;
� 62 percent employ student blogs and 32 percent use instant messaging.

In addition, several districts are pursuing goals with 1:1 learning, which provides students with their own laptop computers to use each day. A growing number of schools are also issuing iPods to students to enhance learning.
One innovative district that is integrating multiple digital technologies into classrooms is Howe Public Schools in LeFlore County. Under the direction of Superintendent Scott Parks, broadcast journalism students have created distance learning virtual field trips that enable other students to experience historical locations without leaving their classroom. Students broadcast a weekly news podcast and teachers are able to post homework and lessons online through computer programs.

Oklahoma’s core curriculum for grades pre-k through 12, the Priority Academic Student Skills (PASS), has standards that define basic skills of technology, including learning the operation of a computer, problem solving and telecommunications skills, and ethical and legal issues related to students using technology.

Our ever-growing global society makes the world available to every desktop. As such, the integration of digital tools into classrooms is a must for students to have the knowledge and skills needed to be competitive and successful as adults.

Source: thejournal.com

By: Dian Schaffhauser

When the fanfare, media coverage, national attention, and funding of a major 1:1 and wireless initiative has ended and a school district is left to pick up the pieces of its technology program single-handedly, what’s the result? In the case of North Adams Public Schools, a small district in Northern Berkshire County in Massachusetts, it quickly figures out how to expand wireless access and equipment on its own nickel across all schools, even in a time of much-diminished budgets.

The district, which has 1,695 students, found itself in that position last year when its participation in the Berkshire Wireless Learning Initiative (BWLI) ended. BWLI was a three-year, widely applauded, multi-million-dollar statewide demonstration project beginning in 2005 across five middle schools in multiple districts, where every student and teacher was provided with a laptop computer. In addition, all classrooms were equipped with wireless Internet networks as well as technical and curricular professional development and support to help teachers integrate the new technology into their curriculum. The $5.3 million program was funded through a combination of district-level school funds, state funds, and local business contributions.

At North Adams’ Conte Middle School, Apple and its subcontractors installed an Apple AirPort WiFi network and deployed laptops.

The goal, according to the massive final report released by researchers at Boston College, was to demonstrate the efficacy of a 1:1 program in transforming teaching and learning to enhance student achievement, improve student engagement, improve classroom management, enhance students’ capabilities to conduct independent research and collaborate with their peers, and create fundamental changes in teaching strategies and curriculum delivery.

“It’s been a great success,” according to Matt Mervis, former technology director and now a technology consultant with the district. “There have been four or five key measures we were going after: teachers shifting instructional practices, kids becoming more effective in terms of 21st century research collaboration, problem solving, analysis. We’ve seen a big reduction in classroom discipline. More kids are focused and engaged. And the biggie–and the reason the state made an investment of several million dollars–we were positive on the high-stakes test, the [Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System]. We saw significant increases across all cohort groups in English-language arts.”

Expanding 21st Century Learning Across Grades
While the formal program had ended, enthusiasm for continuing and expanding it in the district hadn’t. Superintendent James Montepare “saw something powerful with teachers being able to move from room to room and sharing tools and collaborating,” recalled Mervis. “He told us, ‘I want the instructional impact of this across the whole district.’ He wanted us to expand the wireless infrastructure down to the elementary schools.”

So in 2007, before the formal end of BLWI, the district ran a request for information that drew three or four responses. “We looked at them on a range of variables: cost, technical solution, the vendor’s solution in these types of anywhere-anytime wireless environments,” said Mervis. But there was another component to the vendor evaluation as well. “Deploying a network in school for 21st century learning is about both infrastructure and pedagogy. The solution provider needed to contribute to our learning and help us bring our lessons learned back into the broader conversation as well.”

Continuing with the Apple track wasn’t in the cards owing to its relatively high up-front price tag. “Apple has been a phenomenal partner to us,” said Mervis. “We could not have grown and extended the work we’ve done without them.” But, he added, “We had to try to be careful about costs…. As much as I make this sound like peace, love, and happiness, cost was really important for us.” That’s where lesser known player Meraki was especially strong. The initial $17,000 bid from Meraki covered hardware, hosted services, and labor costs.

Like almost every other district in the country, North Adams faced such a dire financial crisis, earlier this year the city made the decision to close the middle school that had brought the community so much attention. Sixth and seventh graders are to be moved into one of the three elementary schools in the district, and eighth graders will be shifted to the high school. The move was expected to save the district about $520,000 in operational and busing costs, according to news reports.

But before that happened, in August 2007, working with Meraki reseller InfoBridge, a consulting firm in Maine, the district installed a wireless network first in its high school and then put in a “beachhead” at its three K-5 schools. The Drury High effort included deployment of 47 access points (one of which has since been removed) and 200 10-inch Asus netbooks, as well as 70 teacher and staff laptops. A second effort in October 2008 expanded wireless throughout the elementary schools, remote offices, and supplemental facilities.

Equipment List and Layout
According to network administrator Moty Nevo, the elementary schools have 15 to 20 access points in each elementary school. Each AP can cover two to three classes, each of which can have up to 30 computing devices at a time. One-to-one doesn’t exist yet. The schools have iBook carts for student use and laptops–Apple, Dell, and HP–for all teachers from grades 5 and up. But shortly, the district hopes to tap into federal stimulus funds to replace those iBooks, which have come to end-of-life, with more netbooks.

The district is using Meraki Indoor 802.11b/g mesh 3-in-1 (gateway/repeater/access point) wireless devices. In addition, it’s using several Meraki Outdoor 802.11b/g mesh 3-in-1 devices in areas that require more wireless coverage, such as gymnasiums, cafeterias, and auditoriums.

That initial deployment in the high school ran into problems, Nevo said, involving the bridging between the Meraki network and the district’s wired network. “The devices [Meraki] provides are independent, smart devices, and each can act as its own mesh. Everything is done behind the scene with no intervention from us. The problem was that they’re so smart and so advanced, we couldn’t control certain features to bridge the two networks.” Once InfoBridge sorted this out with the internal IT team, the Meraki network worked better, he added. “We were so happy about it, we decided to extend our wireless connectivity using Meraki throughout the elementary schools.”

Installation was handled by a crew from InfoBridge led by company founder Shaun Meredith. To get as much coverage out of each access point in the elementary schools as possible, the deployment followed a zigzag pattern, Nevo said. “We were able to put devices diagonally from one classroom to another and provide coverage for one to two classrooms. That helped us keep costs down because we didn’t need to buy as many devices to cover the whole building.”

That outside help was invaluable, Mervis added. “We have to definitely tip a hat to InfoBridge and Shaun and his team. He brought a lot of value to the table in terms of the back end and where something has to be drilled, but also to what that’s going to mean for the kid, teacher and administrator. There’s a teaching and learning element grafted on top of the wireless elements to make sure it’s the right access at the right throughput with the right functionality where you need it to support a school that is no longer about a teacher standing in front of a chalkboard talking at kids, but kids and teachers together navigating powerful tools and networks.”

Wireless Network Management
For managing the wireless network, which actually encompasses two networks–one for school users and the other for guests who happen to be on campus–the district subscribes to the Meraki Enterprise Cloud Controller service. This provides access to monitoring, management, and configuration tools.

“Using online access, we can create new networks (public and private), configure security settings, get visual representation of our wireless network, monitor network traffic, and much more,” Nevo said. “You have tools where you can set up alerts, where you can know if one access point is actually offline. If it is, you get an e-mail from Meraki that says, ‘Well, you have an access point that is offline and was offline for several hours.’ You can check it and make sure it’s back online before you get a complaint from the teacher that there’s no connectivity. It’s a big plus. The freedom of going online and going to a Web page and monitoring and controlling and configuring the network on the fly–this is something that can be very expensive. Meraki provides it at no cost. That was really appealing for us.”

Now, while the wired network is used to provide directory services, authentication, security, file sharing, and printing, the transition between wired and wireless is transparent to users. “If you’re on wireless, you can get the same services that you get on wired,” Nevo said.

But that doesn’t yet translate to single sign-on authentication, termed by Mervis as “the holy grail.” Once a user logs on, he or she has access to the resources allotted to that role. “They don’t need an additional log-on to get onto the Internet,” explained Nevo. But other services do require a separate sign-on. So it’s almost single sign-on.”

Mervis and Nevo both have advice for other district technology leaders facing one-to-one initiatives and expansion of networking capabilities. Advised Mervis, address the same questions posed by any new tech initiative in a district: “What are you trying to get done? What’s your goal, your outcome?” As he explained, “We were pretty clear about what the use case would look like. It was important to have some real specificity about where, when, how many kids, and what they would be doing–and then build a network and a wireless infrastructure that’s really matched to that need.”

Added Nevo, “You have to ask, how many people do you need to sustain the infrastructure? How compatible is the wired infrastructure to the wireless?”

As Mervis concluded, “The Berkshire Wireless Learning Initiative was the ignition for us. But Meraki was the solution for us to expand our footprint.”