OLPC Keynote from SITE 2008

Sorry that it took so long, but getting back to another crazy week finds me now, on the Friday might before MRA 2008, catching up on SITE.

That said, I have one final set of notes and reflections, and this keynote was a good one. Dr. Antonio Battro, the Chief Education Officer for One Laptop Per Child delivered an excellent keynote address and post-keynote discussion. Highlights from both are here, followed by my reflections.

Also, FYI, I have update my presentation post from a few days ago, and it now includes a podcast of my session.

Here are the notes from the keynote, followed by notes from the post-keynote discussion, and, finally, my reflections:

The Cognitive Challenges of the One Laptop Per Child Program
Antonio Battro, Chief Education Officer One Laptop Per Child

  • OLPC (and per teacher)
    • Sharing knowledge is a dialogue, and this is the essence of OLPC
    • The machines may change, but education must evolve
  • History
    • Nicholas Negroponte
      • 1960’s architecture of the machine
      • In Paris, Battro spent some time with him and in the early 80’s began thinking about deploying machines in remote countries
  • Five OLPC Principles
    • Child ownership
      • This is the key, as the child and the teacher own the computers and they are given to them as a gift
      • It is difficult to understand for many ministers of education, because they want the school to own the computer — not the child or teacher
      • When we go to the highest levels of the governments that we work with, this is the first obstacle that we have to overcome
      • Uruguay is the first country to adopt OLPC for the entire country, and the machine was produced in Shanghai
        • The machines arrived during the last week of classes in November and there was discussion about what to do
          • One group said that we should give the machines to the teachers with a workshop and when classes start again in March, the kids can get them
          • Another group said that this is not the OLPC idea — we should give the machines to the children tomorrow (and this is what happened)
          • 10,000 students received the machine
          • Doing research on children and teachers who get the machine with no formal training (this is the last time that this will happen since all the children will have machines next year)
    • Low ages
      • In many countries, the idea of having digital skills is meant for adolescents and older students
      • For OLPC, kindergarten is too late and we have designed a machine that is for early ages
      • The interface is adapted very well for a child even before they learn how to read and write
      • Uruguay is starting in kindergarten because they have seen so much success with the 5 and 6 year old children
      • This motivation to start early came from Jean Piaget and Seymour Papert
        • In about 1960, Seymour Papert said that all children will eventually have a computer
        • This was a crazy idea, but he was a prophet (he developed Logo)
      • Piaget
        • Constructionism (how the child constructs reality)
          • Learning to learn
          • Children teach — this was a very profound idea, too
            • At five years old, children are very good teachers and OLPC will have millions of teachers around the world
      • Howard Gardner
        • Multiple Intelligences for the 21st Century
          • The human mind has evolved a number of separate organs/information-processing devices
          • Taking human differences seriously lies at the heart of the multiple intelligences perspective
            • We do a different kind of construction for each intelligence
              • Digital intelligence (“the click option”)
                • Everything boils down to a simple question: to click or not to click
              • What happens when a child makes a mental calculation (Hideaki Koizumi, 2006)
                • The frontal lobe is activated by mental arithmetic
                • The frontal lobe is not activated when using a calculator
                  • So, what could it being doing instead?
                  • His dream is to write a book with Hideaki Koizumi about the activation of the human brain when teaching
                  • Knowing that someone else doesn’t know something and then teaching it — this is an amazing human capacity, and children can do this
    • Saturation
      • Every child has a machine and it is like a vaccination
        • Once you have good trials, you have the obligation to vaccinate everyone or else the vaccine will not work
          • This idea was presented by Jonah Salk (correct name?)
        • We prefer to have a whole town or region saturated
          • One example: in a setting with all the ministers of a country where he took at picture
    • Connection
      • Ability to connect with other users
      • The computer is not a tool, it is an environment
    • Free and open source
      • Multiple languages for the machine
      • 100 books for the machine
  • Conclusion
    • Our approach has moved from education for the few and privileged (image of Greek forum) to one computer for all the children (image of a girl with the machine balanced on her head)
    • This is hope, justice, and peace
  • Questions and Answers
    • How might this affect countries that are not democratic?
      • OLPC is non-profit and incorporated in the USA
      • OLPC will go everywhere and try to join the education efforts in the country that we work with
        • Some places need an extra push
        • We are teachers without borders and many of our people are volunteers
      • Peru — putting machines in the most remote areas of the country
    • Bill Gates idea that technology will not solve the problems — we need teachers and electricity. How do you respond to this?
      • Battro discussed his experience as a medical doctor and the eradication of disease (saturation)
      • Also, OLPC is not about machines; instead it is about education (we must have water AND education — education today is about having a computer)
        • If you introduce the computer as a technical, colonial invention, then you are reducing education
        • Education has a value in and of itself, not just as a tool
        • In many difficult places today, there are lots of struggles but the governments are willing to give the computers out

Post-Keynote Discussion

  • Security — some people are worried that the laptops will be stolen and used for illicit purposes
    • Response — the machine isn’t “on the market,” so it doesn’t have a price
    • Also, if it is lost, it can be permanently disabled from afar
    • Finally, the communities that have these laptops know that they are for the children. If adults have them, and they are are not teachers, then it is likely stolen
  • Maintenance — worries about fixing the machines in remote spots
    • Response — easy to open and repair, if it can’t be done at school it can be mailed
    • Eventually, it would be great if people could just take their laptops to any post office and, like other items like keys, they would automatically be sent in for repair and then back to the child
  • Student Use — what is happening for teachers training to support student use?
    • Rapid deployment of laptops and teachers are changing pedagogy quickly, too
    • Teachers are moving from classroom to classroom to see new practices
  • School Architecture — how do the laptops affect this?
    • Changing from desks and rows to tables and chairs in South America

    Printers — why can’t they print easily?

    • Printers are disruptive, ink is expensive, and it encourages old ways of production and transmission of information (worksheets)
  • Support — how can educators help?
    • Need more than just money from big corporations. Family, teachers, and students can use the machines for authentic purposes (USB plug in monitors and probes)
  • Education — there is a consensus that we need to change, but we are working with public funds. Also, many governments see teachers as obstacles, but we see them learning with the students. Teachers are our best collaborators. If all kids have the machine, then they are going to use it all the time. Saturation of laptops is the medical equivalent of vaccination.
  • Concluding comments — this is a project not about laptops, but about students and teachers.

Reflections

The juxtaposition of us, as educators concerned about social justice and equitable access, sitting in the cavernous conference hall of a casino on the strip in Las Vegas did not elude me. Here we were, with our $1000 (or $2000 or $3000 laptops), writing from America’s heart of conspicuous consumption about how “little green machines” are working around the world to empower youth as producers of knowledge, media, and culture. In a town where one is inundated by only a few views of what counts as culture, we had to buy into that part of the illusion to be able to sit in the room with an educator who is, literally, changing the world from a grassroots level.

Dr. Battro, as both an MD and PhD, shared a unique perspective with us on why the laptops have to be in the hands of every child. What public health officials understand about vaccinations are that they are not helpful at all unless everyone gets them. In that sense, it would not serve to only give laptops to some children, or to stop after this initial roll out is complete. This program is designed to be sustainable, a educational inoculation for generations to come.

My question for him was about the imminent release of Windows XP for the laptop. His response: it doesn’t matter to me. In other words, it really is about the literacies enable by the machine, not the particular tools. I will be interested in seeing how that plays out, especially if XP goes open source.

Well, there was a lot of information from that session. Even as I reread it a week later and half a continent away, on the cusp of another conference, I am still intrigued by the core message that this is not a laptop initiative, it is an educational initiative. This can not be underestimated and gives me pause to think about the ways that I continue to frame discussions of technology and literacy, and reminds me that I need to play with my own children as they teach me about their laptops.

Three More SITE Presentations: Pre-Service Teachers and Technology

These are the final three sessions that I will attend at SITE before heading home. I have notes on the keynote and follow-up conversation from this morning that I still need to clean-up and process (as well as a podcast for my presentation from a few days ago). I will get that all done later, as I need to catch a plane. So long, Las Vegas!
Technology Use Among Pre-Service Teachers: Implications for Instructions
Stephen Jenkins, Elizabeth Downs, and Terry Diamanduros, Georgia Southern University

  • Not much information know about pre-service teachers and use of technology
    • Lots of info on teen use from Pew Internet
  • Research Question
    • What is technology use for undergraduate pre-service teachers? for daily use, technology vs. F2F, and for communication
  • Tech Ownership
    • Computer: 96%
    • Cell phone: 99%
    • Landline: 28%
    • iPod/MP3: 60%
  • Daily Use
    • Cell phone talking: about 2 hours
    • Texting: about an hour
    • Academics: about an hour
    • Facebook: about an hour
    • Internet searching: about an hour
    • iPod: 45 minutes
    • Email: 45 minutes
  • Face-to-Face
    • Family: One hour
    • Friends: Fours hours
    • Classmates: About two hours
    • Work: About two hours
  • Audiences:
    • Generally prefer phone
  • Purposes:
    • Phone primarily used for quick and serious conversations
    • Private conversations happen F2F
  • Discussion
    • Course development
      • Even though they are familiar with many technologies, they may not be ready to integrate them into assignments

Evaluating the Implementation of the ISTE NETS and Performance Indicators in Teacher Education
Andrew Hunt and Jennifer Hune, University of Arkansas at Little Rock

  • Research Questions
    • How do faculty perceptions of their intended curriculum compare with student perceptions of their received curriculum on integration of technology into restructured courses?
  • Findings
    • We discovered that students were doing most of the things we were expecting them to do, but may not have realized that they were doing it
    • We as instructors have a different interpretation of what it means to have a computer problem
    • With intentional focus, we are able to make sure that we cover all the technologies and that the pre-service teachers understand that we are doing so

Teachers’ Belief Change in a Pedagogical Laboratory
Yuxin Ma, University of Louisiana at Lafayette

  • Motivation of the Study
    • How do we affect teachers’ beliefs about the use of technology in teaching
    • Our focus: A combination of vicarious learning experiences and hands-on technology integration field experiences
    • Beliefs will change after exposure and field experience using technology; have a defining moment
  • Research Questions
    • Does the pedagogical lab experience affect their beliefs about technology use?
    • What and how does it change their beliefs?
  • Pedagogical Laboratory Experience
    • 4 week experience, mostly in university classroom
    • Watch video case study, experience model lesson
    • Look at a model lesson plan to modify
    • On two consecutive Saturdays, we bring in kids and have two pre-service teachers work with two children for a total of six hours
    • Critical incident technique to focus on an “aha” moment
  • Data Sources
    • Teachers’ Beliefs Regarding Technology Use Survey (TBTUS)
      • Student centered learning
      • Self-efficacy for technology integration
      • Perceived value of computers
    • Teacher perception survey
    • Reflective journals
    • Follow-up interviews
  • Results
    • Does the pedagogical lab use affect teacher candidates’ beliefs regarding technology use?
      • Reinforced non-learner centered belief — why?
    • Why and how does the pedagogical lab experience affect change?
      • Insignificant findings in TBTUS
      • Beliefs did change, but not measured by TBTUS
        • Value of technology in engaging students
        • Challenges in technology integration
        • Issues involved in student-centered learning — teacher wanting to keep control
        • Classroom management
        • Understanding learners
  • Conclusion
    • TBTUS may not be sensitive to the changes in our program (22 hours of experience with only six hours of teaching)
    • The belief changes are different
  • Future Directions
    • Provide longer treatment
    • Develop more sensitive measures
    • Train candidates on how to address various issues in student-centered learning

Three More SITE Presentations: Pre-Service Teachers, Wikis, and Social Networking

Reflective Digital Media in Teacher Education
Timo Portimojarvi, University of Tampere, Finland

  • Developing curriculum of teacher education
    • Cultural view of curriculum and profession
      • Historical, cultural, and political objectives
      • Teachers are social and cultural actors
      • The development of the curriculum is a practice-based research process
    • Three-level curriculum model
      • Personal level – autobiographical and individual process of developing a personal and professional identity
        • Experiential life world
          • Streams of situations, feelings, actions and ideas
          • In Te, experiences in teaching practices, studies, and personal life
        • Rich multimodal documentation
          • Record of situations, experiences, and moods collected easily and quickly without critical selection
          • Basis for reflection on action (or already reflection in action)
        • Personal mobile devices
          • cellular phones for imaging, recording, and making notes (“lifeblog”)
          • Blog-based digital portfolio
      • Group level – social processes of becoming a member of the profession
        • Conceptual and practical life world
          • Practices, requirements, and cultures of the community
        • Combining and considering information
          • Dialog with peers and proportioning individual and shared new conceptions with formal requirements and personal prior knowledge
        • Shared virtual spaces
          • Group blogs and an aggregated entity of the personal blog
          • Wiki-based collaborative document creation
      • Public level – skills and attitiudes in participating in public discourses
        • Discourse of teacher profession
          • Developing curriculum and the working culture of the school
          • Connection to larger networks of colleagues, parents, and other partners
        • Producing, reproducing, and publishing formal information
          • Outlines, plans, and statements for the future
          • Reflection for action, done for preparation of future moments in various contexts, based on re-interpretation of earlier reflections
        • Public forums of participation
          • Open forums, blogs, wikis, and other environments
          • Skills for participating and the use of tools learned in teacher education
  • Reflective learning in teacher profession and education
    • Teacher as reflective practitioner
      • inquiry-based approach to his or her own work
      • critical reflection as a tool for ongoing personal and professional development (revising curriculum, improving their work environmenent, professionalizing teaching, developing policy)
    • Teacher education (reflective action in 3×3 levels)
      • Refection on, in, and for action
      • Reflection about content, process, and permises
  • Enhancing documentation and reflections with digital media
    • Student journals or portfolios
      • Often used in higher education context
      • Can promote reflection in many ways through varying strategies and devices
    • Digital media supporting learning and reflection — new tools for:
      • Recognition and awareness
      • Documentation
      • Sharing
      • Discussion and dialog
      • Presenting
  • Framework for reflective media in teacher education
    • Aspects of the study
      • Type of media
      • Forms of activity
      • Focus of reflection
      • Digital media skills
      • Relation with information
    • Levels of study
      • Individual
      • Group
      • Public
  • Results of implementing this framework will be shared in the future

Technology-rich Teacher Education: Faculty Concerns During Involvement in a Technology-Rich Cohort of Teacher Candidates
Loretta Donovan and Tim Green, Cal State-Fullerton, USA

Can We Model Wiki Use in Technology Courses to Help Teachers Use Wikis in Their Classrooms
Swapna Kumar, Boston University

  • Project Steps
    • Began by looking at wikis — invited them to find three wikis used in education
    • Looked at good and bad wiki designs using Wikispaces or PBWiki
    • Dicussion on the challenges, questions, usefulness
      • Activities that the wiki is useful for
        • Reconsidered projects that they had students do in collaboration previously
          • Brainstorming
      • Instructions for using it
      • Grading of wiki work
      • Boundaries for students
    • Individual use of wikis
      • Teachers developed an activity for an element of their curriculum
        • Teachers say that students are writing better: more explicit in detail and more careful in language
  • Follow-Up Study
    • Gather data from how teachers used wikis in thier classrooms and student reactions

The Mash-Up of Web 2.0 Technologies: The Future of Podcasting and Social Networking
Brad Reamsbottom and Calvin Toth, University of Lethbridge, Canada

  • Podcasting: Subscription-based audio and video available for students
  • Where are students accessing podcasts?
  • Students prefer social networks
    • We went there, and they don’t want us there
  • Why did we forget about other places besides social networks
    • It takes more time to create a blog, podcast, vidcast
    • It needs to be entertaining (not just a lecture on YouTube)
    • News has to entertain and make minds inquire
    • iTunes U requires lots of setup
  • Podcast Problem Solving
    • Create synamic content — students don’t want to hear more lecture
    • Make it available using the tools that they use
      • Viddler
        • Video-based website that allows dynamic commenting and blog integration
        • Acts as an informant and supporting resource
      • JumpCut
        • Online video editing tool; import video, photos, and audio and edit them into a creative and fun presentation
      • TokBox
        • Web-based video conferencing
        • Send video email and make video calls
        • Video emails can be embedded on blogs
        • Blogs can hold extra resources to support the podcast
      • YouTube
    • Let your students make it viral
      • If it is attractive to them, they will repurpose it and repost it in their blogs
  • Remember the Rules
    • Keep it fun and creative
    • Don’t lecture
    • Don’t limit yourself
    • Share it, don’t force it
    • Create inquiring minds
    • Imagery and sound
    • Tag it

Two More SITE Sessions: Digital Storytelling

A Digital Storytelling Implementation Experience with Early Childhood Students
Aslihan Kocaman-Karoglu, Middle East Technical University, Turkey

  • What is digital storytelling?
    • Story telling as an ancient tradition; digital storytelling integrates visual, interactive, and reiterative with constructive ideas
    • “combining the art of telling stories with some mixture of digital graphics, text, recorded audio narration, video…” B. Robin, 2006
  • Purpose of the Study
    • Outlines application of DS in pre-school and effects discovered on students’ learning (age 6)
    • Fall 2007, two pre-school classrooms with 28 students and 2 teachers total
  • Stories in pre-school
    • Great way of communication in classrooms
    • Teacher tells story, students “dial in” on the words
    • May use music and interaction
  • Story for this study
    • Story of the first president of the Turkish Republic
    • Used historical photo graphs, his recorded speech, songs he liked, etc.
  • Procedure
    • Pre-knowledge from students
    • Data gathered through classroom observation, teacher interviews, assessment of students’ drawings
    • Students drew a picture of the story and explained the drawings
  • Results
    • Students had a good understanding of the subject from the digital story
      • Although their drawings were simple, they were able to retell what they saw in the story
      • Only 3 of the 28 students couldn’t explain the main idea from the story
    • Teachers felt that the content was more understandable, were willing to create stories, agreed that it helped get across more content in a limited time, felt that they didn’t have time or technical knowledge

Implementation of Digital Storytelling in the Classroom by Teachers Trained in a Digital Storytelling Workshop
Bulent Dogan and Bernard Robin, University of Houston, USA

  • Educational Uses of Digital Storytelling Site
  • Used to teach content, empower students, teach writing, meet technology standards
  • Little structured research on digital storytelling
  • Purpose of study
    • To document teachers use of digital storytelling right after the workshop
    • If they used DS in the classroom, in what ways were they used? What purposes did teachers have?
    • If they were not used, why not?
  • Results
    • 78% were unaware of DS before the workshop
    • After the workshop, half did not use DS in their classrooms
      • Almost all the teachers said that they would want to use it,
        • For students
          • Video yearbook
          • History project
          • Description of field trips
          • Social and science investigation
        • For teachers
          • As alternative to power point
          • Used to present content
    • Impacts on students
      • Helped students understand presentation skills
      • Increase in motivation and 21st century skills
    • Impacts on teachers
      • Barriers: Time, access to hardware
      • Technical support was not as much a problem
    • Other results
      • Affected teaching style
      • Shared DS with other teachers and family members
      • Easy to use and make
      • “Director’s chair” effect
  • Resources

Notes from Keynote on TPACK

Thinking Creatively: Teachers as Designers of Technology, Pedagogy, and Content (TPACK)
Punya Mishra and Matthew J. Koehler, Michigan State University

  • Three points to the refrain
    • Teaching with technology is a wicked problem
    • Wicked problems need creative solutions
    • Teachers want to create solutions
  • Teaching
    • It is messy: Teaching is always “about something” — the content
    • Yet every discipline is messy, too — the canon, phonics vs whole language
    • PCK from Shulman — content and teaching need to be transformed together
    • Learning to Think by Janet Donald
    • But, where is technology? — Too much for teachers to keep up with rapid change
    • Instead, we argue for developing a thoughtful and playful attitude towards dealing with the new media ecology
    • Take, for instance, the iPhone
      • Lots of software, highly unstable, opaque
    • Yet, information technology changes everything
      • Technology and content — the move from orality to writing (Plato “writing will implant forgetfulness)
      • Victor Hugo — the book will destroy the cathedral because people don’t have to go to a place to get knowledge
      • Technology changes practice and societies
    • Pedagogy and technology
      • Combine Google with open courseware and one laptop per child, and we are looking at a fundamental shift in learning and human culture
      • We teach using Moodle, but we worry about the “I agree” phenomenon where students do not put in their own ideas
      • Moodle prevents you from seeing other postings before you post your own
      • Teaching two sections of the same course — one in Moodle, one in Facebook — studying how this changes the social and educational discourse
    • Context: pedagogy, technology, and content work in a context
      • One laptop per child compared to a computer lab children visit once a week
      • Firewalls
    • To sum up — it is complicated with different contexts and no stopping rule
      • Solutions are not right or wrong, but good or bad that are unique and context dependent (and generate new problems)
      • Teaching with technology is wicked and typical solutions don’t work
  • Creative solutions
    • How do we survive in a context of change?
    • Trindadian guppy — flexible reproductive strategy with fewer babies in good times, lots of babies in bad times
    • In a world characterized by change, the best idea is to have lots of creative ideas for the new media ecology
      • What is creative?
        • I know it when I see it; easy to recognize, hard to define
        • Fantastic social innovation with educational payoff in the future — microcredit loans
        • Getting my son interested in reading by doing the March Madness brackets — he reads the newspaper every morning
    • What is creative
      • It is novel and unique in a useful way
      • It is effective
      • It is whole — complete and elegant
    • When you think about wicked problems, you need to have a “new” (novel, effective, and whole) idea
      • What does creativity have to do with it? A variation on a theme
        • Rubik’s Cube examples; tweaked to “Double Maze” by Scott Kim
      • We live in a new media ecology where standard approaches do not work
    • What are teachers and teacher educators to do?
  • Teachers are designers of the total PACKage
    • We have technology, pedagogy, and content with overlaps
    • It is at the center of these three that we have technological pedagogical content knowledge
    • TPACK (also stands for “total package”)
      • What does it do?
        • Opens new possibilities (such as Moodle and the “I agree” problem)
        • Is it NEW (novel, effective, and whole)
      • 3rd graders understanding maps
        • Mapquest, KidPix, Satellite, Virtual Trips
      • A possibility — sand creatures (the walls between art and engineering exist only in our minds)
      • The walls between technology and content only exist in our mind, if we are willing to play
    • Typically, pedagogy, content, and technology are separate (or, at least, technology is separate)
      • Like learning to play jazz one note as a time
      • Need an integrated, interdisciplinary, creative approach
      • Glenn Gould ‘- Implicit in electronic culture is the idea that multiple layers are a part of the creative process
    • Play a game where you mashup different ideas of content, pedagogy, and technology
  • Outro
    • Where do educators live? In a box, or in the middle of technology, content, and knowledge

Reflections
Punya and Matt continue to push me to think about how I think and talk about technology. Next week, when I return to teach ENG 315, we are talking about multiliteracies in the classroom, and I think that I will use TPACK to frame the discussion. Thinking about pedagogy (the writing workshop model), content (the expectations for K-8 writers), and technology (based on the Michigan content standards for technology). I need to come up with some ideas for scenarios, I think, to really prompt my students’ thinking about technology use. For now, I will keep mulling this over as I prepare yo deliver my presentation on Project WRITE.

Two More SITE Sessions: Digital Photography and Social Networking

A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words: The Use of Digital Photography to Enhance Literacy Development in Young Children
Lauren Cummins, Regina Rees, and Kelly Bacroft, Youngstown State University

  • What do we know about literacy development?
    • Young children are natural storytellers, and they “write” stories through pictures
    • Children use pictures to help them remember about their story and be able to tell their story in more vivid language
    • Students write more when they are motivated
  • What do we know about digital imagery?
    • Images provide a motivating “hook” for students to get into writing
    • Photography lets children speak with pictures
    • Visual “think alouds” can helps students support the writing process
    • Learn content
  • Will the use of digital imagery to write a story increase a child’s amount of words produced and effective use of story elements?
    • Five day workshop, 1.5 hours per day
    • Urban elementary school
    • Thirteen third graders
  • Workshop outline
    • Day 1: Elements of an effective story
    • Day 2: Learning to use the cameras
    • Day 3: Choose images and storyboard
    • Day 4: Creating final story
    • Day 5: Story celebration
  • Results
    • Pre-writing sample from same prompt as compared to post showed increase in many students’ scores
      • For instance, 42 words in original story up to 107 in sample story shared here
      • Lowest increase was at least 67% and an average of 233%
    • Reflections:
      • Children tended to focus on telling about the pictures and needed more experience in storytelling with the pictures
      • Storyboards helped with the story elements
      • Most of the children took pictures of their families and this changed the story prompt for some
  • Implications
    • Children can improve their literacy skills through the use of digital imagery
    • This is especially true for urban children
    • Writing prompts need to be related to children’s read world experiences
    • Students are interested and motivated

Social Networking in PreK-6: What Are Webkinz, Club Penguin, and Other Online Communities All About?
Nancy Yost, Indiana University of Pennsylvania

  • Social networks
    • Profiles
    • Network
    • Photos
    • Videos
    • Personal Journals
    • Connecting with families and friends
  • 8.2 million 3-17 year olds were expected to visit virtual worlds in a month (eMarketer research group)
    • Where are young children going?
    • Why should we be interested? For instance, 10 million Peguin Club members.
    • They give kids a context for using social networking and instant messaging
    • Maybe we need to look at how these sites are used and figure out what’s there and how, perhaps, they can support ISTE standards and classroom connections
  • Content Analysis for Social Networking
    • Access
    • Parental Controal
    • Safety information
    • Ages for which the site is designed
    • Types of interactions allowed
    • ISTE standards addressed
    • Content standards adressed
    • User friendly?
  • Webkinz
    • Purchase a stuffed animal and get access code (then you get a one-year subscription to the website) and get to look at all the merchandise you can get virtually and for your stuffed figure
    • Parental controls to keep informed, page on safety information
    • Club house that has structured chat and they tried to have an open chat, but they closed it
    • Academic/content games in the Webkinz world
  • ISTE Standards
    • 1: Creativity and Innovation
    • 4: Critical Thinking, Problem-Solving, and Decision Making
    • 5: Digital Citizenship
  • What’s next
    • Overview of all sites, with recommendations for educational uses
    • What opportunities might we be missing by not using social networking sites in our classrooms?

Two More SITE Sessions: Teacher Trust in Technology and Podcasting in Spanish Class

Why Do Some Teachers Trust Technology and Some Don’t?
Andrea Francis, Michigan State University

  • Reasons for Exclusion
    • Lack of social and institutional support
    • Lack of funding
    • Lack of adwquate training for the task
  • Psychological Factors
    • Fear of using digital technologies
    • Inability to overcome “functional fixedness”
  • Why do some people trust technology and others don’t?
    • Trust
      • Measuring trust: benevolence, reliable, competent, honest, openness; vulnerability and confidence of the truster
      • We have measures of trust for people, but what about artifacts? Is my cell phone benevolent? Is my computer honest?
      • The protean nature of digital technology
      • Trust and the Intentional Stance (Demmet, 1987)
        • Physical stance — the apple falls because of gravity
        • Design stance — a programmer creates something for a reason
        • Intentional stance — where a human takes on the feeling that the artifacts has intentions
      • Examples
        • Turkle (1984) — story of Robert and merlin
        • Nass and Moon (2000) — computers as social actors hypothesis; following a social script
        • Mishra (2006) — praise and blame (if you praise them for a difficult task, then they have more self-confidence). Students preferred praise irrespective of the difficulty of the task
    • Trust in computers involves one party’s willingness to be vulnerable to another party based on the confidence that a digital technology is reliable and predictable.
  • Survey to capture the construct of “trust” in digital technology
    • Trust in technology in general, computers in particular, and other technologies (cell phone, GPS, etc.)
    • Reliability of particularly technologies and competence in using technologies
    • Create composite scores for trust in technology, computers, devices — look at this in relation to other variables
    • Look at predictive validity to see how teachers who use technology in classrooms may use it better when they become teachers

I Podcast, You Podcast, Together We Podcast: Podcasting as a Learning Tool in Second Language Classrooms
Kim Tohill, Blue Mountain High School, Pennsylvania, PA

  • Over half of the people had heard of podcasting, forty percent had MP3 players, only 10% actually downloaded a podcast before
  • Many teachers didn’t think that podcasting applied to their subject area, didn’t have enough time, were unfamiliar with the technology, or that the school didn’t have the materiasl
  • Language immersion for students since they are only in the Spanish classroom for a few minutes each day
    • Why not use podcasting to get them to get immersed in the language from other news and entertainment sources in the target language?
    • Podcasting as mobile language immersion; also looking at native speakers from other countries who have posted videos to YouTube
    • Students post their podcsts online so they can listen to one another and do it, rather than in front of the class or in front of the teacher
      • Many didn’t take the time to listen to themselves; some did attempt to do it again and again until they got it right
      • Most of them preferred this type of communication rather than speaking to their classmates in a language that is not thier own
      • Creates an “audio portfolio” that captures their voice over time; teacher can return to it as many times as needed
      • Field recordings and virtual tours; situational dialogues amongst more experienced speakers
      • Podcasting Links, including Gabcast and Podomatic

Notes from Three Digital Storytelling Sessions

This week, I am at SITE 2008, preparing for a presentation on Project WRITE tomorrow. Today, I will try to blog from some of the sessions (as wifi will allow). Here are three sessions on digital storytelling that I attended this morning. (I will also cross-post on the Using Technology to Tell Stories Blog):

An Instructional Design Approach for Integrating Digital Storytelling into the Classroom Using iMovie
Patrick Bell, University of Nevada, Reno

  • Project for Catholic Schools in San Francisco
    • Pre- and post-surveys for teacher indicated interests in storytelling
  • The effective digital story:
    • Uses only a few images, a few words, and fewer special effects to powrfully communicate meaning
    • Flows naturally and is limited to 2-3 minutes
    • Is supported with effective teacher training
    • Focuses on the writing and communication proess rather than just digital effects
    • Is solidly grounded in curriculum and expresses relevant content knowledge (Question: what counts as curriculum? Is this only for expository reports of content?)
  • Goals of the project
    • Implement teacher training on effective and efficient methods of integrating digital video editing technology into the classroom
    • Enable students to creat enhancements to traditional written/oral assignments using digital storytelling
  • Pedagogical concerns
    • Time contra inst on tech access
    • Availability of digital media equipment
    • Copyright issues
      • Technology, Education, and Harmonization Act (Note: See NCSU Library site on the TEACH act for more info)
        • No more than 5 images by a single artist of 10% of a collection of images may be used from an internet or copyrighted source, if attributed
  • Design, Development, and Implementation
    • Curriculum Overview
      • In proceedings paper
    • Teachers
      • 2 hour workshop using a whole group setting with guided practice and interactive group work
      • Printed materials with step-by-step guides
      • Learned on how to import, sequence, an editing music and images
      • Techniques on internet searchers, writing scripts, and storyboarding
      • Saving and rendering digital movies into condensed Quick Time format for presentation and evaluation
    • Student Project
      • Conducting valid research using the internet, books, and materials provided by the teachers (historical perspective on the Holocaust)
      • Writing a script and creating a storyboard of images and text
      • Went through same process of creating movies as teachers did
      • Learning how to cite sources and give proper attribution to collected images and music
      • Movies were presented in a whole group setting for peer review and teacher evaluation on content, flow, and impact of story
    • Evaluating the project
      • Images
        • Limit the amount of images that students collect to 10-15 images
        • Google search for large or extra large images only
        • Choice of images that can be scaled to correct size and aspect ration
        • Images should appear for at least 10 seconds
        • text should appear long enough to be read by audience
        • Images should appear alone long enough to convey impact and meaning
      • Narrative
        • Text narrative is often more efficient than audio narratives
        • Background noise can distract from the quality of the story
        • Use of audio equipment can take more time than can be practical
      • Effects
        • Simple fades and dissolves
        • Basic effect applications for motion
        • Use b/w or sepia tones for image color consistency
      • Music
        • Create own music
        • Get copyright free music
  • Conclusion
    • Effective stories captivate attention, use minimal special effects, and translate relevant content knowledge
    • They are a part of the curriculum and supported by effective teacher training
    • Enhance traditional forms of assessments

Reflections:
As I listened to this presentation, I was struck by the stark utilitarian vision of digital storytelling. In short, this seemed to be an enhanced version of writing the report that students have always been asked to do. By searching for images and creating, essentially, captions for them, then combining them into a very short movie, there is not much of the student represented here. When I think about digital storytelling, I think of the personal narrative or, at least, a much more personal take on an expository topic. This type of digital story would be easy to assess (10-15 images, appropriate captions with facts), which is not necessarily a good thing. The writing process is messy, and this is a sanitized version of digital storytelling.

“I would like to share my final with the class!” – Digital Storytelling for Education Major Students
Amy Eguchi, Bloomfield College (NJ)

  • Bloomfield College
    • Independent four-year institute of 2000 students, in NJ and near NYC
  • Introduction to Education
    • Gateway course for education majors, geared towards technology and is a hybrid course
    • Classroom management, multiple intelligences, lessong planning, inclusion, etc.
    • Self-reflection and life-long learning
  • Why digital storytelling?
    • Introduce new educational technology that students can use in their classroom
    • Introduce alternate way of self-expression
    • Create a wonderful addition to their ePortfolio
    • Make learning “fun”
  • Final assignment
    • “Your Own Journey of Learning” — create a movie that shows your learning this semester about issues in education
  • Research Questions
    • Will student choose digital storytelling as an option to express learning?
    • Whill it help them express themsleves fully?
    • Will it help them reflect on themselves more effectively?
    • Will the introdcution of DS not be helpul to our student, perhaps confusing them or making them feel less capable of themselves (not in the millennial generation, other side of the digital divide)?
  • Results
    • About half of the students choose to create digital stories and wanted to share them within and outside the class

Reflections:
This use of digital storytelling, too, was very functional, but did also show how teacher education students could compose their own stories (in particular, about learning how to teach). It was a different approach than the previous session, in that it discussed how students go through their own writing process to develop their own stories rather than reporting on other ideas. I am a bit concerned about the idea that this was done to be an “addition” to a portfolio or for “fun,” but I understand how that approach appeals to pre-service teachers. All in all, this idea could be a useful twist on the digital storytelling that I am asking students to do this year.

National Writing Project Teacher Consultants Explore Digital Storytelling
Paige Baggett, University of South Alabama

Reflections:
This was an intimate discussion with eight people, including Paige and Helen who have extensive experiences using digital storytelling. We wandered into discussions of the composing process, copyright, personal voice in narrative, uses of different digital storytelling tools, and other related ideas. Another link I forgot about: Educause’s 7 Things That You Should Know About Digital Storytelling.


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