Visit to VCS: FOSS and Green in Vassalboro

NOTES:

Vassalboro Community School visit with 2007's Educator of the Year Mr. David Trask 01/22/08. Read about him at ACTEM.



School Platforms: Windows, Linux, Apple

Free and Open Source Software (FOSS):



Ubuntu
Moodle
Thin clients
OpenOffice
Reading A-Z

Thin clients: Should we do this? We could do this and save money – lots of money! But not at the expense of everything. My best guess would be that Linux will not support all the software we have like finance software, etc… We could use it to replace most computers in the school but we are more than just a school. Downside: less money but more manpower hours initially.

FOSS to him means infrastructure support more than web apps. So I didn't get to see teachers using technology. His role of a technology integrator was minimal. Instead he was the tech teacher and the tech coordinator.

The school has moved from recycling to green. Got rid of CRT monitors and replaced them with flat screens. Got rid of CPU towers and replaced them with thin clients. I like this visionary thinking. – the move to green and free and open source!! And best of all it's a money saver.

In summer, Gould Academy trains for thin client knowledge. Interested?

When asked about their SIS – they use web2School and will move to Infinite Campus that the state will be offering - he was hesitant since deployment of SIS's is an immense project.

Use Moodle for budget considerations. More teachers submit budgets using moodle than actually teach with it. I found that to be a use I never considered.

An established relationship with the principal who entrusts him to go for it - this has been the root of his success.

Wrote a grant for Smartboard just like we are in the process of doing. With all the tech expertise at VCS I thought they would have one by now.

30 Emacs from Colby donations. They are part of MLTI as well.

Nokia Tablet and HP’s version of the XO. Shared these neat tech toys with me.

Considering dropping MSOffice licenses at 60 – 80 dollars a whack . Wow! What a savings.

Pidgin, ITALC, ICOP…..How to manage computers from a central mainframe.

Teacher requirements

Just a thought.......

How many of you work in a school or district that has clearly and explicitly
outlined technology usage expectations for teachers and/or administrators in its
job descriptions? Should a school organization do this? If so, how might such
expectations be worded? Dug this up from http://www.dangerouslyirrelevant.org/

Can anyone else think of an employment sector other than K-12 and
postsecondary education where employees have the right to refuse to use
technology?
For example, a grocery store checker doesn't get to say 'No
thanks, I don't think I'll use a register.' A stockbroker doesn't get to say,
'No thanks, I don't think I'll use a computer.' An architect doesn't get to say,
'No thanks, I don't think I'll use AutoCAD.' Dug up from http://www.dangerouslyirrelevant.org/2008/01/right-of-refusa.html

Some excuses not to use technology?

“I don’t see the point”! “What I’m doing already is working fine thanks”!
“I don’t need it”! “Takes too long. I lose 10 minutes of my lesson whenever I
try to use that stuff”! “I’m not comfortable, teaching that way”! Prove to me
that it works first, then I’ll consider it”!
Notice that all these well-worn
come-backs are about themselves. It’s their classroom and they’ll do it their
way, thanks. Well I’m sorry, it’s not about them is it? It is about the kids who
need to be exposed to the 21st century tool sets that they will be working with
once they get “released” into the real world. From http://ghugs.edublogs.org/2008/01/07/dear-dan/

Why not consider a technology integrator?

Cratfting a unit is influenced by taking stalk of many different things, especially the students you teach. Student abilities influence how you drive them to what they need to know and be able to do. Not an easy task. How you decide to use computers can be just as difficult unless you didn't consider technology as something as an afterthought - which would be a paradigm shift for many. Will you use computers to showcase student work, use computers to assist and enhance learning, permit computers to drive the learning, or use computers to deliver the knowledge? Perhaps you believe you can deliver/impart knowledge (which isn't the same as teaching) better than any computer or computer software or website. Perhaps you believe a book, some paper, and a pencil is all you need to ensure student learning. With all the considerations teachers have to make before teaching a unit of study like the struggle with time constraints, mandated learning standards, modifying and adjusting lessons for all learners, differentiating, teaching literacy skills and note-taking, etc. perhaps integrating computers is a cumbersome add-on . The bottom line is achieving student learning and approaching it through many means. Why would you not consider a technology integrator? - or at least another person!

Do computers hinder learning?

If pedagogy does not serve technology, then technology hinders learning!

Not if these eight essential— and enduring—learning functions guide project planning.
1. Ubiquity
Although ubiquity is not a learning function per se, it is an overarching and desirable quality of tools that support project-based learning. Anytime- anywhere access to information, Web-based productivity tools, and multiple communications options are especially suited to project-based learning.
Examples: portable computing devices, mobile phones, wireless Internet, Web-based mail and instant messaging, portable productivity with Web 2.0 applications
2. Deep Learning
Go beyond “filtered” information where meaning is made by others and help students find and make sense of “raw” information on the Web. Higher-order thinking is engaged when students have to analyze primary sources and digitized artifacts. They take learning deeper when they are asked to navigate, sort, organize, analyze, and make graphical representations in order to learn and express learning. Learners can interpret and make visual displays of the data they mine or collect with Web-based tools such as spreadsheets, relational data-bases, and chart and graph creators.
Examples: digitized versions of primary sources such as the American Memories Project (http://memory.loc.gov/ammem), or rich databases of real-time data, such as Worldometers (http://www.worldometers.info), with tickers continually updating data about world population, carbon emissions, hunger, and more
3. Making Things Visible and Discussable
A picture is worth a thousand words, and making thoughts and ideas visible and sharable is the first step in getting the conversation going. Digital tools help students conceptualize with mind maps; see things that are too big or too small or too fast or too slow for the naked eye; examine history through digital artifacts; express ideas through photography and multimedia; and conceptualize with graphical representations, modeling, animation and digital art.
Examples: Google Earth and other Web-based mapping sites, Web cams, photo-sharing sites, visual manipulatives, and modeling software
4. Expressing Ourselves, Sharing Ideas,Building Community
As the World Wide Web evolves from an information medium into a social medium, opportunities for expression continue to grow. Students using MySpace and instant messaging are accustomed to these forms of personal interaction. Imagine thparallels in school and ways students can use the Web to express their ideas and build society around shared interests.
Examples: class Web sites, blogs, wikis, and virtual worlds such as Second Life; tagging Web content and sharing tags with others
5. Collaboration
Tools abound that help us learn and teach together. Use exchange services to find experts or fellow learners. Use shared Web applications to plan and write together. Plan virtual experiences that allow learners to “meet” across distances. Use survey tools to take the pulse of the community.
Examples: wikis, Google Docs & Spreadsheets, podcasts and webinars, voice-over Internet protocol services (e.g., Skype), survey tools
6. Research
Internet research puts information literacy to the test. Quality directories, search engines with filtering, a variety of bookmark tagging tools, and citation engines help students make sense of and organize what they need from the ever-expanding Web.
Examples: ASK for Kids (http://www.askforkids.com), social bookmarking (e.g., Del.icio.us, http://www.del.icio.us.com), Citation Machine (http://citationmachine.net)
7. Project Management
Projects require students to manage time, work, sources, feedback from others, drafts, and products. A simple folder on the district server or a workspace in the school’s learning management system may suffice, but consider Web-based homepages or desktops that give students a space to work and associated tools (calendars, to-do lists) to help them plan and organize. They can get to their homepage from anywhere at any time.
Examples: Netvibes (http://www.netvibes.com), Protopage (http://www.protopage.com), Google IG (http://www.google.com/ig)
8. Reflection and Iteration
Deep learning happens when you examine your ideas from all sides and from other points of view. Reconsidering and reshaping ideas to bring them to high polish is the difference between yeoman and masterful work. Tools that support reflection and iterative development give learners the opportunity to shape and revise their work, and expose it to the critical feedback of others.
Examples: blogs (http://www.blogger.com, http://www.livejournal.com, many other free blog services) and wikis (http://www.wikispaces.com)
This is an excerpt from Suzie Boss and Jane Krauss in their upcom-ing book Reinventing Project-Based Learning: Your Field Guide to Real-World Projects in the Digital Age, to be published by ISTE in November 2007. Source: http://sbetts.edublogs.org/2007/11/01/essential-learning-functions/

Do computers hinder learning?

Not if these five basic principles are adhered to: From learningnow:
Our schools must be inquiry-driven, thoughtful and empowering for all members.
Our schools must be about co-creating — together with our students — the 21st Century Citizen
Technology must serve pedagogy, not the other way around.
Technology must enable students to research, create, communicate and collaborate
Learning can — and must — be networked.

From warlick:

Our efforts should not be to integrate technology into the classroom, but to define and facilitate a new platform on which the classroom operates. When the platform is confined by classroom walls, and learning experiences spring from static textbooks and labored-over white boards, and the learning is highly prescribed, then pedagogy is required.
However, if the platform is a node on the global network; with text, audio, and video links to other uncountable nodes on the network; and the connections are real time and clickable, and tools are available to work and employ the content that flows through those connections; then the learning happens because learners have experienced personal connections — and they want to maintain those connections by feeding back their own value.

Four ways to teach with computers

Many teachers will not hesitate to post good student work on a bulletin board in the classroom or the hallway but many are reluctant to post to the world. If the work has value beyond the classroom, then inform the world because you never know who it might impact. A student is more empowered knowing they are an agent of (social) change.

Tech success depends on a well constructed unit with assessments that validate criteria and learning objectives.

Kids are not tech savvy when it comes to teaching themselves to master learning content. The other day my wife’s niece helped program her phone (in seconds) with fancy ringtones , background images, clever txt msging maneuvers. Great! This is her world. Out of curiosity – and not to defame her – I asked my wife’s niece about her computer experience at school. Specifically, I asked her if she could show me on my computer tools she uses to assist her writing a paper. Her demonstration conveyed copy and paste; formatting tools like bold and italics- and fancy fonts; colors and inserted images completed her showcasing. Besides the bells and whistles, I asked what tools she used to help her write better papers. She did not understand the question. How do you use technology to assist the writing process? She told me there wasn’t any on the computer but that she would make change based on her teacher’s feedback and when the paper was readable she would type it adding colors and pictures. There was no doubt she was being taught to write, albeit passively; but she was not being taught to write using a computer.

There are four ways to teach with a computer: as a tool to showcase work; as an assistive learning tool; as an interactive tool; and as a tool to teach the learning. One of these isn’t the best way to teach with computers but too much emphasis on one approach is to neglect effective teaching and learning. Teachers tend to emphasize using the computer as a showcase piece allowing students to jazz up work. Using computers to teach the learning requires extensive knowledge of the software many teachers fail to take the time to do.

F.O.S.T.E.R.

Free Open Source Technology Education reconsidered or redux or revolution?

What would you choose?

Well, we could choose "Revolution" since we are in the midst of the FOSS revolution and the changes it has brought for some educators. Using the FOSTER acronym sounds nuturing. We could choose "Reconsidered" since we are unsure of the long-term results of OSS. Finally, we could choose "Redux" since OSS has not brought innovating apps to education when compared to proprietory software - yet - so most of OSS is the same stuff wrapped differently.

Measuring learning: What, how to measure?

"A growing body of research highlights the classroom teacher as one of the most
important predictors of student success."http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2008/01/10/18guidera_web.h27.html

How do you measure a student's learning with technology? Is it possible? Is it enough that computers may be the means to entice one to use it and do school work? I have mentioned before that students can use computers but not in ways to promote learning as it relates to the educational institution. Is it that schools are an anachronism? If on an average week a student posts 1,000 words of text to his social network, texts msg.'s 200 words, read 10 posts of 100 words from peers/staff via email or IM; reads many pages of cheat notes for his gameboy and figures out how to win but refuses to write a 750 word essay on Poe's "The Raven". Wouldn't it be logical to provide options for the student to showcase the learning that reflects the student's interest. Nothing new here. But suppose the student dialogued about The Raven with a few friends on a social network or even an expert on Poe at a university or how about a ghost interview where the student researches Poe and The Raven and creates a podcast with the "author". Is it the means to the learning that matters or is it the learning internalized and inculcated that matters. Or said a better way is the learning relfected from the teachers learning objectives that help measure mastery of learning standards? Perhaps learning standards do not stifle a curriculum since they better help focus the learning objectives that matter for learning mastery (if that's possible); however, at least standards as a guide help teachers develop excellent units of study and permit more time for offering myriad opportunites for computers ,but I still ask have learning standards inhibited technology use ?- I mean the learning standards to a large degree do not reflect the 21st century worker. Mastery of the learning standards could be met with a textbook, pencil, and a calculator.


How does a teacher decide how to use technology? Will the teacher use technology for showcasing work or will the teacher use technology to assist the learning? Or will the teacher use computers to 'teach' the learning? When deciding to use technology, these need to be considered. Always know what the learning is before using technology and then how technology can help meet the learning.

"High-quality teaching occurs when teachers come to the classroom with a toolkit
of knowledge and skills that they employ based on a set of effective practices
and that lead, over time, to student learning. Teachers work as part of a
professional community within a workplace that supports continuous learning for
both children and adults."http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2008/01/10/18gaston_web.h27.html

Is it fair to blame technology if a student fails to meet learning standards while under the influence of using technology? Learning is assessed by using good criteria and assessments that validate the learning.

OLPC, Five Minds for the Future, NETS, and Axioms

Embrace winter - go to : http://snowflakes.lookandfeel.com/

One Laptop Per Child: If you haven't heard MIT and negaroponte created a laptop for all kids all over the world - and the cost would have been 100.00! Although it didn't work out that way - it's now 499.00 for two - you get one and one is sent to a child in a third world. Our own sped teacher, harold, got as good a deal as anybody: he got his FREE. Coupled with all the free Web 2.0 tools he's using and a free laptop I'd say Harold is having a good year. For the latest on OLPC go to http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Home

Have you seen this book?

Five minds for the future by Howard Gardner

“We live in a time of vast changes that include acceleration globalization, mounting quantities of information, the growing hegemony of science and technology, and the class of civilizations. Those changes call for new ways of learning and thinking in school, business, and the professions. In Five Minds for the Future, noted psychologists Howard Gardner defines the cognitive abilities that will command a premium in the years ahead:• the disciplinary mind - mastery of the major schools of thought (including science, mathematics, and history) and of at least one professional craft• the synthesizing mind - ability to integrate ideas from different disciplines or spheres into a coherent whole and to communicate that integration to others• the creating mind - capacity to uncover and clarify new problems, questions, and phenomena• the respectful mind - awareness of the appreciation for differences among human beings• the ethical mind - fulfillment of one’s responsibilities as a worker and a citizen (From http://ecram3.blogspot.com/)

What do you think about the following axioms for school 2.0? Read the axioms for school 2.0 and then compare them to National Education Technology Standards ...and then compare the standards to Gardner's Five Minds For the Future. Reading these may help you decide how you can evolve your teaching practices.

The Axioms for School 2.0: Guiding Principles:

1)Our schools must be inquiry-driven, thoughtful and empowering for all members.

2) Our schools must be about co-creating -- together with our students -- the 21st Century Citizen

3) Technology must serve pedagogy, not the other way around.

4) Technology must enable students to research, create, communicate and collaborate

5) Learning can -- and must -- be networked.

The above is From http://educon20.wikispaces.com/