Doug's 565A e-portfolio

I switched to a new theme for this blog. I had just added my Synthesis page and the old theme didn’t have enough room along the header for all of my pages. And I just didn’t want to delete my “About” page. It’s just as well, because my old header image was just way too dorky anyways.

I think one of the best ways to incorporate mobile technology in the classroom right now is through Polleverywhere. This service offers online polling where the students can participate in several different ways, including:
– sms text messaging
– via the web using their web widget
– via a mobile device by visiting poll4.com

Polleverywhere is clearly growing, as the 3rd option that I mentioned above is a new development. I just tried it for the first time using an iPhone and it worked very well. It was easier to use than the sms.

There are a couple of big advantages of Polleverywhere when compared to some other technologies. First, it can be used with a regular cell phone and sms service. Most students in school have a cell and sms plan, which makes accessibility very good. If a student doesn’t have a cell, there is also the option to use a computer and web widget. The other big reason why I like Polleverywhere is because there is some sound pedagogy behind it: it can be used for formative assessment. Polleverywhere is a type of Automated Response System (ARS) and these are seen as having a positive student engagement response, along with the assessment aspect (Kay & Knaack, 2009).

Kay, R., & Knaack, L. (2009). Exploring the Use of Audience Response Systems in Secondary School Science Classrooms. Journal of Science Education and Technology, 18(5), 382-392.

I’m always interested in ways that technology can be expanded, and one of the big areas for all types of tech is the expansion of mobile computing; therefore, I set out to see what options are available for a mobile Moodle.

A few google searches didn’t reveal a lot. There seemed to be a couple of apps that were aimed at making a mobile moodle solution but it wasn’t clear as to the maturity of these solutions of if they were even being actively developed. I decided to send out an inquiry to the twittersphere, hoping to get some ideas back. I didn’t get many replies, but the ones that did show up pointed me in the direction of mpage.

The Moodle community seemed to be somewhat split on the idea of mpage. Mpage isn’t open source, which rubs some people the wrong way given that Moodle is a part of the open source community. Nevertheless I thought I’d try it out. There were two small hurdles to cross before I could do this though. First, I needed to install some software on the Moodle server. Obviously this can’t be done with the UBC Moodle site, so I turned to my own test site. Secondly, I was going to have to shell out a couple of bucks for the iPhone app. Mpage is an iPhone-only app. Luckily I have an old iPhone that my wife doesn’t use any more, so I get to play around with it. The end result is seen below.

It’s nothing earth shattering, and I haven’t really put it through the ringer because my test Moodle site doesn’t have much stuff on it (I wonder if there is a way to easily transfer data from the UBC Moodle site?). The app seems to work okay though, essentially giving the user a better UI to work with while using the iPhone.

For my digital story I decided to use the web2.0 tool xtranormal. The context for this story is a type of introduction/overview on nuclear energy. It could be used in a Physics 11 class as part of a unit on nuclear energy. Have a look:

This story could be used to feed into a research/critical analysis project on the pros/cons of nuclear power. Alternatively, it could be used as the beginnings for a debate on nuclear power.

I didn’t have any strong reasons for choosing the xtranormal tool over other web2.0 tools available for digital story telling. I’m quite interested in many of them, and I had a few different ideas or directions that I could go with it. I do like how the xtranormal site allows a user to easily incorporate humour through free-flowing dialogue. Some of the other tools that I looked at also appeared to have this same benefit. Pixton and Comiqs in particular looked fun and inviting. As well, they were very easy to use.

My first inclination for producing a digital story was to use one of the slideshow tools. A few of these have fantastic visual appeal, such as Sliderocket. While I can appreciate the slickness of a well-done slideshow, I also see them as being a bit limited in their educational usability. A user will need a strong set of photographs in order to tell a truly good story. Sometimes this is easy. For example, a powerful slideshow could be produced to tell about famine or strife in Darfur. In fact, this would arguably be the best way to tell such a story! Other topics such as nuclear power would be difficult to present with a slideshow.

Depending upon what tools are used in an educational setting, one can expect different results. As hinted at above, using a slideshow tool might be most effective at triggering an emotional response in either the presenter or the viewer. Perhaps the results would also be more contemplative. On the other hand, stories which use more dialogue may be more effective at eliciting reactionary responses or immediate action. This is partially what I would intend for the above nuclear animation.

If I were to consider web2.0 tools for student compositions, I would surely tend towards using tools like the cartoons and animations, along with Prezi and Glogster. The reason for this comes down to accessibility. While all web2.0 tools should be equally accessible in terms of allowed use, a teacher also needs to consider what tools the student can bring to web in order to create a digital work. Tools like Glogster and Prezi allow for a rich, visual presentation to be created from modest sourcing of content – simple text and images, a few photos, perhaps a video. This ensures that all students can use the web2.0 tool and take advantage of their imagination and creativity. I feel that other web2.0 tools such as the slideshow presenters really rely on having very strong photographic imagery in order to be best used.

Another issue that needs acute attention is knowing beforehand how assessment will be performed on a student’s creation. I have read about an instance where a teacher managed to have her students produce a wide and stunning array of Prezis for individual projects. She was proudly displaying the Prezis to a co-worker when all of a sudden the co-worker asked how she was going to assess them. Lacking any kind of rubric, specific goals or standards, the teacher was left with the problem of very subjective assessment.

While a teacher may want their students to be empowered by having them choose their own web2.0 tool to be used in a project, this can lead to the same problem of assessment as mentioned above. Sometimes it may be more suitable for a class to be restricted in options in order to ensure that specific objectives are reached and can be assessed.

This week in ETEC 565 our class did an activity where we were to collaborate on a wiki entry. The topic was geared in using social media for learning and collaborating, with an eye towards identifying key challenges and strategies when dealing with social media.

This was the first time that I have ever participated in using a Wiki, so the whole setting and editing environment was a bit strange. Furthermore, it became clear that the unwritten rules of how a person navigates and collaborates within a Wiki were also very foreign to me. I hadn’t anticipated this at all, it was a bit of a shock. My experience with the wiki showed me that there is no one in charge of a Wiki, or there to tell others what to do. I think this is keeping with the general spirit of Wikis, although I’m not sure.

The dialogue in the Wiki was very different from a discussion forum. Whereas in a forum I feel that I am speaking/writing to a person, in the Wiki I felt that I was speaking to the subject. This is an incredibly huge difference. I have no doubts that content created using a Wiki compared to content created by using a discussion forum would be significantly different depending on which type of media is used. Of course this is not new: it is simply a new manifestation of Marshall McLuhan’s “the medium is the message.”

Looking ahead at what we will be covering in the next few units in ETEC 565, I wonder if we’ll investigate how these different technologies can be expected to produce different types of results. I think many people have already thought about how different learners will be better or worse at using different mediums (akin to Gardner’s Multiple Intelligences), but perhaps we haven’t yet given much thought to how the medium will effect the nature of the output.

Here’s what happens when you choose technology without using a framework while making your decision.

BCeSiS from BC Satire on Vimeo.

I like the idea of using video and DVD’s in education. I remember back when I was about 14 years old and being really excited about the chance to be video-taped during tennis, so that I could help learn what I could improve upon. In terms of modeling, video is amazing I think. On top of this, I’ve recently come across some really, really smart ways of incorporating video in a Physics classroom. If you have any interest in innovative use of video in the classroom, I strongly suggest you check out this link and this link. The first example has a physics math teacher video recording himself going up and down stairs and an escalator, as part of a lesson in relative motion. The second video is one of Kobe Bryant jumping over a pool of snakes, and a physics classroom analyzing the video to see if it is fake.

The first video is a good example of quick’n’dirty video production/authoring, while the second video example is simply using a video off of youtube. If I have the option, I would always go the youtube route. Why? Because creating, editing, and polishing a video is a lot of work.

I didn’t work through the activity on the ETEC565 e-Learning Toolkit pages for DVDs and videos because I’ve done this stuff several times in the past, for both business (engineering and teaching) and pleasure (home movies). Editing video in terms of cutting and trimming is quite simple, and I think almost every software tool can do this reasonably well. It can still be very time consuming though. For example, if I have 60 minutes of video that I want to trim down to 20, it could easily take me over 2 hours to do this. It simply takes a lot of time to search for the exact edit points, trim, review to ensure the context of the video is intact, go to another section to trim, review, trim, review, etc…

There’s a second albatross in the room, in addition to the long(ish) times required for trimming video, and that’s the introduction of HD video into the consumer market. HD video looks fantastic but brings along a couple of new problems:
1. more computer power is needed. Most desktops will have no problem with editing HD video, but less expensive laptops will. It is not uncommon for a laptop to have jittery playback while editing HD video
2. better software is required. Are you still using your old Adobe Premier Elements 4 software? Forgetaboutit for HD video….
3. export formats and codecs are confusing.
4. file sizes are large.

Nothing has frustrated me more than the last two points. In attempting to get a final video that is small enough to upload or put on a flash drive, I’ve encountered many, many hurdles. This was partly due to using older software and I won’t go into all the details. My suggestion now is to keep things simple. Make sure you have a program that will export a standard .avi file. Then use the divx encoder (more $$) to compress the file. The other solution is to use your editing software to produce a dvd (if it supports this). Once you have a dvd, you can then use some different programs to rip it or shrink it.

In terms of editing HD video, I can only recommend Adobe Premier (not elements) or Edius Neo. Other less expensive programs will operate a lot slower, at least that is what happened when I demo’ed other programs. Premier is quite expensive and I think it has some pretty high hardware requirements now. If you’re less concerned about performance and more concerned with price, my two budget solutions are Sony Vegas HD and Magix Movie Edit Pro. It’s worth noting that the less expensive options are all-in-one solutions, in that they can make dvds, menus, etc. The more expensive options quite often need supplementary software for dvds and menus. BTW, I have a windows viewpoint. I think for Mac the other option is Final Cut Pro.

I think one of the most important features in an LMS is to help enable communication. Learning is a social and cultural experience, and many people learn best through interaction with other people. I think it is relatively rare that a student optimally self-learns through books or other static media. This applies more to younger students than older or mature students. With this in mind, I was quite interested to learn about synchronous and asynchronous communication abilities for LMS.

Much of the information in the Synchronous Toolkit is well known to students and educators. Tools like iChat, Skype, MSN are used routinely by people. However, it was interesting to learn about all the different SCT that are available as modules in Moodle. The Toolkit highlighted 6 different tools, of which three are free. As well, Moodle has its own built-in chat module.

I find it a bit difficult to find out the real capabilities of these different tools because it really requires some practice with other people. Perhaps I will be able to convince a classmate to work through some of them together. I’ve used Wimba Classroom a bit, and I can see it being a really useful tool. I’ve also explored DimDim and it looks promising.

One thing that is a bit daunting is the plethora of choices available. When deciding to choose a technology for group discussion/interaction, there are many routes a person can take. So far I have found myself defaulting to “lower tech solutions,” such as a simple chat module (chat in WebCT/Vista). The knowledge in knowing that every user can be set up and using the chat with one click of the mouse is reassuring. However, I believe that with a small investment of time, other tools can be more beneficial over the medium to long term.

I was checking out some math, physics and standards based grading educational blogs when I came across a screencast of a teacher who used DimDim. Check out the screencast here and see how it went. More info from the lesson is found here.

I found the DimDim to be a bit slow paced, but maybe that’s just the nature of the beast when trying to broadcast live video. Dan, the teacher, also lamented that he found formative assessment very difficult. He really had no idea what students were “getting it” and which ones weren’t. He later found out that some students felt very rushed and wished they had more time. These are things the teacher would pick up on instantly in the classroom, if it was face to face.

It’s a framework. It’s technology. It’s a (practical) Framework for Technology and Teaching!