doug's dirt

Thank you Steve Jobs

2011-09-17T13:56:00.000-07:00

Upon hearing the news that Steve Jobs had stepped down as Apple CEO, my heart sank. I like many other people were wishing him the best for his health and that he would be able to continue to run the wonderful company he co-founded with Steve Wozniak.

As a young teacher, Steve Jobs had entered my world championing the The Kids Can't Wait (KCW) program in 1983. The KCW program became a California legislative bill Steve crafted as a corporate donation to provide computers to California public schools. Apple donated 9,250 Apple II computers to California schools. My school, Revere Development Center (for students with severe disabilities) in San Diego, received one of these golden gifts. This event changed my life and charted possibilities I hadn’t even thought of when that first Apple II arrived before my eyes. As my memory serves, we had quite a time deciding how seventeen teachers where going to share this one computer with all our students. Steve’s genius was that students or teachers who had never even seen or used a personal computer would now get that opportunity.

This new computer become part of my imagination and during the 1984 school year I was determined to have an Apple computer in my classroom. As the powers would dictate at that time, I could not convince my school district to fund an Apple IIe for my special education class. So with my own money, I purchased an Apple IIe with a green screen, Duo-Disk floppy drives and 128k of RAM. I had actually wanted to buy the new sexy Macintosh, but Mac software hadn't been specifically designed yet for students with physical disabilities, so I opted for the more adaptable Apple IIe with DOS 3.3 and was enchanted. I literally carted that thing in my car to school and back home many times.

It was during these early years in the 1980’s that many of my teacher friends and I became ‘digital’ in an aging analog school system. The two Steve’s not only made this possible but continually demonstrated their passion to support twenty-first century teaching and learning well before the twenty-first century had actually arrived. (See - Apple Classrooms for Tomorrow ACOT.) Steve Jobs was not just ahead of the curve, his vision inspired many teachers like myself to create our own vision, one that integrated technology into the K-12 curriculum as a process to understanding.

On a personal level, Steve Jobs was born one month before me in 1955 and I just like the fact that he is part of my birth class. For me, he is like a good friend who lent me his tools and with his tools I built; I created a variety of digital content. Steve has that emotional effect with a great many people- the ability to affect how we use technology.

So my friend, I wish you the best and thank you for your passion and everlasting spirit.

The 20th Century Classroom vs 21st Century Interactive Classroom

2010-07-03T18:05:00.000-07:00

We are ten years into the 21st century, yet most of our classrooms in the United States reflect the 20th century classroom listed below. Compare your school and/or individual classroom with this chart and see where your students live for typically more than 6 hours a day for 5 days a week.

20th Century Classroom

Teaching and Learning Model

Direct instruction with some small group work and projects

Test-driven system built on consumption of knowledge and skills

Classroom - Physical Space Design

Most classrooms are a rectangular shape
Lighting is typically controlled by two switches turning on/off half of the room at a time
Student desk and chair for every student, all made by same manufacturer
Student is assigned a desk that has a metal storage space compartment typically built-in below the desk
Furniture is heavy and typically arranged to stay in place for most of the school year
Most furniture have flat metal glides on the bottom legs to keep furniture in a fixed position in class
Furniture is arranged in rows or small groupings
One or more walls have built-in cabinets for life of classroom. Floor space is determined by these built-ins.
Room may or may not have carpet, with typically only elementary students sitting on an area carpet
One or more whiteboards located around the room for student viewing, these whiteboards sometimes serve as the screen for video projector
Overhead projector or document camera on AV cart or table located in front middle of classroom
Pull-down screen with possible video projector on a table
Ink jet printer with 400 page ink jet cartridge
Teacher uses a louder voice to project his or herself to students
1-5 desktop computers assigned to room in a fixed location
Teacher may have laptop to take home - Teacher may have a web site that students can access from home
Teacher has a heavy fixed desk

Current School Construction

Most classrooms are a rectangular shape with one defined teaching wall, this often makes it difficult to change the teaching wall from the long wall to the short wall
Wireless access in some classrooms
One shade tree or other type of green landscaping may be visible from classroom windows

Sunny climates - Many rooms have poor insulation and are cold in the winter and hot in the spring and summer without air conditioning
Windy climates - no wind power

21st Century Interactive Classroom

Teaching and Learning Model

Project-based learning with some direct instruction
Production-driven system built on content creation of knowledge and skills

Classroom - Physical Space Design

Classrooms are a square shape
Lighting is controlled with 4-6 switches or zones with the ability for dimming especially wall-mounted video displays
A variety of desks, chairs and soft furniture made by 2 or more manufacturers
Student moves to different furniture, uses a personal portable plastic tray from a mobile student storage unit
Furniture is modular/mobile and is arranged to meet the instructional needs of the classroom on a hourly basis.
Most furniture have locking carpet casters for mobility in daily arrangements for collaborative learning
Furniture is arranged in a more eclectic manner, something like Starbucks
No built-in cabinets. Three walls are available, classroom has mobile storage and more floor space
Room is wall to wall carpet, K-12 students can sit or lay on the carpet with a variety of pillows, mats, seating
Two or more Interactive Whiteboards connected together for class or small-groups, traditional whiteboards are still located around the room
Document camera that is a also still and video/web camera connected to teacher laptop on a mobile presentation station
Short-throw wall video projector with built-in interactive whiteboard system
Network Laser jet printer with 10,000 page toner cartridge
Teachers/students use classroom audio system with wireless microphones
Laptop assigned to each student, no fixed location in room
Teacher and students have a laptop to take home - use a class/course online Learning Management System
Teacher has a mobile presentation station

New Green Construction School

Classrooms are a square shape with potentially three defined teaching walls or digital presentation areas utilizing short-throw video projection systems
Wireless access covers entire school
One shade tree or type of green landscaping is visible from classroom windows
Sunny climates - all rooms well insulated including windows, roof solar panel system installed for generating power for air conditioning and other energy needs
Windy Climates - Cylinder wind turbines on school roofs to generate wind power

Common File Format for Interactive Whiteboards

2010-05-08T18:05:00.000-07:00

We here in the United States need to follow the smart people in the U.K and require the use of the Common File Format (CCF) for all interactive whiteboards. The British Educational Communications and Technology Agency (BECTA) did just that recently as all IWB vendors have agreed to make IWB content saved in a common .iwb format.

For the complete story, go to eSchool News - http://www.eschoolnews.com/2010/04/02/new-standard-makes-whiteboard-content-more-accessible/

Team Tortoise

2010-04-02T09:27:00.000-07:00

Check out my new website www.teamtortoise.org. We will be using the logos for a growing group of family and friends who will be running in this year's AFC Half Marathon in San Diego this August.

of fishing and learning

2010-01-03T10:41:00.000-08:00

Thinking about project learning this morning reminded me of the Chinese proverb - "Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime."

I got to playing with the words and here is an adaptation of the proverb as it relates to learning for the short-term test versus learning for long-term understanding.

Give your students an answer and they will remember it for a day. Teach your students through a project and they will know for a lifetime.

Best of 2009 List for the 21st Century Classroom

2009-12-20T19:58:00.000-08:00

Netbooks
As a computer category that skyrocketed in 2009 and changed computing in the classroom for years to come. Thank you Nicholas Negroponte.
Hon SmartLink Student Desk
The modular triangular shape of things to come for the 21st century classroom. Say goodbye to the legacy two-student desk in elementary and middle school and the small right handed single desk in high school.
Samsung 860 Document Camera
Samsung continues to provide the best optics and priced doc cam for the classroom and now add 30 frames per second video with audio in this new sleek design.
Wall Mounted Short-Throw Video Projectors
As a category these video projectors are in their first generation and saves money per classroom versus ceiling mounted projectors. This technology provides new options for small group/collaborative learning as we will see the potential for multiple projection systems in a classroom in a few years.
HP TouchSmart PC's
20"-23" Flat panel monitors are great for small group/collaborative learning connected to a netbook, but having a touch screen flat panel computer is even better! A big cheer to Hp for developing the TouchSmart 300 and 600, perfect for K-12 classrooms in Micro Learning Spaces.
Ubuntu Linux Operating System
Someday American K-12 schools will wake up and save millions of dollars a year by going with Linux. Ubuntu 9 is fast, clean and free but still gets passed over in favor of expensive fat-bloated operating systems. Students love Ubuntu, can't we hasten their arrival as the decision-makers of the 21st century?
Picnik web-based photo editing
Could photo editing be any simplier and free, not to mention so fun for teachers and students alike!
fatboy Bean Bag Chairs
Sit a student in a fatboy bean bag chair with a portable lap desk and netbook and the drop-out rate will go down. If Starbucks can sell comfort, so can middle and high school. fatboy makes the best bean bag chairs that are durable and easy to clean and perfect for classrooms.
Edutopia - The George Lucas Educational Foundation
An outstanding organization year after year as one of the leading advocates for change in public education and a vanguard for 21st century teaching and learning.
REDMIKE infrared microphone from LightSpeed Technologies
Lightspeed understands that teachers need a small and lightweight microphone for classroom audio if they are to wear it around their neck all day long. It boggles the mind why other classroom audio systems can't grasp this simple concept. The REDMIKE IR microphone is almost as small and lightweight as an USB flashdrive and I'm sure Lightspeed will be the first to match this feat.
Promethean Adjustable ActivBoard+2 Interactive Whiteboard
Promethean created a wonderful universal design for learning device by enhancing their vertically adjustable Interactive Whiteboards to have a motorized and accessible up/down controller for teachers and students. Now, Interactive Whiteboards can be adjusted for Kindergarten students height as well as individuals in wheelchairs just to name a couple of examples.
School Loop Content Management System
This awesome tool is free for any K-12 school system to have a district, school and teacher website all connected to each other. School Loop simply grows as your school or District grows. For example, build a solid web presence and then pay for Student Information System (SIS) integration as your needs demand a more powerful web management tool.

An Academic Cloud of Computing

2009-05-02T12:41:00.000-07:00

From my K-12 educational lens, I'll simply call cloud computing the maturation of Internet computing to networked computing. Networked computers come in the form of many different Internet mobile devices that can access web applications. Google Apps, Wikispaces and Yola are just a few examples of web applications that reside in the cloud rather than software on an individual computer hard drive. The cloud also enables computer processing power to be shared throughout the cloud allowing the users to experience normal network traffic speeds as opposed to many people hitting singular servers and causing a traffic jam with a specific application.

Wikipedia defines cloud computing as a "style of computing in which dynamically scalable and often virtualized resources are provided as a service over the Internet."

Wow! Let's break that down for what cloud computing could look like in a K-12 school district.

The personal computer (by way of the Internet and browser ) is evolving into a networked computer.
Singular hardware, software and servers are giving way to a collective virtual cloud of resources that are seen as services on the Internet.
These services are scalable, in that they are controlled centrally by an IT infrastructure and can grow and progress at a manageable rate across a school district.
Visualized resources can be educational services on the Internet that may include, but are not limited to a:

Virtual Web Desktop - An Internet portal that functions like a personal computer desktop;
Content Management System (CMS) in the form of a District web site drilling down to a school website>teacher website;
Learning Management System (LMS) controlled by a teacher for his/her class or course including resources and applications such as class: calendar, assignments, polls, quizzes, blogs and wikis;
Student Digital Locker Storage - usually part of a CMS/LMS providing students a determined size of digital storage for all their school related documents and files; and,
Software as a Service (SaaS) - or simply web apps, delivered and often shared with individual or groups of students and teachers.

By the very nature of this virtualness, the Internet itself has become the full-featured district standard computer we paid for upfront often with extended warranty. Networked computing optimizes communication and collaboration between teachers and students as a district-wide enterprise solution and saves a school district lots of money. As for the student laptop itself, it's evolving past a brand name and OS, it's becoming a personal learning device (PLD).

From Laptops to Student Personal Learning Devices
So, if the Internet itself can be our hard drive with an operating system and software applications, why do we in education continue to purchase expensive stand alone Macintosh or Windows multimedia laptop computers? If you don't mind the car to funding practices metaphor, it appears that many educators will gladly continue to let a student drive a BMW on a bumping road than drive a Toyota Corolla on a smooth highway.

As an educational technologist, I recommend that we stop paying for awesome sexy laptops over $1000 and start buying functional student laptops under $500. In my school district at San Diego Unified, we have around 100,000 3rd-12th graders. A $500 laptop times 100,000 students is a $50 million dollar expenditure . Now in these hard economic times, people think I'm smoking crack when I talk about a one-to-one deployment initiative involving that kind of money. In 2009, any student laptop over $500 is pure lunacy with regards to a one-to-one school district scaled deployment. If educational technology is finally going to be woven into the classroom fabric, all educators must start to think with a district brain and not a consumer heart. Otherwise, we are going to continue to provide students an average of 30-60 minutes a week of computer access, the same access rate we have had since the early 90's and before the Internet.

Fortunately, new 10"-12" Netbook laptops are now available in Linux and Windows platforms that are $500 and below and this is what school districts can afford to buy on a support, scale and sustain enterprise basis.

From Operating Systems to Virtual Desktops
Macintosh OS and Windows OS are becoming increasingly irrelevant not to mention the blotted price we pay in every box. (Education leaders, can we just give Linux a chance?) If the computing applications are transitioning from the personal computer to the cloud, the computer OS could be more efficiently used as a starter to get to the cloud engine.

Look at this way, your starter OS turns on the engine to get to Firefox which takes you to your school district login virtual desktop as your new desktop. Take a look at Stoneware's virtual webOS as an example of where K-12 School Districts should and will be heading.

From Hard Drive Software to Software as a Service
Without even really thinking about it, many people have already made the transition from hard drive software applications to web apps. This probably started for most people with their school email like Outlook Web Access (OWA) or their private email like Gmail. You basically get on any Internet capable computer and using a web browser, go to a web site, enter your login and password and then enter a web portal of applications. Google Apps is a good example of Software as a Service (SaaS). Sometimes this service is free like Google Apps and other times you pay for this service as in Discovery Education's unitedstreaming. So now schools can think about the options of having a free productivity suite using Google Docs compared to Microsoft Office and digital media tools like Picasa Web Albums and Picnik compared to Apple iLife. The difference here is that I'm not grounded with my one computer with hard drive apps. I now can fly in the clouds accessing my apps from any Internet capable computer in the world!

From the Four Walled Classroom to the 24/7 Academic Network
The virtualized services of a content management (CMS), learning management system (LMS) and student digital locker are beginning to converge from separate web apps such as Joomla, Moodle, Wikispaces and Google Docs to services that will integrate all of these applications into an integrated academic network accessed in the cloud. An academic network will actually allow younger children to cut their digital teeth in a protective and interactive sandbox compared to the current generation of secondary students who learned their web 2.0 skills on social networks in the wild wild web. Current examples of this can be seen in the open source application Drupal and the fee-based service of Schoolwires. However, I believe we are still several years away from comprehensive pedagogical K-12 academic networks.

In the meantime, let's continue to bring all of the wonderful clouds together to craft a 2009-2010 academic network we can thrive in. So all you school districts out there, do not purchase a multitude of consumer hardware mobile devices, but rather, invest in an economical student netbook as a scalable personal learning device integrated within an academic cloud of services.

Resources:

From a business enterprise perspective here is an excellent video of Cloud Computing in Plain English

Image Source:
"Stoneware, Inc. Home Page, BannerCloudComputing.gif." Stoneware, Inc.. 3 May 2009 .

Teacher you are IT! Vol. 2: Goomoodleikiog

2009-04-04T09:00:00.000-07:00

As a follow up to my first Teacher you are IT blog that focused on Google Apps, I thought I'd give a shout out to two friends, Heidi Beezley and Leigh Murrell and look through their fantastic lens of Goomoodleikiog. In creating a teacher toolbox, I suggested that teachers look no further than using web based applications to create and manage their content. Internet or "cloud" computing gives teachers the freedom to control exactly how they want to communicate and collaborate with students, parents and colleagues. Heidi and Leigh expand upon this concept by identifying and providing instructional strategies for using four giant intersecting puffy clouds:

Moodle = online classroom
Google Docs = online binder/notebook/collaborative workspace
Blogs = reflection journal/class discussion/sharing ideas
Wikis = polished final products/brainstorming/collaborative workspace

from Goomoodleikiog - No, it’s not something I found at IKEA

Take a look at their first Goomoodleidiog video which focuses on the teacher perspective.

Then, view their brand new video from the student perspective. Both of these videos are extremely creative and fun to watch!

I think both Leigh and Heidi have done a terrific job in synthesizing the wonderful interactivity and power of these web applications giving both teacher and student the essential tools they need for their own toolbox.

Teacher you are IT! Vol. 1: Getting a Toolbox

2009-03-14T17:40:00.000-07:00

I have been kicking around the idea of starting a new Information Technology (IT) blog series aimed at teachers for a couple of months now. This past week, I came up with a title, Teacher you are IT while on a run at the PE field behind my local middle school. In this new series, I will visit topics relevant for teachers as they struggle to work within 20th century mindsets and classrooms equipped for a stand and deliver instructional model.

This week was also timely as I received my cherished newspaper version (showing my pre-digital age) of eSchool News and the front page article, School IT support: Overworked... and understaffed by David Pierce. eSchool News has just completed a comprehensive survey in partnership with SchoolDude.com and the Consortium for School Networking that polled more than 600 school district leaders and IT administrators in November and December, 2008.

Here is an except. "According to our survey, the average ratio of students to district IT staff members is 491 to 1. When limited just to technicians and tech-support staff--the people responsible for fixing machines and keeping them running--the ratio is even higher: 1,021 students for every one technician. That's a far cry from the private-industry standard of no more than 150 to 1 recommended by Gartner and other IT research firms.

But "technician" wasn't even the most popular response when we asked where school leaders could use more IT help. Topping the list was instructional technologist, which was cited by 85 percent of respondents. And that speaks to a key area where IT staffing shortfalls really hurt schools: If keeping technology systems up and running is a challenge, helping teachers use the technology to improve their instruction is an even taller hurdle. Only 28 percent of respondents said they have enough IT staff to integrate technology into their classrooms effectively."

As for the last sentence, I would say that the majority of that 28% are probably embedded in secondary schools. So you can see that the vast majority of elementary teachers don't receive any technology support at school or something along the line of seeing a blue moon.

Well to brighten up this doom and gloom beginning, I'm happy to say that thousands of K-12 teachers are taking matters into their own hands and empowering themselves as their own IT support system. Thanks to the many free and accessible tools available online today, teachers can create their own IT toolbox- independent of any school system conditions and designed to create and maintain educational content for their students and themselves.

In my experience, the first thing to put in your teacher toolbox are the read, write and collaborative web based applications by Google. Google Apps are at the top of the list because their suite of web apps is in itself an entire toolbox for any teacher. These applications and associated storage space are FREE maintained on Google's world wide servers by an army of 24/7 IT support.

Here is a link to web site my good friend Mary Lange and I created called Google Apps in Education. At this site we show that many Google Apps provide teachers and students communication, productivity and collaboration tools that are free to use with a registered Google Account. Here is a list of essential Google apps to use progressively use over time.

iGoogle - Teachers can create a virtual desktop where all their essential applications and resources can be linked in one central place by using mini movable tools called gadgets.
Google Docs - Think of having an office productivity suite of word processing, presentation, spreadsheet and form maker software accessible to you and your sharing collaborators on any Internet capable computer!
Picasa Web Album - Teachers can create an online photo album to use and share anywhere with anybody they choose.
Blogger - Google's Blogging tool and what I'm using here. Teachers can use Blogger as their class home page to communicate with parents and students. The instructional possibilities are endless for K-12 teachers.
Google Sites - This app is not only a web site creator but by definition is a wiki where students and teachers can create web pages in collaboration with each other, how cool is that!

At Google for Educators you can discover how teachers all over the world are using Google apps across the K-12 curriculum.

So teacher, if you look around and there is nobody to help you with the integration of technology in your curriculum, what are you going to do? Are you going to complain to the people in your school and district that just don't get it and continue to beat your head up against the whiteboard! Or, are you going to be proactive and do an end-around from the educational dinosaurs and naysayers employed to protect the past?

My heroes are the teachers who find a way to be a 21st century learner; the ones who create and get a classroom presentation computer and then get a video projector and then get a document camera and then...

*Image of teacher and students from Oak Park Elementary, SDUSD

Ten Key Components in Building a 21st Century School

2009-01-01T16:54:00.000-08:00

Every school that embraces 21st Century teaching and learning must have a School Technology Plan that is integrated with their strategic curriculum and instruction plans. I started this list a couple of years ago to help planning teams get a big picture of the options available for a 21st Century classroom. I will continue to update this list.

1. Develop a School Technology Plan

Read your District's Strategic Technology Plan
Identify Core Teacher Leaders (Grade level/Dept.) - Identify lead writer
Write Technology Plan - Include Funding Strategies, Professional Development and budget
Fund Site-based Technology Support Position - a must hire even during tough budget years!

2. Monthly ‘Just in Time’ Technology Professional Development

Professional development based on needs assessment and technology available
Monthly 1-2 hour sessions (Teachers have a full plate)
Curriculum integration utilizing project-based learning, digital media literacy and Information Communication Technology (ICT)

3. Interactive Classroom System in Every Classroom

Interactive Whiteboard / Slate / Student Responders
Classroom Audio (Wireless Microphone System)
LCD Video Projector
XGA Document Camera
Teacher Laptop Computer
Mobile Presentation Workstation

4. Micro Learning Spaces
Here is a beginning list of items that could physically transform student ergonomics for teaching and learning in a project-based learning environment.

Large carpets, small carpets, mats, large and small vinyl pillows and bolsters, triangle wedges - Think of durable PE matting as classroom furniture
Bean bag chairs, reading pillow chairs, padded vinyl chairs and rockers.
Portable vinyl benches, vinyl sofa chairs on wheels, vinyl couches on wheels
Portable Lap Desks
Standing high bar tables

5. Student Computers

K-3rd Grades- mix of 3-5 desktops and/or laptop computers
4th – 8th Grades one-to-one 10" Ultra Mobile PC Wireless Laptops
9th – 12th Grades one-to-one 12" Ultra Mobile PC Wireless Laptops
One-to-One Computing: Start with School Program - Move toward the laptop in a backpack school to home program

6. Access to Broadband

Ethernet - Ports located around the classroom
Wireless Access Points located around the school
School Surveys identifying student percentage of home access

7. A Focus on Content Creation, Digital Imaging and Web Apps

Open Office/Microsoft Office/Google Docs
Adobe PhotoShop and Premier Bundle/ iLife/Picnik
Promethean Activstudio - Project-based software for all teachers and students

8. A Network Laser Printer in Every Classroom

Network Monochrome laser printer in every class
Network Color laser printer in School Office/Workroom (for special projects)

9. Access to Digital and Video Cameras for Visual Literacy

Digital Still Cameras - one for every teacher - a set of 10 for school/student use
Video Cameras - one for every grade level or department

10. Access to an Online eLearning Portals and Reference Resources

Virtual Desktop with web-based Digital Locker for Students and Teachers
Moodle Learning Management System for teaching and learning with parent viewing access
Online Reference Databases – Ebsco, Grolier Encyclopedia
Online Reference Video - United Streaming