Educational Technology Reflection - A View of Educational Technology as a Vehicle for Accountability and Structured Curriculum Delivery

A year ago, I changed jobs.  I worked in my prior position for almost 7 years – I was a Technology Specialist for an Adult Education program run out of a California County Office of Education.   For the past year, I have worked in a small (4 schools, 5500 kids) high school district located in the San Francisco Bay Area.  I am a Technology Projects Director – I oversee a number of bond-funded new instructional technology initiatives and network upgrades.  Although it has been a wonderful opportunity -- one that I am immensely grateful to have welcomed into my life – this job has not been without its challenges (growth opportunities, I hope!)

In retrospect, one of this year’s greatest professional challenge for me has been making the shift from thinking about Educational Techology as the primary vehicle for administrator managed instruction and assessment to thinking about Educational Technology as something that provides opportunities for learners to develop and grow their own knowledge base and skillsets.  Let me explain.

In my prior position, we used a highly structured computerized curriculum to provide instruction to adult students who entered our program with different skill levels and goals.  Our students were assessed at entry using a series of diagnostic standardized tests (we also received funding based on student attained benchmarks in these tests) .  Students were then enrolled into our online curriculum based on the results of these tests – we would entoll a student into one of a series of instructional threads, and then the student would be further pretested (from inside the CBT) to identify particular areas of skill/knowledge deficiency.  The CBT would automatically assign instructional materials to a student based on the results of the pretest.  After completing the instruction, students would be posttested – if posttests were passed, they would move on, if not, they would receive further instruction. 

In this scenario, “instruction” involved the student passively interacting with a curriculum that was entirely defined for them.  If a student didn’t understand something in the tutorials, they would ask the teacher for help.  The teacher would assist the student with interpreting the curriculum – in some cases, the teacher would provide some differentiated instruction that would occur outside the CBT – this often looked like a tutor working with a student. 

Our program principals and coordinators received monthly reports that indicated the numbers of students who attaining the standardized test benchmarks, which enrollment levels were commonly assigned, how many posttests were passed on the first go-round, etc. etc. etc.  As technology specialists, we created many charts, tables and graphs – and spent inordinate amounts of time working with our teachers, coordinators and principals on how to interpret these datapoints in order to improve our programs.

In all ways, we were a model of a standards-based, accountability driven educational program – although we were not K-12, we were funded by a large institution (Corrections!  Prisons and Jails!) in the state of California, and, therefore, we had to constantly prove our “efficacy” in supporting the mission of the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (we were part of the R part of that acronym) to better the lives of offenders (and, as a result, those of their families, neighbors and other community members) in the state.  So, although we did not have to adhere to large accountability driven models such as NCLB, we created our own “mini” version of it that was entirely predicated on the financial viability of providing education vs. incarceration in California.  Education was repeatedly proven to be more cost-effective (for some offenders), by the way.

But, our students (and teachers) did not vary from this highly regimented script.  The instruction that they provided was “proven” to be effective in increasing the knowledge base and skillsets of our students,  and therefore, had to be followed to a neatly crossed T.  It was a form of highly explicit direct instruction that provided a strong mechanism for data collection and review by administrators and teachers.

In my next post, I will describe the role of Educational Technology in my current position – where the emphasis is on fostering creativity and other upper levels of Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy – for both the teachers and the students.

Two Sides of the Same Story -- TPACK and Evaluation of Learner Generated Content

In here, I blogged about a framework that is being developed by researchers in Barcelona's Universitat Oberta de Catalunya.  This framework is designed to evaluate and assess the Learner Generated Content created (by students) in online learning environments, using Web 2.0 technologies.  This framework will incorporate three main dimensions of evaluation of quality of student work:

1. Content
2. Format
3. Process

Michigan State University (this blogger's current learning environment) Educators have developed what is referred to as TPACK -- which includes three dimensions of successful Educational Technology implementation:

1. Technology
2. Pedagogy
3. Content Knowledge

As I consider these two notions, I am struck by their similarities.  Both frameworks distinctly include Content as a key component -- this includes the knowledge domain being learned (from the UOC perspective) or taught (from the MSU perspective).  Pedagogy is the set of instructional strategies that are adopted by an educator in order to provide learning opportunites -- one could also say that they are the Process that a learner follows in order to build knowledge. (Wikipedia's page on Pedagogy has some interesting links, by the way, as does Moodle's.)  In the context of online learning (or teaching), Technology and Format are essentially the same idea -- the medium in which the message is conveyed (Thanks, Marshall, -- we are going to take your idea a few steps further.) 

Both constructs view the process of education as being a blend of all three of the respective components.  Each component is not mutually exlusive -- they overlap to form a unified model of contemporary online learning and dissemination of knowledge.  TPACK methodology actually visualizes the overlap in this Venn diagram logo taken from the TPACK.org site referenced above:

The difference, as I see it, is primarily one of perspective-- the TPACK model is oriented to the implementation of educational technology models from the point of view of the instructor.  The evaluation criteria of Learner Generated Content is designed to measure the quality of student created work -- work created by the learner.   Of course, it is not unreasonable to see mirrors between the student's role and the teacher's role -- in fact, that may be one of the greatest strengths of this modern educational paradigm -- the teacher is not so much "imparting wisdom" as she is "facilitating the building of knowledge" -- for both the teacher and the student. 

Evaluation and Assessment of Learning When Using Collaborative Learning Tools

What makes up quality online learning, and what doesn't?  How do I, as a learner decide what to consume, and what to discard?  What do I do with the information once I've consumed it? If I am an instructor in an online learning environment (or, really, in any brick and mortar learning institution that exists in today's society), how do I structure educational tasks so that learners are given opportunitites to consume, collaborate and create information that increases their knowledge?  These are critical questions.  There is a river of information that is created online all the time.  Content is so easy to create and share that the question for learners and educators is moving away from "how, technically, do I create and share materials" and towards, "how do I create mearningful materials using the right technology tools, and where do I present the information?"

This article touches on some of the key notions that can be used to define quality criteria for Online Collaborative Learner Generated Content.  Key takeaways in here include the following:

Definition of the Contemporary Learning Environment --

• "According to Cebrián (2011), creativity and innovation are becoming key values for the development of the current society"
• "In an online learning context, student activity becomes a key element"
• "Students’ relationship with knowledge is being significantly challenged: they are becoming active participants in the creation of educational content primarily facilitated by the so-called Web 2.0 (O'Reilly, 2005), which provides vast availability and variety of tools that support the educational process"
• "The use of open and collaborative tools like blogs, wikis, social bookmarking, podcasts, video channels, etc. is becoming an increasingly feasible alternative to reshape the traditional e-Learning scenario that is currently based on closed, proprietary, institutionalized systems (Grodecka et al., 2008). "
• "Net users take advantage of the web as a platform to generate, re-purpose, and consume shared content. This is what some authors call “wisdom of the crowds”, or in other words, “that user-generated content and mass participation enable new ways of co-constructing ideas” (Conole, 2008)."

Definition of "Learner Generated Content" --

• "The notion of LGC entails two main features: the context of content development within a learning situation, and the direct implication of learners in their elaboration."
• "LGC relates to the notion of student “performance” content which is dynamically generated by students within the process of learning (Boettcher, 2006)."
• "It may include “completed project/assignment work or deliverables (i.e. end products) as well as evidence of the process of learning, such as successive drafts of solutions, descriptions of mistakes made, or difficulties encountered” (Lee & McLoughlin, 2007)."

Definition of Quality Criteria for LGC --

• "Student evaluation is based on continuous assessment, including self, peer and tutor evaluation."
• "Boettcher (2006) posits that the key focus of LGC is on the process of content generation and knowledge construction, and not the end product itself. "
• "Output, besides learners’ learning and awareness of good content, is also concerned with content for reuse (creating for others).....This last feature is presented according to three different LGC reuse purposes: as a learning resource for future learners, as a beta product useful for professional or societal further development, and as an output serving the learner itself (evidence for their portfolio, a resource for the elaboration of a byproduct like a journal article, and other publications)."

The article presents this graphic as being the "Dimensions of the LGC Quality Framework:"

So, the final question(s) -- how do we create courses that incorporate these ideas, how do we evaluate the learner's work, and how do we evaluate the ability of the educational institution to deliver this framework and produce learners who are equipped to live in the 21st Century?

Wicked Project - Final Wrap-Up Post

Here is a link to my Wicked Project Presentation, and here is a link to the Transcript of the presentation (which also includes image references, and a link to my research reference list).

The Problem

I work for a small High School district located in the Bay Area of California.  We recently passed a large facilities bond that included significant funding for technology upgrades and enhancements.  This bond has funded many new technologies, including the installation of multimedia projectors and sound systems in every classroom.  In order to effectively utilize the projection system (and, hopefully, avoid having to replace TVs, DVD and VHS players), we also implemented a video streaming server, called VBrick.

My challenge is how to train teachers who are already overloaded with many new technologies on the use of the VBrick system.  There is no time available for formal, class-based professional development for VBrick.

The Solution

I want to try to create “Just-in-time” professional development for teachers – training materials that they can access when they are ready to start using the system.  Given that we are implementing a digital video server, I want to create video tutorials, in addition to more traditional print-based training materials.  I am going to provide narrated screencasts of the key tasks that teachers will need to follow in order to use VBrick.

I had originally planned to embed these training materials into Blackboard, our district Learning Management System, but I have revised that plan, and am now implementing these materials in a GoogleSites system – primarily because I would like to include more Social Learning tools than our version of Blackboard will support.  I am also finding that I am more comfortable working with GoogleSites than  I am in Blackboard. 

The Technology

I used Camtasia to record the screencasts and the narration for my tutorials. 

After spending some time working in Blackboard, and considering the impact of Social Learning on high quality distance learning, I eventually realized that Blackboard, with its limited Social Learning capabilities, would have to be used in a limited capacity.  I ended up favoring GoogleSites as the “Launchpad” for the training materials.  I will continue to learn Blackboard, however, as that is what our teachers will use in their classes, and I will need to learn how they will use it, so I can train them in how to incorporate VBrick into Blackboard.

I’m still learning GoogleSites, but I think that I will try to incorporate the ability to provide RSS feeds via Feedburner, and the page Commenting feature into my training materials.  I am looking forward to learning more ways to incorporate social learning into my training materials via GoogleSites as I get to know that program better.

The Pedagogy

I am aiming to create training materials that will appeal to all learning styles – visual and auditory learners will be able to watch demos of the movements that they will need to make in order to use VBrick.  I will provide step-by-step written PDF documents for visual and kinesthetic learners who need to do something in order to learn it. 

The training videos will be short and sweet, and will only cover a single “competency” or skill in each session.  I am hoping that by chunking the material up this way, that teachers will be able to pick and choose from the training buffet so they can learn what they need to know quickly, and get out of there.  I have created a list of VBrick competencies that will act as a list of training topics.

Our teachers have extensive experience in using Blackboard.  I intend to use scaffolding and incorporate their existing knowledge of Blackboard – things like embedding YouTube videos – into their learning of VBrick.  I am hoping this will make it more familiar for them. (CLICK)

Finally, I hope to incorporate Social Learning tools so they can ask questions and give feedback to each other (and me!) about the use of the VBrick system.  This will be vital on this system, as there will not be any formal classroom training where interaction is the norm between the trainer and the teacher.  I will create  a Comments area on each of the VBRick training pages that teachers can use to provide their feedback or ask questions.  I am unsure of how well this will go over, but am interested to see what they will think of this.

The Content Knowledge

I created a list of VBrick competencies that would be needed to use the system.  I consider this list to be my “content standards” for this particular tool.  I created two lists – one for teachers who need to use the system for playback of videos, and one for our librarians who will use the system to upload and manage video content.     I have identified 17 competencies.

I also aligned the use of VBrick in the classroom to the ISTE NETS-S standards, which has given me a framework for how to present the training materials that relate to integrating VBRick with the Blackboard LMS.  VBrick aligns with standards 2 and 3 – Communication and Collaboration, and Research and Information Fluency.

Conclusion

I am looking forward to working more with these tools as I implement more of this project.  I have really benefitted from the input of my instructor and colleagues in this course as I have worked through this project.

Group Leadership Project - Final Project

Our group chose to do our Leadership Project in Camtasia Studio.  We each contributed approximately 2 ½ minutes of video and audio to the project;  Dave (our TechSmith guru) edited the finished project together and added the title slides.  I learned a lot in the process of doing this project.  I believe I have identified and improved in several areas as a result of this project -- I can see technological, content production and collaboration deficiencies in myself in the way that I did this project.  I think I improved in some of these areas.

I still need to work on my audio recording capabilities on my laptop computer.  I believe that I had some sort of issue with the recorded audio that caused Camtasia to pick up the laptop’s internal mic, rather than the headset mic that I attached to my laptop, as my audio sounded like it was recorded in a wind tunnel.  I am unsure if this was a problem in Camtasia, or if this was a problem in my laptop’s control panel, but I need to figure it out before I move too much further with my Wicked Project on this laptop, as I was not happy with the audio quality of my portion of the Group Leadership Project.  I have made videos on my computer at work that did have this problem (using the same mic), so it is definitely something in the configuration of my laptop.

Another challenge that I had with this project was figuring out how much content in a storyboard/script would equate to a particular length of time in recorded video.  I ended up cutting more than half of what I originally storyboarded, and still came in at more than the allotted 2 ½ minutes – my segment ran about 2 minutes, 50 seconds.  Apparently, I have a lot to say, and it takes a lot of time!  I will have to figure out some type of estimated formula (ie. number of words equals number of minutes) as I move forward with video tutorials. 

Another challenge I faced with this project was figuring out how to work with my group.  My work/personal schedule made it very difficult to keep to the assigned deadlines that our group chose.  I tend to do my schoolwork on Sunday afternoons (at the last minute!), but needed to carve out time in the middle of the week before Sunday in order to meet the group deadlines.  I think it would have been helpful to come up with a more organized timeline for myself, so that I was able to do the work on the prior Sunday for the following Sunday’s due dates, rather than try to squeeze them into my already overscheduled work weeks. 

All in all, I learned a lot in this project – technologically (ie – using Camtasia and voice and screen recording), storyboarding/scripting, and collaborating.  I think I am slightly wiser in each of these areas, and will be able to improve my work in these areas in my future school and professional projects. 

Mobile Learning

I had a great deal of fun exploring the Mobile learning tools that were included in our Mobile learning lab.  This is a topic that is near and dear to me, as my district is investing heavily in mobile tools (iPads).  I’m especially interested in learning more about how to support BYOD (bring your own device) programs – although, that is not at all where my district is at this point.  It is my belief that this will be one of the key initiatives in Ed Tech in the next 3-5 years.

I spent a lot of time with Poll Everywhere.  I thought it was a little clunky to use at first, but once I got the hang of it, I had a lot of fun creating polls and responding to them. 

Poll Everwhere Links:

Poll 1

Poll 2

Poll 3

Poll 4

Poll 5

I’m going to use Poll Everywhere (and GoogleSurveys) to do my information gathering for my Wicked Project evaluations/assessments.  I’m curious to see which is easier or more effective to use in different real-world scenarios.  My hunch is that the benefit of GoogleSurveys is that it allows for heavy-duty asynchronous data collection and crunching, along with the resulting pretty charts and graphs.  In contrast, it seems that PollEverywhere is something that can be used very effectively in a real-time environment in conjunction with a presentation.  If you were pretty adept at PollEverywhere, you could really have fun with an audience and have them respond to poll questions via SmartPhone (the weblinks) or just plain-old SMS text messaging, and have the results be displayed as embedded data in an ongoing presentation.  Although you could have your audience members participate in a GoogleSurvey in real-time, I don’t think it would be as easy to show the aggregate data in the presentation using the Google tools as it seems to be with the PollEverywhere tools.

I also enjoyed reading through and posting a reply to the Cell Phone discussions found on the Classroom2.0 website.  I particularly valued the links found on this page to lists of activities that can be done with cellphones in a classroom. I plan to use this site as a regular reference site for the work that I do in my own district with our implementation of mobile tools for education.  Update -- I received my first "Colleague" request on Classroom2.0 about 20 minutes after posting a reply.  Cool!

 

Professional Learning Plan

There are two key areas in which I want to focus my ongoing professional learning over the next 6-12 months – 1)  Improving my ability to deliver quality educational technology professional development to instructors and administrators, 2)  Increasing my understanding of the best practices of implementing social and mobile learning tools into K-12 educational environments.  I mapped out my plan for my professional learning in a Mind42 mindmap.

This image is a static representation of the mindmap, and does not include links to the many embedded artifacts contained in the map -- check out the prior link for access to the map, and the artifacts, itself.

My mind map shows the professional development area in red font, on the right-hand side of the screen (I view these as right-brained tasks).   I believe that the key to quality professional development is to have it be available and accessible to teachers when they want and need it.  I think I need to create “distance learning” style PD that incorporates the online tools that we already have in our district’s instructional toolkit, including Blackboard, VBrick streaming server, etc.  My primary goal is to continue to create meaningful PD for the new video streaming server (VBrick) – this was the basis for my Wicked Project in this class.  I am going to pay close attention to the formative assessment information that I collect from my existing tutorials and continue to refine and improve my PD materials.  I am quite stumped as to how to motivate end-users to access the PD, however – this remains my biggest challenge in this area.  My second largest challenge is to increase my personal skills and abilities to create these PD materials in a manner that increases the knowledge and understanding of my students (TPACK!)  I am hopeful that my Spring 2012 semester class, Learning Tech by Design, will help me with these areas.  I outlined a number of specific To Do lists for myself in the mindmap that will focus my attentions on key software skills that I wish to develop.

The left-hand side of the mindmap (left-brain work?) shows my second area of focus – increasing my knowledge of and understanding of how to incorporate mobile and social learning into a public K-12 (really, 9-12) environment.   I am heavily reliant on my Google Reader RSS feeds and my Twitter network for information on this emerging area of Ed Tech, as some of the coolest ideas I’ve considered about these topics have come out of these areas – I think because this reflects the real work of people who are in the “trenches” of these topics.  I am also hopeful that my Spring 2012 class, CEP891 – Online Literacy and Reading to Learn in a Digital Age, will be a place where I can glean academic knowledge about these ideas.  I have a number of key initiatives at my workplace that will allow me to develop my own professional skills in these areas, and have outlined To Do lists for these projects (high level) in my mindmap.

I expect to add materials and links to this mindmap as I move forward with this work..  I am looking forward to continuing to learn and grow professionally as I continue to follow my MSU studies, as well as work in an Ed Tech oriented high school district in the Bay Area.

Data Visualization

I spent quite a bit of time exploring the drawing/charting programs.  I have spent many hours working with Visio, and have wondered if Google Apps would include some type of tool that would be comparable to Visio.  I enjoyed experimenting with the free/Open source tools that were included in the Data Visualization tools – especially the installable program called Dia.  Here is an example of a network diagram showing a standard client server network configuration that I drew in Dia:

In my mind, this free tool provides all the functionality that I use in (the far more expensive) Visio.  I was particularly impressed with the many export file type options that were available (including .VDX – Visio XML format, that would allow the author to import the file into Visio if necessary). 

I also explored several of the mind mapping programs.  I am intrigued by the idea of a “mind map” – it’s not something that I have experimented with before in a digital environment.  However, I do tend to take handwritten notes by drawing lines and circles to highlight and link ideas – something that seems to be a part of the digital mind map toolkits.  I like the idea of being able to take notes the way that I do on paper using digital tools, as I’m always trying to eliminate paper in my life.  I think this could be a way that I could move a few more steps away from the many yellow lined pads that clutter up my officespace.  I particularly liked having the ability to create To Do list attachments in the Mind42 online mind mapping space.  That could be very useful as a simple project management tool that can be utilized during individual or collaborative brainstorming sessions.

Finally, I spent some time browsing through the different datasets that were listed in the wiki.  I particularly enjoyed browsing through the FactFinder site.  In fact, I was quite surprised at some of the datapoints that I read about in there (only 21% of American households are female led?  Really?)

I was intrigued to see that there was a section on video digitization and encoding tools, but after some minor exploration, I didn’t find anything that would be serviceable for me to use in my VBrick project.  However, I did like having the opportunity to browse through these tools and see what was available.  I will keep these in the back of my mind as I might get some requests to add effects and so forth to some of the videos that we are uploading into the streaming system.

I really enjoyed this exercise.  I enjoyed finding replacements for familiar tools (ie. Visio).  I was quite intrigued by the possibilities of mind mapping, and I think this is an area where I could see some collaborative creativity in my future.  I plan on incorporating this method of structured brainstorming into some of my upcoming work projects (both individually and collaboratively).  Finally, I will bookmark many of the data sites, as well as the video editing sites, for long term general reference.

Wicked Project - Part D - Findings and Implications

I have made three Camtasia videos for my Vbrick tutorials, and have successfully created a Blackboard Course that will be the base for my “Just in Time” professional development.  I am not that experienced with Blackboard – this is my first time authoring a course in that platform.  Blackboard is commonly used in my district, however, and is a familiar interface for our staff.

I have also created printable PDF documentation that backs up what is demonstrated in the Camtasia videos kinesthetically (visually) and audibly.  I am hoping that I will be able to address each learning style by attempting to incorporate each of these kind of lessons into the mix of materials.  I am also available via email and phone for any instructor who wishes to ask more questions or express any concerns about the materials or the technology.

I have started the “PR” part of the project by asking several key “evangelist” teachers to review and comment on the Blackboard page, and also on the standards/competencies that I created for the VBrick system.  So far, I have received some good feedback about the standards, and have revised the list accordingly.  I have not yet received any feedback about the Blackboard site.  Unfortunately, per the logs for both the video tutorials themselves (stored on the VBrick server) and on Blackboard, I have not yet had any traffic to the videos or to the Blackboard course.  I did only ask for feedback a few days ago, however, so I’m hoping that things will pick up next week.

The lack of interest in the training content does worry me quite a bit, however.  I am concerned that PD that isn’t “mandated”  and “observed” via some type of classroom instruction will not be something that our staff will utilize.  I think one of my key challenges of this implementation will be figuring out how to make this interesting and enticing to teachers who are already overloaded and overburdened with regular teaching tasks.  I suspect that I have relied too heavily on a “if you build it, they will come” philosophy around both the VBrick technology itself and the Professional Development.  I am at a loss as to how to build enthusiasm for the project, however.  If I had to do the entire project over again, I would attempt to get more “buy-in” from my instructional staff earlier in the deployment of the system itself, and probably also attempt to recruit some of the teachers to actually help me with the creation of the videos/training materials that I am creating now (in fact, I may just do that as I move forward with creating more content). 

At this point in the project,  I believe that it will be most meaningful if I define my formative assessments around the level of interest that I receive in the tutorials and the Blackboard course.  In addition to looking at the traffic statistics for the tutorial videos and the Blackboard course, I will also put together a short Google Survey and will embed it in the Blackboard course as an additional formative assessment measure.  I will ask what other topics should be included in the list of tutorials (aka “standards”), and for feedback on the existing tutorials and training materials.  I believe these two data sources, along with any anecdotal/narrative feedback that I receive from my end users will comprise meaningful formative assessment of the project.   I will create this survey this week, and will plan to analyze this data on at least a weekly basis, so that I can make meaningful and rapid revisions to the materials in response to the expressed (and implied via the data) needs of my instructors. 

At the end of the school year, I will analyze the overall usage of the VBrick system as my summative assessment of the project.  I will analyze the summative data at the end of this school year in order to give time for the project to “play out.”