And finally... Thoughts on TCC2012

General observations:

 - TCC 2012 was the third time I have attended this conference. I believe that one of the biggest things that I noticed about this conference was the overall improvement of the quality of the presentations. Particularly impressive to me, were the Masters' project presentations. The level of scholarship seemed much higher to me than in previous years and the overall skill and presentation seemed much more professional. This year, for the first time, I encountered quite a bit of difficulty completing my registration and getting logged on to the site. In fact, I had to register twice.

Opinion about the value of a virtual conference for educators and for society:

 - Before my experiences 3 years ago, I probably would not have even considered the question of virtual conferences. experiences I've had since and particularly the TCC conference have convinced me of the value of this mode of delivery. There's a lot to be said for having the ability to bring interested and interesting people from all over the world together to discuss subjects of common importance and to share with an audience. One of the strengths of this mode of delivery is the ability to go back and experience the recorded presentations that one may have missed during the day. I believe that the combination of synchronicity and asynchronicity that the online conference allows is particularly powerful. Another positive about the online conference is that it does not necessitate travel and the consequent time away from work. In fact, I was able to listen to and participate in one presentation that took place during a rather slow time in my work day.I believe the social benefits of online conferences are similar to those of conferences held in the traditional manner. Conference participation allows for meeting with and discussing with people who share similar interests, the opportunity to hear new ideas and new methodology, and the chance to take away information that can change one's own practice. The strength of the online conference is that it allows these things to occur in a manner that's much more conducive to thought and reflection.

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• - Here's a link to my Storify postings on TCC2012- The posting contains information about some of the places I went, what I heard, and some of my thoughts.

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Take-aways

 - I came away with the number of very good ideas from the 2012 TCC conference. Two that really stand out in my mind were the presentations of about a whole school one-to-one iPad initiative and the action research project involving blogging in the elementary school. Using both twitter and Storify were useful and valuable to me. Through twitter, I was able to get very timely feedback about what others were thinking, hearing, and talking about. Storify allowed me to put my thoughts in more perspective and also gave me the opportunity to see in more detail what others were thinking about the conference.

Next time?

 - One of the things that I will definitely be doing differently at the next TCC conference will be to present my own project. I already had some experience 3 years ago being part of a group presentation at the conference but it will definitely be a challenge to put together a coherent and valuable presentation of my own and share it with a worldwide audience.

Suggestions:

 - I have a few suggestions regarding the conference. 1st: I'm not sure what happened with my registration but it was rather annoying and anxiety producing. I'm not convinced that sending out logon codes by e-mail is the most efficient way to do this but I have as yet not come up with an alternative to suggest. 2nd: I seem to be in a minority but I don't feel that the badge activity was very well implemented nor was it of particular use or consequence for me. It seemed almost as if it were presented as an afterthought. I think part of the reason is that Mozilla's badging initiative is still in its infancy and doesn't really have much significance or meaning yet. 3rd: this may be a bit picky but I also believe that the web design of the site could be a little more contemporary and that the user interface could be a bit more conducive to navigating quickly to desired information. I found that the drop-down sort menus felt a little archaic and clunky but the alternative was scroll down through very long lists of presenters. My suggestion would be to redesign the site and incorporate the results of a formal usability study.

Some more from TCC2012...

Reflections on: mLearning: Making Learning Personal and the Long View of Educational Transformation

One of the most thought-provoking sessions for me was the presentation by Mid-Pacific Institute Technology Coordinator and ETEC Doctoral Student Mark Hines. This session was titled: mLearning: Making Learning Personal and the Long View of Educational Transformation ( http://tcc.badgestack.net/sessions/keynote-mark-hines/ ).

What I thought was particularly ambitious was the MPI plan to introduce iPad tablet devices to each of the approximately 1600 students at the school. This is an idea that was obviously well planned and incorporates professional development opportunities as well as curricular development.

I had two reservations about this proposal:

The first reservation concerns the advisability of the single platform environment. In a recent F/OSS class session we had the opportunity to speak with Albany Senior High School Deputy Principal Mark Osborne. (http://www.cio.com.au/article/333686/nz_school_ditches_microsoft_goes_totally_open_source/ ) in his discussion with us, Mr. Osborne described how their school broke away from the model practiced by other New Zealand schools and embraces an open multiple platform environment. At Albany senior high school, they wanted an environment where any student or staff member was able to seamlessly access information and participate no matter what hardware platform they were using. Even though I am a very committed long-term user of Apple products, I am somewhat uncomfortable in an educational setting where only one platform seems to be supported. Additionally, there is some evidence that multiplatform environments are inherently more stable and resistant to malware.

My other reservation comes from my experiences in purchasing and introducing hardware and software solutions in a large high school setting as well as in a smaller elementary school. One of the difficulties with mass purchasing/mass introduction is that all of the devices will be approaching the and of their productive lifecycle at approximately the same time. I've found in my practice that there are advantages to sequential stepwise introduction. When hardware is acquired and introduced over a 3 or 4 year cycle, it allows the institution to create a manageable long-term plan for upgrade and replacement.

Having stated these reservations, I can only applaud Mr. Hines' vision and initiative. The exemplar he is providing at Mid-Pacific Institute can serve as a model for change in other institutions in Hawaii; both private and public.

Thoughts from the 17th Annual TCC Conference

Day One - 17 April 2012

Follow on Twitter - #2012tcc

Really annoying difficulty getting logged in. I didn't have any problems in previous years but this time around was a pain.

One of the things that's a challenge is connecting the fields of Academia with the realities of public education and all of the competition for teacher-time.

In previous years, for example, technologies like Second Life and this year, various flavors of Augmented Reality seem to be big buzz items but as they presently exist, they don't really translate well to the K12 classroom. There are a lot of reasons for this but I think the big one is the investment of time required to master one of these. There has to be a really large Utility-Efficacy/Time to Master ratio for teachers to buy in.

Electronic Information Literacy

A lot of very interesting activity going on. I particularly enjoyed hearing Laureen K's presentation on "Information Literacy for Electronic Resources". It raised some interesting questions and I think the study needs to be extended back to the 9-12 population. I know in my school, students have access to a number of sources including EBSCO and JSTORE but only receive a cursory introduction. I'm in the process of introducing Zotero to some teachers and emphasizing the collaborative aspects of the shared libraries. We'll have to see how that goes. Looking forward to tomorrow's sessions...

Don't Space Twice After a Period!

NO 2X SPACES AFTER PERIODS

Once again, this issue has come up, this time on Google +. Unless you are doing your writing on a Royal standard, an IBM Selectric, or a Linotype machine, there are some really good reasons not to do what your ninth grade typing teacher drummed into your head.


The reason your typing teacher said "Always space twice after a period" is that she learned on a mechanical machine. (even electrics are still mechanical) Mechanical typewriters give an 'M' the same space as an 'l'. In order to set off the beginning of a new sentence, it was necessary to add an extra space after a period. Otherwise, one is left with impenetrable blocks of text. (kind of like Roman inscriptions) Computers space proportionally. There is already a small bit of space that comes after a period. On computers, there's no such thing as "nothing". Even a space has a code. When repurposing a 30 page document with 2Xspaces, all of that extra space has to be accounted. It plays havoc with online, html, and pdf publications.

By the way: Don't use the space bar five times to indent and don't make columns using the space bar or the tab key. That's another left-over from the days of mechanical typing machines.

(hehehe, my celloson and his violingirl are sitting at this moment, in the family room orchestrating a composition on Finale. I just walked in and told him to be sure not to space twice after the dotted half-notes. He shot me a look that made my hair smoke.)

See my Cellodad blog post on this subject

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Not too long ago, my wife, an elementary school Principal, and I had the following conversation:

Wife: "We use those old computers for Word-Processing"

Me: "Do you know what we call 'Word-Processing in my century?"

Wife: "No, what?"

Me: "Writing"

(sound of thrown object striking the wall behind me)

Virtual PD and PLCs

 Definitely an idea whose time has come, as I have been arguing for several years. I am also a proponent of using contemporary tools to enhance the Professional Learning Community. Ideas and professional discussion do not have to take place only on Wednesday between 1:30 and 2:30 pm.

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Virtual Conferences and PLC'S

By Peter DeWitt on April 12, 2012 2:16 PM

from Education Week

In the old days if teachers and administrators wanted professional development, they would have to take a day from school and head to an alternate site to get some hands on training....or sit through a speaker who may not be very engaging. Although we still get multiple mailings now, we used to have to wait until a professional development opportunity worth our time showed up in our mailbox. Those days are not as important as they used to be. Good conferences are always worth attending but while educators are waiting for the next great one they can log on and get some quick, authentic PD right away.

With the internet and social networking sites like Twitter, educators can get on demand professional development just by turning on their computer. One of my favorites is Todd Whitaker and I can find him on Twitter and connect which is always an awesome opportunity. Not to mention all of the principals, teachers, writers and researchers who are on there sharing their knowledge as well. This on-site professional development changes the way leaders lead and the way teachers teach. It's closing the gap between educators and their students who used to think they were twenty years behind. Educators are actually using the 21st century skills they preach about in the classroom!

This brings many benefits to our students. They see us model good teaching practices, and they feel less disconnected from us. There are times when educators and their students share with one another through these same social networking sites and it creates a richer experience for both parties.

Professional Learning Communities (PLC'S)
If you're on Twitter you already know about PLC's. If you're not on Twitter, you should be because there are millions of educators talking to, sharing with, and teaching to their colleagues near and far. There is nothing more powerful than meeting educators across the globe who share the same passion for education that we do.

read the complete article here

The Consortium for School Networking Initiative has released a report that contains a number of recommendations concerning the use of and access to mobile devices and social networks within the framework of the school. Both the report itself and the article excerpted below provide some very persuasive arguments for schools becoming 21st century learning institutions.

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Mobile Computing | News

'Banning Is Not the Answer' to Mobile and Social Tools in Schools

• By David Nagel
• 04/11/12

"Before choosing to restrict the use of social and mobile tools in schools, policymakers and education leaders have to consider the negative impact such restrictions will have on learning. That's the premise of a new policy report released jointly this week by more than a dozen prominent education associations and advocacy groups.

The report, "Making Progress: Rethinking State and School District Policies Concerning Mobile Technologies and Social Media," was released by more than a dozen major education and ed tech groups, including the Consortium for School Networking (CoSN) and the FrameWorks Institute, which produced the report, along with the American Association of School Administrators (AASA), the National Association of State Boards of Education (NASBE), the National Association of Elementary School Principals (NAESP), the National Association of Secondary School Principals(NASSP), the National Education Association (NEA), the Student Press Law Center, thePartnership for 21st Century Skills, the National Writing Project, the National Council of Teachers of English, Common Sense Media, and the Joan Ganz Cooney Center. It was funded through an award from the MacArthur-UCHRI Digital Media and Learning Research Hub at the University of California, Irvine.

The goal of the report, its authors argued, was not to prescribe specific policies but to illuminate issues that need to be considered--both positive and negative--in order to help bring policy in line with the needs of education and realities of technological world in which students live.

"In today's world, most students are attached to mobile devices of some kind whether in or out of school. When policy and practice are aligned, the amazing possibilities presented by this fact surely outweigh the challenges. Creating that alignment is our first step," said NASBE Deputy Executive Director Bradley J. Hull in a separate statement released to coincide with the report.

Social and Mobile Technologies: Current Realities
The report cited five "critical observations" related to the use of social and mobile tools in schools, both supporting their use and acknowledging the need to address issues related to their use. These included:

1. Social media and mobile devices are already in widespread use by students, and schools are beginning to adapt their own policies to take advantage of students' current interest in technology.

2. Mobile technologies and social media offer "tremendous" educational benefits, including bridging formal and informal learning, providing access to educational resources students otherwise wouldn't be able to use, and offering the ability to learn lifelong technology skills, among others.

3. Some federal, state, and local policies do not match up with current realities and need clarification or updating in light of current social trends and technological advancements.

4. Advocates of social and mobile technology need to address negative behaviors that are sometimes associated with these technologies, including the use of technology tools in bullying, along with self-destructive behavior and poor decision-making on the part of minors whose actions can have lifelong consequences. The report's authors pointed out that schools provide a unique opportunity for students to use their favorite tools in a supervised, mentored environment..."

read the entire article

read the report

The Internet of Things - A collection of Infographics

A recent topic in our Emerging Technologies course was the so-called Internet of Things.

I thought that an interesting approach would be to have a look at some infographics that have been created by different sources to illustrate this phenomenon. One of the strengths of an effective infographic is that it allows one to see relationships among concepts

Here are some that I liked...

From Cisco

From Wikipedia - One definition of the Internet of Things:

Ashton's original definition was: "Today computers—and, therefore, the Internet—are almost wholly dependent on human beings for information. Nearly all of the roughly 50 petabytes (a petabyte is 1,024 terabytes) of data available on the Internet were first captured and created by human beings—by typing, pressing a record button, taking a digital picture or scanning a bar code. Conventional diagrams of the Internet ... leave out the most numerous and important routers of all - people. The problem is, people have limited time, attention and accuracy—all of which means they are not very good at capturing data about things in the real world. And that's a big deal. We're physical, and so is our environment ... You can't eat bits, burn them to stay warm or put them in your gas tank. Ideas and information are important, but things matter much more. Yet today's information technology is so dependent on data originated by people that our computers know more about ideas than things. If we had computers that knew everything there was to know about things—using data they gathered without any help from us—we would be able to track and count everything, and greatly reduce waste, loss and cost. We would know when things needed replacing, repairing or recalling, and whether they were fresh or past their best. The Internet of Things has the potential to change the world, just as the Internet did. Maybe even more so."

Cisco InfoGraphic - The Internet of Things

CISCO: this interesting infographic shows the exponential application of Internet of  Things in everyday activities as set the alarm clock, put gas, make coffe and others. The graphic also contains its estimates of the growth of Internet-connected devices in the coming years, some interesting facts and the major challenges facing by the Internet of  Things.

Intel's version

From Intel

INTEL: this Internet of Things infographic makes a journey that begins with the birth of the Internet and the first personal computers and ends in the year 2020, in which it’s estimated that there are going to be 31 billion devices connected to the web. The chart shows how over the years has increased the diversity and number of devices connected to theInternet.

Beecham Research

BEECHAM RESEARCH: 

this diagram  represents the Internet of Things ecosystem in different industry sectors like energy, healthcare, science, transportation, retail and others.

Image Search

Internet of things Infographic Search

A lot of the fun of this is searching for things that catch your interest. Here's a link to a Google image search for Internet of Things Infographics.

OpenStreetMap not yet ready for Prime Time

OpenStreetMap has some things to fix

Since I'm currently in a F/OSS Seminar, I watch with interest for open-source offerings that provide attractive alternatives. (I am not however, a member of the Church of the Open Source. I'm more of a practicing Practicalist. I use open source solutions when I have a compelling reason to do so as in the case of Zotero or when I feel like playing with stuff)

Anyway, after reading the article below, I decided to see if OpenStreetMap was something that I could use. I ran a few sample searches and was quite unimpressed. The most glaring example was my search for the Interlochen Center for the Arts. It's called Interlochen because it lies between Green Lake and Duck lake however the map I was presented had nary a lake to be found.

I'll be back sometime in the future but for now, it's not a particularly useful tool for me...

• CNET
 
• News
 
• Digital Media

Wikipedia dumps Google Maps

Trend in the making as another blue chip name loses Google in favor of OpenStreetMap.

First it was Foursquare. And then Apple. Now, it's Wikipedia's turn to switch from Google Maps to OpenStreetMap.

Wikipedia's decision, announced in a blog post, is likely to raise more questions about the company's decision to charge so-called high-volume users of its Maps APIs, which formerly were free. In March,Google started charging between $4 to $10 per additional 1,000 loads to any site pulling over 25,000 daily loads.

Explaining its decision for the switch to the community-created mapping project, Wikipedia's Yuvi Panda wrote: