Earth Day is April 22, next Thursday at the time I'm writing this. One really cool celebration I've been reading about is over at the TeachPaperless blog. Shelly has no affiliation with DyKnow, but I'm personally a fan of the blog and am really a fan of this idea. At this point, over 1100 teachers have promised to use and accept no paper for Earth Day. To be sure, though, going paperless is really about using technology to better engage your students. Leaving behind the paper is a bit of a metaphor, after all. So if you haven't already, go sign the pledge and if you were already planning on teaching paperless, good for you! Now, you can take this day as an opportunity to get your colleagues excited about the possibilities for their classes. See why I'm a fan?
My brother and I learned to ski as young children. We learned naturally, as kids are prone to do, by watching our older friends. We had no formal instruction, and we had the bruises to prove it! My parents, eager to share our interest, decided they would learn to ski too. However, they took a much more rationale and systematic approach. They used a technique, popular at the time, called the "graduated length method." On the first day, newbie skiers use very short skis (only a foot or two long) and practice on gentle slopes. Each day the student is graduated to a new pair of skis, with each new pair slightly lengthened as compared to the previous day. Similarly, the student is introduced to more challenging slopes with each passing day. As much as I hated to admit it, by the end of a five-day week my parents had relatively few bruises and were skiing as well as my brother (they were probably skiing as well as me too - but that I will never admit).
What would a graduated length method look like if it were used to help teachers become comfortable with technology to enhance student learning? Could this approach help teachers adjust to interactive teaching software in as few as five days? My guess is that it could - and that it could do so very effectively. Here is what this approach might look like if applied to helping a teacher graduate from PowerPoint to DyKnow learning software.
Day One: Create, Present, and Annotate
Before class the new teacher should create his or her content in PowerPoint as usual, optionally reusing existing content including content that comes with a text book. PowerPoint animations (fly-ins) may be included if they are helpful. At the start of class the teacher should start a session, selecting the PowerPoint content as prepared notes. During class the teacher should highlight, underline and optionally annotate the notes for emphasis. Although the teacher will be running a session today, the students will not join it. The session is running only to practice in preparation for day two.
Day Two: Get Students to Take Notes and Check Student Status
Since the teacher is now comfortable starting a session, importing prepared content, and making annotations we are ready to move on. Today students will join the session and will be asked to take notes in the private notes area. Additionally, on at least one PowerPoint slide (more is better), the teacher should provide an area for the students to respond to an open-ended question such as: "What do you consider to be the most important point(s) we discussed today?" A content specific question can be used in place of this generic question if desired. After the students have written their responses, the teacher should orally confirm one key point from the class and then should ask the students to set their DyKnow status to indicate their level of understanding of the point. If desired, this process can be repeated for additional key points.
Day Three: Add in Some Polls
In preparation for today's class the teacher should insert at least one DyKnow Poll into their PowerPoint notebook. For example, the teacher might plan to start class with a poll that reviews a key point from a reading assignment or from the previous class meeting. During class the teacher should ask students to respond to this poll -- the results should be displayed and optionally discussed.
Day Four: Collect Student Panels
In preparation for today's class the teacher should create at least one slide that has room for the students to complete an instructional activity so their answers can be shared with the class. For example, the student might be asked to briefly summarize a reading, to translate some sentences from one language to another, to solve some math or science problems, to label parts of a figure or diagram, to draw some graphs, and so on. During class students should be encouraged to use panel submission to share their work with the class, allowing the teacher to compare and contrast some of the student submissions.
Day Five: Your Choice
As we approach full-length skis, teachers should be encouraged to select their own new instructional technique to try. Techniques such as participant chat, participant control, embedding web content, work groups, returning collect work and screen grab are just some of the possibilities to consider.
I am going to give this a try the next time I orient a new DyKnow teacher. If you try it first post here and let us know how it goes!
What would a graduated length method look like if it were used to help teachers become comfortable with technology to enhance student learning? Could this approach help teachers adjust to interactive teaching software in as few as five days? My guess is that it could - and that it could do so very effectively. Here is what this approach might look like if applied to helping a teacher graduate from PowerPoint to DyKnow learning software.
Day One: Create, Present, and Annotate
Before class the new teacher should create his or her content in PowerPoint as usual, optionally reusing existing content including content that comes with a text book. PowerPoint animations (fly-ins) may be included if they are helpful. At the start of class the teacher should start a session, selecting the PowerPoint content as prepared notes. During class the teacher should highlight, underline and optionally annotate the notes for emphasis. Although the teacher will be running a session today, the students will not join it. The session is running only to practice in preparation for day two.
Day Two: Get Students to Take Notes and Check Student Status
Since the teacher is now comfortable starting a session, importing prepared content, and making annotations we are ready to move on. Today students will join the session and will be asked to take notes in the private notes area. Additionally, on at least one PowerPoint slide (more is better), the teacher should provide an area for the students to respond to an open-ended question such as: "What do you consider to be the most important point(s) we discussed today?" A content specific question can be used in place of this generic question if desired. After the students have written their responses, the teacher should orally confirm one key point from the class and then should ask the students to set their DyKnow status to indicate their level of understanding of the point. If desired, this process can be repeated for additional key points.
Day Three: Add in Some Polls
In preparation for today's class the teacher should insert at least one DyKnow Poll into their PowerPoint notebook. For example, the teacher might plan to start class with a poll that reviews a key point from a reading assignment or from the previous class meeting. During class the teacher should ask students to respond to this poll -- the results should be displayed and optionally discussed.
Day Four: Collect Student Panels
In preparation for today's class the teacher should create at least one slide that has room for the students to complete an instructional activity so their answers can be shared with the class. For example, the student might be asked to briefly summarize a reading, to translate some sentences from one language to another, to solve some math or science problems, to label parts of a figure or diagram, to draw some graphs, and so on. During class students should be encouraged to use panel submission to share their work with the class, allowing the teacher to compare and contrast some of the student submissions.
Day Five: Your Choice
As we approach full-length skis, teachers should be encouraged to select their own new instructional technique to try. Techniques such as participant chat, participant control, embedding web content, work groups, returning collect work and screen grab are just some of the possibilities to consider.
I am going to give this a try the next time I orient a new DyKnow teacher. If you try it first post here and let us know how it goes!
Earlier this week, we released DyKnow 5.3 (in case you've missed it, I've collected the posts about 5.3 here), and the past two weeks I have spent way more of my time in the lab testing the product than I have making coding changes at my desk. This is a good thing as it means we've finished up development on features and known issues for the release. It's also been good, though, to get reacquainted with some older features that I don't commonly see or hear about.
An interesting theme I see in DyKnow Vision has been one of providing students a way to participate anonymously. In many ways, this feels like a terrible idea. We've all seen what anonymity on the Internet has done to people, and introducing a veil in between you and between your students feel counterproductive to engaging. However, someone must have realized and communicated to us that sometimes embarrassment can stifle engagement even more. And I'll admit maybe I'm reading too much of this narrative into some of these features, but once I started seeing it, I saw it everywhere.
When testing you tend to identify a particular feature and spend a lot of time ensuring that all aspects of that feature are working, and the place I started this past week was in the Options dialog. Perhaps the most obvious and most discussed of the "anonymous" features I recognized is the "Allow Anonymous Panel Submission" feature in the "Session" section of the Options dialog. I mentioned this last week, but by checking this checkbox, students will be able to submit panels anonymously. I recall back in 5.1 when discussing feature usage and importance (when trying to determine how to group and position features), several users called the feature indispensable when discussing sensitive topics.
Continuing my testing of the Options, I noticed on the "Popular" section options for the Session List.
For those that don't know, the Session List is a list of all the students in your Vision Session. The list displays their name as well as other additional information such as their status (how well they understand the topic), their submitted panels, their current work group number, and whether you have shared control (letting students demonstrate how to work out problems for the rest of the class). When students have submitted panels, you can just click on the panel beside the student and it will open up the panel for you to see. If you want to virtually bring a student up to the board, you click the students name in the Session List and click the Share Control button and they're in control.
Back to the options, I noticed that there were all these checked options that said "Show Name/UserID on Session List," "Show Participant status on Session List," "Show submitted panels on Session List," etc. Of course by default these were checked because it doesn't seem like it'd be much of a list if it didn't show anything. But when I thought about it, if you're running DyKnow on a projector in front of the class (and not using projector mode), all your students would be able to see that Johnny's just not getting it. Sometimes, this is what you want as it may encourage your students to help Johnny. Other times, this will embarrass Johnny to where he shuts off or just stops updating his status. So then there's an option to hide the different fields. You can hide the user's name so you'll see that the students who haven't submitted panels don't get it. If students are in work groups you can see Group 4 is having trouble. If you want the names, you can hide the status (you still have the pie chart at the bottom to let you know if students are having problems.
Continuing on, right above Session List options, you've got an option to Identify Users on Panels. This is useful when students have submitted panels, but if you don't want it to show, there you go. Later on in the day, I was running a session and sent a quick poll. In 5.1 you were suddenly able to know how each individual student responded to the poll, but if you felt that would censor the responses, you can make the answers "anonymous."
So there's been this big theme throughout the product that I never noticed till now. Only took me 7 years to see it. So given my track record, is there something I missed for promoting anonymous conversation?
An interesting theme I see in DyKnow Vision has been one of providing students a way to participate anonymously. In many ways, this feels like a terrible idea. We've all seen what anonymity on the Internet has done to people, and introducing a veil in between you and between your students feel counterproductive to engaging. However, someone must have realized and communicated to us that sometimes embarrassment can stifle engagement even more. And I'll admit maybe I'm reading too much of this narrative into some of these features, but once I started seeing it, I saw it everywhere.
When testing you tend to identify a particular feature and spend a lot of time ensuring that all aspects of that feature are working, and the place I started this past week was in the Options dialog. Perhaps the most obvious and most discussed of the "anonymous" features I recognized is the "Allow Anonymous Panel Submission" feature in the "Session" section of the Options dialog. I mentioned this last week, but by checking this checkbox, students will be able to submit panels anonymously. I recall back in 5.1 when discussing feature usage and importance (when trying to determine how to group and position features), several users called the feature indispensable when discussing sensitive topics.
Continuing my testing of the Options, I noticed on the "Popular" section options for the Session List.
For those that don't know, the Session List is a list of all the students in your Vision Session. The list displays their name as well as other additional information such as their status (how well they understand the topic), their submitted panels, their current work group number, and whether you have shared control (letting students demonstrate how to work out problems for the rest of the class). When students have submitted panels, you can just click on the panel beside the student and it will open up the panel for you to see. If you want to virtually bring a student up to the board, you click the students name in the Session List and click the Share Control button and they're in control.
Back to the options, I noticed that there were all these checked options that said "Show Name/UserID on Session List," "Show Participant status on Session List," "Show submitted panels on Session List," etc. Of course by default these were checked because it doesn't seem like it'd be much of a list if it didn't show anything. But when I thought about it, if you're running DyKnow on a projector in front of the class (and not using projector mode), all your students would be able to see that Johnny's just not getting it. Sometimes, this is what you want as it may encourage your students to help Johnny. Other times, this will embarrass Johnny to where he shuts off or just stops updating his status. So then there's an option to hide the different fields. You can hide the user's name so you'll see that the students who haven't submitted panels don't get it. If students are in work groups you can see Group 4 is having trouble. If you want the names, you can hide the status (you still have the pie chart at the bottom to let you know if students are having problems.
Continuing on, right above Session List options, you've got an option to Identify Users on Panels. This is useful when students have submitted panels, but if you don't want it to show, there you go. Later on in the day, I was running a session and sent a quick poll. In 5.1 you were suddenly able to know how each individual student responded to the poll, but if you felt that would censor the responses, you can make the answers "anonymous."
So there's been this big theme throughout the product that I never noticed till now. Only took me 7 years to see it. So given my track record, is there something I missed for promoting anonymous conversation?
As part of our recruiting weekend I will be teaching several mock classes in one of the pen-based classrooms I regularly teach in. Since I use DyKnow interactive teaching software in all of my courses it is only natural for me to use the software during these mock classes. The students and their parents will participate in hands-on teaching examples from my own discipline (computer science) and I will also borrow some examples from my colleagues who use DyKnow in eleven different disciplines at DePauw including Japanese language, economics and psychology. When I gave a similar session for prospective students a few months ago 22 out of 24 participants rated the session as "excellent."
Given the importance of technology to high school students it may not be surprising that 18 year olds have found my mock classes to be exciting. What may be more surprising is the similar interest that has been generated at the other end of the age spectrum. For the past four years I have also offered hands-on mock DyKnow classes to members of our 50th year reunion class during alumni weekend. These participants have been very impressed by the way the classroom has changed since they were in school.
Whether my mock classes have been offered for prospective students or alumni it feels good to know that I am contributing to the larger University mission. And, of course, it never hurts to build a strong base of administrative offices on campus who understand the importance of technology in the classroom. This base helps maintain DePauw's culture of institutional support for continued technology innovations - and I will continue to work to build it at DePauw. How can you build a base at your own school?
For DyKnow 5.2, as I often mention, we totally rewrote the DyKnow panel to be more stable and more WYSIWYG (specifically the rendering of text). Because of a few of the technology choices we made along the way, we also saw an increase in performance. In fact we saw a major increase in performance. As promised (last year) I ran through some benchmark tests for drawing notebooks to share just how much performance we've gained in 5.2. In my benchmark ink test, DyKnow 5.1 drew the panel in an average of 4.3 seconds. DyKnow 5.2 however, drew the panel in an average of 1.7 seconds. In my benchmark text and images test, DyKnow 5.1 drew the panel in an average of 4.6 seconds with a standard deviation of 3.1 (the range was 2.8 to 11.8 seconds). DyKnow 5.2, however, averaged 0.3 seconds with a standard deviation of 0.1 seconds (the range was 0.2 to 0.6).
Additionally, 5.1 was much less responsive when performing actions such as zooming and scrolling around panels. So 5.2 came out and we developers felt very good about the increased performance. And then something very interesting happened. Now that the client was running so much faster when dealing with lots of ink, we noticed notebooks that contained lots of ink. Significantly more ink than what we'd seen in the past. We're talking zooming the client to 250% zoom and writing as small as you can to cram in as much as possible. These were not the usage patterns we'd seen before.
Now we started looking at the time it took to save all this ink when saving your notebooks. Based on some of your feedback and this new usage data, we found a few ways that really sped up save times and put out a server patch with these improvements. But we haven't stopped there. Following our initial stress test for DyKnow 5.3, we implemented changes to improve performance when submitting or retrieving very large panels in a Session. We're also working on ensuring institution-wide scalability for our new file request feature (speaking of pushing lots of data). For the past few weeks, it has been all about squeezing out as much performance as possible, especially under these high load situations. And this is how DyKnow can be used to engage an entire lecture hall with hundreds of students. It's a continual push but so worth it.
Additionally, 5.1 was much less responsive when performing actions such as zooming and scrolling around panels. So 5.2 came out and we developers felt very good about the increased performance. And then something very interesting happened. Now that the client was running so much faster when dealing with lots of ink, we noticed notebooks that contained lots of ink. Significantly more ink than what we'd seen in the past. We're talking zooming the client to 250% zoom and writing as small as you can to cram in as much as possible. These were not the usage patterns we'd seen before.
Now we started looking at the time it took to save all this ink when saving your notebooks. Based on some of your feedback and this new usage data, we found a few ways that really sped up save times and put out a server patch with these improvements. But we haven't stopped there. Following our initial stress test for DyKnow 5.3, we implemented changes to improve performance when submitting or retrieving very large panels in a Session. We're also working on ensuring institution-wide scalability for our new file request feature (speaking of pushing lots of data). For the past few weeks, it has been all about squeezing out as much performance as possible, especially under these high load situations. And this is how DyKnow can be used to engage an entire lecture hall with hundreds of students. It's a continual push but so worth it.
It's the beginning of January and that means everyone is talking about their goals for starting a new leaf which obviously means that you have to take a big step back and see where you're going wrong. Me? I'm a bad blogger. To be sure, I feel that I write quality posts, and I do write at least once a week. That's not the problem I'm talking about. My problem is that I don't comment on other blogs.
So why does this matter and why should I (or you) be better at commenting? It basically becomes a question of "what is a blog" and "when is it useful." One interpretation of a blog as expressed on Wikipedia is that a blog is a website that contains regular entries of "commentary, description of events, or other material such as graphics or video." This leads into the "when is it useful" question. To answer this question, I'm going to employ a few analogies (stick with me as I promise this has some relevance).
A blog can be used like a diary. You can write up your personal thoughts and lock it away where no one but you can use it. A blog can also be like a newspaper. You can broadcast your thoughts and make them available for anyone to read. The more people who read it the more valuable it becomes. In the former case, the utility of your blog is limited to how much you personally can get out of the blog.
In the latter case, the utility of your blog is limited by the number of people reached by your posts. This value of the network is described by Metcalfe's Law (if you're interested).
It's also intuitively understood when you think about how useful your phone is if you had the only phone in the world vs if there were two in the world vs if there were ten in the world etc. But I must correct myself. Above I said your blog is limited by the number of people reached by your posts, but I should have said can be.
Can be? I say this because we're living in the Web 2.0 world (guh, forgive the cliche). A blog can be a newspaper but it can also be a gathering place thanks to the ability to comment, rework, and discuss. As part of a social network, the blog reaches not only individuals but also groups (described by Reed's Law if you're interested).
Think of a group you're actively involved in and how each person brings a unique set of perspectives to that group. This person in many ways is acting as a link to other groups. But imagine how sad it would be if no one in your group ever talked. Imagine if the group never engaged each other. This is me. This is why I'm a bad blogger.
I am a follower of many blogs, but I'm a commenter on almost none of them. I do this because I feel a bit out of my league or that as a software developer and not a teacher/school administrator my experience and ideas are not welcome. Sometimes it's to avoid sounding ignorant or amateurish. All of these are bad reasons to withhold. By not engaging, I'm not only hurting myself but I'm decreasing the value of the blogs I follow. Plus, we're all learners regardless and chances are if they're freely sharing their blog posts with the world, they're there to help. So this year, I want to do a better job engaging and challenge you to do the same. There's a lot going on in technology, education, and in the DyKnow community and it's important we all do what we can to keep each other up to date and growing. If you have a question, ask. If you have a perspective, share. After all, the least we can do for students is to model the engaged classroom with our own learning.
So why does this matter and why should I (or you) be better at commenting? It basically becomes a question of "what is a blog" and "when is it useful." One interpretation of a blog as expressed on Wikipedia is that a blog is a website that contains regular entries of "commentary, description of events, or other material such as graphics or video." This leads into the "when is it useful" question. To answer this question, I'm going to employ a few analogies (stick with me as I promise this has some relevance).
A blog can be used like a diary. You can write up your personal thoughts and lock it away where no one but you can use it. A blog can also be like a newspaper. You can broadcast your thoughts and make them available for anyone to read. The more people who read it the more valuable it becomes. In the former case, the utility of your blog is limited to how much you personally can get out of the blog.
In the latter case, the utility of your blog is limited by the number of people reached by your posts. This value of the network is described by Metcalfe's Law (if you're interested).
It's also intuitively understood when you think about how useful your phone is if you had the only phone in the world vs if there were two in the world vs if there were ten in the world etc. But I must correct myself. Above I said your blog is limited by the number of people reached by your posts, but I should have said can be.
Can be? I say this because we're living in the Web 2.0 world (guh, forgive the cliche). A blog can be a newspaper but it can also be a gathering place thanks to the ability to comment, rework, and discuss. As part of a social network, the blog reaches not only individuals but also groups (described by Reed's Law if you're interested).
Think of a group you're actively involved in and how each person brings a unique set of perspectives to that group. This person in many ways is acting as a link to other groups. But imagine how sad it would be if no one in your group ever talked. Imagine if the group never engaged each other. This is me. This is why I'm a bad blogger.
I am a follower of many blogs, but I'm a commenter on almost none of them. I do this because I feel a bit out of my league or that as a software developer and not a teacher/school administrator my experience and ideas are not welcome. Sometimes it's to avoid sounding ignorant or amateurish. All of these are bad reasons to withhold. By not engaging, I'm not only hurting myself but I'm decreasing the value of the blogs I follow. Plus, we're all learners regardless and chances are if they're freely sharing their blog posts with the world, they're there to help. So this year, I want to do a better job engaging and challenge you to do the same. There's a lot going on in technology, education, and in the DyKnow community and it's important we all do what we can to keep each other up to date and growing. If you have a question, ask. If you have a perspective, share. After all, the least we can do for students is to model the engaged classroom with our own learning.
My old high school, where my dad still works, has jumped straight into Project Based Learning (PBL) by adopting the New Technology High School model. Each time I come home, I make sure to get the latest scoop on how they're adapting to this vastly different teaching model. In PBL content and standards are learned by students as they are necessary to accomplish the project at hand. Teachers must design projects that will challenge and engage students as well as cover the subject matter necessary, but after the planning stages they spend less time as instructors and more time as advisors for student projects.
My educational background has been filled with the traditional lecture and exercise models where classtime is centered around topics, content, and discussion. In this environment, I feel that DyKnow Vision absolutely thrives providing features for collaborative note taking, quick assessments, backchannel discussions, and lecture capture. Work Groups encourages group exercises and provides tools for students to collaboratively work together, but this is still centered around the DyKnow panel which may not be appropriate for every project. So from my silo (and I encourage anyone who knows better to prove me wrong), DyKnow Vision can be somewhat of a clunky fit for PBL. Yes, even in PBL the lecture is not dead, and there are going to be many times where a replayable example or class discussion would benefit the students' project objectives, but it is definitely not the everyday class tool that I used in college.
But I think Monitor is coming into a unique situation. I've mentioned before that Monitor is not the favored son in my book, but many of the newer interactive features we have been and are currently adding to Monitor (including remote control, screen broadcast, and chat) are uniquely suited to providing this advisory role. By switching the chat mode to be to moderator only, students can be working in their groups and can quickly chat you a question that only you see. You can then send a quick reply back. If there are technology questions, you can view the student's screen and even take control to show them what to do. All of this can quickly and easily be done from your desk. This means that the easy problems can be fixed easily, so you'll have more time to focus on more complicated matters (the kinds of problems where you really need to walk over and talk things through).
My educational background has been filled with the traditional lecture and exercise models where classtime is centered around topics, content, and discussion. In this environment, I feel that DyKnow Vision absolutely thrives providing features for collaborative note taking, quick assessments, backchannel discussions, and lecture capture. Work Groups encourages group exercises and provides tools for students to collaboratively work together, but this is still centered around the DyKnow panel which may not be appropriate for every project. So from my silo (and I encourage anyone who knows better to prove me wrong), DyKnow Vision can be somewhat of a clunky fit for PBL. Yes, even in PBL the lecture is not dead, and there are going to be many times where a replayable example or class discussion would benefit the students' project objectives, but it is definitely not the everyday class tool that I used in college.
But I think Monitor is coming into a unique situation. I've mentioned before that Monitor is not the favored son in my book, but many of the newer interactive features we have been and are currently adding to Monitor (including remote control, screen broadcast, and chat) are uniquely suited to providing this advisory role. By switching the chat mode to be to moderator only, students can be working in their groups and can quickly chat you a question that only you see. You can then send a quick reply back. If there are technology questions, you can view the student's screen and even take control to show them what to do. All of this can quickly and easily be done from your desk. This means that the easy problems can be fixed easily, so you'll have more time to focus on more complicated matters (the kinds of problems where you really need to walk over and talk things through).
As the year comes to an end, I believe it's important to look at all of the great things that occurred in the past 12 months for DyKnow, for our customers, and for education, in general.
- Stimulus Money -- there was a lot of hype about extra dollars for educational technology and for keeping teachers in the classroom. A lot of that money has gone out to states and, hopefully, to individual schools and districts. Integrating technology in the classroom is important when trying to provide students with learning experience that promotes 21st century learning.
- Netbooks -- These "mini-laptops" continue to be very desired by the k12 community. With these lower cost machines, large public districts are starting to implement 1:1 computing on a larger level. Teaching strategies are really starting to focus on the use of technology in the classroom.
- Addition of numerous International Schools -- It seems that an endless number of International schools are embracing classroom technology at an astounding rate. Many are moving to a 1:1 computing program and are implementing DyKnow as a part of that program as well. We're glad to count them as customers and we love hearing about all of the great things they are doing (for example, when school is closed because of H1N1, classes continued to meet virtually with DyKnow).
- The release of 5.2 -- it's amazing what our software can do and the enhancements get better every year (for example, the PowerPoint Plug-In). Here's a synopsis of what was new in 5.2...and there are a lot of things to look forward to in 2010 with 5.3. Three cheers to our development team!
As I've mentioned before, it's important for us here at DyKnow to recognize educators for their outstanding teaching strategies and integration of classroom technology.
This month we're recognizing Dr. Jean Adams of York University (Ontario, Canada). I personally had the pleasure of working with Jean and her colleagues as they evaluated DyKnow to determine if the product would meet the needs of her and other business school classrooms. You can read her profile and why she is our Educator of the Month, but I want to discuss some of the specific uses of the software in her class.
This month we're recognizing Dr. Jean Adams of York University (Ontario, Canada). I personally had the pleasure of working with Jean and her colleagues as they evaluated DyKnow to determine if the product would meet the needs of her and other business school classrooms. You can read her profile and why she is our Educator of the Month, but I want to discuss some of the specific uses of the software in her class.- Engaging Every Student with Content Transmission -- Jean has a very large lecture class of about 400 each semester. DyKnow facilitates engaging all of those students via the technology. Jean knows that each of her students receive the lecture notes and can type additional information while in class.
- Working in Small Groups -- The small collaboration group feature was something Jean was very excited about when she first saw DyKnow. With a few clicks she is able to separate the class into smaller groups of her choosing. These students can work together even if they are not seated near each other. In a way, this emulates interactive whiteboard technology for the small groups. They now have a shared space to collaborate--and they can easily submit their work to Dr. Adams.
- Submitting Work in Class -- Speaking of submitting work, the students use the submit panel feature to send their work (either as individuals or as groups) to Dr. Adams. It's then easy for her to determine if she wants to share those submissions with the class or review them afterward. If she selects to look at them afterward, she can mark them up and send them back to students with the click of one button.
- PowerPoint Plug-In -- Jean was very excited to hear this fall that we now have a PowerPoint Plug-In. She is able to create all of her content, including polling questions, ahead of time. She can click one button to have it convert into a DyKnow file and is still able make changes once it's in DyKnow.
According to a recent survey, college "students are spending nearly 12 hours daily, on average, engaged with some type of media". I found this survey on the PRSA website. So half of a college student's life is spent using technology.
While this article doesn't go into detail regarding when these gadgets are used to engage with media, I'd almost bet cash-money that some of that time is during class.
Students are usin
g technology in the classroom -- sometimes as a distraction and sometimes for good purpose. The student could be surfing the web for classroom-related content, playing the "google jockey" perhaps. Maybe the instructor uses online classroom software, like an LMS, to post additional resources and homework questions. Students could be using their cell phones to send answers to polling questions via software for the classroom.
On the other hand, students could be playing FarmVille on Facebook or texting their friends about what happened at the weekend's big bash.
Whatever these students are doing, they are doing it with technology. Sooner than later, I believe more professors will embrace technology as a tool with purpose in education which will better help them engage and connect with their students.
**Photo from mediabistro.com**
While this article doesn't go into detail regarding when these gadgets are used to engage with media, I'd almost bet cash-money that some of that time is during class.
Students are usin
g technology in the classroom -- sometimes as a distraction and sometimes for good purpose. The student could be surfing the web for classroom-related content, playing the "google jockey" perhaps. Maybe the instructor uses online classroom software, like an LMS, to post additional resources and homework questions. Students could be using their cell phones to send answers to polling questions via software for the classroom.On the other hand, students could be playing FarmVille on Facebook or texting their friends about what happened at the weekend's big bash.
Whatever these students are doing, they are doing it with technology. Sooner than later, I believe more professors will embrace technology as a tool with purpose in education which will better help them engage and connect with their students.
**Photo from mediabistro.com**
So one of the themes I've seen in my reader the past few months has been the mentioning of cognitive load theory. It might be mentioned in someone's paper or passively mentioned en route to some other point, but it was enough for me to sit up and wonder "what's that?"
Cognitive load theory(CLT) is the branch of psychology that gave us the 7-digit phone number. It explores the capacity of the mind to retain information, something that is quite important to educators as well. The intro to the intro version of CLT states that the mind can only take so much load and there are three types of cognitive load: intrinsic, extraneous, and germane.
Intrinsic cognitive load describes the inherent difficulty in the subject matter. There is a greater load when reading Ulysses than there is reading Green Eggs and Ham. Simple addition is easier than calculus. It is noted that while there are strategies to manage this, intrinsic cognitive load is largely out of your control.
Extraneous cognitive load describes the unnecessary cognitive load present during instruction. An extreme example of this might be trying to learn a subject in foreign language. While the translation exercise may be very good for practicing the foreign language, it stands as a barrier to learning the subject being taught.
The final type, germane, is described as the load present when constructing schema (the unit of learning in CLT). These are (among many things) the connections and metaphors you might construct to explain and relate new information to past information. The mind is working when learning which does increase load; it's only that this load is the kind we want to increase.
So in comes the Fire Story, Dave Berque's story about his earliest days of teaching and coming to the epiphany that technology could aid him in engaging his students. As the story goes, Dr. Berque was forced to hit the ground running as an educator, teaching a theoretical computer science course. He explained the material, copying his notes on the board, while students copied the board into their notes. All the while, the class was disappointingly silent. Then one day, Dr. Berque noticed seven hands raised in his class of 150 people and excitedly called on one of the students. He was soon disappointed to learn that these seven students were only trying to inform him that the ceiling had caught fire after a light had exploded.
The extraneous cognitive load from furiously copying notes had become so overwhelming to the students that only 7/150 had noticed the ceiling was on fire. It seems fair to say that if students' minds were too overloaded for their survival instincts to detect danger, there was likely little room for new schema acquisition.
From this experience, Dr. Berque was inspired to create DEBBIE which later became DyKnow. Now his notes on the board are automatically transfered to students and he is free to focus on active learning activities designed to increase germane load and creating a more engaged (and less overworked) classroom.
It's important to note, in my opinion, that not everything Dr. Berque writes is automatically transferred to students. I think one of the problems with many PowerPoint presentations is that they after oversimplifying concepts down to a few bullet points they spoon feed you those points one at a time, reducing your need to pay attention. Additionally, I believe there is quite a bit of mnemonic potential in physically writing (in moderation). Dr. Berque takes advantage of this potential by using what is called "private ink." When he writes on the interactive whiteboard at the front of the class with private ink, students see what he's writing, but are forced to copy it into their notes. This helps provide emphasis on key concepts, which in turn will hopefully lead to better schema construction.
Cognitive load theory(CLT) is the branch of psychology that gave us the 7-digit phone number. It explores the capacity of the mind to retain information, something that is quite important to educators as well. The intro to the intro version of CLT states that the mind can only take so much load and there are three types of cognitive load: intrinsic, extraneous, and germane.
Intrinsic cognitive load describes the inherent difficulty in the subject matter. There is a greater load when reading Ulysses than there is reading Green Eggs and Ham. Simple addition is easier than calculus. It is noted that while there are strategies to manage this, intrinsic cognitive load is largely out of your control.
Extraneous cognitive load describes the unnecessary cognitive load present during instruction. An extreme example of this might be trying to learn a subject in foreign language. While the translation exercise may be very good for practicing the foreign language, it stands as a barrier to learning the subject being taught.
The final type, germane, is described as the load present when constructing schema (the unit of learning in CLT). These are (among many things) the connections and metaphors you might construct to explain and relate new information to past information. The mind is working when learning which does increase load; it's only that this load is the kind we want to increase.
So in comes the Fire Story, Dave Berque's story about his earliest days of teaching and coming to the epiphany that technology could aid him in engaging his students. As the story goes, Dr. Berque was forced to hit the ground running as an educator, teaching a theoretical computer science course. He explained the material, copying his notes on the board, while students copied the board into their notes. All the while, the class was disappointingly silent. Then one day, Dr. Berque noticed seven hands raised in his class of 150 people and excitedly called on one of the students. He was soon disappointed to learn that these seven students were only trying to inform him that the ceiling had caught fire after a light had exploded.
The extraneous cognitive load from furiously copying notes had become so overwhelming to the students that only 7/150 had noticed the ceiling was on fire. It seems fair to say that if students' minds were too overloaded for their survival instincts to detect danger, there was likely little room for new schema acquisition.
From this experience, Dr. Berque was inspired to create DEBBIE which later became DyKnow. Now his notes on the board are automatically transfered to students and he is free to focus on active learning activities designed to increase germane load and creating a more engaged (and less overworked) classroom.
It's important to note, in my opinion, that not everything Dr. Berque writes is automatically transferred to students. I think one of the problems with many PowerPoint presentations is that they after oversimplifying concepts down to a few bullet points they spoon feed you those points one at a time, reducing your need to pay attention. Additionally, I believe there is quite a bit of mnemonic potential in physically writing (in moderation). Dr. Berque takes advantage of this potential by using what is called "private ink." When he writes on the interactive whiteboard at the front of the class with private ink, students see what he's writing, but are forced to copy it into their notes. This helps provide emphasis on key concepts, which in turn will hopefully lead to better schema construction.
Don't forget to register for our upcoming webinar: The Noisy Classroom: Using DyKnow software to encourage collaboration and discussion. It will be happening November 12 at 2:00 EST.
Our September Educator of the Month, Dr. Andrew French will lead the webinar and demonstrate how DyKnow software allows him to immediately evaluate student learning and adjust instruction based on understanding.
Dr. French uses Tablet PCs and our interactive teaching software to create a "noisy classroom."
Oh and don't forget you can always review previous webinars on integrating technology in the classroom on our webinar archive website.
Our September Educator of the Month, Dr. Andrew French will lead the webinar and demonstrate how DyKnow software allows him to immediately evaluate student learning and adjust instruction based on understanding.
Dr. French uses Tablet PCs and our interactive teaching software to create a "noisy classroom."
Oh and don't forget you can always review previous webinars on integrating technology in the classroom on our webinar archive website.
In mid-October I had the pleasure of visiting Appalachian State University for the Tablet PC Tech Forum. What I found there was a hidden gem!
Come on - how many universities invite vendors to campus, take care of accommodation details, and ask for feedback and collaboration? I can think of many others that demand vendors to offer price cuts or giveaways without conversation, but App State is different in a very refreshing way. My hat is off to Corporate Relations Director John Krumrine and team for making us feel welcome during this engaging and productive visit.
We were joined by representatives from Microsoft, Dell, HP, and Lenovo to see how App State faculty are integrating technology into teaching. The star of the day was Dr. Jennifer Snodgrass of the faculty of Hayes School of Music. We already knew Jennifer was great due to the DyKnow webinar she gave this summer, but seeing her and her students during actual classes on campus revealed her passion and technology competence even more!
I must say as a former music student I wish I could have taken music theory in an environment like Jennifer's classroom. Her energy matched with Tablet PCs and DyKnow software fit in nicely with the notation- and media-heavy activities in music theory. Students even reported higher classroom learning/mastery due to the technology and related teaching/learning practices. I think they have that quote on video - I hope!
The innovations in music are just the tip of the iceberg. A course sequence on the "physics of music" is planned for the future. This is the result of sciences and music faculty working together with a common technology to interest non-science and non-music major students, and it looks fantastic.
We also enjoyed meeting the deans of arts/sciences and music, as well as university IT director, chief of staff, and even the chancellor. This showed how high the commitment is to effective teaching with technology at App State. Stay tuned - some great things are happening there!
Come on - how many universities invite vendors to campus, take care of accommodation details, and ask for feedback and collaboration? I can think of many others that demand vendors to offer price cuts or giveaways without conversation, but App State is different in a very refreshing way. My hat is off to Corporate Relations Director John Krumrine and team for making us feel welcome during this engaging and productive visit.
We were joined by representatives from Microsoft, Dell, HP, and Lenovo to see how App State faculty are integrating technology into teaching. The star of the day was Dr. Jennifer Snodgrass of the faculty of Hayes School of Music. We already knew Jennifer was great due to the DyKnow webinar she gave this summer, but seeing her and her students during actual classes on campus revealed her passion and technology competence even more!
I must say as a former music student I wish I could have taken music theory in an environment like Jennifer's classroom. Her energy matched with Tablet PCs and DyKnow software fit in nicely with the notation- and media-heavy activities in music theory. Students even reported higher classroom learning/mastery due to the technology and related teaching/learning practices. I think they have that quote on video - I hope!
The innovations in music are just the tip of the iceberg. A course sequence on the "physics of music" is planned for the future. This is the result of sciences and music faculty working together with a common technology to interest non-science and non-music major students, and it looks fantastic.
We also enjoyed meeting the deans of arts/sciences and music, as well as university IT director, chief of staff, and even the chancellor. This showed how high the commitment is to effective teaching with technology at App State. Stay tuned - some great things are happening there!
Laura (our company President) caught me while I was passing in the hallway not long ago and I have no idea how we got on this subject, but we started talking about theater and performance. I mentioned that I had done several musicals as a high school student and one thing led to another and the conversation ended by jokingly suggesting that we put on a company musical. No, we haven't discussed it since, but now that it's on the Internet we'll see if there are any YouTube videos in our near future.
Seriously though, in theater there's this notion of a fourth wall that is the front of the stage. The audience is stationed in their area where they observe and enjoy the performers stationed in their area. But during this time, there's no anticipated acknowledgement of the audience by the performers. There are times, however, that a performer will "break the fourth wall" and address the audience -sometimes even coming out into the audience to do so. The effect is a transformation in the audience's experience of the play going from passive observation to active participation.
Much has been written all over the Internet against the "sage on a stage" model of teaching (and if you haven't heard there are tons of opportunities for creating an engaged classroom with DyKnow Vision), but the wall I find interesting is the one created by Monitor. DyKnow's classroom management product has the word "Big Brother" thrown around to help describe its function. You as the teacher can impose limitations on websites and applications not to mention the thumbnail image of every student's computer in the class. You can even view the screen of any of your students in real time without the student knowing they're being monitored.
To me this is another fourth wall. For Monitor 5.3, the main push is for features that bust through that wall to take Monitor from a passive observation tool to a classroom participation tool. And I'm quite happy. It's my belief that classrooms need technology to be used to create connections more efficiently and abundantly, so why should classroom management tech not fit that as well. As I've mentioned before, we've been moving in that direction slowly with Remote Control and File Transfer. I've already mentioned that Screen Broadcaster is being added to Monitor as well for 5.3. But an interesting addition to the growing list of interactive features is Monitor Chat.
For me this is the big one. Chat's use has consistently surprised me on the Vision side, so I can only imagine the uses Monitor chat will get. But excited anticipation aside, I think this is important as it helps provide for the first time a feedback mechanism for educators using Monitor. Your students will be able to discretely ask questions or for assistance. They'll be able to strike up discussions with you or with their classmates (as in Vision, you'll have the ability to set chat to off, to you only, or to everyone). This is a different beast indeed, and I'm excited we're headed in that direction. So let me know your thoughts on including chat in Monitor. Is anyone planning on using it once 5.3 is released next year? How will this change the way you use Monitor?
Seriously though, in theater there's this notion of a fourth wall that is the front of the stage. The audience is stationed in their area where they observe and enjoy the performers stationed in their area. But during this time, there's no anticipated acknowledgement of the audience by the performers. There are times, however, that a performer will "break the fourth wall" and address the audience -sometimes even coming out into the audience to do so. The effect is a transformation in the audience's experience of the play going from passive observation to active participation.
Much has been written all over the Internet against the "sage on a stage" model of teaching (and if you haven't heard there are tons of opportunities for creating an engaged classroom with DyKnow Vision), but the wall I find interesting is the one created by Monitor. DyKnow's classroom management product has the word "Big Brother" thrown around to help describe its function. You as the teacher can impose limitations on websites and applications not to mention the thumbnail image of every student's computer in the class. You can even view the screen of any of your students in real time without the student knowing they're being monitored.
To me this is another fourth wall. For Monitor 5.3, the main push is for features that bust through that wall to take Monitor from a passive observation tool to a classroom participation tool. And I'm quite happy. It's my belief that classrooms need technology to be used to create connections more efficiently and abundantly, so why should classroom management tech not fit that as well. As I've mentioned before, we've been moving in that direction slowly with Remote Control and File Transfer. I've already mentioned that Screen Broadcaster is being added to Monitor as well for 5.3. But an interesting addition to the growing list of interactive features is Monitor Chat.
For me this is the big one. Chat's use has consistently surprised me on the Vision side, so I can only imagine the uses Monitor chat will get. But excited anticipation aside, I think this is important as it helps provide for the first time a feedback mechanism for educators using Monitor. Your students will be able to discretely ask questions or for assistance. They'll be able to strike up discussions with you or with their classmates (as in Vision, you'll have the ability to set chat to off, to you only, or to everyone). This is a different beast indeed, and I'm excited we're headed in that direction. So let me know your thoughts on including chat in Monitor. Is anyone planning on using it once 5.3 is released next year? How will this change the way you use Monitor?
Next week, I'll be heading to Denver, CO for EDUCAUSE 2009. EDUCAUSE seems to be (and perhaps it) one of the largest High Ed conferences in the US. DyKnow attends every year.
This year we have a bunch of activities:
This year we have a bunch of activities:
- Hands-on Classroom: Dr. Vince DiStasi, CIO and professor at Grove City College, will lead several sessions on implementing technology in the classroom. The session, called "Active Learning: Selecting Technology for Your Environment" will be held 4 times during the conference. Check out this page for more information.
- Concurrent Session: Dr. Dave Berque, Computer Science Professor at DePauw University, will present "Using Audio and Ink Recordings, Tablet PCs and DyKnow to Maximize Class Time - Teaching Upside Down" on November 5th, 2009 from 2:20-3:10PM in Korbel Ballroom 2B.
- DyKnow Booth #1210: We'll have education software demos that showcase our classroom management software as well as our curricular software which includes classroom response technology, classroom capture and collaboration tools.
- HP Booth #1110: See how DyKnow software combines with HP hardware for innovative and reliable classroom technology solutions.
Today, Vince DiStasi, the CIO for Grove City College gave a webinar regarding integrating technology in the classroom in a meaningful way.
Here's an overview from my perspective. The first part focused on the hardware, infrastructure and why it's important to consider several perspectives.
The second half of the presentation focused on DyKnow software.
Here's an overview from my perspective. The first part focused on the hardware, infrastructure and why it's important to consider several perspectives.
- Don't underestimate what you need for your network. Infrastructure is incredibly important. You'll need more bandwidth than what you initially expect.
- Hardware that is reliable and quality is important to faculty. They won't want to create a meaningful classroom technology plan if the hardware won't consistently work for them.
- Make sure there is enough work space for students (previously this meant actual work space, now that means enough screen real estate on their devices).
- Applications supporting the classroom experience are important as well. Some are discipline specific; others will have campus agreements.
- Students won't always use the tools if they have them. They must understand what they are and how they are used. For example, students use MS Word to take notes, because that's how they've always taken notes on a computer. Once OneNote is explained (more as a collection tool for gathering information, like note taking), they are more likely to use it.
- Why a Tablet PC? A Tablet PC is "a laptop on steroids." It's particularly useful for when a pen/pencil is needed.
The second half of the presentation focused on DyKnow software.
- With DyKnow, you're not asking faculty to change a lot about the way they teach. If they write, they write on a Tablet PC instead of a chalkboard.
- If they like PowerPoint, they now have a PowerPoint Plug-In to use. They can use existing PowerPoint, create polling questions during prep time, keep animations, and even launch a DyKnow session from PowerPoint.
- The DyKnow Suite has many layers -- like an onion.
- It's a good tool because most students today are not good note takers -- DyKnow makes it easier for them to understand what is important. But the key is not to make them passive learners. There are interactive tools in DyKnow to ensure students are involved.
- The software ensures that students are able to replay all of their notes after class. If a teacher records audio during class, that stays with the notes from class.
- A very useful part of DyKnow is that it provides different ways to collect student work. There is no handing out and collecting paper. Everything is done in DyKnow. For example, a quiz is sent to students, collected upon completion, reviewed after class and the graded quiz is sent back to students electronically.
- DyKnow is client/server, not peer-to-peer. So it allows student to connect from a distance. They have students in France take a class with students in PA. Students are paired up in a small group, even though they are not physically together.
- Another way to collect feedback is through a poll. This way it is anonymous, but the results are there for the entire class to see.
- There have to be pedagogical goals (engagements, problem introduction, challenge artifacts, etc) with any sort of activity implemented in DyKnow. Students will know if you are just giving them busy work.
- The idea of collaborative note taking is powerful. Faculty determine how much information to give to the students.
- What's important to the faculty? The finished product or the process the student took? Replay allows faculty to see the process that the student took.
- If you are using small groups, you only have to grade the groups' submission once and it will send the graded paper back to all of the students in that group.
I'm sure you know by now that our interactive teaching software, DyKnow Vision, has a PowerPoint Add-In. I think this is a great tool, especially for educators who already use PowerPoint in their classes.I'll be honest: I'm not a huge fan of PowerPoint. In my experience, PowerPoint wasn't used to necessarily make powerful points. It was used more to rehash everything I'd read about in the text. Often times, I was able to access the presentation beforehand with our school management software (an LMS to be exact). I'd print them out, and then take notes on the side with anything else the professor would say that seemed important.
Nothing to me in this situation was engaging or interactive. It was the teacher talking at us (that's right, I wrote "at") and us trying to write down as much as possible.
I do, however, like the PowerPoint Add-In for DyKnow. Why you may ask?
- PowerPoint isn't the actual mode of presentation. It's DyKnow. And with DyKnow you get interaction, collaboration and, hopefully, some engagement during class.
- The embedded polling tool is fantastic. Now, teachers can prepare questions for this student response tool while they prepare for class. With one click of a button the question for understand is sent out to the student computers for them to answer.
- Clarity. Now, when you convert from PowerPoint to DyKnow all of the text, links and images remain "live." It's no longer a static image. Everything is edit-able and move-able. Which means more flexibility during class with last minute changes.
Photo from friendbeef.com
Okay, so there's nothing really exciting about being Pre-Alpha. It merely means that we haven't even built an official version of the 5.3 code, but it definitely does not mean that we haven't been working (I can't believe you'd even think that). Since everything is at such an early stage, I simply don't know what will be in 5.3 next year, but I do know what I've been working on lately so I'll talk about that.This week I've been knee-deep in bandwidth issues as we work on adding a screen broadcaster feature to DyKnow Monitor. Screen broadcaster has been a Vision feature for years now given the dividing line traditionally has been classroom management = Monitor and classroom interaction = Vision. But many of our newer features in Monitor have begun to blur that line. In many ways, I'm beginning (hoping) to see Monitor as a way to engage your students as opposed to merely ensuring they're engaged. I'm getting ahead of myself. So what does Screen Broadcaster mean for Monitor and why am I worried about bandwidth?
I'm glad you asked.
Firstly, lets define why anyone (Vision or Monitor) would want to broadcast his or her screen by looking back at my Computer Science (CS) classes at DePauw. CS is a major that necessarily requires multiple tools. Much of the theory and concepts were discussed using DyKnow Vision thanks to its collaborative notetaking features, but try as you might, you can't compile and run a program with DyKnow. So in order to participate in class labs and paired programming exercises we had to use a compiler. It would be nice if everyone was completely fluent in whatever program they're using at all points in time, but reality has shown that you have to show people how to use tools. Broadcasting your screen to your class allows you to demonstrate how to do an action to your entire class at once without needing a projector (or students being in the same room).
So why am I worried about bandwidth? It's because images are very large. Ted Stevens famously received the ire of the Internet by calling the "internets" a "series of tubes." His metaphor wasn't entirely apt in the situation he described because he thought an email was being delayed by a matter of days due to increased network traffic. Despite the famous faux pas, the series of tubes metaphor does make sense when talking about general bandwidth concerns. Only so much water can flow through a tube before it starts getting congested. The same is true with your wireless router. If you try and push too much information through the router, eventually some or all the programs you're using for class will stop working (at least the connected ones).
Additionally, we're not just talking about one classroom, but there will be some effect on your entire network. On the other hand, you don't want to send too little data or you won't be able to effectively demonstrate (earlier today I ran and subsequently failed a test that looked like I was trying to redraw the screen in MSPaint). One thing we do in Vision (and will also do in Monitor) is to allow the user to broadcast in a "Low Bandwidth" mode. This way users are able to govern the wireless usage, but given that this also comes with a loss of quality, not many people will opt into this option.
So obviously, there's a lot to think about still, but I am pleased with the progress we're making.
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Not long ago I was catching up with one of my old high schools friends who is now teaching high school English. We were catching up about what we're currently working on and the lessons we each have been learning in the beginning years of employment. And then we got to talking about educational technology and the like (it was a pretty easy transition given our circumstances) and she asked me about the problem of cell phones in the classroom. Immediately, she noted that it was becoming more of a burden to write up students and collect the cell phones constantly.
So obviously the solution is to find ways to use the phones positively to engage students, and there are hundreds of examples and ideas available online of teachers doing just that. The iPhone in particular has gotten a lot of attention from edtech bloggers and tweeters for the simplicity of the user interface and the access of resources available (both apps and webapps).
Which is really great if your students have iPhones.
A really good point she made was the fact that not all her kids have iPhones. Yes some kids do have very powerful mobile devices but not all do. You could purchase an iPhone/iTouch for all your students to use for class, but you're still competing with their phones and the original disciplinary issues that prompted the discussion. On the other hand, it's obviously not an option to leave out students who don't have the phones capable of keeping up with the classroom activities.
And it's not just about how nice a phone you have. An additional concern is having a sufficient data plan for the phones. This is particularly challenging as a data plan is going to be a monthly expense. I can imagine in the worst case scenario some student coming to class with a huge bill from data overages because they weren't thinking about their cell phone plan when they were working on their class project.
So in many ways this limits your pedagogy to the lowest common denominator for your class. This could be a problem if you're wanting to take advantage of complex webapps that some phones may not be able to handle, but any phone that can text can take advantage of Twitter. Simply set up the student twitter accounts to accept tweets from the student's cell phone number and then you can project the twitter feed from the class on the wall like I discussed doing with DyKnow Vision and DyKnow's chat feature.
I think using texting as the lowest common denominator might be okay since the student who doesn't have the ability to text or surf the web is less likely to be using the phone in a disruptive manner (snake only holds my attention for so long). So with those students you could provide them an access tool such as a computer or provided cell phone to take part in the classroom activity. There are additional consequences to handing out cell phones as well (for instance who pays for the data plan) which is why I like that the iPod Touch will connect to your wireless... or the full-blown computer option.
The interesting consequence of all my thinking along this line is that it all points to a seemingly inevitable 1-1 cell phone program necessarily being introduced in the same ways that 1-1 laptop/tablet programs are being rolled out now. All of this is for naught if classroom activities using the phones are not engaging enough to lure students from the dark side, but knowing that they can be I wonder if it would be a workable solution to the cell phone problem. The big scary part of all this is that classroom management software like DyKnow Monitor won't be a part of this brave new world which can be very intimidating, so it's jumping into the deep end feet first. No matter which way things go, it will be interesting to see how this turns out.
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When talking with schools, I sometimes like to share the story of how our education software came to be. Often referred to as the "fire story," our software originated in the college classroom based on an experience by Dr. Dave Berque.
The story is written in the History section of the DyKnow website. You can even hear Dr. Berque explain the story himself by clicking on the video link. As the story goes, it seemed to Berque (after the fire) that technology could play a role. There should be some way to incorporate classroom technology so that both student and teacher would be able to concentrate on what was being taught and not just writing it all down.
Today we're known as DyKnow, but originally the software was referred to as DEBBIE. There are some similarities between DEBBIE and DyKnow -- check it out for yourself.
A webpage about Dr. Berque on DePauw University's website reminded me of this story (it's also where the picture of Dave Berque resides) and the importance it plays in our ongoing goal to enrich technology enhanced classrooms. See, we focused on the learning aspect of the classroom first. The classroom monitoring software came later.
The story is written in the History section of the DyKnow website. You can even hear Dr. Berque explain the story himself by clicking on the video link. As the story goes, it seemed to Berque (after the fire) that technology could play a role. There should be some way to incorporate classroom technology so that both student and teacher would be able to concentrate on what was being taught and not just writing it all down. Today we're known as DyKnow, but originally the software was referred to as DEBBIE. There are some similarities between DEBBIE and DyKnow -- check it out for yourself.
A webpage about Dr. Berque on DePauw University's website reminded me of this story (it's also where the picture of Dave Berque resides) and the importance it plays in our ongoing goal to enrich technology enhanced classrooms. See, we focused on the learning aspect of the classroom first. The classroom monitoring software came later.
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