Today I had the opportunity to train a group of High School teachers on a new tool that we brought to the District.  Atomic Learning is a  great tool that not only provides teachers with just-in-time video-tutorial support for supporting the integration of technology into lessons, but also can take some of the burden of classroom teachers having to teach kids how to use the tools by giving the students access to the same tutorials.  I’m hoping that this tool is a boon to the staff this year, especially as we begin to focus more and more on the way that we can use technology to support and improve opportunities for student learning.  I felt particularly validated when one of the attendees realized that this would mean they didn’t have to develop extensive training document for a Google Docs-based initiative they are using in the classroom, as the video tutorials would be a great alternative.  Thanks to all those who attended and contributed with great questions and good discussion.

Four to Five Year Time Horizon

This post is number four of a four-part series on the Horizon Report 2010. To start at the beginning visit the overview.

In its farthest reaching predication, the Report looks to two significant changes in the way that we interact with computers and the data that they produce.

Gesture-Based Computing

First citing the iPhone’s natural gesture based navigation advancements and the Nintendo Wii’s accelerometer-based interactive remotes, the way that we interface with machines is changing.  Forty years of keyboard and mouse as the only way to manipulate the computer seems to be dissolving as new technologies appear.  Numerous other improvements are in the works, the Microsoft Surface may change the way we interact with a device, from the multitouch interface, to the ability to recognize an input device, like a camera and connect to it wirelessly.

The question that I am left with is: “How does this impact education?”

Opportunities:
The shift that we are observing is already present in many of your classrooms as interactive whiteboards take hold.  With the right professional development, teachers can easily realize the potential for these devices far beyond a fancy presentation device, but can harness the Kinesthetic aspect of learning for all students.

Beyond the classrooms of today, imagine a computer that can instruct a student in sign language by “reading” their hand gestures, a flat surface table that children in all grades gravitate to in groups to learn about a wide variety of students, a virtual lab-room tabletop or even a human anatomy program that allows for the virtual dissection of a digital cadaver.  With a little bit of imagination the possibilities are endless.

Challenges:
Like usual, money could prove to be a challenge.  But, given that the trend appears to be the integration of gesture-based computing as a norm in the way we interface with the machines, the cost could be minimal as we repalce older equipment in our facilities.

Action Steps:
We need to stay aware of the pace of change and new opportunities as they present themselves.  This means reading, networking, and attending conferences to see the most cutting edge advancements.

Visual Data Analysis

Aside from changing the way that we interact with the physical hardware, the report looks to a shift in the way that we analyze data.  As researchers amass vast amounts of data, the analysis of these data can’t always be comprehended through spreadsheets, summaries and traditional methods.   But when the data is aggregated in a way that is more accessible to the human mind.  The chart above, created by Wordle summarizes the 2010 State of the Union Address in a way that reveals an interesting perspective on the speech that can only by achieved in this unique way.

Opportunities:
New ways of analyzing data could reach students in new ways.  Visual learners especially can benefit from a new perspective on otherwise flat and untenable data.  Many of these trends in data analysis are appearing all over the web, from the visual representation of data by Mint.com (Visual Representation of Russia compared to USA) to sites like the above-mentioned Wordle, Gapminder and Flowing Data.

Challenges:
The chellenge here is a professional development one.  Teachers accustomed to traditional methods of data visualization may not even know that these tools exist.  Train them now so they are ready in five years when this trend peaks!

Action Steps:
Educate Teachers! Now.  Before we find ourselves surrounded by this & confused about it.

Two to Three Year Time Horizon

This post is number three of a four-part series on the Horizon Report 2010. To start at the beginning visit the overview.

Electronic Textbooks

My oldest school-friend and I used to walk home from elementary and middle school hauling our bulky textbooks and I vividly remember a conversation we had about a not-too-distant future where we would just carry home a CD-ROM with all of our information on it. . . Well, along with my promised future of flying cars, jet packs and robot housekeepers the future is turning out to be somewhat of a disappointment.

According to the Horizon Report, Electronic Textbooks are not that far from becoming a reality in many college campuses.  I completely agree, with the increasing number of e-book readers that are hitting the market in 2010, the apparent of a long-awaited Apple Slate iPad device and the increasing ebook consumer market, the climate is finally right for electronic textbooks to have their day.  I just hope it gets done right.  Many publishers (as I learned from Hall Davidson at TRETC this year) still don’t quite get the idea that an electronic textbook has the potential to be so much more than just the pages from the print version of the book.

Opportunities:
1) Digital Texts could Redefine Our Notion of Classroom Materials
The possibilities are endless for Digital Texts to revolutionize the way we use a reference text in the classroom.  Basically, I’m hoping for an experience that transcends the linear and isolated reading experience found in contemporary printed texts, in favor of an experience that makes connections within the text, and also with other learners.

2) Potential Cost Savings
At the university level the  fact that students purchase their own books points to an opportunity for significant savings if they purchase an e-book over the dead-tree alternative.  In a K-12 setting, the cost of textbooks is taken on by the district.  Depending on the licensing agreements and subscription deals, there may or may not be a great cost savings to schools, however, electronic textbooks could be easily maintained and updated.  The textbook replacement cycle may diminish if the text remains up to date.

3) Customized Texts
Electronic textbooks might also afford schools the ability to pick and choose the content that they purchase in order to support the specific culture that they are targetting.

Challenges:
1) A model for K-12 electronic textbooks
Book vendors Digital Content Providers and Schools will really have to think outside the box to

2) Potential for a standards war
iPad, iPod, Netbooks, Tablet PCs, Web-Based, Kindle,ePub . . . there are so many potential devices that could view electronic textbooks.  To ensure success of digitally distributed content, it needs to be done right, preferably around an open, standards-based format like ePub to ensure compatibility across platforms.

3) Accessibility
This should be an opportunity, as digital texts can be adapted for all kinds of accessibility needs, but we would be wise to think of these requirements during the selection process.

Action Steps:
Is the possibility of any kind of electronic textbook resources considered when we go through the textbook adoption process?  How do we evaluate the quality of electronic supplementary resources that come with textbooks?  Is there a potential cost-savings associated with finding an innovative way of using electronic versions of textbooks.  Taking a longer view, is there someone in the district who can stay abreast of the developments in electronic textbook

Augmented Reality:

I have to admit that this is the area that I have the hardest time envisioning in education.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m psyched about the idea of a virtual Heads Up Display in my car and beamed onto my eyeballs.  Just imagine, I’d never forget a face.  But the reality of augmented reality using an App like Layar means peering through a 4-inch screen at the world.  I’ll give it the benefit of the doubt, maybe in a more urban area this is the best idea since sliced bread, but I just haven’t seen it in action enough to get excited about it.

I guess that in fieldwork this could be fabulous.  I love the notion of standing in the Roman Colosseum and using an augmented reality app to fill the space with live action and crowds watching a gladiator in battle, but my imagination needs some stretching to see an immediate application.  All that being said, augmented reality was apparently all the rage at the British Education Training and Technology (BETT) show in London this year.  Perhaps I just need to see it in action for myself.

Opportunities:
Adding a layer of digital content to real life brings in a whole new dimension to the world.  Google sky map is an awesome example of what can be accomplished — just point it to the sky, and it labels what you are looking at.  It is remarkable.  I’m looking forward to a day when this can be expanded.  Imagine pointing the device at a bird and getting a precise identification and data on that specimen, getting chemical information molecular structure and data in Chem Lab.   I can imagine lots of awesome future uses, but today’s technology is still a little clunky for my likes.

Challenges:
I would be cautious of this being a technology for technology’s sake issue. If it were incorporated into an existing device, then that sounds much more realistic.

Action Steps:
Pay attention to further developments.

One  Year or Less Horizon

This post is number two of a four-part series on the Horizon Report 2010. To start at the beginning visit the overview.

Mobile Computing

The first emerging technology as it regards education is the ubiquity of connected mobile computing devices among students.  At USC this is especially true among our students.  Middle school students that I casually poll often show near 100% own an iPod (brand) device, and increasingly they report owning an iPod Touch, and beg incessantly for the wifi password so that they can get online during (before and after) the school day.  Without any formal data on the subject, I would hazard a guess that over 90% of students have a cell-phone with a texting plan of some kind by 8th grade and more and more seem to report having a 3G internet enabled Smartphone like an iPhone or Android (Google) Phone.

The report considers mobile computing to include smartphones, netbooks, smartbooks, laptops and other more specialized devices  that can access the internet via WiFi or 3G Data networks.  “Users increasingly expect anytime, anywhere access to data and services that not very long ago were available only while sitting in front of a computer linked to the network via a cable.“  Additionally, as more and more services are moved into the “cloud”, students need regular access to the network to manage their personal data, share and collaborate with other students, all on the  move without having to check into a static workstation.

This increased ubiquity of mobile computing devices presents its own set of opportunities and challenges for K-12 and post-secondary institutions.  Just take a look at how many of my Top 13 Tech Tools are cloud-based or dependent on connectivity to the internet.

Opportunities:
One of the items in the strategic plan is to investigate the feasibility of a one-to-one computing environment in our school buildings.  I would argue that we are probably a lot closer than we think to one-to-one if we count all the devices that students are dying to use (for reasons both good and bad) but are prohibited.  In USC many of our students are blessed with the financial resources to own and use these devices at home.  Institutions of all kinds are doing all sorts of belt-tightening, probably not the opportune time to recommend the investment of many tens (or hundreds) of thousands of dollars on a new one-to-one initiative.  Perhaps it is time to investigate some of the benefits (and risks) that could come of changing the rules somewhat.

Challenges:
We are still the cell-phone police in our school. The kids are just getting better at concealing their phones, illustrating just how important a life-line that these devices are becoming.  It’s pretty obvious that kids are texting and using their phones during school. (How many parents walk in the office and say, “you don’t have to call her down, I texted her that I am here.”?)  By banning the use of cell-phones during school-hours, but tacitly approving their concealed possession, we set up an unwinnable challenge.  Obviously we don’t want kids yapping away on their phones in the hallways when they are en route to class, but just like we expect our staff to avoid playing Bejeweled during a staff meeting, there is an appropriate way to use these tools.  Maybe that needs to be taught explicitly.  For something like this to work we would need to actively educate students about the limits, etiquette and appropriate use of devices during the school day.

Additionally there are other technical, legal and equity challenges that present themselves.  First, allowing hundreds of student devices on the network presents infrastructure challenges from the bandwidth and capacity of the system, to the challenges of verifying users as they get onto the network, and protecting against malicious software and viruses.  Filtering traffic that we serve to students isn’t such an issue, but as wireless broadband access becomes cheaper and more ubiquitous we have no ability to filter the content viewed by students.  Who is responsible for illegal or unethical content that comes across the phone company’s 3G service into the school building?  Finally, the question of the haves vs. the have-nots.  Would allowing the use of private devices come across as a message that we expect students to purchase a device for use in school?  Would we be putting those that can’t afford, or don’t want to provide a device at a disadvantage?

Action Steps:
Lets get some good data. Ask kids:

• What classes of devices (and connectivity) do kids have access to?
• How would they see their learning change if they had access to the internet whenever they needed it?
• What would they suggest as reasonable controls on their use in the school?

Open Content

The Horizon Report’s definition of Open Content is pretty broad, the coming of age of the “Internet as a global dissemination platform for collective knowledge and wisdom.”  But in the K-12 world we know that there is “a lot out there.”  But as educators we struggle sometimes with finding, evaluating and implementing what we find.  Open Content means even more in the way it is presented in the report, including the use of open content for “learning for the sheer joy of discovery.”  Isn’t that one of the main things we want to instill in our students, life-long learning?

Opportunities:
For most many disciplines, the Internet has provided an explosion of content (some great, some not so great).  The problem is not the availability of the content, but rather the curation of that content.  Open Content repositories are available in all kinds of disciplines.  Some allow instructional resource sharing, evaluation, and commenting.

Challenges: Instructional materials are just the start.  Do our students know where to look if they have a passion about something and want to learn simply of the joy of it?  Do they know how to plan out and assess their own learning and truly be life-long learners?  Are we ready for an era where a student asks to design a customized course of study as independent study in the arts (MIT offers free photography lectures and coursework), languages (Free Resources in 13 languages available through the Allegheny Library Network), or even a specialized science course?

Action Steps: Actually, we are already doing some of this in small pockets — using a blackboard course we have been curating curriculum relevant materials – a decent, but not the most collaborative approach to the project.  I worry that our focus could get hung up on finding supplementary materials that back up the ‘sage on the stage’ instead of opening up venues for unexpected learning experiences.  We should ask ourselves what it would take for us to become more open in sharing our own content instead of just consuming content.  In today’s world we are all content creators, but just passive consumers.

Photo: CC Flickr – umpcportal

I can breath a sigh of relief, as of around 3PM last Sunday I am officially done with my coursework at CMU.  I’m expecting my diploma in the mail any time now.  I chose not to drag my family out to yet another graduation ceremony in the spring (I’ve dragged them to three so far).  But nonetheless I’m now the proud owner of a Masters Degree in Public Management in Educational Technology Management (ETM) from the Heinz College at Carnegie Mellon University.  I loved being back in school, the coursework was stimulating and kept my mind working, but I have to say that I’m pleased to be done with the program as my life has become exponentially more complicated since starting the program three years ago. . .

Nora and Val with Daddy!

I should mention that none of this would have been possible without the support of my wife, Marie, who sacrificed and covered for me when I wasn’t able to be  around, especially during this last semester!  Thanks Marie!

So, the question inevitably becomes, now what?  I think that I have begun to answer that question during this school year, as I have been pleased to see my role in my school shift in the right direction.  I’ve been placed in a position of some responsibility when it comes to the technical and implementation side of our Edline System and new report card at the two middle schools.  I’m also pleased that I’ve been asked to do some work providing the exact type of link that I envisioned for myself, as an educational technology integrator bridging the gap between the technical and the educational.  As a part of the team evaluating solutions to data gathering (and sharing), curriculum warehousing, among other areas, I feel like I’m having a positive impact.

So, what now?  I’m planning on taking this respite from my academic demands to do some real introspection & reflection on exactly what my personal vision is.  I think I will be blogging more reflectively on real-life applications, developing my professional learning network & rebranding my website(s) more professionally.  There’s always something to do.