What is the one thing about Educational Technology you will take with you from the course?
The one thing I will take away is the different aspects of educational technology. I thought being an educational technologist in a school system was a not so difficult job (no disrespect meant), but now I see that educational technologists have a lot on their hands: planning curriculum, trying to integrate technology into the classroom, teach, the list goes on and on.
Monday, July 28, 2008
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
Digital Divide Memo
MEMO TO: District Superintendent
FROM: Ms. Sohini Desai
DATE: July 23rd, 2008
SUBJECT: Recommendations for Bridging the Digital Divide
Dear Superintendent:
It has come to my attention that the digital divide among students in our school district is more significant than among the students in the rest of the surrounding counties. I have some resource recommendations that would help our district bridge this gap and allow our students to come up to speed with the latest technology.
The Digital Divide can be defined as “the gap between those people with effective access to digital and information technology and those without access to it. It includes the imbalances in physical access to technology as well as the imbalances in resources and skills needed to effectively participate as a digital citizen. In other words, it’s the unequal access by some members of the society to information and communications technology, and the unequal acquisition of related skills. Groups often discussed in the context of a digital divide include socioeconomic (rich/poor), racial (majority/minority), generational (young/old) or geographical (urban/rural)”.
My recommendations are comprised of researched resources to help bridge this gap in both the classroom and community. Classroom resources include grants to obtain and expose our students to technology. These grants include money for the purchase of technology that can range from scientific calculators to computers. I have provided a website that has a list of available grants for you to review.
Other classroom resources include donations and mobile PC labs. Donations can range from corporate giving and community volunteers to donated equipment. United Way (see link below) has corporate sponsors that volunteer as well as give their old computers to be refurbished for schools and families. Mobile PC labs can be used to cut down expenses for every school to purchase computers. The mobile lab would travel from school to school providing students with necessary exposure to computers. The mobile lab could be funded with the grants the school district receives.
As I mentioned, my recommendations also include resources for our community. I have worked with a British non-profit organization by the name of ITPod. This organization has trailers in low income areas and offers classes and other opportunities for students to use computers as well learn about how to deal with issues affecting the area (gangs, drug use, violence). I have included a link that you will find very helpful in getting to know more about ITPod.
Another community resource includes after school programs and summer camps. The programs and camps could be technology based and could use community resources, like library and work-place computer labs, to provide our students with opportunities to be exposed to technology. The curriculum could be technology based and volunteer supported. I have found a government grant that would provide funding for our schools and have included the link below for you to review.
One last resource I would like to recommend is a work-based training program for students in high school. This would involve community businesses teaching our students how technology can be used in the workplace.
These resource recommendations will to be helpful in bridging the Digital Divide in our school district. If there is anything I can personally do to help bridge this gap please do not hesitate to get in contact with me.
Thank you for your time and consideration,
Sohini Desai
FROM: Ms. Sohini Desai
DATE: July 23rd, 2008
SUBJECT: Recommendations for Bridging the Digital Divide
Dear Superintendent:
It has come to my attention that the digital divide among students in our school district is more significant than among the students in the rest of the surrounding counties. I have some resource recommendations that would help our district bridge this gap and allow our students to come up to speed with the latest technology.
The Digital Divide can be defined as “the gap between those people with effective access to digital and information technology and those without access to it. It includes the imbalances in physical access to technology as well as the imbalances in resources and skills needed to effectively participate as a digital citizen. In other words, it’s the unequal access by some members of the society to information and communications technology, and the unequal acquisition of related skills. Groups often discussed in the context of a digital divide include socioeconomic (rich/poor), racial (majority/minority), generational (young/old) or geographical (urban/rural)”.
My recommendations are comprised of researched resources to help bridge this gap in both the classroom and community. Classroom resources include grants to obtain and expose our students to technology. These grants include money for the purchase of technology that can range from scientific calculators to computers. I have provided a website that has a list of available grants for you to review.
Other classroom resources include donations and mobile PC labs. Donations can range from corporate giving and community volunteers to donated equipment. United Way (see link below) has corporate sponsors that volunteer as well as give their old computers to be refurbished for schools and families. Mobile PC labs can be used to cut down expenses for every school to purchase computers. The mobile lab would travel from school to school providing students with necessary exposure to computers. The mobile lab could be funded with the grants the school district receives.
As I mentioned, my recommendations also include resources for our community. I have worked with a British non-profit organization by the name of ITPod. This organization has trailers in low income areas and offers classes and other opportunities for students to use computers as well learn about how to deal with issues affecting the area (gangs, drug use, violence). I have included a link that you will find very helpful in getting to know more about ITPod.
Another community resource includes after school programs and summer camps. The programs and camps could be technology based and could use community resources, like library and work-place computer labs, to provide our students with opportunities to be exposed to technology. The curriculum could be technology based and volunteer supported. I have found a government grant that would provide funding for our schools and have included the link below for you to review.
One last resource I would like to recommend is a work-based training program for students in high school. This would involve community businesses teaching our students how technology can be used in the workplace.
These resource recommendations will to be helpful in bridging the Digital Divide in our school district. If there is anything I can personally do to help bridge this gap please do not hesitate to get in contact with me.
Thank you for your time and consideration,
Sohini Desai
- Grants
- Donations
- ITPod
- After School Programs
- Work-Based Learning Programs
Saturday, July 5, 2008
Trends in Ed Tech
1. The Democratizing Power of the Web: Computer Future Technology Trends in Instructional Technology
By Jonathan Schwartz
One of the most interesting trends to watch in 2007 is the continued democratizing power of the Web. You can see it everywhere. One of America's finest institutions of learning, Yale University, is posting its curriculum online for anyone to freely access. Education, broadly distributed, for free. It's great for our collective global intelligence.
And Yale is not the only one - Stanford University, the University of California, the University of Wisconsin, and others are participating in the Google Library Project to provide the entirety of their library's contents to everyone, everywhere via the Web.
Whether or not you are interested in online education, what's really happening here is that these universities are reaching new "audiences" - students and academics in this case. Who's going to take these courses? Those who couldn't afford to attend, or are located in far regions of the globe, or maybe just didn't have the grades. Either way, what's important is that the universities aren't cannibalizing their existing student population, but expanding it (and their reputations) - to billions of people through the Internet.
http://www.developers.net/sunebshowcase/view/2108
2. Educational Technology Trends: Back to Business
By Jeanne Hayes
Technology in schools is taking a lesson from the enterprise model long practiced in business. What does an enterprise model mean for schools? It means investing in an infrastructure that is reliable, scalable and, hopefully, has smooth interoperability among various platforms, applications and systems.
With 80% of districts delivering the Internet to schools from a single district-managed access point, the days of the gifted teacher and her students figuring it out at the building level is over. School administrators and teachers have long decried their inadequate tech support, with teachers shouldering much of the responsibility for keeping their own systems running, so this investment in a more stable infrastructure is meeting with increased buy-in. State and NCLB reporting requirements have also driven districts to look at robust enterprise models that are highly scalable or capable of expansion. And the desire for a system with smooth interaction among different components and applications that relate to student records from all sources? Well, that's a lengthier subject.
Like businesses, school districts are also speeding up their adoption of new solutions that save money and deploy resources more efficiently. The new mantra: Drive improved administrative productivity and reduce Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) by obtaining a good return on investment with such technologies as videoconferencing (42% of districts), web conferencing (28%), and voice over IP to reduce telephone costs (19%). Other new technologies are driving cost savings in the classroom arena, as revealed in QED's annual survey of technology purchasing trends:
- COWS (computers on wheels) are a cost-effective and instructionally-effective way to deliver 20 laptops to a classroom for ‘just in time' computing. The typical district of 1,000 students has three traveling computer carts and plans to purchase one more in the 2004-2005 school year.
- Tablet PCs, which didn't seem to be a big hit with consumers, have strong advocates in schools. Users like the way the device can be used as a whole class device, being passed from student to student ,or taken on field trips for exploratory learning. Currently, 10% of districts report using Tablet PCs in their classrooms with another 17% evaluating their use.
- Wireless continues to grow, with 14% of current computers and 23% of planned purchases this year being wireless-equipped.
What is the “killer app” this year? For the first time this year, we asked curriculum directors, rather than technology directors, about their schools' instructional technology plans. We believed that they would have the best picture of technology-assisted instruction, as opposed to the old siloed days of departmental divisions between curriculum and technology. Their answers confirmed our assumption that we are seeing a significant move toward technologies that support the building blocks of student assessment.
- 56% of districts plan to purchase or enhance their Student Information Systems, while last year only 38% of districts were reported by tech directors to have similar plans.
- 70% of districts plan to purchase or enhance their Instructional Management Systems, whereas last year only 33% did.
- 71% of districts reported plans to purchase or enhance their assessment software applications; last year, tech directors told us only 24% had such plans.
While investing in data warehousing has become increasing common to support the dramatically increased reporting requirements of both states and NCLB, the parallel move to purchase instructional management systems and assessment software show us the real focus is on learning as the end-game for technology. As Jim Hirsch, Associate Superintendent for Plano (TX) School District has said for many years, a district's core competency is to provide instruction, not to host IT functions that business vendors can do more cost-effectively. The bottom line for school district administrators? The leading software planned for purchase this year continues to be instructional software with 77% of districts reporting such plans, compared to 72% of districts last year.
As improved operating systems such as Apple's OS 10 (now used by servers in a third of districts) and cost-effective solutions like Linux and Unix (used on servers by 19% and 9% of districts respectively) continue to be adopted by districts, the core mission of improving student learning is being addressed in a more unified way by the marriage of instruction and technology. Our kids will be better for it.
Jeanne Hayes is the founder of Quality Education Data, a Scholastic company located in Denver Colorado, that focuses on education research and database solutions. All the data in this paper are from QED's 10 th Annual Technology Purchasing Forecast, 2004-2005. Highlights from this report were presented at QED/Heller's EdNET conference in September, 2004 and at NSBA's T+L 2 Conference in October 2004. More information about the report and QED are available at www.qeddata.com
http://www.scholastic.com/administrator/technology/business.htm3. Trends in Educational Technology 1991. ERIC Digest.
This digest is based on TRENDS IN EDUCATIONAL TECHNOLOGY 1991, by Donald P. Ely.
A content analysis was performed to determine the trends in the field of educational technology for the period October 1, 1990 through September 30, 1991. Sources for the analysis included five leading professional journals in educational technology; papers given at annual conventions of three professional associations; dissertations from five universities that have a high level of doctoral productivity; and the educational technology documents that have been entered into the ERIC database. The analysis was complemented by the examination of supplementary documents to confirm the trends indicated in the content analysis.
This digest features selected trends identified in the study. For a full discussion of the study methodology and findings, the reader is referred to the source noted above.
TREND: THE CREATION OF TECHNOLOGY-BASED TEACHING/LEARNING PRODUCTS IS BASED LARGELY UPON INSTRUCTIONAL DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT PRINCIPLES.
Over 15% of the teaching/learning materials reviewed in this year's study were concerned with design and development. Several subheadings related to design and development include message design, product development, individual differences, and course development. Needs assessment and task analysis were less conspicuous, and models and theories in support of specific design and development approaches are prominent in the literature. Appearing with increased frequency is the term "constructivism": that idea that the learner, rather than the teacher, develops (or "constructs") knowledge. Arguments for and against the concept have been presented in the literature. Finally, it is evident that research on screen design is influencing the development of teaching/learning products using computers.
TREND: EVALUATION HAS TAKEN ON GREATER IMPORTANCE AS THE CONCEPT OF PERFORMANCE TECHNOLOGY HAS BEEN FURTHER DEVELOPED.
The descriptor "performance technology" is being used more frequently, especially in the business-industry-government context, to refer to effective instructional design and delivery. Performance technology is based on the conviction that there are training procedures that can guarantee learning, i.e., "performance," and that there are data, derived from careful evaluation, that demonstrate the effectiveness of a given design. Integral to this concept is process evaluation. Another aspect of evaluation in the 1991 literature is product evaluation, which is the assessment of instructional materials that may have potential uses in other settings. Although evaluation has typically been seen as peripheral to the educational technology field, it is now becoming integral to the instructional design process, and, as such, an essential element in the field.
TREND: DISTANCE EDUCATION IS EVIDENT AT ALMOST EVERY EDUCATIONAL LEVEL IN ALMOST EVERY SECTOR.
It has been recently estimated that 25%-50% of the nation's students are reached by distance learning technology (School Technology News, 1991). Over 1,500 school districts in 47 states are participating in distance education through the following technologies: satellite, audiographics, microwave, coaxial cable, computer, and fiber optics (Garnette and Withrow, 1990). Many distance education programs offer complete courses with the teacher in a remote location, although some students use this approach to supplement classroom instruction. The delivery of instruction is generally via telecommunications and computer hardware and software, and learners work both independently and in small groups. State policies regarding distance education are evolving. For example, Iowa is investing $50 million in a statewide telecommunications infrastructure. Other state programs of note are in Kentucky, Oklahoma, Michigan, Minnesota, Texas and Virginia. It has been observed that there is probably no other single trend that encompasses the theory and practice of educational technology better than distance education.
TREND: COMPUTERS ARE PERVASIVE IN THE SCHOOLS. VIRTUALLY EVERY SCHOOL IN THE U.S. HAS MICROCOMPUTERS.
In its annual survey of the numbers of computers in schools, Quality Education Data this year reported results from 83,283 elementary and secondary public schools in the United States. Microcomputer density (the number of students per computer) was 20:1 in 1990-1991, a reduction from 125:1 in 1983-1984. In fact, the percentage of U.S. schools with microcomputers has increased over the past 10 years until it reached 98% in 1990-1991 (Quality Education Data, 1991). A report from the United States Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census reported that among children 3-17 years of age, 46% used a computer at home and/or at school, a rise from 30% in 1982 (Kominski, 1991). Sheingold and Hadley (1990) observed that computer software has been integrated into classroom practice in the following manner: (1) text processing tools (95%); (2) instructional software (89%); (3) analytic and information tools (87%); (4) programming and operating systems (84%); (5) games and simulations (81%); and (6) graphics and operating tools (81%). It is noted that one of the next steps in determining the role of the computer in education will be to examine the use of computers in teaching and learning in terms of social, vocational, pedagogic, and catalytic rationales.
TREND: TELECOMMUNICATIONS IS THE LINK THAT IS CONNECTING EDUCATION TO THE WORLD.
Telecommunications, the technology of communication by electronic transmission, is being used to establish new connections between educators and students. The term "interactive" is commonly found in relation to telecommunications. Distance education applications, as discussed above, use such interactive telecommunications technologies as electronic mail, computer conferences, and two-way audio and video conferences. Networking is the dominant trend within telecommunications; in 1991, Congress passed the High-Performance Computing Act, which authorizes the creation of the National Research and Education Network (NREN), America's "information superhighway." The educational use of television, through cable, satellite, or videotape, reached new heights in 1991. The most popular classroom use of television was for current affairs programs, followed by literature, performing arts, and history. Access to cable programs was increased through the national Cable in the Classroom project. States are becoming the organizing units for delivery of telecommunications technology. For example, the Massachusetts Corporation for Educational Telecommunications (CET) operates the Mass LearnPike, and the Kentucky Educational Network links all public schools through satellite.http://www.ericdigests.org/1992-4/1991.htm
Definition of Ed Tech
Ed Tech: field where instructional design and development is used to create instructional/educational resources.
Do you agree or disagree with Reiser's emphasis on instructional design?
※ I agree with Reiser’s emphasis on ID. I believe ID has worked in certain instances of the training and development in the corporate world, but has unfortunately not been so successful in academia as Resier mentions.
Would you like to expand on his ideas?
※ Yes, I have had experiences and have known others who have experienced the downfall of no incorporating ID in academia and of putting people in positions where they don’t need to be. I have seen too often where individuals have been put in positions were they are managing IDs but have no experience with ID and have not been trained/educated on the practices of ID. This can also be the case for professors that are subject matter experts. They may know the subject matter well, but may not understand thing about ID. The result from both instances is ineffective, inefficient training material, that can cause major performance issues.
Are there other conclusions we might make about what we have learned over the past 50 years (you may use your own experiences as well)?
※ My conclusions are that ID needs to somehow, someway be taken seriously. In my opinion ID has not made a break through.
How would you change your first definition after reading the articles?
※ I would add that a person who practiced educational technology would be the subject matter expert in the field.
Do you agree or disagree with Reiser's emphasis on instructional design?
※ I agree with Reiser’s emphasis on ID. I believe ID has worked in certain instances of the training and development in the corporate world, but has unfortunately not been so successful in academia as Resier mentions.
Would you like to expand on his ideas?
※ Yes, I have had experiences and have known others who have experienced the downfall of no incorporating ID in academia and of putting people in positions where they don’t need to be. I have seen too often where individuals have been put in positions were they are managing IDs but have no experience with ID and have not been trained/educated on the practices of ID. This can also be the case for professors that are subject matter experts. They may know the subject matter well, but may not understand thing about ID. The result from both instances is ineffective, inefficient training material, that can cause major performance issues.
Are there other conclusions we might make about what we have learned over the past 50 years (you may use your own experiences as well)?
※ My conclusions are that ID needs to somehow, someway be taken seriously. In my opinion ID has not made a break through.
How would you change your first definition after reading the articles?
※ I would add that a person who practiced educational technology would be the subject matter expert in the field.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)