Emerging IT: Class Reflection

This class proved to be an excellent introduction to the current technologies that make Educational Technology such an exciting and growing field. Several things struck me as I look back on the week:

• Many of the technologies we covered this week did not exist two years ago when the 2006 Cohort started. That's how fast Web 2.0 is growing. As an example, one of the technologies with the greatest potential for my own use is Ning. This social networking tool is less than a year old. I came away from this week convinced that social networking will be a major player in the digital environment for the next few years. Given that realization, Ning is the first tool I've come across that allows small groups of people to develop a social network without a lot of technical expertise. It really is simple!
• Dr. Z offered some great advice at the conclusion of the week: don't even attempt to stay current on every technology that emerges out of the gate. After talking with many of my peers throughout the week, if there was one word that kept popping up was "overwhelmed." As Dr. Z humorously put it, we are drinking from a fire hose. Even though we can't keep up with every technology, we can continue to grow and expand our horizon and discover new ways of being productive.
• One of the secondary benefits of this week is the opportunity to develop friendships with a great group of people. I am truly impressed by the quality of men and women in this Cohort and look forward to what I hope will become a long-term network of resources.

EmergingIT: Final Project

Today we presented our final project, which is an introduction to Ning as a social networking tool for teachers. Our goal for this project is for the faculty to gain an understanding of the concept of social networking and how to implement it in their classrooms as an educational tool for students to interact with them.

Here are the components that we developed for this project:

1. Teacher Quality Assignment with Rubric
2. PowerPoint Presentation introducing Ning and social networking to teachers.
3. The social network built on the Ning platform.
4. Video 1 showing the old analog forms of networking/communications.
5. Video 2 showing technology today and how networking/communications happens in the digital age.
6. A Jing screencast showing how to set up your own Ning "My Page."
7. A Jing screencast showing how to set up your own group within Ning.
8. Podcast 1 - interview with Steve Hargadon about Ning and social networking.
9. Podcast 2 - introduction to Ning.
10. Podcast 3 - interview with Dr. Leigh Zeitz about social networking.

Our project team consisted of:

• Brent Bergrsrom - blog
• Mark Culver -  blog
• Chris Eller (me)
• Debra Robinson - blog
• Melissa Yocum - blog

You can visit the blogs of each team member to gain a different perspective on the project.

Reflection

As part of the assignment for this project, it was required that we develop something that can be used in real life. We chose to develop this project as a teacher quality assignment that can be presented during three professional development hours. While the specific building for our project is the South Hardin Middle School in Hubbard, IA, I believe the components we have developed can be used by any tech coordinator to present Ning and social networking to their teaching staff.Still, that's my opinion. What are your comments?

Emerging IT: Podcasting, Video, and a Field Trip

Podcasting is one of the best mediums to hit the web in the last five years (in my opinion). Podcasting is essentially audio or video productions that are distributed via RSS. While podcasts can be listened to directly on the web, the real power is when you combine a program like iTunes with podcasting. With the simplicity of iTunes, its easy for anyone to download and listen to a wide variety of programming.

Today in our Emerging Instructional Technologies class we were introduced to podcasting and how to produce and distribute a professional product. Given that most of the students in our class are Mac people, GarageBand was the tool of choice. It certainly is a nice program for the production of a podcast. It allows simple multi-track editing and comes bundled with a good assortment of stock music.Clearly, there are many uses for podcasting. Best of all, it doesn't take a large budget (or a budget at all) to produce a quality product. As we discussed podcasting, I realized how easy it would be to conduct a guest interview with noted experts in the field and distribute via podcast. For more information on podcasting, visit http://webcastacademy.net/.

Video Production

Video production was also on the agenda today. Again, given the Mac environment, iMovie was the tool of choice. I played around with iMovie for a while, but was frustrated by the Mac interface (I am a Windows person). After playing with iMovie for a few minutes, I switched over to my video editing tool of choice, Sony Vegas Studio. (This is Sony's consumer version of their professional editing tool, Sony Vegas.)Here are two sample videos we produced for our EIT Project. The concept was to give educators a "Then and Now" look at how technology has changed in a short time. In the first video, we used an old film look to give the video a sense of age, but also to drive home to digital immigrants that digital natives view immigrants who are out-of-touch with technology as ancient. So, if you are over 30-years of age and still use your cell phone only to make voice calls, the digital natives in your life view you as ancient as a silent movie from the 1920s. [Note: The videos are part of our final project, which was creating a social network for the South Hardin Middle School.]Social Networking The Good Ol' Days

 Technology Today

Team Technologies Data Center

We wrapped up the day with a tour of the data center at Team Technologies. As our guide stated, they are in the real estate business, it's just that the space they rent happens to be perhaps some of the most secure, protected real estate in Cedar Falls. What impressed me is that this data center has three OC-3 connections to the Internet's backbone. I knew that was a lot of bandwidth, but it wasn't until I looked it up when that I realized that each connection has more than 155 Mbit/s. That's a lot of bandwidth!

Give Me Web 2.0 and Keep the T-Shirt

I love going to conferences. Regardless of the topic or location, a conference is a great place to network and meet new people plus get a preview of all the latest greatest ways to do something. It's not uncommon at a conference to hear experts in a given field. Most of the conferences I go to, however, the experts are sponsored by one of the vendors at the conference.

You know the routine: you go to a splashy presentation where expert X talks about the newest, greatest toys hitting the market. The presenter is polished, the technology always works, and you can hear the audible Oohs and Ahhs as the audience soaks it in.

After the presentation (by the expert), a representative from the vendor comes up to do the closer. He/she gives some basic information about the product or service that was just demonstrated and lets the audience know they would love to meet you at their product booth.

As you leave the auditorium, you have a strong sense you are at a soccer game just after Manchester defeats Liverpool, and the crowd pushes and rushes towards the playing field. As you round the corner you see it: a beautiful display booth with 50-inch video monitors showing the product/service, free T-Shirts and water bottles with the company logos on them, and lots of sales reps dressed in matching company shirts.

Now the bad news: you find out that this incredible product/service that will revolutionize the way you teach or do your job is yours for $1,499. Of course, they are running a conference discount that lasts only for the next 15 minutes that drops the price to $1,250.

You're right. I say the same thing: forget it.

This is what I love about graduate school at UNI. Everyday this week I have left my class on Emerging Instructional Technologies with a slew of new tools and ideas to use, and the price: free. (Of course, I'm paying tuition, but ...)

Vinnie Vrotny and VoiceThread

Take today for example. Our guest expert was Vinnie Vtrotny, director of Academic Technology at the North Shore County Day School in Winnetka, IL. As in days past our guest was skyped in from his office north of Chicago. Vtrotny introduced our cohort to VoiceThreads, a most amazing Web 2.0 tool that allows groups to have conversations around pictures and videos. Like many/most Web 2.0 tools, VoiceThreads is simple to use, offers many different ways to collaborate, and best of all...is free to use.

To demonstrate the power of VoiceThreads, Vrotny introduced us to "13 Days That Changed America," an AP US History Final Project. Created by Vrotny and Kevin Randolph, History Department Chair at North Shore County Day School, "13 Days" required the students to use research, analytical, reporting and presentation skills.

In addition to VoiceThreads, the project also required students to utilize Gabcast, another Web 2.0 tool that allows users to create podcasts and audioblogs using any telephone, including a mobile phone.

As an avid student of history, I couldn't wait to see the dates the students chose:

• Signing of the Constitution- September 17, 1787
• Louisiana Purchase- May 2, 1803
• Lincoln's Election- November 6, 1860
• Golden Spike driven in at Prominitory Pt., Utah- May 10, 1869
• Census of 1890- June 1, 1890
• Model T introduced- September 27, 1908
• Women's Suffrage (19th amendment)- August 18, 1920
• Pearl Harbor attacked- December 7, 1941
• GI Bill passed- June 22, 1944
• Bombing of Hiroshima- August 6, 1945
• Jackie Robinson breaks the color barrier (Dodgers)- April 15, 1947
• Brown v. Board of Education- May 17, 1954
• War Powers Act passed- November 7, 1973

To learn more about "13 Days That Changed America," you can visit the project wiki and, of course, view the final project on voicethread.com.

[Note: I tried embedding the final project video into this entry, but VoiceThread and WordPress don't play well together at this time.]

A Day at the Circus

I am like a kid at the circus. I am in Day 2 of my Emerging Instructional Technologies class at the University of Northern Iowa. Trying to summarize a day in class is like trying to summarize a whirlwind tour of Chicago or New York City. Where does one begin?

To start, this is not your grandmother's classroom. The instructor, Dr. Zeitz, doesn't stand in front of the class and lecture. There is no text book, because many of the technologies we are studying are too new. The resources for this class are on the web and directly from the people making it all happen.

We started the day with an interview with Steve Hargadon, creator of Classroom 2.0. Steve was skyped into our class from his hotel in Texas. My first reaction was how clear the audio and video of the session was. I couldn't help but remember many of the meetings we held in the late 1980s and early 1990s during the planning phase for the Iowa Communications Network. There was a lot of discussion regarding one-way video with two-way audio, ITFS vs. fiber optics, full-motion video vs. compressed video. In the end, the broadcast quality, fiber optics network won the argument. Here we were today, however, watching and listening to an interview with an expert in the field using a free service (Skype) connecting two laptops. Pretty amazing stuff. Obviously, Skype can't replace a tool like the ICN for broad classroom instruction, but for specific uses like today, it worked like a charm.

Ning and The Power of Social Networking

Hargadon introduced the class to Classroom 2.0 and to Ning, the social networking tool behind it. Hargadon sees much more potential in the development of social networking sites over the ubiquitous blogging tools. Blogging, according to Hargadon, has its limits. For one, it places the owner of the blog in the "expert" seat while commenters are in a secondary position. Second, blogging takes months to develop a readership. It takes a committed person to invest the time necessary to create valuable content and wait for the readers to discover you.

Social networking, on the other hand, levels the playing field. A person can join an existing network like Classroom 2.0 and immediately start receiving feedback. It also turns users from readers to participants. Very quickly, a conversation can develop within a social network that can take months to develop on a blog.

Hargadon is a true believer in the significance of social networking as an educational tool. "I think social networking holds the most dramatic potential for personal influence and development of anything we have seen in years."

Tools like Ning allow individuals to develop expertise in narrow subject fields, develop an audience, and make a valuable contribution to the world's knowledge base. It does not matter how narrow the topic may be, social networking allows communities to form around topics of interest.

It didn't take long and I could begin to see the value of a tool like Ning. My personal mission is to help the church and Christian educators begin utilizing the power of technology within a Christian educational setting. While listening to Hargadon speak, I jumped over to GoDaddy to reserve a domain name (www.ChristianEdTech.com), logged into blogger and reserved a blog place (ChristianEdTech.blogspot.com) and reserved the same name on Ning (ChristianEdTech.ning.com).

As a successful developer of a social network, Hargadon concluded with some valuable tips for the would-be creators in our cohort: help develop the culture of your network; help users become contributors; help the community to begin connect with one another.

Adventures in Second Life

The second half of our day was spent with Dan Powers, Professor of Information Systems and Management at the College of Business Administration at the University of Northern Iowa. Dr. Powers is the creator IowaMetaVerse, a nonprofit organization developing Virtual Iowa within SecondLife [http://slurl.com/secondlife/Iowa/129/122/26]. Within a few minutes, our class was logged into SL and touring the developing virtual community. We received a behind-the-scenes look at building and managing an enterprise within SL.

The key to SL, Dr. Powers observed, is the creation and utilization of valuable content, not just the construction of virtual worlds. He cited a couple of examples of large organizations (for those interested they are linked here and here) that have developed a presence on SL, but they are all but deserted. SecondLife is not a "build it and they will come" environment. To illustrate, he provided several examples from around Virtual Iowa that add value to the experience, not just nice buildings and empty spaces. Moreover, a community of builders is taking interest in and helping develop Virtual Iowa. As Dr. Powers listed some names, it was clear that Virtual Iowa is the result of an international community of citizens.

From a user perspective, SecondLife is the most challenging technology to get my arms around. Do a google on SL and you will find that educators either love it or have no use for it. Clearly, to become expert in SL takes a lot of time (not to mention a lot computing resources, money, and a fast broadband connection). Moreover, the greatest barrier for educators is the mature nature of the SL population. In this respect, SL mirrors real life: it's filled with a lot of great people as well as a lot of warped people. It's the last place you would want to encourage kids to hang out.