Netbooks: Performance Review June 17, 2009
Posted by Matthew Woolums in Articles/Videos, OLPC, Opinion.add a comment
Nice article from CNET Webare testing out many popular free web applications on netbooks. Turns out they perform quite well with just one exception:
So is it worth buying one now, or waiting? As with any computer purchase, it depends on your needs. If you’re OK not viewing HD videos, it does everything else, and does it well.
So unless you need 3D imaging or high definition video, a netbook might be a reasonable choice, especially if it isn’t your only computer. For students? A dedicated lab for higher end work would be in order, but for most work in the classroom, where it should be about the learning and not about the technology, netbooks would work just fine.
How well do Netbooks work with Web apps? | Webware – CNET
Digital Impermanence June 12, 2009
Posted by Matthew Woolums in Articles/Videos, Opinion.add a comment
I’ve been thinking about the issue of how the digital world changes information, and I find that, for myself, digital information is both more permanent, and less permanent. Much has been said about teaching our students about placing personal information online, and rightly so. On the flip side, we also need to teach our students how to make sure their work isn’t washed away like a sand castle with the next service interruption or lack of access to a particular site.
As a case in point, this morning I received the following email from Flowgram, a site that allowed users to create presentations from photos, web pages, and other files, along with audio and text annotations. This sort of sums up the idea that what I do, even in the digital world, may have a limited life span.
Dear Flowgram user:
Today is a sad day for us. We have decided to terminate the Flowgram service as of the end of the month (June 30th, 2009). The service received excellent reviews and had an enthusiastic core user base. However, we were not able to demonstrate (especially in these economic times) that Flowgrams would ever be prevalent enough for us to adequately monetize the business, either though ads or subscriptions. This is obviously very disappointing, but building the Flowgram platform was a lot of fun, and it was wonderful to see how many of you used our tool to express yourselves in a deep and meaningful way.
Although you won’t be able to play your Flowgrams after the end of the month, you can export them to video by clicking “share” from the website or “more sharing options” from the Flowgram player and scrolling down to the export to video section. It is very important, if you wish to keep your content, that you export to video and download the video by the end of the month. Please let us know at support@flowgram.com if you have any difficulties doing this.
Again, I would like to thank you for your support, for your Flowgrams and for your good wishes.
Best Regards
Abhay Parekh (Founder) and the rest of the Flowgram Team
I’ve heard the argument that we should be careful about choosing a tool that provides an option for permanence, a way to always save students’ work even if the specific tool goes away. After all, student work should be important, or we should be asking them to do something different. The linked podcast from Bud the Teacher was inspired by a conversation about the place for ‘free’ services in education. Free isn’t always the best option, and it isn’t reasonable to expect a free service to always provide access to our content, much like the Flowgram example above. It is a great point, but digital permanence is complicated, and not always desirable.
I think that digital permanence has a place, but I also think that digital impermanence does too. Change happens, even if we are not prepared for it, and that applies to the digital world as well. Temporary accounts, throwaway email, RAM, are all examples of impermanence. I think there is something to be said from approaching content as something that is fragile, that might disappear, that is special because it is here today and gone tomorrow. Sometimes the moment calls for being a moment, and not a permanent state. After all, why would a rainbow be spectacular and moving if it were always there?
I have an old computer in the basement. I’m sure it has some stuff on it that I should keep. I have a couple of hard drives in the closet. Probably need to check those too. But I also know that sometimes letting go of what I’ve created, what I’ve written, if it is truly important or moving, will come back to me. My content is a part of me whether it is etched in stone, or made from sand. Nature doesn’t like things to be too permanent. We need a season or process to break things down and start over. Sometimes we need to start over or growth isn’t possible. Wild fires seem terrifying when they happen, but the long-term health of a forest depends on periodic cleansing.
I think our digital footprint deserves a similar cycle of cleansing. I think there is a benefit to risking the loss of content by exploring a new tool, free or otherwise. Sometimes, like Flowgram, those new tools last only for a season, sometimes they become as big as Wikipedia. Getting in on the ground floor has its own rewards. Sticking with something that is safe and known can also lead to irrelevance, boredom, and end up as just another example of trying to control the learning process. Our learners also deserve the opportunity to fail spectacularly.
To sum it up, I think digital impermanence is okay, even desirable. I think we should encourage our students to try something new and unexplored, even if there is a risk of losing all the work. That which is learned becomes part of ourselves whether there is anything visible for others to witness. Learning is change, and I say embrace it. Dare your students to create rainbows.
Hard Days Part 2 March 4, 2009
Posted by Matthew Woolums in Data, Opinion.add a comment
Today was a better day, even with the testing. The teacher was back and the fifth graders seemed more comfortable reading a passage and answering multiple choice questions or writing short constructed responses. The frustration of creating something from scratch as in the previous writing section was not so obvious today. However, it seems anything that can go wrong is likely to go wrong with this class.
First on the list, a new student. Second day of testing, and a new student is brought in, with the expectation that he will take the test. What a way to start out at a new school. It sort of made me wonder if his parents did that on purpose, but I can’t figure out any reason why.
Second item was the teacher’s phone. It rang as we started the test. Talk about timing. I can’t wait to see what happens tomorrow.
On a related note, the students were genuinely glad to see me even though I was responsible for inflicting such an ordeal on them the day before. Students seem to respond well to having someone new actually spend time with them, even if it is while doing something less than optimal. This was reinforced at another school where I have videotaped teachers for their National Board Certification process. Today, one of the students actually thanked me for the time I gave the class, even though my total interaction amounted to little more than standing behind a camera at the back of the room for about 15 minutes.
Hard Days @ Work March 3, 2009
Posted by Matthew Woolums in Data, Opinion.add a comment
I end up doing a lot of different things in my job. This week I organized a vendor fair so schools can make better decisions about spending $10 million in bond funds. We had almost 200 people from schools come to see some of the technology options they will be able to choose to help meet their learning goals. Very cool.
Not so cool was the next morning proctoring our high-stakes state mandated test. First off, the teacher was absent, so instead of assisting, I ended up administering the test myself. I have to say this was probably the most discouraging experience I’ve had in a classroom, maybe ever.
Sixty minutes for a group of low academic students to plan and draft a written composition from a one sentence prompt. For this test, there is no opportunity to teach, help, or deviate in any way from the script. These students started out well, with different approaches to planning out what they wanted to write, then moving on to writing a draft.
All went well for about 15 or 20 minutes when students started saying they were done. Pretty soon they were all done. And they really were. They basically gave up after 30 minutes. Instead of going back and reviewing what they wrote, striving to do something better or more creative, they all stopped. They spent another 30 minutes dying for the clock to run faster. And there really wasn’t anything I could do to help them. Any intervention would potentially invalidate the test.
I came away from the experience angry, angry that the students don’t see themselves as having any reason to try, angry that high-stakes tests do nothing to inform teaching, and angry that I can’t make any difference about the whole thing. I’ve never been a big fan of standardized testing. It does nothing to foster a better learning environment. Today’s experience only reinforced that assumption.
Sorry, An Error Has Occurred January 15, 2009
Posted by Matthew Woolums in Humor, Opinion.2 comments
Some day this sort of thing won’t happen. Some day, errors won’t be an expected component of technology. Some day, we will no longer notice technology because it just works.
Some day, but not today.
Predictions for 2009 January 1, 2009
Posted by Matthew Woolums in 21st-Century, History, Opinion.add a comment
I’m not sure predictions are all that helpful, but they are sort of fun to write anyway. They also give me a chance to look forward, and forward is progress, right? So here goes:
- Just like last year, smaller and portable will be more important. If laptops and other gadgets don’t get smaller and more portable, they will at least get less expensive. This is good news for the classroom, at least for the classroom that is ready to turn over some control of the learning to the learners. It won’t mean much at all to a teacher-centered classroom.
- Net Neutrality will continue to be a non-issue for most people. With the new administration coming in, Net Neutrality might actually come to pass. For those who say we don’t need any guarantees in place about accessing information in this age of information, I am glad the same argument wasn’t listened to when it came time to write the Bill of Rights. Classrooms won’t notice this issue even if it isn’t in place.
- Computer displays built into eye glasses will not be common place in the coming year. By the time virtual displays are available, which won’t be any time soon, you won’t need to wear glasses to see what is on your display.
- The coming year will be more difficult for Internet start-ups that give away their product for free. This means fewer cool new sites for our students to figure out how to use to further their own learning. It also means that the best sites will need our patronage and support. We’ll need to do a better job of spreading the word about the best tools and the best ways to use them in our classrooms.
- Smart phones will get even smarter. This one seems like a done deal.
On to 2009 to see how the predictions turn out! Let’s make it a better one than the last one.
How Much Do You Retain? November 8, 2008
Posted by Matthew Woolums in Articles/Videos, Data, Opinion.add a comment
There is a very interesting review of an oft cited set of statistics about how much information is retained based on the method of delivery. No need to go into great depth about the percentages here, we’ve all seen them before, about how little information is retained from lectures, a little more from reading, more from visual presentations, on up the list to teaching others. According to the blog post, the statistics have no basis in research. There is no data to back up the statistics.
Tell Me I forget, Show Me I remember, Involve Me I understand.
It is a funny thing about perceptions and what we hold to be true, especially when it relates to information we ‘retained’. Take the above quote for example. Sounds like a reasonable statement about how I view education. I’ve heard it many times. But where does it actually come from?
A cursory search through Google for the phrase resulted in 1,340 different links. Some links attribute its origins to an old Chinese saying while others point to Native American origins. If the origins of the saying are in doubt, should I also doubt the saying itself, or do I accept the quotation for what it reveals on its own merit and disregard the cloudiness of its inception? Is there even an indisputable truth to be found about its roots?
Putting on my teacher hat, I wonder how can we sift through the volumes of information to actually arrive at truth. Can we even hope to do so? How do we establish authenticity, or better yet, how do we teach our students to question enough to wonder about the truth when we (myself included) are so easily swayed?
I believe that, as we move toward data-driven classrooms, toward reliance on statistical models to illuminate student learning, we’d better make sure that our teachers are capable of questioning the statistics as they seek to inform their instruction. Taking those raw numbers at face value is likely to result in ‘retained’ information about student achievement rather than a transformational dialogue about learning.
Mea Culpa – Setting the Record Straight on Dale’s Cone/Pyramid — Open Education
Generation We October 31, 2008
Posted by Matthew Woolums in 21st-Century, Articles/Videos, Opinion.add a comment
Thanks to Dr. Alec Couros for the link to “Generation We: The Movement Begins…”
There are some sobering statistics listed and the video is well worth taking the time to watch. One point I disagree with is that Generation We is technologically brilliant. While they are frequent users, producers, and consumers of technology, most people, including GenWe, are not very adept. They learn something cool that meets their needs, they share it and it spreads, but rarely to individuals (myself included) do something revolutionary and brilliant with those technology tools. As teachers, we need to help our students move up the critical thinking food chain so that they can tap the potential of the current wave of technology innovation.
