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Student technology survey

I tried out the new laptop cart at my new placement today. No one was very confident that the laptops would work well, but I used them enough at my old job ( and mostly found them quite effective) that I wasn't just going to let that cart sit there untested for long.

The last 20 minutes of each hour today I had students try to log into the school's network. I was surprised I had so few who couldn't login considering I have all 9th graders coming from 3 different middle schools and several who're new to the district altogether.

Once they were logged in I had them take a survey on their technology experience¹.

Initial results

  • 87% have their own cell phone
  • 82% have their own mp3 player
  • 92% have a computer at home connected to the internets

Conclusions

  1. Remember these are all freshmen. Most are just 14 years old. I'd imagine by the time they're juniors and seniors the percentage of students who have cell phones and mp3 players would increase to near 100%.
  2. The student body is quite diverse socio-economically and yet my percentages are very high across the board. Only 8 of my students DON'T have cell phones. Only 2 don't have internet access at home.
  3. Currently, all cell phones are supposed to be confiscated on sight from the beginning of 1st hour to the final bell. Does this policy support 21st century skills? Even if the skill being taught is simply appropriate use of a cell phone in a "business" setting (i.e. not texting during presentations, learning when and where it is acceptable to pull out their phones, etc.)?
  4. The school has about 1 computer for every 10 students (maybe even less), yet at home the ratio is probably much closer to 1:4. Are they being taught to effectively use online tools at home? They certainly aren't getting much computer time at school.

I have more data from the survey that'll take a little longer to disaggregate, but I'll share that when I get a chance to break it down.

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¹ If you'd like to see it, here it is.

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World Wide Wordle

After doing a quick post on Saturday utilizing a new-found tool (Wordle) to make my Master's Project Proposal into a word cloud, upon checking my RSS aggregator today it seems that Wordle has taken over the universe.

While I tend not to necessarily be a big fan of the latest fad tools (I can be a bit oppositional at times), the pure ease of operation and the beauty/meaning inherent in the created word/tag clouds is quite enrapturing. Although it is extremely interesting and perhaps a big enlightening to see people's del.icio.us tags in a beautiful cloud, perhaps the true power of this tool is to turn any text into a word cloud. The question that is most important (to me) is whether or not this is just a fun tool to perform a quick trick, or if it can be used to change the way text is interpreted. Any insights?

I did a quick perusal of backlinks and trackbacks from Wordle related posts in my reader just now. Here's what I found:

Del.icio.us tag clouds

And I leave you with my own del.icio.us tag cloud, which I don't feel gives you a full picture of my interests, but if you knew very little about me, it would certainly give you a little insight:

UPDATE- To emphasize the craze that Wordle has been in the last week, see the image below:

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DONE! (Well...kinda)

I have just finished writing my Master's project proposal. It's been an experience. Since I've known I'll be moving out of state (circa November), I've been trying to finish all the classes I can to avoid the horrors of transferring graduate-level credits. Since January I've taken 10 credits, including my weenie 1 credit I get for the completion of my project proposal. Needless to say, I haven't had to worry about how to spend all my free time the last few months.

Below is a word cloud for my Master's project via Wordle. Care to guess the topic?

Wordle- Master\'s Project Proposal

Thanks to Terry and Kevin for bringing Wordle to my attention via Twitter.

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That uncomfortable place

I've just wrapped up a class in which I was required to participate in online threaded discussions. I was hoping for some good discourse on curriculum theory and development. Instead it turned into a lot of, "Why, yes, I agree with you completely," and "I couldn't have said it better myself." I found myself becoming purposely oppositional in my responses. How can any really good thinking and learning happen if there isn't a healthy dose of differing viewpoints? And, pray tell, was the  response to my opposing viewpoints? Silence. Last time I recall so many people with similar thoughts was 1984¹.

My classmates were just trying to be nice, which is understandable. It can be awkward and uncomfortable to deal with conflict. However, it's that dissonance in opinion where real meaning is made; that hacking it out between differing opinions, that purposeful attempt to sway people with differing views while they try to sway you.

Recently, in response to a new "top edublogs" list posted on a well-read blog, Dan Meyer and Darren Draper have expressed differing opinions on (perceived) motivations for blogging, what constitutes quality in a blog, and even "proper" Twitter use. I've found this disagreement extremely interesting to follow. I subscribe to both their blogs and find them both to be excellent at starting good conversations through their posts. They both create dissonance and then ask for their audience to weigh in with their opinions. While Dan tends to stir the pot² and Darren tends to ask quite nicely, they're both doing essentially the same thing.

It's been enjoyable to see these two heavyweights (they're 23 & 35 on the best edublogs list of all time, after all) discuss whose method is superior. While I don't think they're going to change each other's mind, they're laying some excellent framework for the edubloggers of the future. These types of public disagreements are important- perhaps necessary³- for hashing out what exactly it is to blog about educational matters. Think of it as a modern, blogging version of the Continental Congress.

Anyone care to disagree?

¹ "Why, yes, Big Brother certainly is a great leader!"
² or "[Dan's] just shaking the bee’s nest while covered in powdered sugar, a big ol’ grin on [his] face and [a] buddy taping the whole thing for some sort of amateur Jackass production."
³ As long as you jerkfaces don't turn it into nastiness and namecalling.
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How do you use web 2.0 in the classroom?

I'm currently taking a Educational Media & Technology class in my master's program called Virtual Worlds and Social Networking in Education. A project for the class involves setting up a social network through some web 2.0 format and utilizing your network to try to accomplish a chosen goal.

eBoy FooBar CityI (of course) asked if I could utilize Twitter as the centerpiece of my network. I already had a quaint Twitter network, and had been thinking of expanding it. I have also been interested in how educators are effectively using blogs, wikis, social bookmarking tools, etc. in their classrooms.

As a result, I've actively been following new people in education on Twitter and finding that the vast majority of people I start following follow me back. As a result, my Twitter followers have expanded from 28 or so to 67 at the time of this writing (3/19, 10:03pm EDT). I've been amazed and thankful at the willingness of other educators to include me within their pre-existing networks. If you like what you see on this blog (or not), feel free to follow me (I'm WillyB). I'll follow you back. 🙂

To tap into the vast experience of that network (which if you're reading this includes you!), I've created a Google Form asking how educators are utilizing blogs, wikis, or social bookmarking in their classrooms. If you'd like to add your expertise, go here and add it! I thank you in advance (and greatly appreciate those that have already added their knowledge)!

The information provided will be summarized in a wiki I've recently created, and I'll also be sharing the results on this blog once I feel I've gotten a good number of responses. I've been wowed by the power of the network in the past, and I'm hoping I'll be blown away in this experience as well.

When I think back to when I wrote this post, I find it amazing that a few short months later I have a pretty vibrant personal learning network of my own. Nice!

Image credit: eBoy's FooBar Poster

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As promised: Presentations Before and After

As promised in yesterday's post, I've posted my before and after presentations that I made to go over basic Earth structure with my Earth & Physical Science classes. I've already used the updated presentation, and the students seemed to enjoy it better than the overly bullet-pointed first version. You may not be able to follow the content without the narrative on the newly designed presentation, but that's somewhat the point, no?

There were several students that expressed regret at the demise of the bullet points. It's easier for them to just copy down exactly what it says (of course it is, they don't have to actually pay attention or comprehend to do that). How well they've been trained by their past experiences!

Before

[slideshare id=265122&doc=old-journey-to-the-center-of-the-earth-1202953941596173-3&w=500]

After

[slideshare id=265038&doc=journey-to-the-center-of-the-earth-12029484236194-4&w=500]

These presentation design upgrades seem to be all the rage. Since my last post I've found two new (to me) posts by edubloggers discussing (and even sharing) good design in presentations. And I thought I was ahead of the curve on this one...

Check them out:

I welcome your feedback on my presentations. I even look forward to constructive criticism!

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Visible Body: The best thing since Google Earth

I subscribe to NOTCOT.org's RSS feed because they have lots of little bits about interesting and fun graphic design stuff, which I enjoy. Their feeds are quick to go through and sometimes I find some interesting stuff. Today as I was quickly going through my NOTCOT feeds, I saw this headline:

"Visible Body ~ Travel by the human body into a model interactive, 3D, detailed and understandable. It's like "Google Earth" Human Body!"

I love Google Earth. It's amazing. I use it all the time in the classroom, and would probably use it more if student computers could download it. I headed out to the Visible Body website to see what the fuss was all about.

Turns out Visible Body is a free, online, tool that allows you to manipulate a 3D model of the human body. Want to see just the digestive system? No problem. Want to see the position of muscles over the skeletal system. Easy! Just select both systems and then make the muscular system transparent. Now you can see how the muscles sit on the bones. Better yet, you can zoom in and rotate the model to your heart's content (if you're familiar with Google Earth, you'll have no problem with the controls. If not, it'll take you only a few seconds of playing to get it going). You can also click on part of the model, and it tells you what you just clicked on. You can also search for names of nerves, muscles, organs, etc. and it'll show you where that is on the body.

Here's a screenshot I just took while playing around (and yes, that is the right Musculophrenic Vein highlighted in teal):

The features (as I've found in my short time playing with this tool):

  • It's free. You just need to create a login.
  • No program to download. I did have to download an Anark plug-in. I was even able to do this at my school, where lots of download-able content is blocked.
  • Total control of 3D model manipulation.
  • Your choice of what systems to show. You can even hide certain organs to get a better look at something underneath.
  • Search for a part, and it'll show you where it is.
  • Click on a part, it'll tell you what it is.
  • Downside: it currently only works with Internet Explorer. I didn't see any talk on the website about future versions compatible with Firefox, Safari, or what have you.

What a great tool for the classroom! Anatomical models are expensive, and then you only have one to show in front of class or pass around. Here, each student could be manipulating their own, extremely detailed model.

Quick note: While I was playing with this tool, I added the Integumentary system to the model, being unsure of what that was. The Integumentary system, it turns out includes the skin, hair, nails, etc. covering the exterior of the body. So, suddenly I had a very accurate model of a naked woman on my desktop. Please don't let this stop you from using this tool; just a warning so you're not surprised. 🙂  The FAQs do mention they're developing a "G-rated" version for younger users.