http://teacherbytes.blogspot.com

Please change your readers to this URL. Thank you.

The other announcement that intrigued me was Wii Music. This game allows four people to play a choice of 50 instruments to make music easily. The demonstration had Nintendo officials jamming to the theme of Super Mario. Unlike Guitar Hero or Rock Band, Wii Music allows players to have more control over their music by using the Wiimote to play an instrument. The software takes advantage of the balance board to help play drums. Finally, one player can play a song with different instruments then combine the effort to make a music video of a virtual one-man-band.

Wii Music might become a useful tool for music teachers to introduce students to making their own music then gradually move up to real instruments. Who knows, you might see a group of students playing in a Wii Music band on some parent night in the near future.

In the past I have touted the Sony PSP as a device that, with some modifications, would make an excellent educational device. Sadly, Sony is still not seeing the potential of the PSP as it has been relegated to the back in favor of Blue Ray and the Play Station 3. Nintendo and its gaming design affiliates have impressed me over the last few months withs its efforts by producing educational related-software. In Japan, Nintendo is aggressively marketing the devices to adults with various brain-stimulating games such as Brain Age and language tutors. This is carrying over to the United States as well. Who knows, the recently released Guitar Hero On Tour might inspire students to play musical instruments.

How could the DS become the educational device I thought the PSP could become? It will need some modifications for this to happen. First, the device would have to be able to play audio and video media, which I think it can already do. The problem would be memory which could be solved by adding a SD card slot. Nintendo already uses SD cards with its Wii gaming system. Second, Nintendo should not eliminate the GBA slot, something I don’t think they are going to do anyway. Guitar Hero On Tour and My Weight Loss Coach use the slot as an I/O device. Why could the same slot not be used for a keyboard? This means Nintendo would have to create word processing software or build in a web browser into the device’s operating system so it could use online apps like Google Docs. The stylus and handwriting recognition does a pretty good job too of creating text. Speaking of the stylus, an e-book reader would be a natural for the DS. Readers could use the stylus to make notes and highlight text. There are probably other modifications that could be put on this wish list so feel free to add them with your comments.

Nintendo has signaled it wants its DS gaming system to do more than just play games with software that is aimed at teaching and games that could be considered edutainment. The DS could become an educational platform of the future if Nintendo added better web browsing, text imput, audio/video media, and book reader capabilities to the device. Plus the DS is cheap and already in the hands of kids all over. Can you imagine hearing teachers telling students “Get out your DS” as they start a school day in the near future?

First, unfortunately there is little in the way of literature marketed to administrators about technology integration. In fact I saw nothing on the subject. The conference operated a bookstore in one of the hallways. As I perused the titles I saw a multitude of subjects including but not limited to motivating staff, raising math and literacy proficiencies, management styles, and interpretation of test scores. The closest thing I saw to technology integration was a book about electronic portfolios and two books on bullying that had chapters on cyberbullying. This is disturbing to me because I heard the same story from other technology intergrationists or coaches: technology innovations are not getting administration support needed to be successful. Granted that administrators have other concerns than technology to run their schools but to find no books on the subject for sale was disturbing.

On the bright side, breakout sessions dealing with technology were very well attended. My cyberbullying session was near capacity and I was happy with the numbers in my session on using wikis as lesson plans. The audience was engaged, asking very good questions and taking notes on what I was talking about. Other sessions I sat in on did very well too. I found out that many schools in South Carolina are in the process of installing interactive whiteboards, another encouraging sign. The impression I came away with was that administrators do want to do more with technology but are not sure how to proceed. At least this is a start and more important a hopeful sign of things to come.

To recap, in January my principal asked if I could take one class of 6th graders and do something with the various technologies I have been advocating for the past year and a half. The class would be using blogs, podcasats, wikis, video, and other Web 2.0 tools to complete a variety of assignments. These assignments included school news and in work in each student’s academic classes. My purpose was to demonstrate to teachers and administration how technology could be integrated into everyday assignments and no computer labs would be necessary.

Here are the things I liked:

• The students enthusiastically worked with the technology. Other teachers who observed my students told me they were impressed at how much pride the students took in doing their work. Very few times did I have to discipline a student. There were three students who failed the course but even they did very well when they did their assignments. Also, these students were having troubles in other classes as well.
• Students took ownership in the course and quickly realized their work was out for everyone to see. Some took longer than others but got the point when I was constantly commenting on writing skills, spelling, punctuation, etc…. It started driving home the point their ELA classes mattered. There was also one funny time when one of the students got a response back on her blog from someone outside of school. It scared her. In another incident, a student e-mailed me that there was some inappropriate content attached to one of our videos on YouTube and wanted to know if I could take it down. He was proud of the work he and his classmates had done and did not want it ruined if it could be helped.
• Students realized they were an equal partner in the class. When one of the students taught me how to do something on the blog he later told me that was the first he felt what he knew was important. He when scared when he taught me what I needed to know but bought into the class when he realized I listened to him as a student should listen to a teacher. It was the first time it had ever happened to him. The students worked as a team to solve problems. However, I would send other students to help answer questions and sometimes I let them work it out on their own.

Here are some of the things I did not like:

• Not all of the teachers participated or cooperated. Even after I explained what I was planning on doing more than a few would not help with sharing computers. Even though teachers shared what they were doing in class and gave feedback on my ideas, almost all of them did not follow-up on work students did for their classes. One even got annoyed when she was asked to allow students to do a survey so graphs could be generated, the unit she was on at the time.
• Only two teachers asked how I did something or asked the students to explain what how they did an assignment. Sad considering this was an exercise in showing what the possibilities are.
• While administration was supportive and gave me a free hand to run the course as I saw fit, they only saw half of what the course was about. They loved the videos that were produced. So good the principal has assigned me to do this class on a full-time basis. The idea was for the teachers to see how to do things not me do it for them. In other words, in spite of trying to teach everyone how to fish, now I will be called on to video things in other classes instead of the teachers doing it themselves. This is why I call it a successful failure.

Things I would do differently:

• Say no! At least it sounds good but I loved my students.
• Have a couple of days where we would do nothing but sign up for the accounts needed.
• Make wikis the first assignment so students would have a better overall portfolio platform.
• Work more with audio podcasts but I am sure there will be pressure to get videos out.
• Make sure to have an individual video project so every student would have to demonstrate basic videoing skills before moving on to other tasks.

I am now in the process of designing what I like to call the Multimedia Activity Center or MAC for short (goes well with McCracken Middle School). As this summer project moves forward I will be blogging about that adventure. Don’t worry, I will also be blogging about technology integration as well. It is going to be a busy time.

I told the group that, in my opinion, one direction technology is taking us is our classes will be radically different. Teachers in the future will not have all of their students in one physical location all of the time. My statement led one teacher to ask, “Will technology eventually replace teachers?” “No,” I replied, “It will help ease an anticipated teacher shortage but there will always be a need for teachers.” The United States Labor Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics says that educational services jobs will grow by 10.7%  and add 1.4 million new jobs through the year 2016. According to a Yahoo website, education followed only healthcare and information technology as top career prospects in the future. I think there will be plenty of work for everyone.

One of the trends that leads me to make my claim about the future of teaching is the growth of online education. Insight School of South Carolina will be starting operations next year. This venture is an accredited public high school where students can earn a diploma, all online. Any South Carolina student who is accepted into the program are allowed to participate tuition free as well. This is not the first time high school students could earn high school credit online. Bluffton High School in Bluffton, South Carolina had offered a few courses in cooperation with the South Carolina Department of Education. Online summer school classes are becoming more popular each year.

Another trend might be an indirect consequence of the No Child Left Behind law. Our district uses NWEA’s Measures of Academic Progress (MAP) tests during the year to help teachers prepare students for state-mandated tests. The great thing about MAP tests is they pinpoint students’ strengths and weaknesses. With this data, teachers know how to prepare lessons for individual students to help them achieve higher scores on the important year-end tests. However, these tests could also pinpoint teachers’s strengths and weaknesses. On the surface this may sound like a bad thing for teachers but we must realize we cannot be perfect in everything (even if parents, principals, superintendents, and school boards expect it). The answer here is that students and their weaknesses could be matched up with teachers whose strengths could help. If they are in the same building, great. Thanks to technology and distance learning, students and teachers could be in different buildings if that is the match-up that best helps the student. At different times of day or week, students will head to computers in the room to work with their teachers while the classroom teacher is at their interactive whiteboard working with students from other schools.

In either case, teachers will be needed to provide the human interaction needed in education whether it is a few feet or thousands of miles that separates them from their students. I did tell the group that teachers who are comfortable with technology will be the ones who will succeed in the future. At least this is my vision of the future of education. Please share your ideas of where the technology will take education in the future.

A blog post by Stefanie Olsen on CNET’s News.com has some evidence that might poke holes in Professor Bauerlein’s research. Some Silicon Valley teens gathered together at the Teens in Tech confab to share how they are using technology to start businesses and do charitable work. Here are a few examples of what some participants have accomplished. Anshal Samar, 14, has invented the fantasy-chemistry education card game Elementeo and hopes to sell 50,000 sets and is well on his way to becoming a millionaire before entering high school. There is also Sejal Hathi, 16, who founded Girls Helping Girls, a nonprofit group hoping to inspire young women around the world to bring social change in their communities. So much for no work ethic or civic responsibility.

What technology are these teens using? Facebook because of its better layout and professional look. They still prefer e-mail but have not caught on to Twitter. All of the participants worry about their privacy and take steps to protect it. While the participants admitted to not being able to read as much as they would like outside of school related materials, they did say they kept up with news online. One thing they do regret is the fact they don’t have as much time to build personal relationships because of their work or use of Facebook or other social networking sites but understand personal relationships are important.

Ms. Olsen does point something out that makes me wonder if Professor Bauerlein’s book may be premature. The attitudes about using technology responsibly is coming from parents. Silicon Valley is one of the technology centers of the world so its inhabitants are probably very tech savvy. This knowledge of how things work on the Internet is passed on to their children. In other words, responsible adults who understand how technology works are taking time to instruct their children properly and it works. The cover of the book says not to trust anyone under 30 (funny coming from someone who proably said not to trust anyone over thirty once upon a time) but when I read Professor Bauerlein’s book it would not surprise me that he makes another argument supporting the idea of the Technology Natives/Technology Immigrants divide.

If PC users wanted a digital recorder without having to add extensions you had to pay for it. Since it is free, most people live with Audacity’s little quirk. Mac users spare us from lauding over Garage Band. However, there is a new recorder which is fairly simple to use, has some nice audio effects, convert files to MP3 automatically without a separate download, and is free, WildVoice Studio.

When you open WildVoice Studio you will see a screen divided into four sections: Show Builder, Mixer, Background Tracks, and Sound FX. The Show Builder is where you will record most of your podcast and put the show together. Here you will find a display that shows your sound levels and control buttons such as play, record, pause, stop, and cut. Once you record a clip it will show up below the display. While there is the ability to cut unwanted audio, it is not very accurate. You will want to record small segments of your podcast then assemble them later into a finished product. The mixer allows you to control volume levels of your microphone and other parts of your podcast such as the FX. Background tracks allow you to upload audio files such as music or pre-recorded interviews and insert them into your podcast later. The section that is the most fun to play with is Sound FX. WildVoice Studio has several audio clips such as a gunshot, a rooster crowing, a toilet flushing and others. You may also add other audio effects to this section thanks to programmable radio buttons. Needless to say, a podcaster could go crazy adding various effects while recording.

Once you finish recording you will assemble your clips in any order you wish. Next you will click a rather large Save + Publish button to save your work. The software saves the podcast as a WildVoice file but then switches to converting the file to MP3 automatically. Once you are done the software tries to get you to upload the file to the WildVoice hosting site but you can skip this step if you wish to upload the file to another site.

WildVoice Studio is in Beta so expect various bugs to come up and it does occasionally crash. There is one problem the folks at WildVoice need to address soon, it only works with Windows XP. You can make all the snide comments about Windows Vista you want but it is not going anywhere for a few years. Therefore, I hope a Vista version will be coming out soon. Overall, once some bugs are worked out this could become an Audacity killer and the answer to the prayers of those with Garage Band envy. One thing I would hope for in the future is the ability to have more control over editing clips. A cursor you can place on the display along with zoom in and out, undo and redo would help make this product more attractive to experienced podcasters. While I won’t ditch Audacity yet, I will keep watching and experimenting with WildVoice.

I have written many blog posts and had numerous discussions with educators about the use of gaming in education. During these discussions I always look back to how video games are set up. To achieve the next level the player must either learn a new skill or solve some kind of problem. Kids will sit for hours doing something teachers would love to have them do for just one hour. The mystery is putting together an enjoyable game with a storyline students would actually buy into. Throughout this game there would be problems in math, science, language arts, social studies, and other subjects that must be solved for the player to advance to a higher level. While Professor Layton does not have strict academic puzzles, some math, reading, reasoning and logic skills are needed to solve some of the 130 puzzles in the game.

It is my understanding Professor Layton and the Curious Village along with a sequel have been out for some time in Japan. This shows the Japanese are leading the trend towards games with higher order thinking skills and educational benefits. Professor Layton and the Curious Village is a step in the right direction for commercially viable educational games in the United States. Hopefully,  American game designers will start working with educators to produce more games that are both educational and fun to play. If this combination puzzle can be solved by others than Professor Layton, it could prove a commercial success for game makers and a bigger success for teachers and their students.

The first thing I did was to research how to make a complaint with YouTube about the offending video. Once I found it, I wrote a note explaining the situation and requested the video be removed from our site. Next, I flagged the video as inappropriate. I don’t know if this did anything but I did it anyway to draw attention to the video. A view of the tags on the video did not have anything remotely related to our videos, which I noted as well. Another action I took was to notify the Principal, the (as he puts it) good looking and buff guy in the attached video. Along with the Principal I also notified his secretary and our community relations liaison as well to let them know about the problem and I was working on it in case anyone called.

Fortunately nobody called and YouTube quickly removed the offending website from our page which I was grateful for (but the Miss Teen USA – Miss South Carolina video replaced it). YouTube’s actions raised their stock in my estimation. This incident was also a time to reflect on how to handle inappropriate content on school related websites. It is not a question of if but when an incident will happen. How will you handle it to keep the site running? Communication is the key element. Notify everyone who you think needs to know about the problem so they can tell the public the problem is being worked on. Another thing is to have backup websites ready in case you are forced to make a change. I have accounts with both Teacher Tube and School Tube in we have to change video hosts. Finally, make sure to let people know they should not panic when they see offending material on a school-related website. Schools and there webmasters jealously guard their reputations so let it be known you will deal with any situation quickly. Also businesses such as YouTube make money by having people click to their websites and see the ads. They would not want offend anyone either.