Session 9: Nov 25-Online Class structure

ETEC 674 Session 9, Dale Engman
This is the start of all my Tech 8 being structured with some online interactions. Once I finish Flash with this class I am going to tackle Fireworks, Dreamweaver, and then Freehand. If I am happy with the format I will do that with Tech 7 classes that I am also teaching.

Describe the students: 32 8th grade students in a technology 8 elective classroom with computer skills ranging from beginning to advanced at Indio Middle School, Desert Sands Unified School District.

Describe the content, including at least three objectives or goals: In chart below. Note: seven more weeks to follow.

Describe how you will know your students have met each objective or goal: In chart below. Note: seven more weeks to follow.

Describe the interactions your online class will include for each session: In chart below. Note: seven more weeks to follow.

The chart did not copy in well, but if you read each week it flows in the order below: Wk.,Date,Lesson Goal,Interaction/Description,Products/Evaluation Technology Used

1,6-Nov,Learn the basic interface of Flash, learn key terms used in Flash (ex: frame, blank keyframe, keyframe), saving, opening, and editing. Introduction to Flash: Students will be introduced to the Training Café website where they will perform online training of the Flash program. Upon completion of the training program students will watch "Flash Intro" from LearnFlash.com. Completion of Training Café online lessons, Create a Flash show that has your name, try to get it to move. Save as: first last Name.fla Evaluation: completion of online training by showing instructor correctly saved Flash file Computers with Internet connection and Macromedia Flash. Sample: located in Document Manager/Flash/firstlastname.swf

2,13-Nov,Learn how to convert drawings to symbols, make keyframes, motion tweens, and how to remove motion tweens Tweening: Students will watch "Tweening" on LearnFlash.com to learn the basic skills of motion tweening and then will create a Flash show that includes at least one motion tween. Create a Flash show that has a "bouncing ball" motion tween in the same document as your name. Re-Save as: first last Name.fla Evaluation: completion of motion tween by showing instructor correctly saved Flash file Computers with Internet connection and Macromedia Flash. Sample: located in Document Manager/Flash/firstlastname.swf

3,20-Nov,Learn how to create a guide layer, how to snap a symbol/object to the guide layer, how to hide a layer. Guides: Students will watch "Guides" on LearnFlash.com to learn the basics of creating a guide layer. Create a Flash show that has a "super bouncing object" guide layer in the same document as your name. Re-Save as: first last Name.fla Evaluation: completion of guide layer by showing instructor correctly saved Flash file Computers with Internet connection and Macromedia Flash. Sample: located in Document Manager/Flash/firstlastname.swf

Session 7-Nov 2: Technology Comparison #2

Dale Engman,ETEC 674, Dr. Newberry, November 2, 2006

Telecommunications Technology Comparison #2

Introduction
You have taught your most successful lessons ever and the students paid attention like never before, now you want to see if they really got it, so you whip up a little test or quiz to assess their learning, but you stop and say, “I bet I could do this electronically!” After ruling out the old fashioned paper test, you are now torn between using your districts web based testing system or an online test generator. Oh what will you do?

Media Choices and Task Differentiation
Desert Sands Unified School Districts (DSUSD) web based portal system is designed to only allow students with a login and password into a specific teacher’s classroom or portal where the teacher would have this assessment waiting for them to take. A little leg work is needed to scan, if you already made a paper test, or create the assessment and upload or post to the Desert Sands Assessment Tool or DSAT as we like to call DSUSD. Students would login to the Portal and then click into DSAT and complete their assessment, upon completion of the test the student receives their grade and the grade is whisked away to the eSchool grading program for the teacher.
Exam View Pro which comes with many textbooks allows a teacher to create a test from a test databank, or an assessment from scratch. Upon completion you can create an online version that students will be able to take with a simple login and password. After students are done they would receive their grade and the teacher would receive a report of the students’ scores.
Both of these systems would have a higher media richness compared to a paper test due to the online nature of the assessment and that the student would receive their grade upon completion of the assessment, whereas a paper based test would rank lower in media richness because there is no instant feedback of how you did. You could say that from Daft, Lengel, and Trevino’s (1987) Hierarchy of Media Richness, having a login and password raises the richness due to the personalization of the assessment. Even though I would argue that the richness is higher, an assessment cannot have too many variations of richness.
Social presence would be low on a paper test and would fall into the middle of the road for both of these online tests. Newberry (2001) stated in reference to Russo (2000), defines social presence as the degree which a person is perceived to be real in a mediated environment. I do not feel the online version of the test would raise their social presence, but the instant result at the end of the test and a possible ranking system would raise the social presence.




Media Comparison
First, posting the assessment to the DSAT takes a paper test, a scanner, a computer, and access to DSAT. Second, you can also create a test in any Software and upload the test. Lastly, you can use the DSAT assessment designer to create a test. All three yield an online assessment that you can allow students to take with ease. Exam View Pro software allows you to create your test and then post to your website, or the Exam View Pro’s website.
The strength of the DSAT system is that the test is instantly graded and scored into the teacher’s eSchool grade book, and classroom results can be quickly analyzed for mastery. This makes for ‘one stop shopping’ for the teacher which I feel results in more efficiency for them. A strength of Exam View Pro is that you can have every version of the test be different, thus reducing the possibility of cheating. Strengths for both is that each program grades the assessment, greatly increasing the time an instructor can use to reflect on the assessment instead of grading it.
Weaknesses of both programs include the time it takes to prep the assessments. An instructor may just go with the old fashioned paper version due to comfort level, thus increasing their post-assessment grading. With all assessments there is the possibility of cheating from students if you forget to have each system create different versions of the test. I could also see students copying and pasting the assessment and emailing it to another student in a later period, so the integrity of the test could be compromised. A weakness of the Exam View Pro could be the results might take time to enter into a grade book, whereas the DSAT’s strength includes the instant entry in to the teacher’s grade book. A final weakness of Exam View Pro is the online testing only allows for true/false, and multiple choice test questions. Many teachers would like to have short answer, or fill in the blank questions.
I would lean towards the DSAT online assessment over the Exam View Pro given the multi functionality of the ‘all in one’ nature of the system. I think there would be too many variables that could go wrong using Exam View Pro.

Conclusion
The complexity of creating an assessment can get easier using one of these two systems mentioned above which increases your front end prep time, but greatly reduces your post assessment prep time. Either medium would spike the interest of the students given the results of the assessment would be instant leading to more gratification, providing the student did well. The bottom line of this comparison is that you would be using the Internet to conduct assessments with instant feedback to all who participate and that is worth all the leg work needed to set everything up.

Bibliography
Daft, R.L., Lengel, R.H., and Trevino, L.K. (1987). Message equivocally, media selection, and manager performance. MIS Quarterly, 11 (3), 355-366.
Newberry, B. (2001). Media richness, social presence and technology supported communication activities in education. Retrieved November 1, 2006 from, http://learngen.org/resources/module/lgend101_norm1/3000/3100_3/3120.html
Russo, T. (2000). Social presence: Teaching and learning with invisible others. WSU Presentation.

Session 6- Nov 2. Instructional Design for Online Learning

Engman’s Answers for Instructional Design for Online Learning

1. What is the nature, of the dichotomy between use of the Internet as a content delivery mechanism or as a communications medium?

Newberry discussed traditional versus a modern style of online learning where traditional deals with the Internet being the primary source for delivery with this such as a Podcast (audio, video, or with a presentation like a Power Point) this style of delivery leads to more of a regurgitation style of learning, whereas I would say the modern method includes the traditional method and adds the realm of communication being the main component. Mentioned in the articles was that distance learning courses will typically fail if treated like a traditional method whereas distance learning done with the modern style must be well thought out to keep in mind communication and the mediums for delivery. Additionally with the traditional classroom or quite possibly a modern approach allows the teacher to adjust on the fly but a traditional style does not allow this freedom.

2. Mentorship
Your discussion should include:
2a. Mentorship deals with drawing out what the learner already knows like the old ‘Guide on the side’ instead of the ‘Sage on the stage’ method of teaching. Technologies that can be used to assist online would be discussion boards, Podcasts, presentations focusing on specific skills, instant messaging, Skype, and video conferencing to mention a few strategies that would work.
2b. A few strengths of mentorship include: that you build the depth of your students via teamwork and communication, you build the community of the online class, and rapid learning can take place. A few weakness of mentorship include: time lost to off task communications, plagiarism, the mentor completing the work for the student indirectly or directly, and slow responses from the mentor.
2c. Implementation of mentorship in ETEC 674 could be on the Study on the Beach forum having a section for help; students could check the forum for help. Also there could be an optional sign up for students to be a mentor and Newberry could post that below the blog or Skype list, students needing help could feel comfortable to contact the mentors. An idea from another ETEC class would have a student to moderate a forum like a discussion board for a week at a time to assist students, students could post questions and the moderator for that week could assist, but this would be more of a mandatory versus volunteer basis.

3. Newberry mentioned online courses could be evaluated via summative or formative evaluations. Some pitfalls of using only student evaluations like “what did you think about the class?” could lead you to reduce the course work load and make your class too easy for the next time you teach it. Combining personal reflection, student reflection, and research on best practices help strengthen your online courses. For example in my classroom I always have a “the good, the bad and the ugly” reflection paper at the end of each quarter that the students fill out. If I only went by what they requested, I would let them listen to music, watch online videos or play online games, unblock MySpace, and so on, but used in conjunction with my own thoughts and my own research allows me to help keep the work load manageable in my classroom. This idea can easily be adjusted to an online course and almost parallels what Newberry said in his podcast.

Session 5- Nov 1: Technology Comparison

Dale Engman, ETEC 674, Dr. Newberry, November 2, 2006

Telecommunications Technology Comparison

Introduction
So you have Power Point figured out and have posted it on the Internet and can lecture in your classroom, but can you walk around the room and present at the same time? Sure there are a few gizmos out there that can help you do this, and I bet you got a special remote control with your LCD, or maybe a friend gave you a “tech toy” that can control a Power Point, but can you write on the screen from ten feet away? This technology comparison looks at a hardware device and new software that can be used with a Palm or Pocket PC device which can make you a super presenter that is not tied to the mouse and the envy of all your fellow teachers. This might not be the biggest break through in telecommunications, but you will be using wireless technologies and once either of these two technologies has been mastered, they can be used in conjunction with anything on the Internet and will have you navigating the telecommunications highway.

Media Choices and Task Differentiation
In a traditional lesson the teacher would present a Power Point presentation and lecture to the class allowing time for questions and comments. The teacher would use the LCD, computer, mouse, and keyboard to answer the questions or provide guided instruction for the class. With the implementation of the Smart Slate Airliner or Pebbles Slideshow Commander the teacher would modify their lesson to create a more interactive lesson allowing students to participate by using either technology to write on the presentation or to show skills in the Power Point software to the classroom.
The Smart Slate Airliner allows a teacher to control their computer and all applications wirelessly using Bluetooth technology. The Smart Slate is portable and allows the teacher the freedom to move around the classroom and allows the teacher to hand the Smart Slate to students to have them use the tethered pen to either control an application on the presentation computer or to write with its ‘digital’ ink.
Wouldn’t it be nice to dim the lights, turn on your LCD, and then present your presentation without leaving the front of the room? Many people have handheld devices and would love to be able to break free of being trapped behind the keyboard and mouse. Pebbles Slideshow Commander allows a teacher to control their Power Point, and a few other applications via Bluetooth technology using a Palm, Pocket PC, or even some of the new Smart Phones ( note: if your lights are hooked into your computer, yes you would be able to dim them, but unfortunately I was unable to test this option out). The person using the handheld device would be able to write on the presentation using Pebbles.
Both of these technologies would rank low to medium in media richness due to the one way nature of presentation, but when you allow the students to interact with the Smart Slate or the Palm device you are raising the media richness to a higher level because the presentation is becoming more of a face to face interaction and according to Rice and Shook (1990) the richest communication medium is face-to-face meetings followed by telephone, e- mail, and memos and letters. Granted you are not receiving information back from the actual Power Point, but from the instructor and the fellow classmates allows the student or teacher to as Newberry (2001) said in reference to Daft and Lengel (1984):
the criteria for ranking a medium's ability to carry information can be based on the ability of the media to, relay immediate feedback, provide feedback cues such as body language, allow the message to be created or altered specifically for an intended recipient, and transmit the feelings or emotions of the communicators.

Thinking about Newberry’s (2001) three tiered matrix I would argue that the student or teacher would be able to rank each of the two technologies as high in feedback, multiple cues, message tailoring, and emotions given the fact that the technology is using the Power Point as the vehicle or media.
Taking a look at social presence Newberry (2001) stated that the degree of social presence in a communications activity may have a number of different impacts on the participant's perception, appreciation, participation, or level of satisfaction. In light of this I would argue that social presence would be high given that the student goes from a non-participant in the traditional Power Point presentation and goes to an active ingredient to the presentation with either of the two technologies used for this comparison. This gives both the presenter and the audience a higher rate of satisfaction and would lead to greater appreciation of the material being presented.

Media Comparison
After installation of the Smart Slate Airliner the teacher just presses the on button and they have the computer at their control. In the classroom that this comparison was done the instructor was able to use the slate anywhere in the room and was even able to step outside while he spoke to the principal and still control the computer. According to the Smart Technologies website the Airliner will work from 52 feet (16 m) away (statistic from: http://www2.smarttech.com/st/en-US/Products/AirLiner/). The ability to switch between pens, the mouse, and eraser with the ease of the stylus made it easy for the teacher and students to use. One weakness of the Airliner was that you have to be able to see the screen to write or use the mouse feature. Because there is no ‘on screen’ display students in the corners of the room had difficulty participating from their chairs, but the wireless nature allowed for the student to move to see. The disruption to the class could be an issue with the teacher which could be resolved by printing up a screen shot that is scaled to the size of the display on the Airliner. During the lesson the instructor was able to move freely around the room and present the Power Point, pause to write on the screen, and allow students to do the same. Upon completion of the show the instructor was able to show additional skills without having to return to the computer. Overall the instructor and the classes’ attitude to the Smart Slate Airliner were favorable.
After contacting Dr. Brad Meyers at the Human-Computer Interaction Institute
School of Computer Science at the Carnegie Mellon University and getting access to the Pebbles Slideshow Commander (website: http://www.pebbles.hcii.cmu.edu ) the instructor was more than excited to try out this new technology. He went to work reading up about the new software and unfortunately at the time of writing he was unable to actually get his Palm which was loaded with loaded with Slideshow Commander and computer interacting to present to an entire class. For the remaining portion of my comparison I will refer to Pebbles as part of being in the audience of a presenter using Pebbles and my own experience using Pebbles. Watching someone write into their hand and to see the Power Point come alive with that is pretty amazing. When the presenter hands you their tiny handheld and you see the Power Point on the handheld that is also on the wall is neat, but being able to sit in your chair and write on the tiny display to have it seen by all is pretty mind blowing. A strength of Pebbles is the ability to not have to bring a laptop with your to present. A few weaknesses are getting it set up to recognize your handheld device, the small display screen on the handheld makes it difficult to write legibly, and it seemed to lock up the instructors handheld. If the instructor got the Pebbles software installed and working in the classroom setting I believe the instructor would find it quite useful in the presentation and lecture modes, but not too handy with the student interaction portion of the lesson mentioned above. If one was to check back in a few weeks you may find more exciting stuff here about Pebbles which only has been given kudos from everyone else I have spoken with.

Conclusion
There is no doubt in the instructors mind that both of these technologies can unlock and harness the power of a traditional lecture and presentation in any classroom. If I was to try a different handheld device and have more time to attempt using the Pebbles software you would have two great reviews of these technologies. The Smart Slate Airliner did not come without its installation and discovering issues, but once resolved the ability to use the device was not an issue. Concluding with the ability to leave the keyboard and mouse and to navigate the classroom while being able to carry on a presentation was the goal of this technology comparison and it was accomplished with one of the devices. The students seemed to enjoy the lesson using the Smart Slate Airliner more than the traditional lecture style of the instructor which would lead one to think that both the media richness and social presence were much higher than normal.

Bibliography
Daft, R. L. and R. H. Lengel (1984). Information richness: a new approach to managerial behavior and organizational design. Research in Organizational Behavior 6, 191-233.
Newberry, B. (2001). Media richness, social presence and technology supported communication activities in education. Retrieved November 1, 2006 from, http://learngen.org/resources/module/lgend101_norm1/3000/3100_3/3120.html
Newberry, B. (2001). Raising student social presence in online classes. WebNet 2001 Proceedings (In Press).
Rice, R., and Shook, D. (1990). Relationships of job categories and organizational levels to use of communication channels, including electronic mail: A meta-analysis and extension. Journal of Management Studies (27:2), 195-229.

Session 5- Nov 1: Annotated Bib for Meyers article

Citation:
Myers, B. (2001). Using hand-held devices and PCs together. Communications of the ACM. 44(11). pp. 34 - 41.

Summary:
The idea that a handheld device is more than just that is the work of Dr. Brad A Meyers and the Pebbles project. Pebbles stands for PDAs for Entry of Both Bytes and Locations from External Sources (PEBBLES) which works with multimachine user interfaces (MMUIs). The idea is for the handheld to enhance a personal computer instead of being used in the absence of a computer. The article contains a brief description of Slideshow Commander, Scribble, Shortcutter, Remote Commander, Pebbles Draw, Switcher, and the Universal Remote Control with screen shots and examples of how one would use each aspect of Pebbles.

The article went on to discuss three key research issues in MMUIs for individual users, control of the application, sharing information among the computers, and using the handhelds as universal remote controls. The article then discussed the types of communication that the handheld needed to use to communicate with the computer. Lastly he finished with a link to the commercially released Slideshow Commander and the other applications at their research site of www.pebbles.hcii.cmu.edu.

Review:
I chose this article because it was relevant to my technology comparison and I needed to learn more about this Pebbles software that was refereed to me from a presentation I attended. Luckily, Dr. Meyers has many of the journal articles that he has been published in posted on his own personal site and available for download and that is where I got this article for review.

I found this article to be quite informative and helpful to my research needs. The article was easy to read and easy to follow. The screen shots were quite helpful and were a good reference one I received the software from Dr. Meyers. On a side note, the day I emailed Dr. Meyers, he responded what felt like instantly and told me I was more than welcome to use the software; in fact he was excited to hear that I was going to attempt to use this in a middle school. The strength of the article was the ease of reading, the helpful screen shots, and a flow chart of the Pebbles Architecture (p.40). A weakness would be if you are not familiar with handhelds, then this article would do you no good.

I found the article to be very informative and would recommend it to any handheld user and would encourage you to discover Pebbles on your own. Below I attached a few more citations of his articles for your reference.

For Further Information from Dr. Brad Meyers and Handheld Devices:
Brad A. Myers, Jeffrey Nichols, Jacob O. Wobbrock, and Robert C. Miller. Taking Handheld Devices to the Next Level. IEEE Computer. December, 2004. vol. 37, no. 12. pp. 36-43
Brad A. Myers. Using Handhelds for Wireless Remote Control of PCs and Appliances. Interacting with Computers, Elsevier Science Journals. 2005. Volume 17, Issue 3, May 2005, Pages 251-264
Brad A. Myers. Mobile Devices for Control. The Fourth Symposium on Human-Computer Interaction for Mobile Devices, Mobile HCI'02. (Keynote speech), September 18-20, 2002, Pisa, Italy. pp. 1-8.

Session 5- Nov. 1: Annotated Bib about Cohen article

Citation:
Cohen, R. (2005). An early literacy telecommunication exchange plot project: the MMM project. Educational Media International. 42(2), pp. 109-115.

Summary:
The Mini Web, Multilingual, Maxi Learning project, or the MMM project looks at children aged three to six and looks at learning with a modern flare, using computers versus a traditional classroom setting. The idea that children are growing up in the information age is the backbone of the MMM project that uses technology as the cornerstone of increasing the child’s international awareness built around what Cohen calls lifelong essential competencies in the Information Age (p. 109). The MMM project started with and introduction and then a section about what the research tells us. Later on in the article you find out that the MMM project is in five countries, fifty classrooms, and over eight hundred students participating in the project for the past three years. There is no quantitative data to show whether the program is a success yet, but there is a web link that informs us about some of their findings.


Review:
If you find my summary less than enthusiastic, you should realize that I did not enjoy this article and after re-reading it a few times, nope it did not get any better. I do not know if it was because the research comes out of France and maybe something was ‘lost in translation.’ First, the research does not apply to an age group that I do not work with. Second, Cohen never really informs us about what she really did with her project. I feel she was talking around it, and not giving us any gems from it. We never see any screen shots of their interface, or receive data about her findings. Third, the descriptions of the way the users interact do not lead me to think that they are telecommuting but instead talking to each other in a face to face fashion. The only strength I could find in this study is that children aged three to six are able to adjust very quickly to today’s technology.

Do yourself a favor if you stumble across this title when searching for telecommunications and skip right past it. I hate to bash a published article but I saw nothing of worthiness for myself and my studies, but maybe others out there could benefit from the information about the MMM project. Maybe you can skip the article and check out the MMM website at www.mmm-ecm.org.