OTEN Conference 2011 

Below is my audio review of the OTEN Conference.  You will hear review of the keynote speaker and two sessions I attended. The first was a session on applications that can be used in education...Examples: Moodle/Delicious/Screenr/Presi ect.. and the second was on Google Earth and its various functions, uses and possibilities. 

Educational Technology Standards and Adaptations

One of the things that strikes me most when discussing the use of technology in our schools is the way in which it becomes marginalized. I hear"Technology is insignificant because it distracts from learning." Really? In this 21st Century it is essential that we learn to adapt and learn how to adapt to technology. Being able to google the Civil War, find pictures, articles, quotes, videos only enhances the subject matter. In addition, it is done with a medium that students know inside and out. Most people have a hard time with change. I do at times; but if our students are expected to "tow the line" with technology, we should too and set the example. According to the Oregon Educational Technology Standards (OETS) students need to be well rounded and competent with technology. This means adapting. (Time out) Watch this video of Matthew Taylor giving a speech on the enlightenment/or adapting ourselves to modern times and think about numbers  3, 4 & 5 on the OTES list: Research and Information Fluency, Decision Making and Digital Citizenship (Respectively) 

Where's the connection? The connection is that over time, research, information gathering and implementation of this "learning/gathering" was put in place to better our selves and drive progress. The use of technology in an educational setting betters the student and drives their learning; they must be competent in this task if they are to be the future of a society built on technology. 

Below are the three standards that I connect with most... how they connect to why we use adaptation to drive progress and learning, and how I plan to implement them in the classroom.

• Research and Information Fluency:  Technology is a result of countless hours of research and information gathering. I want students to be able to research youtube video recordings of different performances by the artist/piece we may study or different audio recordings of the same piece to compare and contrast similarities and differences... this is the analyzing and evaluation phase. They can then organize and use this information of performance practices to enhance their understanding or give them a great foundation with which to create their own interpretation of the piece..something they never would be able to do without technology...again adapting to the internet to drive progress and learning. 
• Critical Thinking, Problem Solving, Decision Making: Embarking on a piece of music is all about problem solving, using critical thinking skills during practice and rehearsals and making informed decisions about how to start. Students can scan a piece of music as a PDF and upload it to google docs to be shared and discussed openly. What passages might be most difficult? Which sections will take the most time to get together, and where should we begin in the rehearsal process? The beginning of the piece, middle, end? They can all be on the same page, plan and manage the rehearsal activity to create a solution for a fabulous project all through the use of a google doc! 
• Digital Citizenship: A large part of using technology is collaboration. Uploading a scanned piece of music creates the possibility of misuse of information. However, the discussion and collaboration used in the exercise fosters a practical, safe, and responsible use of the information. One of the activities I will have the students do is talk to me about why doing something like this as a way to starting learning a piece of music is important and advantageous. They need to talk about the social issues of copyright laws and sheet music sharing in educational settings. This also applies to electronic versions. It is a way to drive their critical thinking and expand their foundations. We can then talk about how to use other technologies to enhance our rehearsals and then implement them into our classroom time. 

The Big Picture: These standards are trying to accomplish adaptation. We live in a culture built on technology and its use. Therefore we must learn it or suffer. 

The challenge I see in all this is not being afraid of change for one thing. Most of these technologies are incredibly simple and the learning curve is small. It takes time, yes, but it is time well spent. Secondly, educating the masses about how simple learning and using new technology is. The age of the enlightenment was all about change in thinking, technology and progress. It was not devoid of blood, sweat, and tears, certainly, but it was also exciting and forward thinking. Technology in an educational setting should be exciting! The implementation of a smart board or Screenr for demonstrations should be viewed as positives only. I believe the way we overcome this challenge of the fear of change is altering the mindset. Look at technology as innovative and enhancing; a positive global force with the ability to connect us all! Being technologically competent as a student builds success as a contributing member of society. It also contributes to their earning a diploma! 

Multi-Media Project

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I decided do two videos because I was having SO much fun with screenr! Screenr is a

tech-revelation for me; I think it could be one of the most practical learning tools and applications out there today. Being able to record a computer screen or do a "screencast" for

your students as a way of explaining a program or process is ingenious. It could not be more simple. Go go screenr.com, (make sure you have installed the current version of Java, if you do not have it Screenr will point you in the right direction automatically...which is also great) watch the fifty-two second tutorial and then click record. Clicking record brings up a window within your desktop that you can size and resize to your preference. You click the red record button just like on a video camera...3..2..1 GO! You're off. Once you are finished you can preview the cast, decide if you like it, delete and start over, or publish. It's just that simple.

This tool can be so effective as a teaching aid...especially for "at home" assignments. You could have the students record their homework, or have them watch a screencast on how to use an application like Google Earth...anything you desire.

Google Earth:

I wanted to show Google Earth because it is a tool that I use constantly. I think it could be used as a fantastic tool for a geography class. It is so simple and easy to use. If you haave a projector in your class or some type of smart board you could make it huge and really give the students an idea of where we are in relation to other continents, countries and peoples. Nothing better than a digital, zooming globe for geography!

Delicious:

Not the best educational website. But very practical for current events as it is a social bookmarking hub. I used screenr to describe the basic functions and tabs. Again, screenr works flawlessly to give a "readers digest" version of a website or toolset.

Data Everywhere

This is a simple line graph to show student progress. The students growth is demonstrated as the tests progress. The chart is depicting the second half of the testing period tests (6-10). Students that had an average higher than 192 are not represented, as I wanted to show the average that was just below 170 collectively. As you can see most students had an overall improvement trend, but there were those with peaks and valleys.

What I see in this graph is a lack of consistency. I want to reverse this as quick as possible. I would like to see test scores that are a bit more steady rather than big peaks and valleys. This may be because of the material presented during the unit that this graph represents, and I recommend some more individual attention from the teacher to spot weaknesses or gaps in the students comprehension.

Using this kind of data in a classroom setting can be very important in terms of the ease at which it can be created and its visual appeal. It clearly depicts the activity of the scores in a way that students can grasp. I think in order to arrive at a more uniform upward trend in scores I would recommend smaller group work or group work, say five students to one teacher, really digging into the subject matter to create better comprehension. Being able to see the data so clearly represented can do wonders for motivation.

My experience with Google Sheets was fantastic. It was easy to navigate through and the embedding of the sheet in this blog was very clear. I was thinking about how to use this in a musical application and feel that when I touch on the more academic side of music learning this kind of graph and spreadsheet could be very useful. For example, test scores for some of the music theory that we will cover; the analyzing of Bach Chorales or mad minute key signatures. The students could log on and see their over all trend during the semester or quarter, and it would give them a great barometer of where they were and what they needed to do!

Here is a link to the raw data

A Delicious Web 2.0 on Screenr!....What?!

What is all this information sharing? Well let's look at a few!

Web 2.0!

For the most part the term web 2.0 is used to refer to a new generation of websites that are supposed to let people collaborate and share information online in ways that were not possible before. With web 1.0, most websites consisted of static HTML pages. Later on, developers began to create web pages dynamically by retrieving information from a database and using a programming language to build pages from this information on the fly. With web 2.0 websites are not only dynamic, but also highly interactive.

Social network features: users can easily share information with each other. Most web 2.0 websites allow you to build a network of other users for the purposes of sharing the resources you have stored online. (Even from a smart phone now) A good example is delicious, the social bookmarking website where you can store your bookmarks online as well as share them with other delicious users. (More information on "Delicious" to follow)

User ownership of information: users can organize and classify information to meet their own needs. Many web 2.0 websites support the use of a folksonomy, a way of using open-ended labels to categorize information. The difference between a folksonomy and a taxonomy is that the labels (also called tags) are created by the same people who contribute the content. An example of a website that supports tagging is Flickr, a website for hsoting and sharing photos online.

A rich, interactive, user-friendly interface. Some of the most interactive websites online are the map services. For an example, take a look at Google Maps


Delicious!

Delicious is essentially a social bookmarks manager, and as such it offers the ability to add metadata to collected links, such as short and extended descriptions, and "tags"--words used to classify and categorize a link. The tags are displayed on the right side of a link-blog page, with a numeric indicator of how many links include each tag word. Clicking on a tag displays links that contain that tag. Links are also filed chronologically, and an archive of each day can be accessed. Between a time-based lookup and tag-based lookup, there is some organization here, but I'd hardly call it "management," particularly when compared to how traditional Favorites/Bookmarks are managed. In my opinion using the site as an educational tool would be difficult, it lacks management and the kind of structure I would want for my students. The main page is like shooting at a target with a shotgun. Some will hit the target, some will graze it and some will miss completely. It's mostly unfiltered, and seems to be treading into overkill territory--although popular links are highlighted, and recently added URLs are filed at the top (each time a new user files it in their own collection)

As far as using it as a place for students to find current views and news?...sure. I think it needs more filtering and searchable features. It's really a link blog system, the content is primarily URLs.


Screenr!

Screenr is fantastic! It allows up to five minutes of recording that can be inserted onto a Powerpoint presentation, YouTube video, Google Presentation, etc. Students could record assignments and projects at home and instantly post them. Screenr captures and makes short videos of the action on your screen.

UPS:
It is free but requires a Twitter account to log in.
It allows the student to experiment with screen-casting and there is nothing to install. Students could use it as a communication tool or to answer questions or demo specific features of a project. As a teacher you could use it for training certain essentials of technology, which is fantastic! Plus, it works on MAC and Windows platforms.

DOWNS:
You cannot edit the screen-cast. You can only do it over and it will not always capture toolbars. You cannot add sound or change the audio in any way and it does not let you change the name or description after it is posted. No private postings as well.

For my uses the ups out weigh the downs. Looking at it purely from a music standpoint...usuing Finale? Screenr would be invaluable! Finale ins and outs are so difficult at times that if a professor had a way to show the exact steps and many features in five minute increments class time would be spared! Wait, now you can...just use Screenr! Great product.