Taste of Tech

David Warlick started this conversation about free wifi access at the American Library Association conference this month in New Orleans.  Most (all right, both) of the technology conferences I’ve attended in the last year have had free WIFI available, but only in designated areas. This is the first time I’ve seen that they’re providing it for the whole conference (except the exhibit hall). He sees this as a movement, where people are starting to view ubiquitious wireless access as something that we should have available in most places. You might compare it to cell phone coverage, where you more or less expect to be able to get a signal in most places.

This started a discussion of wireless networks in schools, and Brian Crosby picked up on it. He commented that school IT departments frown on wireless access because it’s hard to secure. Ryan Collins explained how easy it is to secure wireless devices by not broadcasting SSIDs and using WPA encryption. I chimed in on Ryan’s blog about how that would make it difficult (impossible?) for users to connect their own devices to the wireless network.

That’s when I realized that we were talking about different things. If a school purchases laptops and creates a wireless network for them, it’s fairly easy to set it up with a reasonable amount of security. I call these "known" laptops. The district owns them, the IT department has installed or approved the installation of software on them. They’re generally controlled. The likelihood that they’re going to have malware, out-of-date anti-virus software, port scanners and hacking tools, and other educationally unproductive software is about the same as it would be for the wired devices. Everything’s a known quanity.

Except that it’s a bad idea. Unless you really need the space, it’s a lot cheaper to buy desktops. Right now, we have 30 desktop computers in our high school media center and 14 laptops. The laptops have to be used in the room, because we don’t have wifi anywhere else. It would have been cheaper (if we had had the space) to just put in 60 desktops, and we’d have 36% more computers.

The real advantage to wireless is that we can let people bring their *own* devices in. So let them bring their own laptops (or even PSPs, for that matter). Allow them to connect to the wireless network, but don’t let them do anything until they log in. After logging in, seriously restrict their activity, but give them basic access to the things they need (usually web access). We’re never going to get to 1:1. We’ll probably never get to 5:1 in any realistic way. So why not let the students bring their own?

Interestingly, colleges are moving in the opposite direction. The Chronicle of Higher Education recently ran an article about colleges banning laptops in class. Apparently, when you have a big lecture class where the students all have Internet access, they’re less likely to pay attention to the professor. Having spent most of my teaching career teaching in rooms where all of the students had Internet access in class, I can sympathize. As a teacher, you sometimes need undivided attention. But at the college level, the burden is entirely on the student to learn from the class. They should be making their own decisions about appropriate or inappropriate behavior, as long as it doesn’t interfere with the other students or the class as a whole.

So where do we stand at K-12? We don’t ban student laptops (though I’ve never seen a student carrying one around). We also don’t provide WIFI in classrooms. This summer, we’ll be expanding the media center’s wireless access to the cafeteria and most of the high school campus outdoors. Then, we’ll focus on study hall rooms and other public areas. The emphasis will be on providing wireless where the most students can get the most benefit from it during unstructured time. It’ll be a long time before we have students surfing the web in class.

Well, it didn’t take too long. Yesterday, this blog received about 20 comments to various posts, all within about an hour. Apparently, most of the things I write about are directly related to free online Texas hold ‘em games. This morning, I had another 47 comments. Fortunately, I had Wordpress configured to not automatically post comments containing links.

I’ve tightened the parameters for comments, but I’m considering turning them off entirely. As it stands now, you must be registered and logged in to comment. When commenting, you must include your name and email address. For the comment to automatically appear without my approval, you have to have at least one comment that has been approved previously. All other comments will be held in a moderation queue until I have a chance to review them.

In reality, though, I’m not sure I want to do this. I already sort through hundreds of email messages every day to find the few that aren’t spam. I don’t want to do the same thing with blog comments. So, if the problem gets out of hand, I’ll just remove the comments entirely, and you can comment on your own blogs

Upgrading to Wordpress 2.0 will help, but that’s a couple months off yet. It turns out that hoops I jumped through to make WP 1.5 and the plugins we use extensible on our server also make it difficult to upgrade in place. Add to that some weirdness with .htaccess files and the fact that Wordpress has to share the server with other things, and you have a non-trivial upgrade. But that’s a post for another day.

Wikis frustrate me. Back in ‘91 when Tim Berners-Lee created the first web site, his focus was on an interactive medium. The web was meant to be a forum where everyone could be a publisher, everyone could contribute to the collective knowledge, and everyone could benefit from others’ contributions. It didn’t work out that way. The technical limitations to putting a web site online were too great. You had to get a server, configure the httpd software, write the web pages by hand with a text editor, and manage the site yourself. While web sites were a much easier way to put information online than anything that had come before, it wan’t for the masses.

Three years later, wikis were invented by Ward Cunningham as a way to have "editable" web pages. A page could be created that visitors can modify to correct and amend. It’s a powerful collaborative tool, but it’s also easy to deface and abuse. As a technology, it wasn’t widely embraced until Wikipedia started taking off in 2003. Now it’s seen as a "Web 2.0" technology, part of the read-write web. Suddenly, everyone’s talking about them.

Our tech team started playing around with wikis this past school year. Like many, I had looked at them in the late ’90s, and thought, "that’s never going to work." With all of the hype, though, it was worth another look. We installed MediaWiki and PHPWiki on a local server and started to play with them.We brainstormed some ideas on how we could use them. We could build a knowledgebase of technology information, so people within the district would be able to use that resource to help them solve their own tech problems. Students could create wikis as collaborative class projects that show what they’ve learned about a topic. Teachers could use wiki versions of textbooks, to have an always up-to-date electronic text for their classes. We could use a wiki to build a resource to help teachers implement the academic content standards for technology. The resource would have the standards in it, and people could add and edit lesson ideas and resources for the different standards at the various grade levels. We would use our staff to collaboratively build this resource, and then open it up so other teachers throughout the state (and country, maybe) could use it and contribute to it, too. What a cool project!

Reality set it quickly. By default, wiki software requires contributors to enter text in wiki markup. Want a heading? Simple, just type "== This is a Title ==" and it’ll put the title there. How about a link? "[[this is a link]]." What if I want to add a picture? First, I just upload the picture to a document repository, and then use something like "[[image:mypic.jpg]]" to have it show up on your page. Getting our teachers to use this simple markup to share their ideas and resources with others should be no problem at all, right?

They thought we were nuts when we suggested that they use HTML code for their web pages. Now, we want them to use a different, but similar language to do wikis? It didn’t happen the first time, and it’s not going to happen now.

So… we went looking for wysiwyg editors for wikis. We found ‘em, too. Most wikis now have plugins that let you put word-processor-like editors on them. That makes the formatting much easier. The only problem is that you still have to do links and images (and attachments) by hand with the markup. And what are the most valuable tools in a wiki? We’re spinning our wheels here.

In the end, we decided not to use a wiki to do this. Despite the fact that it’s ten years old, the technology hasn’t sufficiently escaped the geekosphere to allow everyone to use it. Eventually, they’ll evolve enough to actually be useful.

All of that was about two weeks ago. I didn’t think it would evolve so quickly, though. Today, I read about Wet Paint. This is a hosted wiki solution (you don’t run it on your own server). They’ve solved both of the wysiwyg editor problems. It’s very easy now to set up a wiki, contribute information, and add links, pictures, and attachments, all without the annoying markup code.

We’re not ready to jump on board yet. We need a tool that’s locally hosted that will do all this. But I’m a lot more hopeful about the possibilities than I was a week ago.

A subset of my tech team met today to work on the implementation of the Technology Academic Content Standards. These standards have been adopted by the Ohio Department of Education. While school districts are not technically required to use them, it is strongly recommended that we do so. In fact, the tool that school districts are required to use to develop our technology plans forces the districts to explain how and when (not if) they’re going to implement the tech standards. The rumor that a test is on the horizon also makes it imporant for us to at least start working on this.

For the uninitiated, there are seven tech standards. Each standard has multiple benchmarks at each grade level, and each benchmark has one or more indicators. In all, there are 1151 indicators for technology for grades K-12.  Our initial intention was to indentify where we’re currently meeting the standards with projects the teachers are already teaching. After all, technology is supposed to be integrated into the other subject areas. Surely, ODE had this in mind when they wrote the standards. So all we really need to do is locate where these standards are in the other curricular areas, and we’ll be home free.

The problem is that some of the indicators don’t really fit into the current curriculum. In fourth grade, for example, Standard 6, Benchmark A, Indicator 2, it says "Generate solutions for solving a problem using the design process using information collected about everyday technological problems." That’s kind of science, but not really. We’ll have to find somewhere to put it. How about Standard 7, Benchmark C, Indicator 1, also for fourth grade: "Describe technological advances that have made it possible to create new devices, repair or replace certain parts of the body, and provide a means for mobility." Clearly, we’re going to have to do more than we’ve been doing. I can’t say that this really surprised us — if technology were truely integrated with the curriculum, it wouldn’t be in a different book.

So, our next approach was to build a knowlegebase to help the teachers. If they could search by standard, benchmark, indicator, and grade level, and find lesson plans to meet those indicators, they’d be able to teach the standards without having to individually re-invent the wheel. We can start by documenting what we’re doing now. Then, we can incorporate some of the resources from ODE and other sources. Our teachers can add and annotate resources to build the knowlegebase, and we can get other districts involved, too (three different organizations have already expressed interest, and we’ve only been talking about it for a week). The result would be a database of ready-to-use teaching resources, available to everyone, to help address the content standards. In the spirit of educational collaboration, the resource would be publically available, and teachers from all over the state would be welcome to participate.

So, I talked to my team about it today. "If we put this together," I asked, "would our teachers contribute to it?" The consensus of the group — which consisted of three K-5 teachers and a computer lab manager, was that they wouldn’t. If prodded, they might provide a general sense of the kinds of things they do with technology, but they certainly wouldn’t be willing to actually document it and provide a ready-to-use resource for other teachers. I backtracked a bit. "Well, if we were to build this, and pay people to put it together, would our teachers at least use it?" Not unless they have to.

So where does that leave us? We have to make them have to. That’s going to take buy-in from the upper administration, the principals, and the teacher’s union. It’s going to be a long road. In the meantime, we’ve started taking another approach to the content standards. We’re going to classify each indicator as (A) already or easily met through existing classroom instruction, (B) valuable, but needing a project or unit to teach, or (C) not practical to address at this time. We’ll weed out the (C)s, provide some tips for teachers on the (A)s, and then focus on the (B)s. This year, we’ll focus on providing opportunities and resources to help teachers. It’ll be a while before we can force it, though, and until that happens we won’t be totally successful.

We’re finally making some progress in the online learning environment. When I started teaching in 1993, I wanted to find a way to use the social, collaborative atmosphere of usenet in education. I was only interested in asynchronous communication — message boards — where people could contribute at different times.

The advantages were easy to see. You could have longer discussions, and get into the topics in greater depth. You could include more people — students from multiple classes or grades or schools or countries. The students who are too shy or self-consious to raise their hands in class could compose their thoughts before posting in a less-threatening environment. You could have multiple, simultaneous conversations taking place in parallel. If desired, you could also set up an anonymous system, where the participants don’t know each other’s true identities (though the teacher probably would), making it a very useful tool for discussing sensitive topics.

In 1994, I set up a bulletin board for my students. I installed it on a computer in the classroom, and had to "turn on" the BBS software before leaving for the day. It was connected to a modem in the classroom, and students could dial in to it. This didn’t go very well. For one thing, most of the students didn’t have Internet access at home. Plus, the custodians would keep turning the computer off. And, during the day, this was a student workstation. It wasn’t the best situation.

A few years later, I tried again. By that point, we had Internet access and could use online discussion boards through a web interface. The students were more easily able to participate, but it was an optional, add-on activity, and we couldn’t get enough of a buy-in from the students to build a critical mass. We still didn’t have universal Internet access at home, and couldn’t require use of the system. Still, I learned some pretty valuable lessons.

About 4-5 years ago, we started using the Manhattan Virtual Classroom. It worked all right. We had a couple classes working in it. It was still an adjunct to the primary class. Students didn’t have to participate. And the software itself was a bit cumbersome to manage.  A year or so later, I discovered Moodle, and set it up on one of our servers. By that time, I wasn’t teaching anymore. I showed it to a few teachers. They liked it, but were worried about the learning curve. We played around with it for a few years without making much progress.

This school year, finally, we’ve seen Moodle take off. Two high school teachers used it all year as a substantial component of their English classes. At the same time, one of the four middle school teams started using it with the sixth graders. And one of the fifth grade teams started doing some projects in it, too. In general, the students are finding that it does all of those things that I was trying to accomplish more than a decade ago.

One high school teacher, Ben Lesh, asked the students for some feedback on Moodle. Here’s what they had to say (boldface is mine, spelling mistakes are theirs):

"Moodle at the beginning it was a pain, but as the year went on the easier it got because I would just do it every week either in Thursdays or Friday’s study hall… Overall its a good idea because its a good ways to give bonus points becasue if your doing your homework you’ll see the post for bonus on moodle."

"I think its good how we use moodle. Its kind of like an internet classroom 24-7. Its good because if you have questions about things you can just jump on moodle and most likely get an answer within a few hours. I dont really know what could be changed to make moodle better maybe a chatroom that stays on like when we had to do our Gatsby projects."

"I enjoyed my experience with moodle. Having done this already will give us a head start when it comes to online college courses. One thing I liked was the tests and quizes we had. It was a fun change to the original taking tests and quizes in the actually classroom. I think the chatroom would be a nice feature so you can directly ask someone a question if they happen to be logged in the same time you are. Over all I give it a A-. The time limits on the quizes were a little fustrating but without one it would be to easy to get a perfect score everytime."

"Overall, I think this whole Moodle thing has been kind of annoying and just another thing to do. But at least it was easy points and definitely better than handwritten homework. And from what I’ve heard, college involves a lot of online assignments, so hopefully it’ll help out/prepare us for that."

" It wasnt too bad.  It was a way to bring new conversation to the classroom, and helped understand certain things (using wiki vocab, or what not).  I think it might be a better idea to have a different post requirement scheme.  i would have instead of 2 posts a week, 4 posts every two weeks.  So if a student gets onto a subject, and more join in, it can be an insentive to keep the conversation going for it is opening up new ideas as well as completeing the grade requirement.  Posting twice a week seems to make us give up a a thought chain after two posts.  Just an idea.  Vocab wasnt too bad, although it might be easier with another minute or two."

"When i first started moodle i didn’t like it very much but as we did it more and more i understood it more and liked it more and more… i would have to say i like the groups better than Mr. Lesh giving us what to post about because when we post on our own we can post our opinions and its more open then if we have a specific topic that we have to follow…. its easier to come up with your own ideas than have to post on other people’s ideas…. i very much liked moodle and i’m glad that its how colleges teach too because its a good way to say your opinion somewhere and see what everyone else says too and a good way to keep up with understanding what we learn in class"

"I think it was an interesting experience.  This is because you could go on here for help with projects and get information.  I think it was also painful without a spellchecker, I doubt any of us would make on that national spelling bee, because you make a mistake you had to find out if you made one and where it is.  Overall I think it was a 90% on our school’s grade scale."

"um… i was not a big fan of moodling. when we first started it i hated it.  but as the year went on and i got more comfortable typing my thoughts down that everybody could see, it wasnt as bad as i thought it was going to be.  This was an easy way for the most part to get points.  I also thought it was fair that if we didn’t get the grade we wanted on the vocab, that u would let us make it up.  I liked discussing as a whole better than in the little groups.  I think i just liked it better becasue you would hear everybodys thoughts instead of just 4 people.  So… yeah i wasnt the biggest fan, but i didnt die so i guess it wasnt too too bad."

"I liked Moodle. It was a way for me to share my thoughts since I wouldn’t voluntarily share them in class. Posting was easy points. The vocabulary quizzes were better on moodle because you had more time to study and take the quizzes rather then the quiz being assigned for one day. Since this is a way things could be done in college I think it better prepared me for that. I think it was good when we were split up into groups. If you were the leader it made you have to think about what we were reading to come up with a topic that people had to post on. If you were a participant it made you post more that you normally would. I think being in groups made everybody post about what we were reading a little more. "

"I thought that the moodle was an excellent idea.  I think the part I liked best was being able to turn in our papers online instead of bringing them to school.  This was great incase there were any last minute questions and because I hate having to print off a three page paper and then having to make sure that it made it to school in one piece.  I also liked this better that class discussion points like we have had in previous years.  Some of us don’t like to speak out loud in class.  Also taking vocab quizzes online means you can take it when you are ready instead of in class.  I say keep on doing it but you may want to make it where all the kids post at least twice a week so that they participate more."

"Moodle gave easy homework points as long as you were responsible and remembered to post once a week. And for us quiet people in class, we got to give our opinions. I also liked being able to submit our papers online and taking tests/vocab quizzes."

"I have enjoyed doing the online class-discussion/homework. some things that should be improved: The hallway forum should be used more, Should have weekly quotes or aphroisms that students can discuss,overall A. I had a great time this year!"

"Can we please leave Moodle on over the summer?  You can give us books to read and we’ll discuss them together, just like old times- only no tests or homework! What does everyone think about this brilliant scheme?"

"I really hated it. It was a pain in the beginning, middle,  and  its a  pain right now! so I am going to end this post now!"

"At first I hated Moodle becasue I would always forget too check the website, or not even know how to do anything on it.  But over the whole year I started to like it, because I would get excited too see who responded to my posts.  Another thing I like was submitting our papers over moodle because it was a lot easier and owuld be no fuss.  I am glad we did it because like you said Mr. Lesh we will be doing this in college and now I have a headstart."