Raised Digital

Raised Digital is Moving

2009-03-19T13:12:00.006-04:00

I've spent the last month or so developing a new website on the Drupal platform so that I can more effectively manage all of my online going-ons. I'll continue to blog on Raised Digital, but not on this Blogger account. I will be blogging at http://brueckei.org/. Here is the link to the new Raised Digital. Come on over and check it out!

Pocket Learning: Getting closer to a mLearning reality for P-20?

2009-02-27T16:08:00.004-05:00

In 2009, the cell phone is a pretty common device in our student’s lives. Take a minute to search “What’s In My Bag” on Flickr and you’ll quickly realize just how many kids are packing cell phones, smart phones, iPods and a number of other handheld devices.

I couldn’t help but get a little excited as I read Adobe Advances Mobile Efforts from the most recent Smart Classroom newsletter. The article describes Adobe’s latest efforts to try and push the boundaries of mobile computing with their Flash 10 platform. Adobe has just released a beta version of the Flash Lite 3.1 Distributable Player so developers can take advantage of creating rich, interactive web content using the popular swf format on both Windows Mobile and Nokia S60 phones. This move by Adobe could mean that the mobile industry is a step closer to adopting a common runtime. A runtime that would in fact be common across desktop, Web, and mobile environments.

According to the 2007 eLearning Guild 360 Report on Mobile Learning, 50% of their members felt that lack of a common mobile standard was a large barrier to mLearning adoption. If the Flash platform can emerge as the dominant runtime across the large spectrum of mobile devices, we could reap the benefits in education. Developers would be able to build Flash-based applications that could be deployed on all of the devices our students already have in their possession. Once those devices that students are using NOW to have synchronous conversations, browse the web, email, text message, IM, watch movies and listen to audio open up for teachers to push content to, mLearning could become a force in the P-20 education arena.

A standard mobile runtime would open up the vast array of cell phone and smart phones to the learning environment. It would essentially take an item which today’s students already possess and turn it into a personal learning tool. From a teaching perspective, we are then presented with a brand new instructional tool that has transformative potential...not to mention one that doesn’t cost the teacher, school or district a dime! Sell that one to your taxpayers!

What is mLearning?
The eLearning Guild defines Mobile Learning (m-Learning) as:

Any activity that allows individuals to be more productive when consuming, interacting with, or creating information, mediated through a compact digital portable device that the individual carries on a regular basis, has reliable connectivity, and fits in a pocket or purse.

Wikepedia M-learning entry:

One definition of mobile learning is: Learning that happens across locations, or that takes advantage of learning opportunities offered by portable technologies. In other words, mobile learning decreases limitation of learning location with the mobility of general portable devices.

What does this mean for education?
Educators need to come to come to terms with the fact that disruptive technologies can have a positive impact on teaching and learning and then work towards an understanding of how that should affect our pedagogy and practice. Teachers need to be aware of how many students have their own devices, the applications students are using, think about how they could harness this enthusiasm for mobile devices and focus it in an educational direction.

Districts have got to stop banning cell phones in school. I implore schools and districts need to take a close look at their current policy on student cell phones. When was the current policy adopted? How was cell phone usage different then than it is now? What are stakeholders concerns about student cell phone usage? What are the potential benefits to allowing kids to use phones in school? Is it possible that students could take advantage of cell phones as data collection devices, ubiquitous connections to the Internet and tools for socially constructing knowledge? If they answer to any of these questions is yes, then it might be time to adjust your policy for 2009 and beyond.

We need more discussions about mLearning to occur between educators and programmers. Teachers and developers need an opportunity to discuss how mobile applications are being used in schools currently and how they could be used in the future. Although we think that these two unique groups of individuals are very different, in fact they are very much the same. Both teachers and developers are looking to help people. Whether it’s through teaching a 3rd grader multiplication or a building a new app that does things bigger, better and faster, the bottom line is that both teachers and developers are catering to the needs of end users. Discussions between the two groups need to begin sooner rather than later. If we let business and industry drive mobile application development, then all we are going to get are apps like this.

It’s time to get serious about mLearning in the P-20 educational arena.

Photo Credit: Blackberry Storm by T-Fiz on Flickr

Taking a closer look at what we TWEET

2009-02-23T20:57:00.006-05:00

I’ve been using the microblogging service Twitter for about 9 months. In that time span, I’ve becoming increasingly dependent on it as a source for professional dialogue. I find that the daily tweets from the people I am following to be an invaluable tool for staying up-to-date on a large range of topics.

Does Twitter have some drawbacks? Yes. Is the @back-and-forth banter sometimes annoying? Of Course. But overall, the pros outweigh the cons by far. In fact, outside of Plurk, I’d say that Twitter is the most important component in my quest to stay on top of all things educational technology and it has played a huge part in the development of my international personal learning network.

Today, a fellow Ohio educational technologist, Toby Fischer (@futureofedu), tweeted about his Twitter usage he discovered using a pretty cool Twitter app, TweetStats. The tagline from the website reads, “In ur Tweets, Graphin' Your Stats!” Basically, TweetStats allows users to enter a Twitter username and then renders a number of graphical representations of the user data as well as providing a TweetCloud compiled from the text of your tweets. Again, from the TweetStats site:

Graph your Twitter Stats including:
Tweets per hour
Tweets per month
Tweet timeline
Reply statistics

Take a look at my TweetStats and see if it offers any insight into the life of @brueckj23.

Jing: A FREE resource for screencasting

2009-02-22T16:58:00.012-05:00

I’ve been supporting classroom teachers in their integration of technology into their curriculum for about the past 8 years. In those 8 years, I’ve met a wide variety of teachers, some who are comfortable with technology; some who aren’t so comfortable. One thing that I can say with certainty about almost all the teachers I’ve had the opportunity to meet and support, it’s that they all love free resources.

Seems like these days, with all the talk of an economic downturn, shrinking school budgets and high expectations, there just aren’t too many things in this world that can brighten a teachers day like a free resource. It was the opportunity to brighten a teacher’s day and my love of the free resource that drove me to give Jing, a free screenshot and screencast sharing application, a test run the other day.

For those of you unfamiliar with screencasting, a quick peek at the official Wikipedia entry reveals, “a screencast is a digital recording of computer screen output, also known as a video screen capture, often containing audio narration.”

Here’s how my experience with Jing shook out:

My wife, Kimberly, had made several comments over the past month or so about this free screencast tool that one of the other Technology Specialists in her district, Scott Aten, had been using. Not one to ignore, or tune out my wife, each time I “heard her” talking about Jing, I would respond with something like, “neat” or “that sounds cool,” but I never really got excited enough to take a look at the application in my spare time. That is until this past Thursday.

A while back, I had worked to produce a couple different video simulations of the eLearning courses we had developed for e-Read Ohio at the University of Akron. The results of my efforts were two Adobe Captivate authored .swf files that gave end-users a virtual “walk-through” of an e-Read course. We created them to put on our website so that potential participants could get a feel for the type of online environment e-Read offers. Once I got them loaded onto the site, one of my colleagues noticed that some of the verbiage was out-of-date and asked me if I could update those. “No problem,” I told her, “should be a quick fix.” Famous last words that I would have to eat…

As I sat down to begin editing the source Captivate files, I ran into my first snag. See, Captivate is a PC only program, and I was working on my iMac. No problem, fire up Parallels and I should be in business…or so I thought. I realized that the only computer that I ever had Captivate on was a Macbook Pro from my office, a laptop which was no longer in my possession. Bummer. That’s when it came to me...JING!

I scrounged around in my files and was able to come up with the original storyboards and scripts for the simulations. From there, it was on to the Jing website to grab the free download for Mac OS X (Windows version available too). A simple install and I was up and running, ready to Jing this thing out…or not.

I ran into another snag as I was trying to record my screencast. For this project, I needed to take people on a guide tour of our courses. To accomplish this, I had a very succinct and effectively crafted script to accompany my screen movements. As I tinkered with Jing, I found it to be extremely difficult to try and coordinate my navigation of the course and produce an Oscar worthy performance in the voice-over category. It was just too much to try and click in the right spots while reading from a script. I tried a number of times and just couldn’t get a satisfactory take. That’s when I turned to some of Jing’s other features.

During my fiddling, I noticed that one of the options a Jing user has is to export the screencast as a .swf. I decided a better approach would be to record the screencast without audio, export the .swf from Jing, import the .swf into a new Adobe Flash document and then edit the audio piece together in the Flash timeline. To record the audio, I fell back on my old and trusted friend, GarageBand, which allowed me to export the audio files in a format that was Flash friendly (.mp3). By piecing the screencast and audio together in Flash, I was able to add frames and delete frames from the Jing where I needed to match my audio. The end result was actually a lot more time intensive than I thought it would be, but I was able to put Jing to good use and come up with a fairly decent video. You can view it here.

Overall, I think Jing is a great tool. Upon further investigation, I have come to find that the developers of Jing never intended it to be a fully functional screencasting software application along the lines of Adobe Captivate or Camtasia. In fact, the website explains, “Jing's minimal feature set keeps the focus on instant sharing.” For quick and dirty how-to type tutorials, Jing is an excellent FREE solution.

I would recommend Jing to teachers for creating quick demos of frequent tasks that students or parents might need to review from time to time. For instance, teacher might create a Jing that:

Shows how to access your class delicious bookmarks
Demonstrates how to log-in to your class wiki/blog
Explains how to fill out a Google Docs form you have created

Here are some other pros/cons I’ve compiled from my experience with Jing.
Pros:

**Free**
Mac/PC
Simple controls
Select any window or part of a window for capture
Tracks mouse movements
Exports as a .swf

Cons:

Screencasts limited to five minutes
Narration has to be done on the fly
.swf export does not include audio
You must use Screencast.com to host your Jings

Photo Credit: Jing Mao Tower: vista interna do prédio by designative on Flickr.

eTech Ohio - Day 2 - State Superitendent Deborah Delisle

2009-02-03T09:32:00.000-05:00

&amp;lt;a href="http://www.coveritlive.com/mobile.php?option=com_mobile&amp;amp;task=viewaltcast&amp;amp;altcast_code=a234ba1313" &amp;gt;eTech Ohio - Day 2 Keynote&amp;lt;/a&amp;gt;

eTech Ohio - Is it the end of the beginning or the beginning of the end?

2009-02-02T17:43:00.007-05:00

It's February in Ohio, and in the ed tech world, that means one thing...time for another eTech Ohio state technology conference. For those who have never experienced eTech, here's a brief description from the official conference website:

Meet with thousands of Ohio educators at the state’s premiere educational technology professional development conference. Don’t miss this opportunity to see emerging technologies and the convergence of existing ones. Learn from your peers and national experts as they share their experiences with technology in the classroom, school building and community.

eTech has been an excellent place for me to hone my presentation skills as I've come up through the ranks. I've had the benefit of being accepted as a presenter for the last 6 years or so, and this year was the first time I have been ask to give my presentation on 2 days. I'm not sure if that is a good thing or a bad thing. On one hand, it seems like the conference planners really saw the relevence in my proposal, hence the 2 time slots. On the other hand, maybe it signals the lack of interest in the event and the conference planners are just trying to put together enough sessions to fill out the rooms/time slots.

I have to admit that for the past 2-3 years, eTech has somewhat lost its luster. I can't exactly put my finger on what about the conference isn't doing it for me, but I think that it is really the fact that the conversation there has never moved past the "we know we should be integrating technology in the classroom" phase. I mean, after 6 years, shouldn't we be talking about and planning on how we will revolutionize education in Ohio through technology? This just isn't happening. If it is happening at eTech and you're reading this blog, please let me know where this conversation is occurring so I can run right over and join in.

I had a similar gripe with NECC 2008 which I blogged about here. Generally, I'm just not seeing people at conferences who are talking about transformative technology and revolutionizing education. Instead, I see people talking about gadgets (this year iPod Touch seems to be the hot gadget at eTech) and providing links to great resources for teachers. This is all good, but what I continue to miss in all the sessions like these that I attend is a thorough analysis of how gadgets and websites can inform teaching practice and change pedagogy in a way that engages, enthralls and ignites our students to become better thinkers and learners.

Wesley Fryer touched on these ideas during his keynote address this morning. If you missed his presentation, you can read catch the highlights here and check out his presentation resources here. There were a large number of people in attendance who seemed to be listening to him. I wonder how many people at eTech Ohio 2009 actually heard him?

Photo Credit: The Beginning of the End by S trangrThanCandy
http://www.flickr.com/photos/strangrthancandy/3014838976/

Resetting a Flip Mino

2009-01-10T18:42:00.006-05:00

I ran into a few problems with my Flip Mino today. My 19 month old son got a hold of it and after taking a ton of 3 second videos of our floor, I finally wrestled it away from him. He wasn't happy about loosing it either. I wasn't happy because by the time I got it back, I couldn't get the thing to power on. I went to the Flip website to try and locate the Mino Instruction Guide, but it proved to have no worthwhile troubleshooting information for me.

A quick Google search on the terms "flip mino reset" yielded this blog post, which had a link to exactly what I needed. If you ever run into a similar issue, here is the Q & A page on the Pure Digital site that helped me resolve my issue.

Adobe Max 2008 - Day 2

2008-11-18T02:33:00.000-05:00

Adobe Max 2008 - Day 1

2008-11-17T12:23:00.001-05:00

Creating a Personal Learning Network (PLN)

2008-08-28T12:14:00.003-04:00

Fall semester is off and running here at The University of Akron. I'm teaching one section of 5500:475, Instructional Technology Applications, again this semester. I really enjoy this class because I get to share all types of technology integration strategies with my students. This semester I am making a concerted effort to try and lecture from PowerPointlessness slides less and to try and facilitate more PBL and hands-on opportunities to learn during class time.

As I have gone through and started to revise my course materials, it seems like there is a lot of good content within all of my PowerPoint presentations, so I hate to ditch them completely. What I've decided to do is use my free SlideShare account to host my PPTs, which enables me to embed all of that important content within my course on UA's LMS (aka Springboard). I hope that way my students will be able to pull up the PPTs as needed when they are completing their class assignments.

I'm also toying with the idea of streaming all my lectures via my 5500:475 uStream.tv channel. Once those are archived, I'm thinking I can pull them into a video editor, extract the audio and mash it up with the PPTs on SlideShare via their Slidecast tool. I'll keep you updated on that project. For now, here's a new presentation I created to introduce my students to the idea of Personal Learning Networks and how they might create one of their own.

Creating a PLN

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: technology education)

Promoting and Modeling Digital Citizenship and Responsibility

2008-08-19T12:44:00.014-04:00

I read with great interest a story in today's Akron Beacon Journal titled Bogus Web site uses image of Akron mayor. Turns out that someone out there in the land of www has decided to practice some less than ethical internet behaviors. An excerpt:

Akron's mayor is a victim of identity theft.
Akron Mayor Don Plusquellic's credit card number wasn't stolen. An image of his face was.

The mayor's photo shows up on a Web site for Bluestar Express, which an Internet watchdog group calls a fake.

Plusquellic is identified as Bluestar shipping company's executive director, Benton J. Martin.

Ray Sodano, a resident of Florida who is involved with http://www.aa419.org — a volunteer organization that seeks to police the Web — called local news organizations Monday about the site.

A little research of my own easily turned up the website where Mayor Plusquellic's picture was jacked from. It was stolen either directly from the City's own webpage or from a site happened to be one promoting a partnership between the City of Akron and The University of Akron called the University Park Alliance. Take a look:

Bogus Site:

Legit Site:

Seeing this article in the local paper really made me think long and hard about our job as educators to teach students about credible internet sources. In this case, the bogus site looked legitimate, so who's to say it isn't? Luckily Ray Sodano's group was out there policing the web for fraudulent information, but that's not always the case. What should we be doing as educators to make sure that our students understand that just because they find something published on the internet, that doesn't mean it is necessarily true? A quick look at the NETS-T standards provided this insight under Standard 4:

Teachers understand local and global societal issues and responsibilities in an evolving digital culture and exhibit legal and ethical behavior in their professional practices. Teachers:
advocate, model, and teach safe, legal, and ethical use of digital information and technology, including respect for copyright, intellectual property, and the appropriate documentation of sources.
address the diverse needs of all learners by using learner-centered strategies providing equitable access to appropriate digital tools and resources.
promote and model digital etiquette and responsible social interactions related to the use of technology and information.

It seems that modeling appropriate use of the internet as well as verifying sources is recommended by ISTE. The Ohio Academic Content Standards in Technology have a Technology and Information Literacy standard that addresses matters like this in a similar manner. For example, Benchamark A for grades 6-8 requires students to "Evaluate the accuracy, authority, objectivity, currency, coverage and relevance of information and data sources." That being said, I'm wondering what Ohio teachers are doing to help their students meet or exceed these standards as they help mould responsible digital citizens?

NWOET Summer 2008 Regional Conference

2008-08-11T21:28:00.003-04:00

I am just back from a trip to Wapakoneta, OH in the western part of the state where I gave two presentations at the NWOET Summer 2008 Regional Technology Conference. I thought the event was well organized and well attended for a regional conference. I got a chance to meet a lot of teachers, participate in a number of interesting conversations and share my love of educational technology and Web 2.0 tools. For those of you who attended my sessions, thank you. Here are the resources from both. I hope you find them useful as you start planning for a new school year.

iNtegration: iCan, iWill, iPod!

View SlideShare presentation (tags: education integration technology ipod)

New Literacies in Early Elementary

View SlideShare presentation (tags: technology education web_2.0 read/write_web)

Examining VoiceThread and its Educational Potential Pt. 1

2008-08-01T19:35:00.000-04:00

A few weeks ago I posted my reflections on NECC 2008. In that post, I mentioned that one of the highlights of the conference for me was Wesley Fryer's Digital Storytelling session. It was during this session that I was first introduced to VoiceThread, a really neat web application that holds a great potential for educational use.

From the VoiceThread website:
"A VoiceThread is an online media album that can hold essentially any type of media (images, documents and videos) and allows people to make comments in 5 different ways - using voice (with a microphone or telephone), text, audio file, or video (with a webcam) - and share them with anyone they wish."

After seeing VoiceThread in action at NECC, I was sold on the site and had to experiment with it myself. To explore it in more detail, I enlisted the help of my 8 year old son, Isaac. That particular night, Isaac had decided that he wanted to engineer a trail of Jenga blocks on the dining room table that would collapse, drop off the edge of the table, stike another block and catapult that block into a landing area. As Isaac experimented with different configurations, I had him document the reults of each attempt using our Casio Exilim digital camera.When he had finished, we loaded the pictures into our iPhoto program and then logged into the VoiceThread account that I had previously created.

---I'll note here that VoiceThread does offer a free account, however, with that type of account, a user may only create up to 3 unique VoiceThreads. A Pro account will get you unlimited VoiceThreads, no advertisements and a variety of other features. For K-12 teachers who would like to use this web-based tool in their classroom, VoiceThread offers a Class subscription for $60.00 a year that gets you accounts for 1 educator and all of their students. It also includes a custom Ed.VoiceThread URL.---

Once our pics were in place, Isaac had a pretty easy time using the drag-and-drop interface to sequence his photos in the order of his choice. He was also able to figure out how to record his own voice, although it took a little help from dad to make sure our Logitech USB mic was enabled. We recorded an audio segment for each picture in which Isaac explained his building process and shared his successes and setbacks. You can view Isaac's final VoiceThread below.

Overall, I found VoiceThread to be a very user-friendly site that has loads of educational potential. In the upcoming weeks, I'll be examining it a bit more closely on the blog and posting my ideas about how it could be incorporated into the classroom. For those of you who can't wait, I'd suggest you take a look at this VoiceThread for Educators NING I came across the other day. It is full of people who are VoiceThread enthusiasts. In addition, VoiceThread presents useful applications outside the classroom as well. In a recent post, Tim Holt explained how he is using VoiceThread on his blog, Intended Consequences.

Desire2Learn Fusion 2008

2008-07-21T23:18:00.003-04:00

I'll be live blogging today from the sessions I attend at D2L Fusion 2008.

Does K-12 Ed Reform START with Higher Ed and Teacher Preparation?

2008-07-14T23:15:00.009-04:00

For the better part of my 7 year career, I worked in the K-12 educational arena as a Curriculum and Technology Specialist. In that position I was called upon to collaborate with classroom teachers to design integrated, standards-based lessons; plan and facilitate district, grade-level, small-group and one-on-one professional development in the areas of standards-based instruction and assessment, data management and technology integration; and locate developmentally appropriate and standards-based electronic resources and organize resources online and on the district network. Last spring, I had my first opportunity to move to Higher Ed when I was asked to join the University of Akron as an adjunct faculty member.

My first role was to serve as an Assistant Lecturer for a section of the College of Education's Instructional Technology Applications course. This is a required undergraduate class for all education majors at UA. Most of the undergrads take it in their junior or senior year.

I was eager to be part of the College of Ed, so when the C & I Department Chair instructed me to follow the syllabus I was given to maintain "fidelity" to the program; I nodded my head to indicate that I understood and ensured her that I most certainly had the ability to teach any and all of the items included on the syllabus, whatever they might be.

When I arrived back in my office and took a closer look at the syllabus, I was more than a little disheartened at what I found. A small excerpt of the course outline:

Advanced computer skills (spreadsheet, database, newsgroups, listserv)
National Standards (NETS)..This was referring to the 1998 NETS-S and 2000 NETS-T
State movements (eTech)..No mention of the Technology Ohio Academic Content Standards, which were released in 2004
Define the Lesson Format: a. Direct/Constructivist b. Synchronous/Asynchronous
Teaching With Application Software
Teaching With the Internet - a. Netiquette b. Partner projects c. WebQuests

Newsgroups, Listserv, WebQuests, were they kidding me? When I checked the calendar, it did verify to me that it was, in fact, 2008.

Further inspection of the syllabus revealed that the first assignment I was supposed to give my students was to join a listserv and post to it. I thought to myself, "are they crazy? I don't want all those emails crowding up my Inbox!" I really wasn't sure at all about what I had gotten myself into. The real heartbreaker to me was that three main assignments for the students turned out to be written lesson plans that they would submit to me to evaluate. Written lesson plans? I cringed even more at the thought of grading 75+ lesson plans. Shouldn't pre-service teachers spend their time in Instructional Technology Applications doing something other than writing lesson plans? I don't know, maybe I'm off base here.

Needless to say, I had more than a few issues with the content of the course that I was supposed to facilitate in a manner that ensured "fidelity to the program." This created quite a dilemma in my mind. Should I use the course instructional materials that were designed and developed by an Associate Professor in the College of Ed and I was expected to use or should I go rogue and develop my own unapproved materials? Keep in mind, I had just got this entry-level job and I wanted to make a good impression on the Department Chair and other full professors in the College of Ed.

No matter what decision I made, the whole situation really made me think hard about the method in which we are preparing our future teachers. Many people in the educational community talk about the need for teaching our K-12 students "21st Century Skills," and preparing them to be productive digital citizens. But are we preparing our future teacher workforce to be able to do this? Are we making sure that those who will be entering the teaching profession possess 21st Century Skills themselves?

The problem I ran into wasn't that the course itself was terrible; it was just that it was horribly out of date for 2008. With the rate of change we're seeing in technology currently, can a college level Instructional Technology course that was designed in 2000 be an effective instructional mechanism for pre-service teachers in 2008? If we realize there is a need for major change and/or reform of our K-12 school system, then don't you think it needs to be reflected in the curriculum of our nations Higher Ed programs?

I'll be thinking (and blogging) about this idea a lot in the near future, as I look to update the course materials for my Fall Semester class. It might not be the right thing to do as far as "fidelity" is concerned, but when I asked my class of 25 college juniors if they new what Skype or iChat was in the spring and over 3/4 had no idea, I decided I needed to take matters into my own hands.

New Office Update

2008-07-09T12:05:00.005-04:00

I decided to upgrade my office today by adding a new wing to my desk. I finally had to unpack the G4 tower so that I could retrieve an archived email from Entourage. Good news though, the new furniture is being delivered and assembled tomorrow:) Just in time, because I am started to develop a knot in the middle of my back from hunching over all day long!

K-12 Online Conference

2008-07-08T22:25:00.003-04:00

After complaining a bit about the gadgetry of the sessions at NECC 2008 and calling out ISTE to focus more on pedagogy, I decided I needed to practice what I was preaching. That is, move away from focusing on simply telling teacher about all the free web 2.0 tools that are out there and really honing in on what educators can do with them so that they can serve as powerful educational tools in teachers’ and students’ efforts to achieve 21st century literacy.

Having recently read about the keynotes for the 2008 K-12 Online Conference and hearing that the conference organizers extended the call for proposals deadline to July 11, 2008, I decided what better place to start then this wonderful event. I attended the conference last year and gained many valuable insights from the other participants, furthered my professional learning and deepened my understanding of web 2.0. This year, I'm hoping to contribute to the network in a different way. So, if you're on the proposal review committee and you think those attending the conference could benefit from a demonstration of how to use wikis to promote collaborative, independent, and differentiated learning by taking advantage of multiple modalities to deliver content in order for all students to achieve their full potential, give Pedagogy to Practice: Putting Wikis to Work in the Early Elementary Classroom a close look. If you're not on the proposal review committee, then I'd encourage you to attend the conference whether I end up as a presenter or not. It really is a unique conference format that will benefit all that participate.

My New Office

2008-07-07T10:23:00.007-04:00

I'm back to to office after a week away at NECC. Our staff here at e-Read Ohio has been increasing in numbers for the past few months. We had outgrown our old digs at the Polsky Building on UA campus, so they made room for us at the recently acquired Quaker Square facility. While it was great to have all the moving of boxes happening while I was out of town, I arrived to a pile of said boxes in my new office. I also found out that the new furniture will not be arriving until July 15. Until then, I did the best with what I have, constructing a makeshift desk out of boxes. At least the wi-fi is working!

It shouldn't be about the gadgets: NECC 2008 Reflection

2008-07-06T22:47:00.008-04:00

I’ve been back from NECC 2008 in San Antonio for a few days now and had plenty of time to reflect on the conference. I’ll have to say that as conferences go, NECC is always an excellent learning opportunity. Whether you go to the keynotes, spotlight sessions, presentations, poster sessions or any of the open learning lounges they have, you can always come away with some new insight or gain in knowledge.

This year I wasn’t too knocked out by the keynotes. James Surowiecki was interesting with his wisdom of crowds address, but it was far from dynamic and generally failed to grab my attention and get me geared up for the rest of the week. I can understand why ISTE invited Mr. Surowieki to speak, but the address never really veered too far from the premise of his book. After all the research he had done, he never even went as far as to make a couple of implications about how the topic might relate to education.

I did manage to attend a number of the spotlight sessions. For those of you who are not familiar with this format, basically a spotlight session is a lecture featuring "recognized leaders in Ed Tech" who are hand picked by ISTE. The thing that struck me about these sessions was the fact that all these big names like Alan November, David Warlick, Ian Jukes and David Thornburg were there, but none of them were saying anything different than they have been saying for the last 5 years or so. Don't get me wrong, I respect all of these individuals immensely and appreciate the message that they bring to the table. However, it's just that it is the same message at every conference and quite frankly, I got it the first time I heard it. Why does it seem that the educational community hasn't heard it, embraced it, and done something about it? One of the highlights of the conference for me was the engaging and spirited conversation centering around this idea that I got to have with my wife Kim, Tim Holt and Ewan McIntosh on Tuesday night.

Most of the concurrent sessions I attended could be chalked up as all right, so/so, mediocre, ok. I did get a chance to sit in on an excellent presentation with Wesley Fryer called “Digital Storytelling with Minimal Clicks.” Top notch! What I appreciated most about this session was that it was more than just a “here’s a shiny, flashy, new Web 2.0 tool you could use in your classroom.” Rather, it addressed the pedagogy around the tool, in this case, VoiceThread. It was the connection to the pedagogy, or putting a Web 2.0 tool into practice, that seemed to be missing at most of the concurrent sessions and the conference for that matter. Everyone was more than happy to tell you about what Web 2.0 tool or gadget he or she had found that was going to be the next big thing, but no one was really talking about how to integrate it into a standards-based lesson.

Wasn’t it just a few NECCs ago when we all met in Philly and “standards-based” was all the rage? It seems like as an ed tech community we've all jumped on the 21st Century learning/Web 2.0 bandwagon and forgotten about standards in just a few short years. I know that I pointed this out to ISTE in their post-conference survey and I hope that a lot of others convey this message as well. Together we need to let ISTE know that D.C . should be about PEDAGOGY, not gadgets!!!

Recap: NECC Model Lesson from uStream.tv

2008-07-04T12:41:00.007-04:00

This year, a number of my colleagues in Ohio were not able to attend NECC. One of the new applications I had been experimenting with just prior to NECC was streaming video. It started when I read a blog post on Teach42 about EdStreamTV about a week before NECC and was intrigued. I thought EdStreamTV would be a great opportunity to experiment with live streaming video and at the same time provide my colleaues an opprtunity to experience NECC in San Antonio. It seemed simple enough in concept. All I needed was my MacBook Pro with built in iSight camera, a high speed internet connection and a uStream.tv account and viola!, my very own internet TV channel was created. Here are the results.

New Literacies for Early Elementary - Pt. 1
Sorry, but you'll want to fast forward a majority of this video. While we were setting up and preparing for the presentation, I made sure that uStream was up and running and then went ahead and broadcast the first 20 minutes prior to the beginning of the Model Lesson. It's really boring and contains a bunch of dialogue between Kim, myself and the tech support guy (who was great, btw). Our opening, introduction and lesson overview begin at about the 20:40 mark.

New Literacies for Early Elementary - Pt. 2
Highlights the RESEARCHING portion of the Model Lesson.

New Literacies for Early Elementary - Pt. 3
Highlights the REPORTING portion of the Model Lesson.

New Literacies for Early Elementary - Pt. 4
Highlights the ANALYZING portion of the Model Lesson.

New Literacies for Early Elementary: Web 2.0 Tools to Support Literacy Presentation Resource Webpage

Watch my NECC presentation LIVE on uStream.tv

2008-06-28T09:13:00.005-04:00

For those of you unable to make it to San Antonio for NECC 2008, there are still many ways to be part of the conference. Whether it is signing up to be part of the NECC Ning social network, or watching some of the presentations via streaming video, those who want to participate can easily do so. I've been working with the wonderful people at EdStreamTV to set up a live stream of the Model Lesson my wife, Kim, and I will be presenting on Wednesday, July 2, 2008 at 1:30PM CST (2:30 EST back here in Akron, OH). You can check out the entire session on my uStream.tv channel. I hope you can join us for New Literacies for Early Elementary: Web 2.0 Tools to Support Literacy!

Watch here

NECC Preview

2008-06-26T21:22:00.007-04:00

Watch my NECC Model Lesson preview on Ustream.tv.

OETN: Myspace for EdTech

2008-06-10T21:22:00.003-04:00

I recently joined the Ohio Educational Technology Network. The goal of OETN is to connect educators across Ohio by providing a forum to share ideas, strategies, and questions about technology integration. The OETN is a social network created on the Ning platform. Ning is a free online service for creating, customizing and sharing your own Social Networks. Check out my page at OETN and join me as I share, collaborate, learn and grow with other educators across the state in a very Web 2.0 way.

Visit Ohio Education Technology Network

Value-Added & Continuum Growth Charts

2008-05-08T08:45:00.003-04:00

| View | Upload your own

This is a presentation I created as part of my principal internship course. It examines Ohio's Value-Added component to the State Report Card and what we have been working on in Green to document student growth.

Everything iPod!

2008-04-17T17:35:00.004-04:00

| View | Upload your own

Presented at Lorain City Schools
Download Presentation PDF

Presentation Links

iPod NES Hack
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=scnjoG_C6Sw

Podcast Alley
www.podcastalley.com/

Educational Podcast Network
www.epnweb.org/

Audacity
http://audacity.sourceforge.net/

Podifer
www.podifier.com/

Podcast Tutorial
http://teachdigital.pbwiki.com/podcasting

1st Grade On Air
http://web.mac.com/gberthiaume/iWeb/Site/Podcast/Podcast.html

Picasa
http://picasa.google.com/

Video on iPod
http://arstechnica.com/guides/tweaks/ipod-video.ars/1

MogoPop
http://www.mogopop.com/portal

i pod do u?

2008-02-04T12:56:00.000-05:00

i pod do u?

Jeremy Brueck

Presented at the eTech Ohio 2008 Educational Technology Conference

Presentation Links

Runometer
www.runometer.com

iPod NES Hack
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=scnjoG_C6Sw

Podcast Alley
www.podcastalley.com/

Educational Podcast Network
www.epnweb.org/

Audacity
http://audacity.sourceforge.net/

Podifer
www.podifier.com/

Podcast Tutorial
http://teachdigital.pbwiki.com/podcasting

1st Grade On Air
http://web.mac.com/gberthiaume/iWeb/Site/Podcast/Podcast.html

Picasa
http://picasa.google.com/

Video on iPod
http://arstechnica.com/guides/tweaks/ipod-video.ars/1

k-pod
http://www.tucows.com/preview/396259

PodMail
http://www.tucows.com/preview/399967

iDirectionz
http://www.tucows.com/preview/396227

PodQuest
http://www.tucows.com/preview/399971

TextReader
http://www.tucows.com/preview/400002

iPod eBook Creator
http://www.ambience.sk/ipod-ebook-creator/ipod-book-notes-text-conversion.php

iPresent It
http://www.zapptek.com/ipresent-it/

iSpeak It
http://www.zapptek.com/ispeak-it/

iPDA
http://www.zapptek.com/ipda/

Prof Cast
http://www.profcast.com/public/index.php

SnapKast
http://snapkast.com/

iWriter
http://www.talkingpanda.com/iwriter/

MogoPop
http://www.mogopop.com/portal

Welcome to Raised Digital

2007-09-19T12:16:00.000-04:00

The advent of the read/write web should have a profound effect on the way we teach students to read and write. Many new Web 2.0 technologies are available to teachers that engage students in the reading and writing process. As educators, we should strive to find ways to integrate these new literacies into our existing curriculum. I hope this space will provide a vision of education that will inspire and empower teachers to radically change the way they think about and educate our youth in order for all students to meet challenging standards.