TechTalk4Teachers - A Podcast For Teachers About Teaching, Learning, and Technology

Episode 127 – All Hands on Tech – Students Involved with Technology Conference

2011-12-30T12:35:00.000-08:00

It’s Friday December 30th, 2011 and welcome to episode 127 of TechTalk4Teachers, I'm Tom Grissom. We have an abbreviated show for you this month as we are currently on semester break here at EIU but I do have some time-sensitive information to share with you. But first, as we transition from one semester to another many technology support personnel are working hard over the holidays to update and improve the technology infrastructure that we use daily.

Right Click Here to Download MP3
(6 minutes 47 seconds)

As you come back from break be sure to thank those that provide technology services, as it often goes unnoticed, and when done well is invisible to the average user of technology. This invisibility is the goal of every technology support person but it also means a lot of people go unrecognized for their efforts. Be sure to let someone you know in a support role that you appreciate all the efforts required so that we all can reap the benefits of a reliable and robust network.

The semester break is also a time for many of us to recharge our batteries and prepare for a new semester full of hope and promise of starting anew. Many are also planning for conferences and we have a student technology conference to tell you about this month.

For Illinois students - we have the SIT conference scheduled in February and we need your help to get the word out. The SIT Conference is a one-day technology conference for students and led by students in grades 3 through 12. SIT stands for Students Involved with Technology and this is the second year that Eastern Illinois University will be hosting this event for students located in central and southern Illinois. The theme for the 2012 conference is All Hands On Tech. The conference is scheduled for Saturday, February 18th but the deadline to register for the event is January 18, 2012. There are a total of six hosting sites across Illinois this year and you can register for the closest event to you by visiting the sitconference.org website. The registration deadline is quickly approaching in Mid-January so please help us get the word out to Illinois teachers and students. I will have a link in the show notes to this website as well as promotional flyers for you to share with your school.

http://www.sitconference.org

Here is the press release for this event:

ALL HANDS ON TECH
Students Involved with Technology Conference comes to EIU

Has your child or student ever shown you how to use technology or tell you what is the “brand new thing” to be paying attention to in the tech world? Well, they have the opportunity to show other students and adults too. The Students Involved with Technology Conference is just the place for your student to establish themselves as a young leader in science. The conference is comprised of students from grades 3-12 presenting and sharing their knowledge of technology with their peers.

Each year the SIT Conference strives to expand its accessibility to regions across Illinois. The conference is an annual conference occurring at several sites simultaneously throughout Illinois, and for the second year in a row it is being held at Eastern Illinois University. The conference is set to take place Saturday, February 18, 2012 from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. in Buzzard Hall at EIU.

This is a one-day technology conference for students and led by students in grades three through twelve. SIT strives to replicate an industry-level conference for its attendees, complete with a keynote speaker, snacks, lunch, hands-on activities, competitions, chances to win prizes and the choice of many different technology sessions to attend.

Student presenters develop a 20-minute session on a technology topic of their choice, create a handout for their session, and facilitate a question & answer session following their presentation. Sessions at the conference may include photo editing, digital art, robotics, programming, animation and much more.

The registration fee is $25 per student or adult sponsor, which includes a full day of sessions, a T-shirt, giveaways, snack and lunch. Students who present at the conference must have an adult sponsor for their presentation. All SIT participants must pre-register for the event by the deadline. No registrations will be available at the door.

The SIT Conference is sponsored through the Bloomington-Normal Education Alliance Technology Committee, with partners representing Eastern Illinois University, Illinois State University, Heartland Community College, Unit 5, District 87, Olympia Schools, Regional Office of Education, Bloomington Public Library and State Farm.

With over 100 attendees participating in last year’s event, the conference is looking to have another successful year. Students and sponsors must register to present or to attend the conference at www.sitconference.org. The deadline to register for the event is January 18, 2012. For questions about the SIT Conference, contact JoEllen Hickenbottom at 217-581-5114 or jhickenbottom@eiu.edu.

SIT Conference Promotional Flyers
http://www.sitconference.org/promotional-fliers/

Technology Pick of the Week

My Technology Pick of the Week this week is from the website of the Newseum located in Washington, D.C. Since we are at the end of the year for 2011 this time allows for a reflection upon the events that have occurred over the past twelve months. How things are reported can vary greatly from one location to another and this weeks tech pick gives you the ability to see the front page of newspapers across the country. There is also an archive section that you can explore to see how major events of the past year were portrayed on the front pages of newspapers across the world.

Newseum Front Page Today’s Stories
http://www.newseum.org/todaysfrontpages/flash/default.asp

Newseum Front Page Archives
http://www.newseum.org/todaysfrontpages/archive.asp

You can use the Sort Pages by Region link and drop-down menu to sort the newspapers by region and select the newspaper location. There is also an International section that will be of interest to social studies teachers that would make for some great primary source material for items in the news and for a discussion of current events with your classes. Links are provided in the show notes so be sure to checkout the Newseum’s catalog of newspaper front pages from around the world.

http://www.newseum.org/todaysfrontpages/

That wraps it up for episode 127 of TechTalk4Teachers. Please help spread the word about the upcoming Illinois Students Involved with Technology Conference to be held on Saturday, February 18th at EIU, registration deadline is January 18th so please share with your students and parents as soon as you get back from holiday break. Show notes for this episode and archived episodes are available on the web at the EIU Instructional Technology Center website at eiu.edu/itc To leave a comment or suggestion, please send an email to techtalk@eiu.edu or leave a comment on the Tech Talk for Teachers blog. Until next time, this is Tom Grissom, keep on learning.

Episode 126 - Social media, digital footprints, and PLNs

2011-11-30T13:08:00.000-08:00

It’s Wednesday, November 30th, 2011 and welcome to episode 126 of TechTalk4Teachers, I'm Tom Grissom. This month we will be talking about social media and how educators are using it to great advantage for sharing information and resources and also in developing personal and professional learning networks, commonly referred to as PLNs.

Right Click Here to Download MP3
(36 minutes 33 seconds)

First up we have an interview with Dave Meister, a local principal from Paris Cooperative High School located about 30 minutes from EIU. Mr. Meister recently participated in a job fair for new teachers held at EIU and he shares how he uses Twitter and other social media to connect with other educators. We discuss the importance of having a professional digital footprint and what considerations go into the hiring process of new teachers. We also discuss the importance of collaborating with other educators and continually updating your knowledge and skills as an educator. Social media tools when used with a purpose and spirit of collaboration offer tremendous potential for educators. Because social media tools are relatively new we are just in the beginning stages of exploring the beneficial ways of using them. As always, when using any Web 2.0 technology, be sure to follow your organizations policies regarding social media and maintain a positive and professional digital footprint.

After my conversation with Principal Meister we have Dr. Cindy Rich from the Teaching with Primary Sources program here at EIU and she shares how the Library of Congress is using social media to share their mission with educators from all around the world. Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and Flickr are all being used to share information and resources from the Library of Congress, but first we have our phone interview with Dave Meister.

Dave Meister Interview

Resources mentioned:
Cybaryman1 Resources for Educators
http://www.cybraryman.com/

http://www.cybraryman.com/twitter.html

http://www.cybraryman.com/pln.html

Cindy Rich Interview

Resources mentioned:
http://www.eiu.edu/~eiutps/

Technology Pick of the Week

My Technology Pick of the week this week is the K12onlince conference. The K12 Online Conference occurs annually and has been a featured Tech Pick of the Week on previous episodes of TechTalk4Teachers podcast.

K12 Online Conference
http://k12onlineconference.org/

K12 Online Conference Schedule 2011
http://k12onlineconference.org/?page_id=824

This is a timely pick because today, November 30^th , is the third day for this online conference and it continues through December 9^th, 2011. The theme for this years conference is Purposeful Play. Presentations are pre-recorded videos that educators across the world share at this conference and many presenters have blogs and Twitter addresses. The sessions of the K12 Online Conference are also archived so you can watch the video sessions when it is convenient for you if you cannot view it at the time in the conference schedule. The asynchronous nature for this conference is a blessing for many a busy educator that cannot attend face-to-face conferences due to either budget constraints or scheduling issues. Face-to-face conferences are still very important but many educators find more value in face-to-face conferences when they have established a previous online relationship with other educators. A simple service like Twitter when used with a purpose of building a professional learning network amplifies your professional relationships that occur overtime both online and face-to-face.

Adding other teachers to your own Professional Learning Network allows you to have access to many of the best and brightest educators from around the world. If you choose the people you follow strategically you will learn many new things as you will see all tweets from the people you follow in your Twitter stream. Social media is a big topic and everyone has their own definition of what it is. Social media is continuing to evolve and when used purposefully with a little common sense and netiquette many will find benefits that make it worthwhile.

That wraps it up for episode 126 of TechTalk4Teachers. I want to thank Dave Meister and Dr. Rich for sharing how they are using social media, if you are on Twitter you can follow Mr. Meister @phsprincipal The Library of Congress has a Twitter account and can be followed @librarycongress If you would like to follow me on Twitter my twitter name is @tomgrissom

Show notes for this episode and archived episodes are available on the web at the EIU Instructional Technology Center website at eiu.edu/itc To leave a comment or suggestion, please send an email to techtalk@eiu.edu or leave a comment on the Tech Talk for Teachers blog. Until next time, this is Tom Grissom, keep on learning.

Episode 125 - Veterans Day 11th hour 11th day 11th month

2011-10-31T13:22:00.000-07:00

It’s Monday, October 31, 2011 and welcome to episode 125 of TechTalk4Teachers, I'm Tom Grissom. Well you can probably tell by the intro that today marks Halloween in the United States. Many cities have already hosted trick or treat nights around the country where children (and adults) dress up in their costumes and visit neighborhood houses for the annual ritual of trick or treat night and/or attend Halloween parties. Tonight is the official night for Halloween so if you see a few characters dressed up in some unusual costumes don’t be too afraid.

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(24 minutes 15 seconds)

In a couple of weeks we will observing Veterans Day here in the United States so we have invited Dr. Cindy Rich back with us today to discuss and share some of the patriotic music resources that are available from the Library of Congress. Dr. Rich is the Director of the Teaching with Primary Sources program here at EIU and her office has created a couple of web pages with resources to share with us this month related to Veterans Day as well as information about some of the patriotic music that is available at the Library of Congress website.

Veterans Day Interview Show Notes:

Theme Intro: Observing Veteran’s Day and Teaching with loc.gov Music
On 11/11/11 we will observe Veterans Day. Many schools are choosing to have students attend classes on this day to use this opportunity to celebrate our Veterans, connect with communities and focus on topics and themes that may otherwise not be in curriculum. Regardless of whether we are looking at nationally discussed topics like progressions in medicine resulting from war, geographic influences on military strategies with maps, individuals that played important roles in our history, songs by the military and civilians or deeply personal stories of veterans, their correspondence home, drawings and photographs and diaries.

Veterans Day
To provide teachers with another tool to use in their classroom as we observe Veteran’s Day, TPSEIU created two pages on our site within our Special Projects area. http://www.eiu.edu/eiutps/ The first is titled Veterans Day http://www.eiu.edu/~eiutps/veteran_day.php and provides links to many resources within the Library of Congress, the most poignant being the Veteran’s History Project http://www.loc.gov/vets/vets-home.html.

In addition, our Patriotic Songs http://www.eiu.edu/~eiutps/patriotic_songs.php has become really popular because we highlight official songs of branches of the US Armed Forces. The songs are shared through sheet music, audio, and information from the Library of Congress and links to the official website of that military branch.

Teaching with Music - Types of Primary Sources
Music created at a specific place or point in history is a powerful primary source. Students know that they are drawn to particular songs, artists or types of music. We can use this information to encourage them to analyze the lyrics and music from other times and places to gain a better understanding of life at that time.

Music is available at the Library of Congress site in the form of audio, sheet music and lyric sheets.
1. Sheet music is typically found in in jpeg and PDF format for printing.
2. Lyric or Song Sheets are also found in jpeg and PDF format and were often distributed to gatherings for sing-alongs.
3. Audio may be found in RealMedia or MP3 format. This audio can be downloaded and saved.

Performing Arts Encyclopedia
A search from the homepage will let you look for topics and type of resource. A wonderful area is the Performing Arts Encyclopedia http://www.loc.gov/performingarts/. Look at the Special Presentations for prepared sets with background information and highlighted items.

One of my favorites is Patriotic Melodies http://lcweb2.loc.gov/diglib/ihas/html/patriotic/patriotic-home.html that tells the stories behind some of our countries most recognized songs.

Yankee Doodle - http://lcweb2.loc.gov/diglib/ihas/loc.natlib.ihas.200000025/default.html is available in sheet music from 1845 and 1862, song sheets and sound recordings as early as 1897.

God Bless America - http://lcweb2.loc.gov/diglib/ihas/loc.natlib.ihas.200000007/default.html You can find Irvin Berlin’s handwritten lyrics, however you will only find 30 second MP3 and RealMedia audio due to copyright restrictions.

Be sure to look at the BIBLIOGRAPHIC INFORMATION for the primary source - you will find restrictions and more!

Copyright
Copyright and Primary Sources from the Library’s Teachers Page http://www.loc.gov/teachers/usingprimarysources/copyright.html offers questions and answers about copyright and fair use.

Taking the Mystery out of Copyright is an interactive page for teachers and students http://www.loc.gov/teachers/copyrightmystery/

Citations
One key point to remember is to always cite your sources. It is important that we model this for students and show that we are respectfully giving credit where credit is due. http://www.loc.gov/teachers/usingprimarysources/citing.html

Technology Pick of the Week

I have two Technology Picks for this week, the first marks another milestone in human history. The United Nations has estimated that the 7 billionth human will be born today, October 31, 2011. With the world population continuing to grow it is evident that our collective actions have an increasing impact on planet earth. I have provided a link in the show notes to a United Nations website called 7billionactions.org where you and your students can learn more about population growth and how it impacts all of us.

United Nations - 7 billion actions website
http://www.7billionactions.org/

This website provides plenty of topics for you to use with your students to discuss population growth and what we can do as individuals to reduce the detrimental effects that population growth upon planet Earth.

My second tech pick this week is a mashup of Google Maps and the local newspapers. A link is provided in the show notes.

Newspaper Map with Google Maps
http://newspapermap.com/

This site presents a Google map of the world with place markers for many of the worlds newspapers. This is a great site to use for current events as you are able to select a newspaper in another part of the world and get the perspective of that locality. The markers are color coded by language. Many times I am interested in a story I briefly hear about in the news but would like to learn more about. For example the recent earthquake in Turkey was briefly mention by American news rooms but provided little detail. I went to the Google Newspaper map and clicked on a marker in Turkey that brought up the local newspaper but it was not printed in English. This was no problem as this site also uses Google translate to translate the pages to English. It is true that the translation is not perfect but it gives you enough information that you can learn more about whatever article you are interested in. Give it a try the next time you are looking for something specific about another country in the world.

That wraps it up for episode 125 of TechTalk4Teachers. I want to thank Dr. Rich for being a guest on todays show and sharing patriotic music available from the Library of Congress and for providing an over view of Veterans Day. Show notes for this episode and archived episodes are available on the web at the EIU Instructional Technology Center website at eiu.edu/itc To leave a comment or suggestion, please send an email to techtalk@eiu.edu or leave a comment on the Tech Talk for Teachers blog. Until next time, this is Tom Grissom, keep on learning.

Episode 124 – 2011 Illinois Teacher of the Year

2011-09-30T10:58:00.000-07:00

It’s Friday September 30th, 2011 and welcome to episode 124 of TechTalk4Teachers, I’m Tom Grissom. This episode we have an excerpt from a recent presentation given by the 2011 Illinois Teacher of the Year to a group of EIU preservice teachers from earlier this month. The Teacher of the Year event was organized by the EIU chapter of the Association for Childhood Education International. We also have another Teaching with Primary Sources segment where we will be talking with Dr. Cindy Rich the Director of the Teaching with Primary Sources program here at EIU about natural disaster resources available from the Library of Congress. September has also had a large number of technology related announcements so I will also share my Technology Pick of the Week.

Right Click Here to Download MP3
(46 minutes 24 seconds)

First up we have Annice Brave, the winner of the 2011 Illinois Teacher of the Year Award. She recently talked about a variety of topics related to education at an evening event here on campus. Her talk covered current educational news items including the movie Waiting for Superman, the Save our Schools march held this summer in Washington DC, how poverty is impacting our local schools and she ends her presentation by sharing her recent experiences with the other Teacher of the Year award winners from across the United States at Space Camp in Huntsville, Alabama. Without further delay here is an excerpt from the 2011 Illinois Teacher of the Year presentation given by Annice Brave to teacher education students here at Eastern Illinois University.

Matt Damon speaks before SOS March

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k7Jh3Z52KV0

Teach like a Champion Book
http://www.amazon.com/Teach-Like-Champion-Techniques-Students/dp/0470550473/

Teach Like your Hairs on Fire Book
http://www.amazon.com/Teach-Like-Your-Hairs-Fire/dp/0670038156/

Teaching with Primary Sources

Natural Disasters
September 30, 2011
Introduction

When teachers are looking for resources relative to this topic, the Library of Congress may not be the first place that comes to mind to look. Remember, primary sources are created for every event and come in many formats.

Natural disasters seem to be headlining the news more frequently. The story may have played out on the other side of the globe or within our own state or community. Even if we are not directly impacted by the event, it is amazing how many different disciplines and topics these discussions fit into. Regardless, we want to show our students ways that they can connect with these events and hopefully encourage them to learn more.

Let’s take a look at the diverse scenarios relative to nature taken to the extreme are reflected in the Library of Congress digitized collections. We can take a look at items from the basic level of recognizing what they are, to how they fit into curriculum and sample activities that develop critical thinking skills.

Basic level of understanding: what are natural disasters and what types of primary sources exist that are relative? - earthquake, tornado, flood (hurricane, tsunami), drought (dust bowl), heat wave, blizzard, volcano & more.

Basic search from homepage www.loc.gov for images, maps, docs, etc. – when I enter flood in the search box there are 6468 items displayed. I am shown a long list of relative terms such as flood control, floodplain, floods Mississippi, floods 1920-1930… The same would happen for tornado, blizzard, etc.
Today in History http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/today/archive.html– archive search for flood gave 12 hits ranging from the 1775 creation of the Army Corp of Engineers to modern day. We heard about flooding farms and rerouting the Mississippi in So IL this year and I was fascinated by information on the Hoover Dam.

Ideas for different content areas

Science – the most obvious fit. Beyond the homepage, primary sources in American Memory collection http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/index.html Weather and events are referenced in the papers of Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln as well as those from the Chicago Daily News, Prairie Settlement and more. Do you know about Everyday Mysteries? http://www.loc.gov/rr/scitech/mysteries/ from the Kids and Families link. Science based questions with answers and an opportunity to ask questions.
Geography – Map Collections http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/gmdhtml/gmdhome.html offer resources for studying changes in landscapes over time, Places in the News http://www.loc.gov/today/placesinthenews/ .
Social Studies/History – Use maps to research impact on communities, culture over time.
Languages arts- setting and context, dust bowl 6 in American Memory – America from the Great Depression to World War II (Photographs from the FSA/OWI 1935-1945) http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/fsowhome.html , American Life Histories: Manuscripts from the Federal Writers’ Project, 1936-1940 http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/wpaintro/wpahome.html and Voices from the Dust Bowl http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/afctshtml/tshome.html

Taking it into the Classroom and Critical Thinking

Nature’s Fury – 7 a lesson for grades 6-12 looking at personal stories about natural disasters from the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries through newly invented motion pictures, panoramic photos, personal accounts and poignant song lyrics. http://www.loc.gov/teachers/classroommaterials/lessons/nature/

Topics in Chronicling America – 8 The Great San Francisco Earthquake, 1906 – various articles that students can review and compare perceptions from different newspapers http://www.loc.gov/rr/news/topics/earthquake.html

Next month in honor of Veterans Day we will look at music available at www.loc.gov and discuss copyright, fair use and guidelines.

Technology Pick of the Week

My Technology Pick of the week this week is from the recent Amazon event held Wednesday in new York City. Amazon announced three new Kindle devices to add to their staple of ebook readers but the big news of the event was the affordable prices that will most likely bring the use of ebooks to the masses. The lowest cost device is the all new Kindle coming in at a price of $79. The middle model comes in two flavors and is called the Kindle Touch that has wifi with a price of $99 and the Kindle Touch 3G that has Whispersync that allows the purchase and downloading of content over the 3G network. The big news of the day however is the new Kinndle Fire that is a color tablet similar to the iPad but at less than half the cost with a starting price of $199. The Kindle Fire not only is an ebook reader but is also a tablet device that can playback HD movies and also download apps from the Amazon Store. These prices are the most affordable we have seen to date and most likely will give ebooks a boost with the general public.

Amazon Kindle
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0051QVESA/

From the Amazon website:

“We are excited to announce four new products: the all-new Kindle for only $79, two new touch Kindles – Kindle Touch and Kindle Touch 3G – for $99 and $149, and a new class of Kindle – Kindle Fire – a beautiful full color Kindle for movies, TV shows, music, books, magazines, apps, games, web browsing and more, for only $199.”

That wraps it up for episode 124 of TechTalk4Teachers. I want to thank the 2011 Illinois Teacher of the Year award winner, Annice Brave, for sharing her presentation. I also want to thank Dr. Rich for her Teaching with Primary Sources segment on natural disasters this month. Show notes for this episode and archived episodes are available on the web at the EIU Instructional Technology Center website at eiu.edu/itc To leave a comment or suggestion, please send an email to techtalk@eiu.edu or leave a comment on the Tech Talk for Teachers blog. Until next time, this is Tom Grissom. Keep on Learning.

Episode 123 – September 11 Resources From The Library of Congress

2011-08-31T08:35:00.000-07:00

It’s Wednesday August 31, 2011 and welcome to episode 123 of TechTalk4Teachers, I’m Tom Grissom. It is the end of August and thousands of educators are going back to school all across the nation. This month we have some September 11^th resources to share with you as this year marks the 10 year anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. Dr. Cindy Rich is back again to share resources from the Library of Congress that teachers may be interested in using in the classroom. But first I want to take a moment to recognize the many individuals that have worked very hard over the summer to prepare for the first week of school.

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(27 minutes 03 seconds)

Before teachers and professors return to school there is an invisible army of support staff that have been working away all summer to make the first week of back to school a successful one for students. From building service workers that have been doing maintenance, cleaning, and waxing of floors to the technical support staff that have been busy adding wireless Internet connections, installing new equipment, repairing old equipment, and updating software this time of year is always hectic. So if you see someone in the hallways that has made your life a little easier this week be sure to give them a thank you for all their efforts.

I want to personally give a salute to all the support staff that work tirelessly that are often unrecognized for all their efforts. We here at EIU are off to a smooth start to the school year and that is in no small part attributable to all the work that occurs over the summertime by numerous individuals that have things ready to go for the first week back to school. So thank you to all the dedicated staff that make a difference for a successful start to the school year.

At our university we have installed hundreds of new computers, updated thousands, and improved the network to handle increasing traffic. All of this is unnoticed unless something goes wrong. When you click your mouse on a link it just works. It just works because of all the preparation and hard work that goes into providing the services required to support a modern school.

TEACHING WITH PRIMARY SOURCES AND THE TENTH ANNIVERSARY OF 9/11

This month marks the 10^th anniversary of the September 11^th attacks on America and many teachers will be looking for resources to share with students in a couple of weeks. Here is my interview with Dr. Cindy Rich who gives an overview of primary sources available at the Library of Congress website.

Eastern Illinois University Teaching With Primary Sources September 11 Webpage
http://www.eiu.edu/~eiutps/911.php

TODAY IN HISTORY
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/today/today.html --> archives

HOMEPAGE SEARCH
http://www.loc.gov --> search box (upper right corner)

(EXHIBIT) WITNESS & RESPONSE: SEPTEMBER 11 ACQUISITIONS AT THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS
http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/911

(AMERICAN MEMORY) SEPTEMBER 11, 2001, DOCUMENTARY PROJECT
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/911_archive/

(TEACHERS PAGE) COLLECTION CONNECTION FOR SEPTEMBER 11, 2001, DOCUMENTARY PROJECThttp://www.loc.gov/teachers/classroommaterials/connections/september11/
(these are the classroom activities in the areas of history, critical thinking and arts and humanities)

Reflections on September 11 - Share Your Story – YouTube/New York Times

http://youtube-global.blogspot.com/2011/08/reflections-on-september-11-share-your.html?spref=tw

Teaching about September 11 Using Primary Sources from the Library of Congress
http://blogs.loc.gov/teachers/2011/09/teaching-about-september-11-using-primary-sources-from-library-of-congress/

Technology Pick of the Week

My Technology Pick of the Week this week are a couple of interactive timelines about the 9/11 tragedy. The History Channel offers a timeline along with a host of multimedia content including video, photos, audio, and interactive maos. A link is a available in the show notes:

http://www.history.com/topics/9-11-attacks/videos#911-timeline

I have also linked to a 911 Memorial website with timeline of the events of that day.

http://timeline.national911memorial.org/

These websites are interactive and allow you to scroll through a timeline to see a breakdown of the events of that tragic day.

There will also be many memorial services on 9/11 across America so be sure to checkout the opportunities to attend in your local area to Commemorate the 10^th Anniversary of the 9-11 tragedy. Here at EIU there are several events scheduled during the week of 9/11 including a candle light vigil & memorial service on Sunday evening the 11^th on the quad as well as many guest speakers scheduled to speak at various events throughout the week.

That wraps it up for episode 123 of TechTalk4Teachers. I want to thank Dr. Rich for being a guest on todays show. Show notes for this episode and archived episodes are available on the web at the EIU Instructional Technology Center website at eiu.edu/itc To leave a comment or suggestion, please send an email to techtalk@eiu.edu or leave a comment on the Tech Talk for Teachers blog. Until next time, this is Tom Grissom.

Keep on learning…

Episode 122 - Looking for the Oregon Trail

2011-07-29T08:11:00.000-07:00

It’s Friday, July 29th 2011 and welcome to episode 122 of TechTalk4Teachers, I’m Tom Grissom. This month we have a couple of special segments to share with you, first I have a debriefing with Brian Poulter, we had Brian on the show a couple of episodes ago back on Episode 120 when he was about to leave on a motorcycle trip to follow the Oregon Trail. Brian is now back from his trip and has some interesting stories to share with us.

Right Click Here to Download MP3
(33 minutes 43 seconds)

Following the Oregon Trail segment I will have an interview with Dr. Cindy Rich from the Teaching with Primary Sources grant here at EIU who I have invited back again to share more about digital resources available from the Library of Congress. In talking with Dr. Rich after last months show we thought we would try to make a new recurring segment called Teaching with Primary Sources to incorporate into the TechTalk4Teachers podcast to share the many things made available to teachers from the TPS grant.

So once again we have a lot to cover so let’s get started.

Looking for the Oregon Trail

In the End
http://brianpoulter.com/?p=438

Tragedy Strikes
http://brianpoulter.com/?p=403

Picture of Graves with Mt Hood in Background
http://brianpoulter.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/hood.jpg

Teaching with Primary Sources

EIU Teaching with Primary Sources Website
http://eiu.edu/~eiutps/

Library of Congress
http://www.loc.gov/index.html

Library of Congress Site Update Sheet
http://eiu.edu/~eiutps/2011_LC_Updates.pdf

Kitten on the Keys Music
http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?ammem/papr:@filreq(@field(NUMBER+@band(edrs+50898l))+@field(COLLID+edison))

Technology Pick of the Week

My Technology Pick of the Week this week is a TED video by Matt Cutts. Matt gives an excellent talk about trying something new for 30 days. When Brian Poulter and I talked about Oregon Trail trip we threw out a challenge to you for trying something new over the summertime and sharing that experience. Brian also mentioned that he would be doing another photo a day experience this fall. I believe as educators we must constantly sharpen our saws and hone our skills to make us better educators. Becoming stagnant and stuck in a rut is a death knell for an educator.

TED Talks Homepage
http://www.ted.com/

Having a time of purposeful practice is absolutely necessary in order to improve any skill. The only way to achieve that is with commitment and focus. You can read and dream all you want but the effects of actually doing something is the only way to improve, there is a price to pay for getting better at something. Since education is all about constant improvement, by learning new things we need to consciously make decisions about what area of life we would like to improve.

I have provided a link in the show notes to the TED talk by Matt Cutts about such taking a 30 day challenge.

http://www.ted.com/talks/matt_cutts_try_something_new_for_30_days.html

Learning takes time and repetition and it turns out that focusing on something for 30 days provides just enough time to create new habits (or break bad ones).

If you are not familiar with the TED talks you should really check them out. There are nearly 1000 videos of some of the worlds best and brightest thinkers at the TED website where videos of short 20 minute or less presentations are available about what the speakers are passionate about.

Here is what the TED website says, “TED is a nonprofit devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading. It started out (in 1984) as a conference bringing together people from three worlds: Technology, Entertainment, Design”

So, if you have a little extra time this summer and have not yet experienced TED Talks, or even if you have, I encourage you to visit the TED website and do a search on whatever topic of interest and sit back, watch, and be inspired.

That wraps it up for episode 122 of TechTalk4Teachers. I want to thank Brian Poulter and Cindy Rich for being guests on todays show. Show notes for this episode and archived episodes are available on the web at the EIU Instructional Technology Center website at eiu.edu/itc To leave a comment or suggestion, please send an email to techtalk@eiu.edu or leave a comment on the Tech Talk for Teachers blog. Until next time, this is Tom Grissom. Keep on learning…

Episode 121 – Teaching with Primary Sources Podcast

2011-06-30T05:39:00.001-07:00

It’s Thursday, June 30th 2011 and welcome to episode 121 of TechTalk4Teachers, I’m Tom Grissom. We have another great interview lined up for you and this month we will be talking about using primary sources with your students and where you can find millions of resources to use with your classes. This episode mentions a few links throughout the interview so be sure to check out the show notes to learn more about all the resources that are shared.

Right Click Here to Download MP3
(32 minutes 13 seconds)

For those of you wondering about the adventures of Brian Poulter and his motorcycle trip following the Oregon Trail be sure to checkout his blog at brianpoulter.com Seems Brian has run into a bit of a snag and the best laid plans have hit a glitch. I hope to talk with Brian again soon so until then you can follow his blog to find out the latest.

http://brianpoulter.com/

End of the Trail
http://brianpoulter.com/?p=438

We have a lot of resources to share with you today so let’s get right to it.

TechTalk4Teachers Links for Episode 121
Teaching with Primary Sources

Teaching with Primary Sources Eastern Illinois University
www.eiu.edu/eiutps

Library of Congress
www.loc.gov

American Memory
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/index.html

Presidential Inauguration
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/pihtml/pihome.html

After the Day of Infamy Man on the Street Interviews http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/afcphhtml/afcphhome.html

Ansel Adams’ Photographs of Japanese American Internment http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/anseladams/

Veteran’s History Project
http://www.loc.gov/vets/

Childhood Lost: Child Labor during the Industrial Revolution
http://www.eiu.edu/eiutps/childhood.php

Follow the Evidence: The Trial of the Lincoln Conspirators (Lincoln CSI) http://www.eiu.edu/eiutps/april_65.php

Central Illinois Teaching with Primary Sources Newsletter
http://www.eiu.edu/eiutps/newsletter.php

Teacher’s Page
http://www.loc.gov/teachers/

Santa Fe, New Mexico, Gas station price analysis
http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/fsa2000002818/PP/

Civil War Maps
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/civil_war_maps/

Patriotic Melodies
http://lcweb2.loc.gov/diglib/ihas/html/patriotic/patriotic-home.html

Stars and Stripes Forever
http://lcweb2.loc.gov/diglib/ihas/loc.natlib.ihas.100010445/default.html

Technology Pick of the Week

My Technology Pick of the Week this week is a very affordable MP3 player that is working very well for my renewed interest in My Media Mall and the free audio books that can be checked out from this site. Back on episode 119 of TechTalk4Teachers we explored the topic of ebooks and also talked about a service called My Media Mall and the Overdrive software that is available at many local libraries across the nation. Using this free service from my local library I can checkout up to 5 audio books for a period of up to two weeks. After that time the digital rights management scrambles the files so the titles become unusable.

I recently needed another MP3 Player and came across the Sansa Fuze 4GB model that is currently available at amazon.com for approximately 60 dollars. This MP3 player also has expandable storage that I use with microSD cards to add capacity when I need it. Being able to add storage on-demand is a very nice feature and it helps me manage audio and video content by keeping different categories of audio or video on different microSD cards. The Sansa Fuze also has a nice display that is easy to use and you can easily navigate through your content using the scroll wheel. The Sansa Fuze can also play videos but I find the 1.9 inch screen too small for video viewing so I will stick with my netbook or other computer connected to my HDTV for video viewing. A link is in the show notes to the model I purchased. I also purchased an arm band so I can strap it on my arm when exercising or moving about. It is advertised to have a 24 hour battery life but I have not come close to running out of battery before I recharge it so I will just have to take their word on that.

Sansa Fuze 4GB Model – works with My Media Mall with Windows 7
http://www.amazon.com/SanDisk-Sansa-Fuze-Video-Player/dp/B0015LOWD4/

Technical Details
• Listen, watch, and play all day with 24 hours of battery life and room for up to 1,000 songs
• Watch your favorite video clips or share your photos on the 1.9-inch color screen
• Digital FM radio with 40 preset stations
• Voice recording with built-in microphone
• Expand your existing 4 GB memory with the microSD/microSDHC slot

Since I already had the Overdrive software program loaded on my PC all I had to do was go to My Media Mall and checkout the audio books that I wanted then downloaded them to my computer. Once they were downloaded on my computer I simple connected the USB cable that came with the Sansa MP3 player then opened Overdrive and right-clicked on the title of the audio book that I wanted to transfer to the device and clicked on transfer. I have already listened to several titles and would recommend Blink and The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell to either put on your summer reading list or listening list, whatever medium you prefer. I often prefer the audio content as I can be doing other things while listening.

Here is bonus tech pick for you. I am also an outdoors type of person and have a small farm where I am often out on a tractor doing various chores. I often use a special headset that has earmuffs to help with the engine noise but the headset also has a MP3 Jack that I can plug in a MP3 Player like the Sansa Fuze and listen to audio books or podcasts like this one while I am out plowing the fields or mowing the lawn. A link is in the show notes to the headset I use.

WorkTunes Headset with MP3 Jack
http://www.amazon.com/AO-Safety-90541-WorkTunes-Protector/dp/B0013092CS/

That wraps it up for episode 121 of TechTalk4Teachers. Show notes for this episode and archived episodes are available on the web at the EIU Instructional Technology Center website at eiu.edu/itc To leave a comment or suggestion, please send an email to techtalk@eiu.edu or leave a comment on the Tech Talk for Teachers blog. I would like to thank Dr. Cindy Rich for taking the time to talk with us about Teaching with Primary Sources and encourage everyone to go to the websites she mentioned and check them out further. Until next time, this is Tom Grissom, keep on learning…

Episode 120 - The Oregon Trail, a motorcycle, a camera, a blog, and a summer teacher challenge

2011-05-31T07:46:00.000-07:00

It's Tuesday, May 31st 2011 and welcome to Episode 120 of TechTalk4Teachers, I'm Tom Grissom. Summertime is now upon us and thousands of teachers will soon be on summer break but the learning never stops. On todays show I have an interview with Brian Poulter from the EIU Journalism department and we will have a discussion about sharing our passions and how teachers can challenge themselves to take on a summer project that will take their learning to the next level.

Right Click Here to Download MP3
(33 minutes 25 seconds)

Brian will be going on a summer adventure in June where he will be taking his motorcycle across the country following the route of the Oregon Trail and shooting photos and videos along the way. The ultimate goal of his trip will be to create a video production on the Oregon Trail using affordable technologies that fit into a backpack on his motorcycle. This episode has a lot of tips for those interested in sharing their experiences by using blogs, photos, and videos made possible by modern technologies along with a challenge for you to select a summer project of your own to take your learning to the next level.

Looking for the Oregon Trail

http://brianpoulter.com/?p=53

Here is our interview from earlier.

Interview:

TOM: With me today we have Brian Poulter who is a photojournalism professor here at Eastern Illinois University. I invited Brian in today to talk about some of things that he’s been doing over the summertime. With summertime fast approaching, many teachers are going to be going out and going on vacation and Brian’s done some really interesting work with sharing, photography in particular and incorporating that with blogs and he’s done some cross the country trips with a motorcycle and he’s blogged his experiences. Last summer, he went to Alaska, and, he blogged that particular trip day-by-day, taking photographs as he went along, and this year, I believe he’s going to be going on the Oregon Trail.

Two Wheels North

http://herald-review.com/special-section/news/two_wheels_north/

So, let me just turn it over to Brian and let him introduce himself and we’re just going to talk a little bit about sharing some of this information and how teachers can use it and blog their experiences and increase their skills. I think Brian and I both agree that the best way to do this is just to get out there and do it and practice. You know, you can read, and talk about it, and think about it all you want but you’re really not going to understand and gain the skills until you really do it. So, Brian…

BRIAN: Hello, I’m Brian Poulter, and nice to talk to you all today. I think he’s brought up a couple of really nice points here. This summer you’re going to be doing something, and one of the best ways, because I teach Photojournalism and New Media and I have to try to keep up on all the new technology, and like yourself, it’s impossible to do--I’m sure you’ll find that is a truism. So what I often do is I find something I’m going to do and force myself to do a project about it. And by doing so… and then telling everybody I’m going to do it, I have no excuses not to do it—

TOM: (laugh) Right.

BRIAN: --because they’re, looking for it. And the beauty of that is you get to figure out what the thesis is of what you’re going to do. You’re not locked into anything, and yet you’re forcing yourself to work with the new technologies. And what that does is allows you to make a lot of mistakes but you don’t have to show it to anybody, but you’ve made the mistakes and, better yet, when you try these new technologies, whether is Blogger or Flickr or an actual piece of hardware, what you’ve done is you’ve made mistakes so if you work with your students later on, they’re going to make similar mistakes, and you’ve figured out how to solve them. And you’re a better teacher, and everybody thinks you’re brilliant because you’ve figured out how to make their mistakes, and it makes your content better. I don’t’ care if you’re a talented pianist or a talented, racecar driver, the first time you work with a new piano or new racecar, you just don’t quite know how it’s set up and how it’s working. And so you’ve got to get comfortable with it. And with that comfort comes confidence and that’s going to work in your teaching.

TOM: Right, and that’s true of most things in life. It’s that “practice, practice, practice.” And, you know, oftentimes, in education we’re so focused on, “Well, we’ve got to get to Chapter 3 by such-and-such time and just going down and covering material. We really need to pause, one of the things that I see in teaching pre-service teachers is giving the students those opportunities in authentic environments. So the project that you’re doing, like you did last year with, with the Alaska trip, is a perfect , you know, a perfect project for that because you’re incorporating multiple technologies and they’re getting to see an end product, an end result there. And that involves several different skills, whether the technology—Really, to me, the technology, is the easiest part to master. It’s all those other pieces and putting it together and coming up, for example, in your Alaska trip, telling those stories and things day-by-day coming through to make that whole, to make it, a good experience out there.

BRIAN: Well the other great thing, too, is on the trip, I had a lot of photographs, raw photographs, that hadn’t been touched, and even though I processed them and I’d send them to, in this case, newspapers for republication and I had the rights and I had the edits and I gave myself about an hour and a half a day to do it because I was also riding a motorcycle—in the rain, most of the time, it seemed.

TOM: Yeah, let’s back up a minute and just set up that and preface for what you did last year in Alaska. So, it was what? Thirty days?

BRIAN: Yeah, I left here in Charleston, Illinois, which is what, two hours south of Chicago or a little bit west of Indianapolis? And I rode from here to the Artic Circle and the Yukon and then you have to come back, actually south and then west to get into Alaska and then I came back through. And so what I did is I blogged everyday with photos and text and sent it to the Decatur, Illinois Herald & Review and they republished it.And the nice thing about that is that once I get back, I still have these raw photographs and I can give them to students and I can say, “I’m going to give you 35 minutes to turn this into a publishable photograph,” and say, “Here’s what I got, yours doesn’t have to look exactly like mine does, because that’s part of the art, is how you work with it, the decisions you make, but it’s a real-life scenario. It’s not like it’s out of a workbook where they think, “Oh, we’re just doing this for busy work.” This is a photograph that someone’s published before. Are they up to the challenge and the task of doing this? I teach journalism and photojournalism , so I’m about storytelling. So, if I can give them some photographs, give them a little more time, they’re new at it. It’s a great opportunity for them to see if they are up to the task. It doesn’t matter if it’s in Photoshop or if they’re using some other photo manipulation program, again, or one of the other free ones that’s available like GIMP. It’s all about the end result, the skill I’m teaching, and it’s more real to life. And, I found that students get more excited about stuff that seems real to them rather than like, pulled out of a workbook.

TOM: Right, right. And, I’ll provide a link in the show notes to this Alaska trip. It’s really worth going out there and taking a look. You were using Wordpress, Flickr…?

BRIAN: Well, in this case, I was just sending this stuff directly to the Decatur Herald Review, but for previous stuff I’ve done and stuff I do in my own personal work, I work with Wordpress a lot which, if you’re not familiar with it, you can go to wordpress.com and you can it really help sets up a bunch of, I don’t want to call them templates because that isn’t a strong enough word for what’s they are. But, it really builds a nice, beautiful website that you can manipulate, put plug-ins in, or you can also get that software for free and load it onto your own server so you have more control. That’s nice. Another great tool to work with that is Flickr, flickr.com. Just take the “e” out of flicker.

TOM: Yep. F-L-I-C-K-R.

BRIAN: It’s the Facebook of photography. It’s a social network.

TOM: Been around for a long time.

BRIAN: It’s free. If you want to pay 24, 25 dollars a year to have a professional account, I do only because you get to load up more and bigger stuff, but once you have it set up, it’s a depository for your photographs. You can then say to Facebook, “Take this photograph. Put it on my Facebook page.” And, you can also say, “Take this photograph, and put it on my Blogger site or my Wordpress site.” So, it’s like a cloud that holds all your photographs, but you can from there parse it out. And, it’s archived. If your computer crashes, you now know where your photographs still are; they didn’t disappear off your hard drive.

TOM: Right, now talk about some of the challenges there because you are going across country and are you uploading those photos as you go?

BRIAN: Right, and no…when I say that I blog daily, it was nice in a way because the Decatur Herald & Review didn’t want to pay anybody to sit and receive my work on the weekends, so I had the weekends off. Even though I was writing and shooting stuff, I didn’t get to put up stuff, and it often coincided to when I didn’t have internet availability it would be one of those weekends. But… thank goodness for wireless, free wireless at gas stations and libraries and hotels and wherever I could find it, and there were times where I literally turned my computer on, said send the photographs, put the laptop in a bush, and walked two blocks away and ate and came back, not thinking that anyone was going to find my laptop in that bush because that was where the best internet connection was. You know, when you’re in the middle of nowhere, there’s fewer people to find your stuff and steal it.

TOM: Yeah, and then I noticed on the blog you were having people comment and things as it went along. Was that all done on the fly as you were going, or did they publish that after the fact?

BRIAN: No, they published it daily. A lot of times what I did was I actually emailed the text
to my wife because we were having some FTP issues and she could check periodically. I can’t do that on a motorcycle. And, the fun thing I learned about when you blog for a newspaper is that it doesn’t go through an editing process. They just publish it, so there are a couple sentences I now go back and read, and I go, “What the heck does that say.” So, when you’re reading be tolerate.

TOM: Keep that in mind that you were eight hours on a motorcycle, and…

BRIAN: Yeah, and by the way, I didn’t mention that it rained nineteen of the first twenty days I was on the motorcycle. Every single day I got wet, but that’s a great thing to tell students. You say, “You have no excuses for not getting your homework done. I had homework to do, and I had to do it in the rain from a motorcycle. It’s doable.”
TOM: Welcome to the real world.

BRIAN: Going back to the thing, I think you were trying to establish this, it’s summer. If you’re passionate to go visit it some place, something…

BRIAN: I think will be stunned that if you just do a minor about of research, and let’s say…well, I’m going on the Oregon Trail, so I’m contacting this woman who is an editor of a tribal newspaper on the Fort Hall Indian Reservation. I don’t know her, and I send her an email and say, “Hey, here’s what I’m doing. Would you be willing to participate?” And, she’s like yeah, and she’s an award winning journalist. Anytime you approach somebody with a little bit of passion and a little bit of understanding and have done just a minor amount of research so people understand that you’re just not trying to get some freebie from them you’ll be stunned at how much time they’re be willing to spend with you. And, that introduces some unique photographs or writing or whatever it is you’re passionate about in teaching, and it gets you excited.

TOM: Right, yes.

BRIAN: You know, I’ve taught the main Photo class two or three times a semester for nineteen years. I really, really enjoy that class. In fact, it’s my favorite class, but I change it every semester. I don’t teach it exactly the same way. I have the same results I have to achieve. If I don’t get excited about it, I can’t get them excited.

TOM: Well, let’s just pause and stop. How much has changed in the last nineteen years? I mean, every year there’s something, you know, that you’re adapting and integrating into it. But, it’s just staggering just to pause just a moment to think how much the world’s changed.

BRIAN: I used to teach taking film out of a canister and rolling it on the reel.

TOM: and a darkroom.

BRIAN: And, then printing it in the darkroom. Then, we went to…we still use film, but then we scanned it. Then, we go to digital. Well, digital wasn’t going to be good as film ever.

TOM: Exactly, it will never…

BRIAN: Now, we’ve given up film, and I have a M.F.A. in Photography. And, I love my experience with printing photographs in the darkroom and putting my hands in chemicals that will probably kill me like via cancer one day, but I don’t miss it. And, it’s cheaper. And, the best thing is, like your students, if you’re not making mistakes with technology, you’re probably not learning. And, that’s what this summer project is about, if you take on our challenge, I guess that’s what we’re saying here, is about…is making mistakes and learning. I tell my students all the time, who are really good at something, “You’re not working very hard. You’re not doing good work.” “Well, I’m getting an A.” Yes, but you’re not teaching yourself anything.

TOM: I have several teachers in my personal learning network, and the photo 365 is one of those things. And, it’s exactly that. Just doing one photo a day for 365 days, and I really do think that teachers would benefit from that blogging experience out there. Especially if you’re wanting to incorporate a specific subject out there, and you know, as teachers, like I said when we go on vacation we always mix those things that interest us. And, just imagine a social studies teacher going to Washington, D.C. for example and being able to share that experience and things. And, just having that catalogue of photographs, if nothing else, to be able to share with their class. And then, since I’m an audio podcaster, if you would want to take a recorder, digital recorder, tape recorder, and being able to do that. And I know you’re also involved with video. …and you might mention that because you said that you’re changing it up from what you did last year with the Oregon Trail.

BRIAN: Right, this year I am, I’m still taking my digital camera which by the way can shoot video, but I’m taking a specific Panasonic video camera, and I’m working on a documentary film that will incorporate some still but will primarily be video-based because I need to learn something new. And, in journalism, we no longer teach people, really, to work for TV stations, newspapers. We teach them to work for media companies because, if you’re working for NBC, I don’t know if you know this but, they have a website, and they put video on it, and they put text on it, and they do everything on it. And, a requirement of our core curriculum in our journalism program is they have to take a New Media course. It’s one of many things. And, they have to learn to edit video. They have to learn to edit audio. They’ve already been doing stills. And, combine these. They have to blog, and not just in the New Media class, in the writing classes, they have to blog. In our ethics classes, they blog. In our Sports Writing class, they have to make their own photographs and blog even though it’s primarily a writing course. So, there’s a cross-connection of stuff going on here, and teachers can really benefit and help themselves be a more effective and more excited about what they do day to day if they just participated. And, that sort of thing.

Brian: …something I did with my students for 30 days and you’ll have a link off here I’m sure to ittybittyphoto.com..…all shot with point shoot cameras, not the expensive stuff, I challenge myself to make a photograph and publish it every single day for thirty days, and then, I challenge my students to do it. They go that’s too hard and I go I can do it I have a job, things I got to do.

Itty bitty photo

http://ittybittyphoto.com/

Tom: I think that’s often excuse……for…students. I remember whenever I was starting out with podcasting things, I literally was using a little netbook and a ten dollar microphone. And yeah, those didn’t sound as great, but I was learning the process and things. And then, over time, I’ve upgraded the equipment, and now, I’m using a mixer. And we have two microphones going in whereas before it was just you know one microphone that we shared back and forth, but again, the important thing is to get started on that and as you said find something that you’re passionate about and the rest will follow out there.

Brian: On one of the first trips I did, I followed the Mississippi with a teacher, a local teacher, I know who is an alum of Eastern here named Jim Standerfer, a very talented writer, because I didn’t want to do the writing and the photography. This last time I realized how hard it was. I purposely used a Canon Powershot G10 camera; the same point and shoot camera we teach our students with, the same one you..can’t buy now because the G11 is the new version, but it’s a point and shoot camera. And, my point then doing some work which got in a gallery show and got published in newspapers was that I’m trying to teach technique and understanding not how to use a specific piece of technology. One of the main reasons I did it that way is that I said, “Look here is the same camera that I hand you in class. What’s your excuse.” I also make sure though, when I talk about this, I show them all the bad photographs that I make that don’t quite work or have a technical problem. We were discussing before we went on air, I guess you call it, the best thing you can do to be able to teach something effectively is to play with it and screw it up. You’ll never be able to teach something as well or do anything as well as after you’ve had to teach it, break it down and not approach it from how you learned it but figure out how somebody else learns it and approaches it that way. And, I think it all snowballs from there.

Tom: Right…Students have to internalize that learning and the only way that you internalize it is through those experiences out there and that you have to provide those opportunities for the students to learn and to fail. I use a term…I tell my student whenever I start on some project-based learning activity is I want you to fail fast. I want you to go through and take all the steps of this project and go through very, very small at first. So say a podcast, you know, it would be probably crazy to give my students to say I would like for you all to do a thirty minute podcast, so let’s do a one minute or even a thirty second one. You would be surprised how much time you could spend on just a thirty second project. You know because you’ve done it out there, but students think. “Oh, no problem. Let’s do a public service announcement. Thirty seconds, here’s what you want to do.” That literally can take hours to get that thirty seconds.

Brian: One of the other things related to that, I think, is that, what we’re talking about here too, when you set up these situations where you allow people to fail, you don’t have to ride your motorcycle through the Arctic to make content; you don’t have to go on the Oregon Trail. I’m just interested in those things, so I decided to document. However, going back to what I was talking about before, I had set up this photograph every single day. Publish it online; people were checking it. I did this in Charleston, Illinois. We’re a county that’s what, 30,000 at most and it’s shrinking in population.

Tom: Rural Illinois, corn and bean fields everywhere.

Brian: So, I had to find something. And a lot of it did not come on the campus which takes about half the population of the county away. I had little towns like, if you’ve ever looked at a map, Reardon, Illinois. Something I don’t know if you can even find on a map. Well, I would just go drive because I had this hour and a half window available that day, and I knew people would give me a really hard time if I didn’t put something up. And so, what you find yourself doing is falling back on “Ok, I teach this class. What makes a good photograph? What compositional things can I do turn this situation into a good photograph? What’s at the heart of a good photograph? It’s emotion, it’s faces.” Sort of, you’re like, oh yeah, there’s a reason why this stuff that I teach works. It actually does great. …and it sounds like work but actually it was probably the best part of my day. It was like my hour and my half where I got to be creative and do something for myself....

Tom: But, you set that goal to begin with and that’s kind of that drive…same thing here with this podcast. I used to publish weekly and then I made it once a month and kind of turned this into more of an interview type format. But, you do feel yourself, I don’t know if pressures the right word, but you have that goal in the back of your mind. Like, oh, it’s coming up on the end of the month, we need to get the whatever it is done, whatever goal you have accomplished.

Brian: The best thing about teaching photo students having been a photo journalist is you can’t make photographs over the phone. You can’t sit in an office and call someone up and say, “Can you send me a photograph that I can use and put my name on.” You overcome what I call the Velcro of the Couch Effect which is the hardest part of any project is getting your butt off the couch, being stuck there and there is this inertia of a body at rest. You’d be amazed once you go out there and just…the beautiful thing of the assignment of making a photograph a day is you know you have to do something. There are no excuses for well that’s not going to be good enough so I’m not going to push the button. And you’d be surprised that, when you force yourself to do something, you can do better stuff than you thought you could do.

Tom: Right, and that’s that growing process and learning process out there. And, once again, it comes back to practice, the more you do, you know, I think, subconsciously, it works on your mind over time. As long as you have the goal, and you mentioned this, of constantly improving because it is possible to get in a rut and, well, I know how to do this, I’m going to do the same thing, as you said, thirty times this way. But, as long as you push it to that next level, and grow. And that’s where that patience comes in, so if you have that patience in there, you’re constantly striving for that.

Brian: I do some workshops for high schools, and we put a bunch here. And there’s a little town called Mount Carmel in the Southern part of the state, Wabash County. And, they bring me in, and I teach their students photography and a little bit of web design and this sort of stuff. I look at what they do now, and they’re running…they’re building commercial websites for the businesses in their community. And, one faculty said, “I know how to do web servers or you know do subservers”. So, they do that. And, one person, “Well, I sort of know web design, and I teach business communication.” And, what I love about their approach down there is, these faculty have found a way to keep themselves excited rather than just like, “Well, design a website for yourself,” and really, how do you critique that. But, now you have a customer to keep happy, and you don’t get to pick pink for your webpage just because you like pink. You better hope that there’s a reason for it to be pink, and one of the largest producers of oil drilling bits in the country is in Mount Carmel, Illinois. They do the website for them. They don’t want pink; I don’t think. They want red and oil black, and so it’s real life experience. And those kids get to point to that, put that on their resume, their college application and say, “I’ve done commercial websites.” That’s better than I built a website for myself, and the faculty get the pride and satisfaction of knowing they’re really teaching real stuff.

Tom: Ok, we probably need to wrap-up here a little bit, but let’s talk a little bit about some of the technologies and things that you and I both use out there for…obviously the Tech Talk for Teachers blog, if you visited that site, we’re using Blogger. And then, for their photo site of that, they’ve got another Google property that’s called Picassa, so some people may have heard that name. So, since those two belong to both companies, those are kind of a natural pair out there, Blogger and Picassa for some of your photographs. A long time ago, like I said, Flickr’s been out there. It was one of the first web 2.0 companies. They were and still are, aren’t they, a Yahoo! property…

Brian: Uh…yeah…Yahoo!...yeah. And so, if you have a Yahoo! email account, you already have a Flikr account.

Tom: Whether you know it or not…it’s part of your Yahoo! account.

Brian: Yes, you just log in there. And so, I made up a Yahoo! email account just for that purpose.

Tom: And, for teachers out there, you know, keeping the personal separate from some of the class projects out there, you know. You might set up a separate account for something like that whether it be a Blogger or a Flickr or Picassa whatever…whatever it might be. Same thing, you know the Yahoo! account, same thing with Gmail, if you have Gmail, you have Blogger and Picassa out there available to you.

Brian: And, click on Google, and click on tabs: the extra stuff that they normally don’t show you. I mean there’s…

Tom: More items…I can’t remember what it is. I click on it all the time.

Brian: You have a website. You want to know if people are using it.

Tom: Google sites?

Brian: Google analytic will tell you an amazing amount of stuff that you probably don’t want to know about your traffic or lack of it sometimes (laughs).

Tom: (laughs) Yeah. And then, when we were talking earlier, you mentioned something about Vimeo. Can you talk a little about Vimeo and Youtube?

Brian: Right. Vimeo and Youtube, I’m sure you all know what Youtube is. …Vimeo, I like to call it the adult version of Youtube. …It doesn’t take commercial content. It’s much higher quality. …and if you want to inspire yourself and challenge yourself and your students, you can go there and just find a bunch of stuff. Now, it’s overwhelming because there’s so many stuff there, and before I go on, they have some really nice forums that are really helpful for a specific camera, what you are trying to do. …everyday they have staff favorites which just for your own entertainment purposes and to inspire yourself are worth looking at. You can have a paid account, but it’s also free. Just, when you pay, you can upload more, and you can get more options. I’m using the free one right now. When I come back from my trip on Oregon, I’m going to offer my stuff to both PBS and probably put an edited version up on Vimeo just because the quality is so high. I mean it’s high definition streaming if you want it streamed at a higher quality. It’s much higher quality than what Youtube offers. It’s worth checking out, if for no other reason, because, as a teacher, I steal ideas all the time. I see somebody do something really awesome. Hey, that’s pretty cool. I’m going to teach my students to do that, and I’m going to steal that idea. And, it’s everything from big massive epic productions where people have hundreds of thousands of dollars of equipment to stuff that was shot with Flickr cameras or, I’m sorry, flash-based camera. It’s a better resource, I think, for getting better content. Looking at stuff that you can steal ideas from and try to emulate to make yourself better.

Tom: Ok, to wrap-up here, let’s just kind of go through a project, and you’ve inspired me. I probably need to start doing some more photography and things. That’s something I’ve always been interested in, and I was one of those, when I was teaching high school we had the dark room, so it’s been a few years. I’ve gone through that evolution. But, I, number one is establish a goal. Don’t let the summer go by, you know. If you’re going to be out there on vacation and you’re interested and passionate in something out there, just make it a goal out there to provide some type of way that you can share your passion and knowledge out there on the subject with others. And then, from there, you know, pick whatever media…medium you would like to do whether it be still photographs or a combination of photographs and blogging and things. I’ll put in the links in the show to some of Brian’s prior work because I think that blog for teachers out there, that’s a familiar format, you know. We’re very familiar with blogs at this point, but it’s having that goal out there on that specific thing. Any other words of wisdom here as we…

Brian: I just think what you want to do, primarily, is say imagine someone sitting there, and they say tell me a story. So, what is it you’re interested about? What do you know something about? Where are you going? And, tell them a story about it, and you’re all teachers so figure out what’s the teachable moment out of it and chase that. And then, figure out how…but before you go figure out how you might share it that will sort of dictate what your approach will be. And, the beautiful thing here is that you don’t tie yourself to thirty seconds or thirty minutes or something. This is not broadcast. This is internet casting. It’s how long does this need to be but edited down, so there’s not extra in there. You know, you don’t a twenty page paper when a ten page paper will do, and go out there and make some mistakes, and if it totally blows up in your face, nobody will know about it. Unless you’re stupid enough to tell people you’re going on the Oregon Trail.

Tom: Which can be a motivating factor as you said, along there to push you.

Brian: You’re teachers. You know what a little research can do. You know knowing something before you get there, what it’s about, and that allows you to focus in, literally, on what the story’s about. But, I just spent two days figuring out how to get two pieces of software to work together, so I know I’m going to have to do this. But, you know what, that’s kind of fun once you figure out how to do it, and the thing that teachers have available that nobody had available fifteen to twenty years ago are forums. Go there. Ask questions. Just say, I’m a newb or a novice. And, as soon as you admit that you don’t know anything, everybody’s willing to help you. It’s a beautiful thing. So, figure out what you want to do, try it, ask for some help. If you fail, so what no one will know the difference.

Tom: Yep, get better next time. Reach that next level. Ok, I’d like to thank Brian Poulter for coming in today. It’s been a great conversation, and also, as you all head into summer, I’d love to hear from you. Some of the audience members out there, if you have an idea, if you have little question, shoot an email to our techtalk@eiu.edu email address, and I’d love to see some of the projects or things. Whenever you come back to school this fall, be sure to drop me a note. Let us know if this has been beneficial for you, and we will continue to broadcast. I’ll have another episode in June. So, we will continue over the summer, but for those of you that are going on break, you can stay subscribed. And, I’d like to wish everybody a very productive summer.

Technology Pick of the Week

My Technology Pick of the Week this week is the Asus Eee Pad Transformer tablet. I recently was in the market for purchasing a new netbook for my own personal use but I was also was considering a tablet like the iPad. I came really close to buying the iPad version 1 product when they were reduced in price to $399 when the iPad 2 came out but I really did not want to be stuck with a tablet that was over a year old when I bought one. I am glad I waited as the Eee Pad Transformer became available at the end of April and I purchased the Eee Pad along with the optional keyboard dock that “transforms” the tablet into a netbook like device.

Eee Pad Transformer

http://www.asus.com/Eee/Eee_Pad/Eee_Pad_Transformer_TF101/

The Eee Pad runs the Android Honeycomb operating system and I get the best of both worlds. I get a touch screen device with about 9 hours of battery life and a keyboard dock that provides an additional 7 hours of battery life along with a physical keyboard to use when I want to get some real work done. Thats 16 hours of battery life when used in combination with the keyboard dock, talk about all day computing! It provides instant on and the keyboard is well designed with special shortcut keys that make using the Eee Pad with the docked keyboard a joy to use. There is a small switch that slides back and forth to lock and unlock the keyboard dock to the tablet.

I can use a touchscreen keyboard for small amounts of text input but I find myself wanting to use a physical keyboard for anything longer than a paragraph of typing. The docking station is very easy to use and I can move from a tablet to a netbook style device at will. I bought the Eee Pad 16GB version that retails for $399, a one-hundred dollars savings over the iPad. Two other features sealed the deal for me in making this purchase. First, and it includes a microSD card that provides flexible storage that I can use to load content onto a microSD card. This essentially allows for unlimited storage as I can load up a microSD card with content and when it gets full I can buy another microSD card for additional content if I so choose. Because the Eee Pad allows additional storage it also has a file manager that allows you to easily copy and paste files from your computer to the Eee Pad using the special USB cable that is provided. Secondly, the Eee Pad has a mini HDMI out connector that allows you to connect to a HDTV using an affordable mini HDMI to HDMI cable. This allows you to watch on the big screen any content that is displayed on the Eee Pad.

As I mentioned I also bought the optional keyboard dock that costs an additional $150. This is optional and not needed at all unless you want the added battery life or are like me and prefer to use a physical keyboard for anything other than casual typing. Since I wanted a netbook like device I elected to purchase the keyboard dock. I have had the Eee Pad for about a month now and it has handled everything I expected it to do. It supports Adobe Flash so you will enjoy a full Internet experience. Being a Google operating system it works well with gmail and Youtube and you have full access to the Android Marketplace if you would like additional apps. For those that are considering 1 to 1 tablet programs in schools the Eee Pad may be worth considering as a hybrid solution that offers the best of the touchscreen tablet world along with the practicality of the netbook world.

That wraps it up for episode 120 of TechTalk4Teachers. I want to thank Brian Poulterr for being our guest on todays show and wish him the best on his upcoming Oregon Trail trip. Show notes for this episode and archived episodes are available on the web at the EIU Instructional Technology Center website at www.eiu.edu/itc To leave a comment or suggestion, please send an email to techtalk@eiu.edu or leave a comment on the Tech Talk for Teachers blog. Until next time, this is Tom Grissom. Keep on learning…

Episode 119 - A conversation about ebooks for educators

2011-04-29T10:34:00.001-07:00

It’s Friday April 29th, 2011 and welcome to episode 119 of TechTalk4Teachers, I’m Tom Grissom. We’ve got a real treat for you on todays show as we will be talking about ebooks. Ebooks have been in the news a lot lately and many schools and universities are considering their use on a wider scale in the classroom. While ebooks have been around for a number of years now many schools and universities are considering school-wide implementations. There are however a number of issues that need to be worked out before a successful ebook program can be implemented on a larger scale.

Right Click Here to Download MP3
(40 minutes 58 seconds)

For todays show we talk with Karen Whisler who is the Head of Collection Development at Booth Library here on the campus of Eastern Illinois University. On the surface ebooks look so easy to use and we educators often see articles extolling the virtues of ebooks, but there are also a number of challenges with implementing a successful ebook program. Gadgets are constantly changing, ebook formats are evolving, Digital Rights Management and licensing fees need to be addressed on the front end before an ebook program can be successfully implemented.

So, without further delay here is my interview with Karen Whisler about ebooks for educators from earlier this week.

Kindle and Library Lending
http://venturebeat.com/2011/04/20/kindle-library-lending/

Eastern Illinois University Booth Library
http://www.library.eiu.edu/welcome.html

Booth Library - Books, Videos, and More
http://www.library.eiu.edu/resources/books.html

Technology Pick of the Week
For my Technology Pick of the Week this week I would like to encourage everyone to take a look at MyMediaMall and Overdrive. I have provided links in the shownotes to MyMediaMall as well as the Overdrive software that you will need. This is a wonderful resource that is available at many libraries across the country.

http://www.mymediamall.net/3A79CF6F-75E4-4CAF-B211-1D584C42E1CF/10/342/en/Default.htm

http://www.overdrive.com/software/omc/

If you are a faculty, staff, or student here at EIU you already have access to MyMediaMall here on campus and also off-campus if you use your EIU Library Card number to logon.

For others in Illinois many local libraries, such as mine, also offer the MyMediaMall service to their patrons. If you are in a different state or country be sure to checkout your options as MyMediaMall advertises itself as a global company. If you are outside the United States please drop us an email if you can access MyMediaMall or if you are using some other service to access ebooks.

Since we are coming up on the summer months I encourage you all to give MyMediaMall a try. I use MyMediaMall for both ebooks and audio books and it is one way that I keep up-to-date on current topics of interest to me. It is also great for recreational reading or listening.

I would also like to ask, what’s on your reading list for the summer? If you are interested you can leave a comment on our TechTalk4Teachers blog with your reading recommendations for other educators. I mentioned the ebook Blink by Malcolm Galdwell and I downloaded the audio version of this book to my Zune and am listening to it now. It is 7 hours of audio content which is a lot but because I can listen to it when I am doing other things I can multi-task.

Blink by Malcolm Gladwell
http://www.mymediamall.net/3A79CF6F-75E4-4CAF-B211-1D584C42E1CF/10/342/en/ContentDetails.htm?ID=0FC87C78-8E45-4829-BD99-3210CBE9FEFE

If you have a long commute audio books are a great way to access content you might not otherwise get to and maybe make your drive a little more enjoyable. Many cars have AUX ports in the Radio to plug in a MP3 player so you can use the car radio speakers to listen. Audio books are also great to listen to while exercising or doing household chores.

That wraps it up for episode 119 of Tech Talk for Teachers. I want to thank Karen Whisler for being our guest on todays show and sharing her wealth of knowledge on the topic of ebooks. Show notes for this episode and archived episodes are available on the web at the EIU Instructional Technology Center website at www.eiu.edu/itc To leave a comment or suggestion, please send an email to techtalk@eiu.edu or leave a comment on the Tech Talk for Teachers blog. Until next time, this is Tom Grissom. Keep on learning…

Tom Grissom, Ph.D.

Episode 118 – Flipping a Classroom, Khan Academy, and New Learning Analytics

2011-03-31T10:46:00.001-07:00

It's Thursday, March 31st 2011 and welcome to Episode 118 of TechTalk4Teachers, I'm Tom Grissom. We are a little past mid-way point through the spring semester here at EIU and faculty and students are busily working their way through their courses. Many educators are constantly on the lookout for new methods to be a more effective teacher and thanks to the advances in technology you do not have to look far these days.

Right Click Here to Download MP3 (9 minutes 51 seconds)

There has recently been a crescendo of interest growing in education circles regarding a former TechTalk4Teachers Pick of the Week. This former pick has received new funding and is helping students from all around the world learn new things by simply watching YouTube videos and all for free.

I'm going to “flip” the format of todays show and you will see why in just a moment. Since I began TechTalk4Teachers I have made the Horizon Report a yearly technology pick and I have not yet had the opportunity to talk about the report this year.

Technology Pick of the Week

So before this semester gets away from me my technology pick of the week, this week, is the 2011 version of the Horizon Report published by the New Media Consortium. I use this report in both my undergraduate and graduate level technology classes as a reading assignment to help my students get up to speed with the latest educational technologies. Students are often amazed at the pace of adoption of new technologies and this report provides plenty of real world examples for students to explore.

When I tell them this report is about 40 pages long I usually hear some moans and groans but they are short-lived as I setup a discussion group where we discuss this report online over a two week period. This gives students the flexibility to chunk the material into more manageable pieces and provides a social component for them to share their impressions as they digest what they read and provides a way to share their reactions with the entire class. If you have not read this years Horizon Report I strongly encourage you to do so and a link is provided in the show notes.

2011 Horizon Report
http://www.nmc.org/publications/2011-horizon-report

As the name implies this report takes a look out over the horizon to observe new technology trends and how they are impacting teaching and learning. The report is broken down into three time-frames for technologies that are 1 year or less away from adoption, 2 to 3 years from adoption, and those that are 4 to 5 years away from being adopted on a larger scale. Of course predicting the future is always a risky business and unforseen technologies often enter the picture and take the education world by storm without much notice. Most recently the iPad and Android tablets serve as examples that have entered the mainstream consciousness of educators in the past year and many are experimenting with this new form factor.

Most of you can probably guess what the near term technology influence is, mobile phones and ebooks. As smart phones become more affordable and as wireless broadband access becomes more available the mobile phone is poised to enter the learning mainstream. I mentioned on last months show that smart phones are now outselling PC's for the first time and I believe that this trend will continue in the future. Mobile phones will not replace PC's in the immediate future but new combinations and form factors are competing with the traditional Personal Computer for use in schools.

The same is also true of ebooks, with the success of the Kindle and now new tablet and slate form factors, ebooks are beginning to be taken seriously as legitimate replacements for physical books. Several schools are piloting ebooks as possible replacements for their physical counterparts.

http://www.edweek.org/dd/articles/2011/03/25/mct_caebooks.html

Learning Analytics

The one thing in the Horizon Report that was placed four to five years out is something called Learning Analytics. Learning Analytics are technologies that can be used to measure learning by collecting and interpreting information using data-mining techniques to assess student academic progress. Many in the teaching field become a bit uneasy when there is talk of data-mining models for use in teaching and learning because it seems like such a sterile environment to teach and learn in. When some teachers hear this many envision students becoming just numbers to be analyzed and this is antithetical to the viewpoint of most teachers. However, teaching is both an art and a science and I believe we need both sides of the equation to be effective teachers. Learning analytics are in the infant stage but new developments with the Khan Academy have thrust learning analytics into the spotlight over the past two months.

I have talked about the Khan Academy before and it has been receiving a lot of press lately. Now, with new additions to the Khan Academy learning analytics has suddenly jumped ahead five years and is now front and center and on the minds of many educators. The Khan Academy has recently received some funding that has suddenly catapulted this online academy into the national spotlight.

Khan Academy
http://www.khanacademy.org/

Sal Khan has developed over 2000 short videos on a variety of subjects and placed them on YouTube for students to access across the world for free. I have provided a few links in the show notes for you to explore further and I highly recommend you watch his presentation.

Here is a short video clip from his recent TED talk, I will play about a minute of it to give you an idea what the Khan Academy is about if you have not heard of it before.

Khan Academy TED Talk - 2011
http://www.ted.com/talks/salman_khan_let_s_use_video_to_reinvent_education.html

Alright, that was Sal Khan giving an introduction to his Khan Academy at a recent TED talk. The full presentation is about 20 minutes long and I encourage you to give it a watch if you want to see what the next level is and where the Khan Academy is heading in the future.

If you are familiar with Google Analytics imagine taking that technology and using it to display and track student progress from the videos students watch on YouTube and also being able to analyze the exercises students complete. The data generated is very detailed and provides a look at student academic progress across time.

Now, imagine being a teacher where you can have your students sign-up your class where you could use Khan Academy videos to supplement your students learning. If you so choose and have administrative approval you can setup a class and where you can monitor your students progress using learning analytics that the Khan Academy has designed. The service keeps track of each students individual progress. Data that is collected for every student include what Khan Academy videos they watch, how long they watch, and there are also exercises embedded within the videos that can be tracked to monitor progress. Students can see their progress and even earn badges along the way as rewards for completing lessons.

A color coding system is used so that teachers and students can easily see where there needs to be more work, green is good, and red needs more work. Teachers can see individual as well as the entire class statistics on how students are doing if they setup their classes to use the Khan Academy. Because learning analytics are so new educators should check with their schools polices before using such services and obtain administrative approval. It really is remarkable the data that can be collected and at the same time a bit concerning because teachers have not had access to so much detail before.

Flipping your Classroom

The Khan videos have been around for a while and many teachers are using the videos to “flip” the traditional classroom model of instruction. Some teachers are assigning the videos as homework to be watched at home and then use students scheduled class time to work on problems where the teacher can float around the room and assist any student with any questions they may have.

This flipped model gets the teacher out of the transmission mode of instruction and allows the teacher to give more individual attention to students. It is lecture by night and homework by day, flipping the traditional model. I have provided a link in the show notes to how some teachers are using the flipped classroom so be sure to check them out.

Reverse Instruction: Dan Pink and Karl’s “Fisch Flip”
http://www.connectedprincipals.com/archives/1534

To Flip or Not to Flip
http://marynabadenhorst.global2.vic.edu.au/2011/03/19/to-flip-or-not-to-flip/

What do you think, have you used the flipped classroom approach?

That wraps it up for episode 118 of TechTalk4Teachers. Show notes for this episode and archived episodes are available on the web at the EIU Instructional Technology Center website at eiu.edu/itc To leave a comment or suggestion, please send an email to techtalk@eiu.edu or leave a comment on the Tech Talk for Teachers blog. Until next time, this is Tom Grissom, keep on learning…

Episode 117 - We Live in Amazing Times – Watson Wins!

2011-02-28T13:37:00.000-08:00

It’s Monday, February 28th, 2011 and welcome to episode 117 of TechTalk4Teachers, I’m Tom Grissom. A short month this month but an eventful one for the human race none the less, more on that later in the show.

Right Click Here to Download MP3 (28 minutes 45 seconds)

This month I had the honor of speaking at the opening session of the Students Involved with Technology Conference held here at Eastern Illinois University. This conference is held yearly in Illinois and also has concurrent conferences in other areas of the State for K12 students. In the past this conference was held in the Bloomington/Normal area and this was the first time to my knowledge that the event was held at EIU. The conference is setup by students for students and gives K12 students the opportunity to share their knowledge and skills with one another. We had several volunteer student presenters present on various technology topics as well as some adult experts presenting on topics such as making music on your computer and a session called computer guts, where students could learn more about what makes a computer work. Our School of Continuing Education organized this years event and did a great job.

We had an excellent turn out of over one-hundred and twenty K12 students participating in this years event. With a wide range of student ages ranging from 3rd graders to high school students I presented a talk called “We Live in Amazing Times” to share some of the history of computing that has occurred in my lifetime and how those trends will continue for the student participants as they grow older and experience their own amazing times ahead as technology evolves and improves in the future. Here is the recorded audio from the opening session.

http://www.sitconference.org/ SIT

Session Transcript coming soon….

We Live in AMAZING Times PowerPoint Presentation (PDF)
http://eiu.edu/techtalk/We Live in AMAZING Times_02122011PDF.pdf

We Live in Amazing Times PowerPoint (PDF) Alright, that was the talk I gave at the SIT Conference held on Saturday February 12, 2011 here on the campus of Eastern Illinois University. It was interesting talking to some of the students throughout the day about their understanding of technology and where they think it is going in the future. First I had to come to grips with the fact that we now have elementary students in school that were born in the 21st Century and will never have any first-hand experience at all with 20th Century technology and culture.

As we teach we must reach into the future world our students will live in but also provide a solid background of fundamental concepts and enduring truths. The students did get a kick out of the 30 pound laptop that I demonstrated but could not believe that such a device ever existed or that people would actually use one. I had a conversation with one of the students who observed that the Kindle ebook reader I demonstrated used less energy to turn to the page due to the e-ink technology that the Kindle uses. We need to encourage such thinking and curiosity as we need a lot more green energy development in the future to make devices as power efficient as possible.

Several students were very interested in how to make computer music and the conference had a session just for that. Many of the students were interested in the Microsoft Kinect and expressed interest in finding ways to use it including computer gaming and new uses not yet invented. There were sessions on Robotics, Facebook Privacy, Technology and TV News, Social Networking Safety, Flash Animation and many more. I remember the days of elementary and middle school where I would take things apart just to see how they worked. The challenge was always putting it back together so it would work again. This de-construction and re-construction is necessary to learn more about the way things work. Our students today need the opportunities like this to learn in a safe and constructive environment where the hands-on / minds-on experience of making things is encouraged.

Whether it be computer projects like creating computer generated music, drawing cartoons using Flash animation, or producing their own TV shows project-based learning activities are fun and the learning lasts over time. These types of projects and opportunities are where children make quantum leaps in their knowledge and understanding. It was a fun day and everyone learned something new.

IBM Watson

As a follow-up to the amazing times talk I gave at the conference I want to mention IBM Watson this month. The Watson Jeopardy show aired the week after I gave my presentation to the students but I hope that teachers across the nation took some time this month to discuss this amazing mile-marker in the evolution of technology. The IBM computer called Watson, named after IBM’s first President Thomas Watson, matched the abilities of two of the smartest humans in the world in a game of Jeopardy. The computer was up against the two best Jeopardy players in the world. Ken Jennings the 74 time undefeated champion of Jeopardy and Brad Rutter. Watson won the game with a total of $77,147 to Ken Jennings $24,000 and Brad Rutters $21,600 over a two day period.

It really was quite an impressive feat. I have provided a link in the show notes to a PBS NewsHour article complete with a series of videos about the behind the scenes story of IBM Watson and how scientist are working on the next generation of artificial intelligence.

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/2011/02/watson-wins-ibms-machine-rages-against-jeopardy-champs.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watson_(artificial_intelligence_software)

Smart Phones Outpace Sales of Computers
http://ca.news.yahoo.com/smartphones-tablets-sell-personal-computers-2011-deloitte-trends-20110118-054249-075.html

Alright, that was the talk I gave at the SIT Conference held on Saturday February 12, 2011 here on the campus of Eastern Illinois University. It was interesting talking to some of the students throughout the day about their understanding of technology and where they think it is going in the future.

First I had to come to grips with the fact that we now have elementary students in school that were born in the 21st Century and will never have any first-hand experience at all with 20th Century technology and culture.

As we teach we must reach into the future world our students will live in but also provide a solid background of fundamental concepts and enduring truths. The students did get a kick out of the 30 pound laptop that I demonstrated but could not believe that such a device ever existed or that people would actually use one.

I had a conversation with one of the students who observed that the Kindle ebook reader I demonstrated used less energy to turn to the page due to the e-ink technology that the Kindle uses. We need to encourage such thinking and curiosity as we need a lot more green energy development in the future to make devices as power efficient as possible.

Several students were very interested in how to make computer music and the conference had a session just for that. Many of the students were interested in the Microsoft Kinect and expressed interest in finding ways to use it including computer gaming and new uses not yet invented.

There were sessions on Robotics, Facebook Privacy, Technology and TV News, Social Networking Safety, Flash Animation and many more. I remember the days of elementary and middle school where I would take things apart just to see how they worked. The challenge was always putting it back together so it would work again. This de-construction and re-construction is necessary to learn more about the way things work.

Our students today need the opportunities like this to learn in a safe and constructive environment where the hands-on / minds-on experience of making things is encouraged. Whether it be computer projects like creating computer generated music, drawing cartoons using Flash animation, or producing their own TV shows project-based learning activities are fun and the learning lasts over time. These types of projects and opportunities are where children make quantum leaps in their knowledge and understanding. It was a fun day and everyone learned something new.

IBM Watson
As a follow-up to the amazing times talk I gave at the conference I want to mention IBM Watson this month. The Watson Jeopardy show aired the week after I gave my presentation to the students but I hope that teachers across the nation took some time this month to discuss this amazing mile-marker in the evolution of technology. The IBM computer called Watson, named after IBM’s first President Thomas Watson, matched the abilities of two of the smartest humans in the world in a game of Jeopardy. The computer was up against the two best Jeopardy players in the world. Ken Jennings the 74 time undefeated champion of Jeopardy and Brad Rutter. Watson won the game with a total of $77,147 to Ken Jennings $24,000 and Brad Rutters $21,600 over a two day period. It really was quite an impressive feat.

I have provided a link in the show notes to a PBS NewsHour article complete with a series of videos about the behind the scenes story of IBM Watson and how scientist are working on the next generation of artificial intelligence.

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/2011/02/watson-wins-ibms-machine-rages-against-jeopardy-champs.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watson_(artificial_intelligence_software)
Here is a question for you, after reviewing the videos do you call Watson a he or an it?

Technology Pick of the Week

My Technology Pick of the Week this week is a new smart phone app that I mentioned in the SIT keynote presentation called Google Translate. I really do believe that the Smart Phones that are coming on to the market today mark a similar point in history as the Altair and first Personal Computers in the 1970’s did for my generation. Smart phones are evolving very rapidly and are now being paired with cloud computing services that make the mobile devices as powerful as the mainframe computers not so long ago. In fact, they are increasingly being connected to mainframe type computers by high-speed wireless connections to take advantage of massive amounts of computing power that was previously impossible for the average person to access. All of this computing power is now in a cell phone sized device that many of our students carry with them all the time.

I have provided links in the show notes to the Google Blog that discusses Google Translate program as well as a YouTube video of a Google Translate demonstration. In the YouTube Video you will see an example of where a person that speaks English wants to buy a pair of shoes in Germany. The English speaker says that they want to buy a pair of shoes and then the Google Translate app that is now available on Android translates the English sentence into German. That’s pretty cool but in the next part of the video the German store keeper speaks into the Android phone in German and it is translated from German into English so that the English speaker can understand his answer.

Conversation Mode for Google Translate on Android (Blog)
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/01/new-look-for-google-translate-for.html

You Tube Video of Conversation Mode in Google Translate
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DtMfdNeGXgM&feature=player_embedded#t=26m24s

Translate supports 53 languages, from Afrikaans to Yiddish, and voice input is currently available for 15 languages with more sure to come in the future.
Yes, translate does make mistakes from time to time but this really is absolutely amazing technology. We are getting closer to the Universal Translater that was used on so many episodes of Star Trek I watched while growing up, science-fiction is becoming a reality.

That wraps it up for episode 117 of TechTalk4Teachers. Show notes for this episode and archived episodes are available on the web at the EIU Instructional Technology Center website at eiu.edu/itc To leave a comment or suggestion, please send an email to techtalk@eiu.edu or leave a comment on the Tech Talk for Teachers blog. Until next time, this is Tom Grissom, keep on learning…

Episode 116 – Do not shutoff my Internet and the Four Horsemen

2011-01-31T06:28:00.000-08:00

It’s Monday January 31st, 2011 and welcome to episode 116 of TechTalk4Teachers, I’m Tom Grissom. Another month has gone by since the last podcast and the world has changed once again.

Right Click Here to Download MP3
(10 minutes 10 seconds)

This past month has witnessed protests in Tunisia and Egypt in attempts to oust the current dictatorial governments. Social media has played a huge role in these protests, so much so that the government of Egypt has cut-off cell phone and Internet service in the country in an attempt to disrupt protestors. Organizers of the protests were using Facebook and Twitter prior to the Internet cutoff to coordinate protests, so, the government made the decision to turn off the Internet switch. As of the time of this podcast some cell phone coverage has been restored but there is still no Internet access in Egypt. This is a very fluid situation and it is unclear whether President Mubarak will remain as the leader of Egypt as of the time of this posting. Tunisia was successful in their attempts to depose the Tunisian dictator but it did not come without the loss if life. Current events are always unpredictable but offer educators the opportunity to talk about democracy and what life is like in other countries.

http://www.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/africa/01/14/tunisia.protests/index.html

Modern communications technologies have allowed for instant communication on a world-wide scale. It is a bit disconcerting, but not surprising, that any country can just turn off a switch to disrupt communications in the face of a crisis. One reason the Internet has been so successful on a global scale is that it was designed to be very robust with the capability of re-routing information if needed.

http://www.maximumpc.com/article/news/how_egypts_internet_kill_switch_works

The Internet was born in 1969 as part of the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency as a way to build a communications network that could communicate with other networks through internetwork packet-switching.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Internet

The idea was that if one part of the communications network went down for some reason the rest of the network would remain operational and find an alternative path if possible. That works well as long as the network node you want to communicate with is alive but if you cannot access devices on a portion of the network you are out of luck. In essence this is what has happened in Egypt as their Internet has gone dark while the rest of the worlds Internet access remains functional. That is a good thing unless you happen to live in Egypt where you are directly impacted by the blackout.

Network engineers have worked very hard on building a reliable networking infrastructure that is capable of routing around problem areas where congestion occurs or access is unavailable. If the pathway to a specific device is unavailable then there is no communication possible unless a redundant pathway is established.

Egypt finds itself in the midst of protests with no Internet communications possible because the portion that serves Egypt has been shutdown. It is a tragic situation and one that we can only hope will be resolved peacefully.

http://www.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/africa/01/30/egypt.what.next/index.html

The Internet has become so successful that we are experiencing growing pains as there is now a coming crisis of not having enough Internet IP addresses to add more computers and devices to the Internet. With the explosion of smart phones that are capable of connecting to the Internet we are nearing the exhaustion of IPv4 addresses. Do not worry as there is a plan to move from IP Version 4 to IP Version 6 that will solve this problem but it does mean that the Internet infrastructure will need some revamping to accommodate the new format. I have provided a link from a PCMag article if you would like to know more about this upcoming change due to growing pains on the Internet:

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2376887,00.asp

The Four Horsemen

In other news this month the world of technology witnessed changes for two of the four leaders from what has become known as the four horsemen of the technology industry. Leaders at Apple and Google have had a change in status at their respective companies this month. The so called four horsemen of the tech industry change from time to time but it is not hard to argue that Google, Apple, Microsoft, and Intel have been on this list in recent years.

Steve Jobs, the CEO of Apple, has taken a leave of absence due to health concerns and Eric Schmidt of Google has stepped down as the CEO of Google as part of a corporate restructuring. Schmidt will remain as part of the management team along with Sergey Brin and Larry Page at Google. It remains to be seen what changes the announcements may have on the future business of these tech titans but both announcements caught the tech world by surprise this month.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/157088/steve_jobs_to_step_down_temporarily_as_apples_ceo_for_health_reasons.html

http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/google_ceo_eric_schmidt_steps_down_larry_page_take.php

Steve Ballmer of Microsoft is also making some executive changes at the top with the replacement of Bob Muglia, head of the Server Business Unit at Microsoft. At Intel, CEO Paul Otellini , is also facing changes with Microsoft possibly porting its next version of Windows to the ARM architecture. The Intel architecture that Microsoft has supported exclusively for years will likely face some competition with the ARM architecture.

With so much of a shakeup at the worlds largest tech companies the world is changing once again.
January also marks the time when these companies announce their quarterly earnings reports and all four of these horsemen recently reported record years and are riding high on the horse. A link is provided in the show notes if you are interested in reading the Press Releases regarding the recent quarterly earnings from these companies. You can really learn a lot about these companies from these press release statements:

Microsoft Reports Record $0.77 Earnings Per Share in Second Quarter
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2011/jan11/01-27fy11q2earningspr.mspx

Apple Reports First Quarter Results
http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2011/01/18results.html

Google Announces Fourth Quarter and Fiscal Year 2010 Results and Management Changes
http://investor.google.com/earnings/2010/Q4_google_earnings.html

Intel Reports Record Year and Record Fourth Quarter
http://newsroom.intel.com/community/intel_newsroom/blog/2011/01/13/intel-reports-record-year-and-record-fourth-quarter

I scanned the reports for information and if I did my math correctly these four companies had just short of 67 billion in revenue with over 18 billion dollars of that being net income. And this is just for the QUARTERLY results! For the average person that is an almost inconceivable amount of income.

What is net income?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_income

The four horsemen of Apple, Google, Microsoft, and Intel have a tremendous impact upon the lives of millions of people every single day.

Technology Pick of the Week

My Technology Pick of the Week this week is a free ebook reading program that is cross-platform. Calibre will run on Windows, Macs, and Linux and is an open source ebook reader / management program. I am pronouncing it (Caliber) ~~Calibre~~ as that is the way that Kovid Goyal, the creator of the program, pronounces it. I have heard several people call it “Calibre” but I will honor the creator of the program and call it Calibre here. I have provided links in the shownotes to the Download site as well as an introductory video of its capabilities that is worth a watch if you want to know more about this free ebook reader.

Calibre open source ebook reader

http://calibre-ebook.com/

What I like about Calibre is its cross-platform support as well as the support for the majority of ebook formats. The two most popular formats being EPUB that the Barnes and Noble nook uses and the MOBI format the Amazon Kindle uses. The only catch is that Calibre will not work with all ebooks due to Digital Rights Management issues, also known as DRM. DRM is currently used on the Nook, Kindle, and other ebook readers in efforts to keep electronic books from being pirated.

It feels like we have seen this song and dance before as publishers are using proprietary DRM formats to protect content to the detriment of consumers. If you lived through the transition of digital music from CD’s to downloadable MP3’s you can unfortunately expect a similar experience with ebooks. When Apple came out with iTunes the music Apple sold was protected by DRM. DRM uses proprietary software that may lock you into a particular device, in the case of Apple it is the iPod/iPhone. If you want to use another MP3 player you could not if the music was DRMd to a particular device.

The music industry has gradually limited DRM and much music today can now be purchased without DRM. A negative of buying digital copies is that if the service decides to change the format the consumer may be forced to buy the content again in the “new and improved format”. This happened with Apple at one point where consumers were faced with re-buying songs they already purchased if they wanted to buy a higher quality version of songs.

Coming off this history I do not want to repeat the mistakes of the past but I find myself in a similar spot with the current state of ebooks. Having lived through the messy world of DRM music I now find myself in the DRM ebook world. It will be a while, maybe never, but I dream of a day that I could read a book I purchased on Amazon in the Kindle format and read it on a Barnes and Noble Nook, or read it using some open source program such as Calibre or in my Google ebooks folder. Right now the solution is to lock into a particular format or buy the old fashioned paper-based version of the book, currently I am using the Kindle format for purchased ebooks but Google offers the advantage of access from an inclusive gmail account. Then there is the iPad and the slew of Android tablets that support ebooks. Hmmm, choices.

How about you, are you using ebooks? Are you finding any barriers with using ebooks in schools? I would love to hear from you so please send me an email to techtalk@eiu.edu or better yet record your question or comment in a sound file, keep it brief and to the point and send it to me as an email attachment. Selected comments will be shared on the next episode and played on air if you send in an audio comment. One thing I think we educators need to do more of is to comment on each others blogs, wikis, and podcasts to share more with one another by participating in the content we use. When was the last time you posted a comment or participated on a podcast?

That wraps it up for episode 116 of TechTalk4Teachers. Show notes for this episode and archived episodes are available on the web at the EIU Instructional Technology Center website at eiu.edu/itc To leave a comment or suggestion, please send an email to techtalk@eiu.edu or leave a comment on the Tech Talk for Teachers blog. Until next time, this is Tom Grissom, keep on learning…

Episode 115 - To the Cloud

2010-12-31T14:31:00.000-08:00

It’s Friday, December 31st, 2010 and welcome to episode 115 of TechTalk4Teachers, I’m Tom Grissom. It’s the last day of the year and the last day of the first decade of the 21st Century. We have heard a lot about the 21st Century education over the past decade and now perhaps we can finally put to bed the rhetoric of what skills a 21st Century educator should possess.

Right Click Here to Download MP3
(16 minutes 22 seconds)

Looking back over the past ten years has proven to be just as exciting as the decade of the 1990’s when the public Internet was born. The 1990’s witnessed a blistering pace of innovation as the .com boom got into full swing. The 2000’s have enjoyed an equal dose of innovation and I am sure we will see similar growth and innovations over the coming decade.

Plain and simple, the number one skill a person needs to have in this day and age is the ability to adapt to change because change is guaranteed to happen. In order to adapt we need to know how to learn, un-learn and re-learn while holding onto our values and what we deem important so we educators still have a lot of work ahead of us.

The past ten years have witnessed a plethora of next generation Internet services known as Web 2.0 and many have become household names. Maybe you can recognize a few them from this list; Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, Skype, YouTube, Flickr, Wikipedia, WordPress, and Delicious to name just a few. How many did you recognize? Every single one of these services did not exist at the beginning of this past decade. Today many of us take for granted iPods, iTunes, mobile phones with apps and Internet access, podcasts like this one, and many of the free Web 2.0 services that did not exist a decade ago.

Like many tech savvy educators I use Twitter and Delicious nearly every day as I find them very valuable to have as part of my professional toolkit and best of all both services are free. Twitter is growing and now has nearly 200 million users and is still going strong. Delicious on the other hand has a questionable future as Yahoo announced this month that Delicious was on the list of sites that the company was considering shutting down and/or selling.

The Twitter business model is still evolving but it is safe to say that Twitter like many other Web 2.0 companies need a revenue model to succeed in the long term, otherwise they too may find themselves in the predicament that Delicious now finds itself in. There is no such thing as a free lunch and many free Web 2.0 services have come and gone over the past decade. Many are supported by advertising dollars and some like Ning have moved to a paid model in order to survive.

Yahoo purchased Delicious in 2005 and I have been using this social bookmarking service since its inception. The fate of Delicious is still unclear at this time but many users of the service have begun the move to a similar social bookmarking service called Diigo. I have provided a link in the show notes to an article that describes the process of moving your bookmarks from Delicious to Diigo if you are a Delicious user and find yourself in this current state of uncertainty.

http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/38733/delicious-is-shutting-down.-heres-how-to-migrate-to-diigo-instead/

I love Delicious for its drop dead simplicity as well as the ability to subscribe to bookmark tags and share with others. I have already exported my bookmarks to my local computer and will be transferring them to Diigo in the coming days but I have not given up hope that Delicious may be reincarnated by another company that will buy Delicious and continue the service, hello Google are you listening?

Google is one of those companies that has flourished this past decade. Google began as a research project by Sergey Brin and Larry Page in 1996 while PhD students at Stanford University. While no one can doubt the success Google has enjoyed as the search engine of choice that most of the world uses the company has not been content to rest on its laurels. Here are just a few of the additions Google has made over the past decade.

Blogger – 2003
Gmail - 2004
Google Earth -2005
Google Docs - 2006
YouTube – 2006
Android Open Handset Alliance - 2007
Google Chrome Browser - 2008

Google Chrome OS – 2009
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/07/introducing-google-chrome-os.html

Google CR-48 Notebook - 2010
http://www.google.com/chromeos/pilot-program-cr48.html

Not a bad decade of innovation for Google and they are poised to go head to head with Apple and the iDevices portfolio of products and services in the coming decade.

Speaking of Apple this decade has witnessed a revitalization of Apples product line and services and Apple has also racked up an impressive portfolio of innovations. Apple introduced the first generation of the iPod and OS X in 2001, created the iTunes service in 2003, introduced the iPhone in 2007, created the App Store in 2008, and introduced the iPad this year in 2010. Apple has relied upon a closed system approach that has proven very successful and has set the stage for the coming decade to witness many battles between the open model of Google versus the proprietary model of Apple.

Don’t forget there is another horse in this race to the future, Microsoft. Before you get to feeling too sorry for Microsoft remember that the older desktop/laptop model is still doing fine. Even with the recent recession the computer industry is set to sell one million PC’s each and every DAY this year and Microsoft still has a world-wide market share of over 90 percent.

http://www.zdnet.co.uk/blogs/jacks-blog-10017212/while-pc-shipments-will-grow-to-a-million-per-day-netbooks-are-in-decline-10018477/

Microsoft’s search engine Bing is also growing and while late to market Bing has a US market share of nearly 12 percent.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-20025890-93.html

Microsoft also has a strong and burgeoning software as a service model that fits in nicely with cloud computing. This year Microsoft has bolstered their Office Web Apps product that provides a more attractive interface than their Google Apps competitor and has partnered with FaceBook and created the docs.com service with access to more than 500 million FaceBook users. Microsoft is also innovating with its new Windows Phone 7 mobile operating system and is taking a very different approach than Apples iPhone and Googles Android phones.

There is also a dark horse in this race that I think we educators need to take a closer look at for the upcoming decade, open source. Open source alternatives have the potential to save schools and universities millions of dollars. Google is basing a lot of their innovations on open source products like Android that is based upon an open source Linux kernel. Apple’s OSX is even based upon BSD Unix which is an open source operating system that Apple adapted for their own needs. If Google and Apple can adapt open source software for corporate use I think we educators can adapt many open source resources to benefit our needs at little to no cost. The coming decade will provide educators with just such an opportunity as many of the pieces are now in place to become more independent including open source software, broadband delivery networks, ebooks, audio and video podcasts, and creative commons resources and content that are constantly being developed for the common good.

As we head into this next decade ask yourself, what am I doing to contribute to society to make this world a better place? Never before have so many people had the opportunity to create and share their passions with the world. This model is very different from corporate America but the tools and infrastructure now exist for one person to change the world. The economies of scale are eliminating many business models and we are ending up with larger and larger companies as industries consolidate. But this consolidation has also opened opportunities for individuals and small groups to contribute to society in ways that were previously very difficult to scale. We are living in a time when bits and bytes are becoming the currency of consumption and broadband access will increasingly become more important to the quality of services offered. What is offered and consumed is up to us.

The past decade has been a march to the cloud and has culminated with the CR-48 notebook that Google announced earlier this month as part of their vision for the future. The CR-48 notebook uses the new Google Chrome operating system which basically is a streamlined browser where you do all of your work on a low-cost laptop. Obviously you must be connected to the Internet to use the CR-48 notebook since you are using the browser to access your work. All your programs and files are accessed and stored in the cloud. If you have an always-on and reliable Internet access this model has a lot of promise, however at this moment connectivity is still the weak link for this model as coverage areas are still spotty and connectivity costs remain too high for widespread adoption bhy the masses… but it is a step in the right direction.

Google CR-48 Pilot Program
http://www.google.com/chromeos/pilot-program-cr48.html

The current PC model is getting long in the tooth and the constant updates and patches require a lot of overhead and maintenance. This is true for both PCs and Macs as new updates occur on a weekly basis on both platforms. If you have iTunes loaded on your computer you know what I mean. As we move to having multiple devices per person such as a desktop PC, a laptop, a slate device, and a mobile phone managing and securing multiple devices will become even more onerous. That is why I think the CR-48 is a step in the right direction but it will also need to have a more robust offline capability for those times where Internet access is either slow or non-existent. But, as soon as you add the offline ability you are going back to the PC model and adding complexity to the operating system so there will be some growing pains as the CR-48 project evolves.

The computer industry has witnessed several paradigm changes as innovations have offered new possibilities. Computers began as mainframes in the 1940’s and 50’s requiring huge rooms to operate, next came mini-computers in the 1960’s, Personal Computers in the 1970’s, Servers and Local Area Networks in the 1980’s, the Internet in the 1990’s, and Web 2.0 in the 2000’s. The 2010’s are poised for the continuing the move to cloud computing as miniaturization continues. Increased processing power in smaller packages and broadband connectivity now make it possible for mobile devices to become full-fledged computers in their own right.

This all is not without risks as putting all your eggs in one basket has never been a good idea in computing. One reason the PC took off was that it gave users the freedom and independence to be off the mainframe computer, when the mainframe went down so too did all the work and productivity. We now appear to be heading back to a more mainframe type environment in the cloud. There will be problems and outages in the future so we need to prepare ourselves in the event of such outages. The Cardinal Rule of computing is to always have a backup of your data and in the brave new world of cloud computing you will also need to be prepared if something happens in the cloud, just as you are today if something happens to your PC. Having a Plan B is always required when it comes to technology. It remains to be seen if the wireless broadband infrastructure can become ubiquitous, reliable, secure, and affordable enough for ALL people to move to the cloud. The next decade is going to be interesting.

Technology Pick of the Week

My Technology Pick of the Week this week is a new service from Google called Google ebooks. The competition for digital resources is fierce as Google is now taking on Amazon, Apple, Barnes and Noble, and other brick and mortar bookstores directly with their newly announced ebookstore. A link is available in the show notes to the Google ebookstore along with a short video segment introducing the new service.

Google ebookstore
http://books.google.com/ebooks

It’s time to set your reading free (video)
http://books.google.com/help/ebooks/overview.html

You may remember that Google was a key player in Project Gutenberg as Google digitized millions of pages of older books that were out of copyright. Now Google is making deals with publishers as well as having access to over 3 million titles thanks to resources like Project Gutenberg. Believe it or not ebooks were invented in 1971 by Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg.

Project Gutenberg
http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Main_Page

About Project Gutenberg
http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Gutenberg:About

Google is entering a crowded space and is facing major competition from some pretty big players that have a head start on Google.

Amazon is banking on their Kindle platform to deliver ebooks to consumers and is supporting a wide variety of devices including their own Kindle ebook reader device, Kindle for PC, Kindle for Mac, Kindle for iPhone/iPad, Kindle for Android, Kindle for Blackberry, Kindle for Windows Phone 7, and Amazon recently announced the beta version of Kindle for the Web that frees you from having to have specific devices to read your ebooks. Amazon announced this month that the Kindle device has become the #1 best seller of all time for the company. Amazon also quietly announced that you can now lend ebooks to your friends for a period of up to two weeks. The people you lend to do not have to have a Kindle and the owner of the ebook does not have access to the ebook while it is on loan. A link is in the shownotes for more information about lending Kindle ebooks.

Kindle ebook Lending
http://www.digitaltrends.com/gadgets/amazon-introduces-kindle-ebook-lending/

Not to be out done by Amazon Barnes and Noble announced this week that their ebook reader “the Nook” became their best selling item in the company’s 40 year history. The Nook already featured a way to lend books to your friends so the Kindle is playing catch up in this area.

http://www.informationweek.com/news/smb/ebusiness/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=228900212&cid=RSSfeed_IWK_All#

Apple is banking on the iTunes App Store and the iBooks model as their deployment platform of choice. You can read ebooks on your iPod, iPhone, and iPad with ebook apps and purchase books directly from the Apple iBookstore.

Apple iBookstore
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/ibooks/id364709193?mt=8

There are many issues as we make this transition to ebooks. In researching the notes for todays show I ran across an article from 2005 from Library Issues that provides an overview of the then Google Digitization project and some of the issues libraries are facing in moving to ebooks. As you probably know copyrights remain a big sticking point with making copyrighted works available in an electronic format.

Google's Digitization Project — What Difference Will it Make?
http://www.libraryissues.com/sub/LI250004.asp

The current state of ebooks is a microcosm of what the next decade will have in store for us. Goliath companies like Google, Apple, Amazon, and others are in a gold rush for obtaining access and rights to content so that it may be digitized and monetized in the spirit of capitalism. The content, the devices, and the bits and bytes required for delivery all have monetary value and companies will make money in each of these three major areas.

Other smaller David-like organizations like Project Gutenberg rely upon volunteers and have in their mission to provide content to the masses in as free and low-cost manner as possible. The truth will most likely fall somewhere in the middle as these things sort themselves out over the coming decade. The good news for educators is that we have the opportunity to build and share this content and distribute it in the methods of our choosing and this is a good thing.

That wraps it up for episode 115 of TechTalk4Teachers. Show notes for this episode and archived episodes are available on the web at the EIU Instructional Technology Center website at eiu.edu/itc To leave a comment or suggestion, please send an email to techtalk@eiu.edu or leave a comment on the Tech Talk for Teachers blog. Until next time, this is Tom Grissom. Have a Happy New Year and most of all keep on learning…

Episode 114 - Outside the Education Bubble

2010-11-30T08:16:00.000-08:00

It’s Tuesday, November 30th, 2010 and welcome to episode 114 of TechTalk4Teachers, I’m Tom Grissom. We are back from a week long Thanksgiving break where I was lucky enough to take a technology holiday and managed to have a solid week of no online activities for the first time since I can remember. I hope those of you in the U.S. also had an enjoyable Thanksgiving break and found some time to reflect on all the blessings we have as Americans. One of those blessings for me is a great public education.

Right Click Here to Download MP3
(10 minutes 11 seconds)

It has been a very busy November here in our college as we are ¾ of the way through the fall semester. We also had our NCATE Accreditation site visit this month that involved all teacher education faculty, staff, and students and we are now awaiting the official report. Accreditation is very important for teacher education programs as it provides mechanisms for measuring and assuring quality programs that benefit our students. As the technology person in our college I was extremely involved in the preparation for the site visit including webmaster duties and committee work over multiple years. After such a busy month I was ready for a bit of a break.

I had some home remodeling work to do last week so I was occupied the entire time with a lot of hard physical work. I made it a point NOT to go online but rather take a break from all the high-tech I experience daily. I come back to work refreshed and with a new perspective along with some aching muscles that I forgot that I had until they reminded me. Those of us in the education field, especially those of us involved with educational technologies, have a tendency to see things through the filter of our own work and often live in the moment of now. We can’t wait for the next greatest thing to come along and tell the world about and how this changes everything. Too often we live in the bubble of our career choice and forget that others may not share our excitement for the next greatest thing that comes along.

Sometimes other technologies catch my eye that are not directly related to education but their underpinnings have great educational potential if harvested and directed in a focused and purposeful manner. Computer gaming is one of those areas that often leads in technological innovation but may take a while to find appropriate uses in the classroom.

Before I left for Thanksgiving break I came across this stat about the xBox 360 game, Call of Duty - Black Ops that sold $360 million dollars in the first 24 hours of going on sale. This is quite an impressive feat for a computer game title. Even more impressive is that it kept up the momentum and reached had $650 million in sales by the end of the first week. I would say this is an unqualified success and I would wager that few educators paid any attention to this news at all as it is typically outside their bubble of concern. Today the computer gaming industry rivals the movie industry and each release is a high-stakes gamble to see if new titles will find success in the market.

http://www.digitaltrends.com/gaming/call-of-duty-black-ops-sets-sales-record-of-360-million/

http://news.softpedia.com/news/Call-of-Duty-Black-Ops-Sets-650-Million-Dollar-Sales-Record-in-Five-Days-167451.shtml

So, what does this little side trip have to do with TechTalk4Teachers? First, computer gaming has always had a role in education and often pushes the technological envelope for action and engagement. Games provide for immediate and formative feedback that allows the player to continually improve their skill levels as they reach new levels of the game. Games, when well constructed, follow sound instructional design principles. While Call of Duty Black Ops is rated as a mature game and not appropriate for children the creators have found a balance of storyline, amazing graphics, and a multiplayer mode that immerses the player in the action.
What got me thinking about this over break was the movie, “Waiting for Superman” that caused quite a stir in educational circles back in September and October. On Twitter the tweets were flying around the Waiting for Superman movie and what it meant for public education.

Waiting for Superman website
http://www.waitingforsuperman.com/

Waiting for Superman was produced by award winning documentary film maker Davis Guggenheim who also directed An Inconvenient Truth, the documentary about Al Gore’s message on global warming. The movie Waiting for Superman focuses on the failing public education system and the charter school movement.

Back in late September NBC hosted a “special” week devoted to education and how public schools are failing. The NBC education week showcased the movie Waiting for Superman for the entire week using it as a center piece for town hall style meetings regarding the woes of current state of public education in the U.S. It was unfortunate that the scope of the conversation was focused around the movie and obviously served as free PR at the expense of many other voices in public education that have a great story to tell. Public education is an easy amorphous target that gets beat up regularly in the media. Public education is also a shining light that has the noble goal of educating ALL children regardless of race, creed, disability, or socioeconomic status.

So, if you are an educator did you hear about the Waiting for Superman movie? Did you watch it? Maybe I am living inside the education bubble but I know many colleagues have. Now, next question, did you hear about the new Call of Duty – Black Ops game released this month? Chances are you did not. I did not see any TV advertisements or any week-long series on major TV networks promoting the game either.

So given the obvious importance of public education for the nation you would think that a documentary movie about public education that has consequences for generations to come and has been hyped by all the major television networks, Oprah, and magazine coverage in Time and the New Yorker; you would surely think the movie would garner enough interest to be a major financial success at the theatres, right?

It depends in which bubble you are living in and your definition of success. As far as dollar sales goes it is no contest, Call of Duty wins by a landslide. Want to guess how many millions in sales Waiting for Superman has sold to date? Remember, Call of Duty – Black Ops raked in $650 million in sales the first week. So what is your guess for total box office sales for Waiting for Superman? According to boxofficemojo.com Waiting for Superman has sold 6.2 million dollars in tickets to date in a little over 2 months. It just amazes me that there is that much difference after a massive PR campaign to get the word out about the movie.

http://boxofficemojo.com/movies/?page=daily&id=waitingforsuperman.htm

So we have a First Person Shooter (FPS) game rated for mature audiences that has a 100 fold advantage in sales over a documentary movie on public education that may have important implications for public education policy. That in a nutshell is what educators are up against in trying to have meaningful dialogue about the state of public education, we are often drowned out by what is occurring in other “bubbles”.

I felt that there needed to be a little more balance to NBC’s education week coverage but unfortunately discussing the important and deeper implications of improving public education apparently does not make for good TV. Public education is however critical to the success of our nation. I have included a link in the show notes to an article that Diane Ravitch recently published entitled The Myth of Charter Schools that I believe deserves equal promotion to the documentary movie Waiting for Superman. Her conclusion, as is mine, is that no child should have to wait and win a lottery for a top-quality educational experience. Superman should not sell lottery tickets.

The Myth of Charter Schools by Diane Ravitch
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2010/nov/11/myth-charter-schools/?pagination=false

Technology Pick of the Week
My Technology Pick of the Week this week also has to do with computer gaming and is the new xBox360 Kinect Gaming system that features a sensor that responds to your presence in the room. You essentially become the controller. This technology is in its infancy but already people are hacking the Kinect system and coming up with some interesting applications that I am sure Microsoft did not envision.

I have provided a link in the show notes to an article from PCMag that has embedded videos showing some of the Kinect hacks from YouTube.

Video: Five Coolest Kinect Hacks
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2373505,00.asp

I know this is an audio podcast but I encourage you to visit the show notes and go to the provided links about Kinect. The first two videos listed are my favorites. In the first video is labeled Super Mario Kinect where the Kinect is hacked to put you in a Mario game where your actions are replicated on the screen. You can run, jump, lean, and shuffle your way up the various levels of the game as your Mario character mimics your moves. If this technology becomes perfected it may just be the cure for the video game culture of being a couch potato and not exercising because this game can wear you out in a hurry.

The second video labeled Star Wars Kinect shows how the creator of the hack moves a broom handle around the room and it magically appears as a Star Wars light saber on the screen. Imagine the gaming possibilities that you could do with this hack. The Kinect interface is bridging the virtual and real world in a way that we have not seen to date. If you have some time take a look at the YouTube videos and I think you will be impressed with the possibilities.

Speaking of YouTube I have one more shameless plug to share with you as my Technology Pick of the Week. I recently posted a series of four videos on the ITC YouTube Channel about the Basics of Using the Smart Notebook Version 10.6 with a Smart Board. You can visit the ITC YouTube Channel at youtube.com/eiuitc I have also provided a links to the Smart Board how-to videos on the ITC YouTube Channel in the show notes, if you use a Smart Board be sure to check them out.

ITC Youtube Channel
http://www.youtube.com/eiuitc

That wraps it up for episode 114 of TechTalk4Teachers. Show notes for this episode and archived episodes are available on the web at the EIU Instructional Technology Center website at eiu.edu/itc To leave a comment or suggestion, please send an email to techtalk@eiu.edu or leave a comment on the Tech Talk for Teachers blog. Until next time, this is Tom Grissom. Keep on learning…

Episode 113 - Gone Phishing

2010-10-28T11:50:00.000-07:00

It’s Thursday October 28th, 2010 and welcome to episode 113 of TechTalk4Teachers, I’m Tom Grissom and I’m Adam Dodge. With me today in the studio is Adam Dodge who is here to talk more about Information Technology security. Back in August we invited Adam to talk about the importance of userids and strong passwords. Since October is Cyber Security Awareness month I thought we would invite Adam back for more information about protecting all of the IT resources we all come to rely upon daily.

Right Click Here to Download MP3
(25 minutes 11 seconds)

Links mentioned in this episode:

Antiphishing Working Group - http://www.antiphishing.org

OnGuardOnline - www.onguardonline.gov

National Cyber Security Alliance - www.staysafeonline.org

Facebook Security - www.facebook.com/security

Campus Downloading - www.campusdownloading.com

Technology Pick of the Week

For my Technology Pick of the Week this week I am recommending that you take a look at a new feature in Google Docs, in particular Google spreadsheets that is called Chart Editor that was announced earlier this week. A link is a available in the show notes to the Google Docs blog that features a video of what the new Chart Editor can do. Please give it a watch to see all the new features this tool offers.

http://googledocs.blogspot.com/2010/10/using-new-visualizations-to-tell-your.html

Most exciting to the visual learner is a feature called motion chart that allows you to visualize data over time by creating a mini-movie of the chart. When I first watched the video overview it reminded me a lot of another presentation I watched way back in 2006 from the TED Talks series by Hans Rosling entitled “Hans Rosling shows you the best stats you’ve ever seen”. I also highly recommend you watch this TED video and even though it is approaching 4 years old, the data lovers of us will smile at his presentation. It is one thing to see data in the common boring tabular data style of columns and rows and another thing to see the data come alive and move overtime. This allows you to see trends you never knew were there, a pretty powerful learning tool. The new chart editor is not as sophisticated as the Hans Rosling presentation but it is the first time I have seen the chart motion feature in a freely available Web 2.0 tool like Google Docs. A link is provided in the show notes to the Hans Rosling video.

TED Video: Hans Rosling shows you the best stats you’ve ever seen
http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_shows_the_best_stats_you_ve_ever_seen.html

That wraps it up for episode 113 of Tech Talk for Teachers. I want to thank Adam Dodge of our ITS department here at EIU for taking the time to talk to us about the importance of cybersecurity along with some other tips on how to be more secure and safe online. Show notes for this episode and archived episodes are available on the web at the EIU Instructional Technology Center website at www.eiu.edu/itc To leave a comment or suggestion, please send an email to techtalk@eiu.edu or leave a comment on the Tech Talk for Teachers blog. Until next time, change those passwords, this is Tom Grissom. Keep on learning…

Tom Grissom, Ph.D.

Episode 112 - Podcasting, Yes You Can

2010-09-30T08:28:00.000-07:00

It's Thursday, September 30, 2010 and welcome to episode 112 of TechTalk4Teachers, I'm Tom Grissom and I'm Loren Lindgren. Welcome Loren. We have a guest today in the studio.

Right Click Here to Download MP3
(18 minutes 14 seconds)

Tom: Loren is a graduate student here at the ITC. So, I wanted to invite Loren in and talk a little bit about podcasting. He had expressed in interest in podcasting so I thought well, let’s just do a live show here. I also have my undergrad class, what we call our Teaching and Learning with Technologies in Classrooms class and we’re doing some podcasting in there as well. So, I thought I would just introduce some of the equipment and just bounce some of the questions, because I believe this is your first experience with podcasting.

Tom: Okay. And I’m setup probably a little bit differently. I’m certainly setup differently than whenever I started this, three or four years ago. Back when I started this, I was literally just using a regular computer and I was recording off the hard drive of the computer using a program called Audacity. I used just a very cheap, ten-dollar microphone and just plugged it into the computer, hit record on Audacity, and recorded directly to the hard drive. And that’s very easy to do. Any teacher can do that. Audacity’s a free open source program. It’s available for Mac, Windows, and Linux,so, it’s cross-platform and even today, I still use Audacity for the post-production to edit things. So that works very well. In today’s setup, however, I have introduced a mixer because I’m starting to do some interviews and I’m trying to take this to the next level. So, it did require me to get a mixer. I can bring in phone calls, Skype calls, with something called a mix-minus on my mixer. But, just for very simple two way interviews, my setup just consists of a basic mixer and I'll post some pictures out on the show notes if you would like to see the setup I am using here. We have two microphones. I have a microphone in front of me, Loren as a microphone in front of him and then both microphones are fed back into my mixer and then out of my mixer, I have a cable that plugs into a digital audio recorder. So if I've taken the computer out of the equation at this point, I'm just using a digital audio recorder that records to an SD card and that saves it essentially as a.wave file.

Loren: Okay.

Tom: So, whenever we finish with this, I'll take you through the post-production side using Audacity, but all I'm going to do is essentially pop that SD card out, pop it in my computer, and open it just like a regular file and import it into the Audacity program and we'll be able to edit sound. And then we'll do a few things on post-production, I'll add the music on that. But, that's the basic setup on doing this. Prior to this, I believe you have listened to some podcasts before though, haven't you?

Loren: Yes.

Tom: Okay. And do you have an Ipod or listen through ITunes, or how do you do that?

Loren: No, I don't. I've listened to them mostly off the Web.

Tom: Just listen off the computer, okay. In all of my research that I have done, I have done multiple studies with students and well over 80% of the students, they just go to a website like our TechTalk For Teachers, you click that little play button and you're there. I use a Zune which is very similar to an Ipod and I really like the software that comes with the Zune and it also allows me to be more portable, so that's a nice thing with an Ipod or a Zune or any other MP3 player. I also really like the creative Zune stones which are like $40-$50 devices. I've worked with some schools, like 3rd and 4th graders. You know, I don't want to hand them a $200 Ipod. I feel comfortable with a $30-$40 MP3 player. But just for that portability and we setup some learning centers, we've done a lot with our Project WOW. Any other questions as far as setup and things on doing that?

Loren: Well I guess the one thing that struck me was I don't know a lot of devices that I've used so far that use an SD card. Is that something that most of the listeners are going to be familiar with?

Tom: Well, the digital recorders, there's always different levels you know, whenever you go through. Whenever I started, I went to RadioShack, and actually my daughter when she was in school, she used it to record notes and things. She's an auditory learner, so that's how she made her study notes and then she would listen back to that. That was just a little $50-$60 audio recorder at RadioShack, which you use a solid state device to record the sound to. In that particular model, you pop off the end and it turned into a USB stick and you just plugged it in, so it was all self-contained. The SD cards that I'm talking about are exactly like, if you have a digital camera that uses the SD card, it's the same card, it's just a storage device. Now, whenever I buy all of the computers for our labs, for example, everyone of the computers in the ITC lab has the SD card readers. And like everything else, there are different flavors of cards, different sizes. We standardized on SD and they're about the size of a postage stamp. I'm holding one up here, I'll have a
picture in the show notes for that. But, it's exactly like what's in your digital cameras out there.

Loren: About how much can they hold?

Tom: You can get them in various sizes. Today typically, anywhere from a gigabyte, 2 gigabytes, 4 gigabytes, 8 gigabytes. Of course, the price is going up as I go up there on the scale. I use a 4 gigabyte, that holds a tremendous amount of audio. It really doesn't take that much room. Again, another reason I favor audio podcasts over video podcasts, because of the size. And because I'm consuming these, you do have to download. So at home, I have a very slow internet connection that takes a long time, but an audio file is very manageable. And schools will also find that. You know, they have limited bandwidth out there, especially when you have a hundred people on it at one time sharing the same pipe out there. I typically record on the 4 gigabyte and I don't know, it will hold hours.

Loren: Okay.

Tom: Longer than our podcast is going to last here. Just like pictures on a digital camera, you do have to clear it off every now and then. But the way, the workflow that I have setup, is we'll do this recording here, we'll stop the recording, I will pop it into the computer, copy the file and import it into Audacity and then we'll go through there. Now, this coming week for my undergrad class, we're actually going to get into some of the editing with Audacity and I'll show you that here as soon as we finish. You know, it's one of those things, I've done it for so long and have helped so many people, it's always nice to have a fresh perspective. We just had this discussion in class last week. I'm giving my students a lot of freedom as far as what type of project. Prior to my assignment, I had a WebCT discussion where I required them to listen to at least three podcasts, fifteen minutes or longer and then comment on somebody else's review of those podcasts. So, I was trying to get them into the podcast genre and one of the comments was, well some of these are really long and it's a little bit boring, it's like how do you make this a little more exciting? Well, the nice thing about podcasts is it's voluntary. You pick the subject area that you listen to, something you're hopefully interested in. And now then, the challenge in my class is, okay now that we've had those comments, how are you going to not make yours?

Loren: Right.

Tom: So, shoes on the other foot there. So, I'm looking forward to some of those. I've given them options, anything from, I said, we'll you can do a 30 second public service announcement. I've had other students do that in the past. And there eyes kind of like, wow, thirty seconds and I'm done. So, they'll be experiencing the post-production edit, as you will here in a minute. We'll record this for, you know, ten-fifteen minutes and it's probably going to take another hour on top of that to do the production, to get it the way you want. Some people do a lot of editing. I tend to not edit as much as I probably should because it's very time consuming. But, with the setup that we have here with you and I recording going into the mixer, we're recording live to hard drive as they say here. Or in this case the digital audio recorder. Do you have any other questions?

Loren: Yeah. I am sort of curious as far as what the next step is. What makes podcasting different than just making a recording of yourself on your computer? How do you distribute it?

Tom: Okay. Without getting too technical, there's something called RSS feeds. And the real technical definition of a podcast is, we'll use audio for example since this is an audio podcast. It's an audio file on the internet that can be subscribed to through something called RSS. It stands for Really Simple Syndication. And that's getting way more technical than most teachers ever want to know or the average person wants to know. But, the advantage to that is, instead of you going out to a website, as you said you listen to them on a website. But instead of you going out there next week, is there anything new? Is there anything new? The RSS feeds will agrugate those feeds and send them to you. And the most common one is the iTunes program.

Loren: Okay.

Tom: So you go out to iTunes and it's actually, I don't know on the new version 10, but on the older versions, it was underneath the advanced tab, second or third choice down it says subscribe to podcast. And if you go there and if you know the RSS feed and if you're visiting these websites, you'll probably see an orange symbol with like little waves coming out, which is the universal symbol for RSS. So, if you click on that it will say here is the web address for the RSS feed. You just need to copy that into subscribe to podcast in ITunes and then click okay and you're subscribed.

Loren: And so then every time, as long as you have live internet connection?

Tom: Exactly. Every time you open up iTunes or as I said, I use Zune. It's even simpler in Zune. You open up the Zune software and they've got a link across the top that says podcast and then a button in the lower left corner that says subscribe to podcast and you either type out that RSS feed or just copy and paste it into that. And everytime I open up the ZOON software in my case, the podcast is automatically downloaded. I subscribe to both audio and video podcasts and the video ones can be very large. You know, the advantage here at the University, is we have a huge internet connection so it's really nice. Once again, at home, my internet connection is much slower and it takes a long time to download the video. That's why I usually stick strictly to audio.

Loren: Okay. Where are most of these posted? The internet is a very big place. So, do you just browse until you find them or are there any central location for podcasters?

Tom: Yeah, several different ways. iTunes has its own catalog. Here at the University we have Eastern Illinois University iTunes U, so that's available. We have an actual site eiu.edu/iTunesU, I believe. We'll put a link in the show notes for that. As far as hosting, the files actually reside locally wherever the podcaster chooses and if you're a hobbyist podcaster there's a company called Libsyn which is very popular for like six bucks a month or something, you can host your files out there and they provide the bandwidth and everything to do that. Here the University we have our servers locally so the MP3 files are stored here. All iTunes is and all the Zune marketplace is, is just a catalog that points to those files. It's a missed number and people think we just upload it and it's out on iTunes server somewhere. It's not. It's local, it's just a pointer. That's good for iTunes because they don't have any storage costs distributed every different place. So, that's a way, we call those podcatchers, the way that they work.

Loren: Okay. I forget the name of the company you mentioned, Libsyn?

Tom: Yeah. L-I-B-S-Y-N.

Loren: Okay.

Tom: With the popularity of all the Smart Phones and everything or 3G services, the wireless world, and we need to be careful here to differenciate. In the 3G phone company world, they have their own build-out network. And in my case, I have Verizon, and I have a cap that I can't download more than 5 gigabytes worth of data a month or they charge me a quarter a megabyte for every megabyte I go over or whatever. So, I watch that very carefully. Which again is another reason for the audio versus the video. I cannot watch very many YouTube videos over my 3G connection or I'll go over my cap very, very quickly. And again, I don't think the average consumer understands that. But, if you're using 802-11, what we call B, G, or N, those are like Starbucks. You know, you go in there and setup your laptop. That's an 802-11 service, so you're not capped with that. And it's much faster speeds than what you get over 3G. Now, the latest with Verizon, they're coming out with 4G and then what they call LTE, which is even a higher speed network. So you're going to see things explode. I mean what's holding us back right now is the bandwidth, the availability for this. On my Droid phone, I subscribe to podcasts, I use the Listen service. Again, I just go out there. It says what is the RSS feed? I type it in there and then every new episode will be downloaded to me automatically, I never have to check again. Every time I turn on my Droid, it goes out and checks. Do you have anything new for me? Yes. Download it? No. Skip go onto the next one. But these subscriptions really make it nice, because I essentially have a catalog of different things. And again, another reason I like the audio format is, you can be driving down the road listening to it or doing the dishes, laundry, or whatever at home, exercising, whatever it might be so you're multitasking. And in my world of EdTech, I have to, to keep up. Every week I subscribe to several different tech projects and listen to those just to keep up with all the changes in the world. For the person starting out, I say, you know, just forget about that because 80-90% of the people just go to a website and click. If you want to take it to the portability level and either download it to an Ipod, a Zune. or creative Zune, or whatever MP3 player you choose, that gives you that freedom to move around. So, right now we're in farming season, I can be out there on the tractor, doing the harvest and things and catching up on the latest in EdTech.

Loren: Very efficient!

Tom: Yes. There's only so many hours a day, so you've got to work it in there where you can. Okay, anything else Loren?

Loren: You already mentioned the different variaties of podcasts are limited as the number of people that want to podcast. So it seems like a pretty broad, diverse...

Tom: It's very diverse. The simplest definition for a podcast, it's like a radio show with a pause button. It's on demand. So, those are two big pluses for podcasting. And for education, to be able to listen to something, hit pause, hit rewind, it's like while I didn't quite understand that point. Let me rewind that and listen to that again and again. That repetition, coming back, which we don't have when we're in the classroom doing a lecture. I'm guilty of it myself. I will go through some things and just skip over some things and then you start seeing some glazed eyes or some questions and it's like, somebody didn't catch what I said. So, that's where the student needs to raise their hand and say, hey you through out a term there that I don't even know what that means." So, they're sitting there trying to figure it out, yet you're going on down the road. So, the advantage to be able to pause is great. Okay, now we'll go ahead and wrap it up here. We've got a lot of work to do. So I'll show you all of the magic on the post-production side here.

Loren: Exciting!

Tom: Yeah. And we'll get out of here. The other thing that many of the listeners may not know is it does take quite a bit of work. If I wanted to, I could just go out and publish this without some of the oohs and ahhs and some of the other mistakes that we may make here along the way. But, I also add the music and then I provide what we call ID3 tags, which with an MP3 file, it's like meda-data. So, I'll put my show number, the name and the title of the show and all of that. So, if you do use and Ipod or even like Windows Media Player, or Quicktime, whatever you will see the show title, the author, all those tags you see on the portable players. So, those are done in post-productions.

Loren: So will it show up as Unknown artist, Track 1 of 1?

Tom: Exactly. And I've got a lot of those too. It's like poulporie, what are we going to get here today? Okay, well. Thank you very much and as we go through the semester I wanted to introduce you to this, so hopefully we'll get you started here. There are all kinds of applications.

Loren: Yeah. Sounds very exciting.

Tom: Okay. Thank you.

Loren: You're welcome.

EIU iTunesU
http://eiu.edu/iTunesU/

Technology Pick of the Week

My technology Pick of the Week this week is Kindle for the Web.
Kindle for the Web
http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html/?docId=1000579091

Tom: My technology pick of the week this week is a new beta version of Kindle for the Web. Listeners of TechTalk for Teachers will know that I am a big fan of the Kindle reader and E-books and this week, Kindle announced a new Web version. Now the advantage of this version, is that you will be able to read a book sample from amazon.com without leaving your browser. You do not have to download any software. Share book examples with your friends via email or social networks. So Amazon is building out their infrastructure so that you can easily look at samples and if you so choose, click on the bye button and in less than a minute, you will have that book delivered to you. You can embed a personal book sample in your personal blog or website and there is a website out there specifically related to Kindle for the Web and I will provide that in the show notes.

That wraps it up for episode 112 of Tech Talk for Teachers. I want to thank Loren Lindgren our Graduate Assistant this year in the ITC at EIU for taking the time to talk with us about podcasting. To leave a comment or suggestion, please send an email to techtalk@eiu.edu or leave a comment on the Tech Talk for Teachers blog. Until next time, this is Tom Grissom.
Keep on learning…

Tom Grissom, Ph.D.

Episode 111 - Keys to the Kingdom

2010-08-31T15:28:00.000-07:00

It’s Tuesday August 31st, 2010 and welcome to episode 111 of TechTalk4Teachers, I’m Tom Grissom. We’re Back! It is back-to-school time here at EIU and we have survived the first full week. Schools across America are going through the annual ritual of back-to-school activities as students once again enter classrooms. Faculty are going over their syllabi with students. Whether you are at a K-12 school or at a college or university you are most likely faced with another ritual of obtaining userid(s) and password(s) for the new school year.

Right Click Here to Download MP3
(30 minutes 23 seconds)

Userids and passwords are literally the keys to the kingdom when it comes to accessing electronic resources. Your userid and password is the only thing that stands between you and the often sensitive and confidential information available electronically. It seems like one of the simplest of things to deal with but because of the importance of userids and passwords I thought it would be valuable to have a discussion on TechTalk4Teachers of how important they have become to the everyday business and operations of schools.

It was just six years ago that the term Web 2.0 gained popularity at the O’Reilly Media Web Conference in 2004. Web 2.0 represents a fundamental change to cloud based computing resources where users can share information, not on locally based servers but rather servers on the Internet. In the early days of the Internet network engineers drew a picture of a cloud to represent resources on the Internet and thus the name cloud computing.

Today we have userids for everything from our cable company to our bank account. Of course one has to have a way to authenticate ones identity on a server whether it be local or “out in the cloud”. The ancient userid and password system is still here as a solution.

One major problem has occurred as Web 2.0 technologies have proliferated and that is that each Web 2.0 service requires its own userid and password. Your Facebook userid may or may not be the same userid as your Google gmail account. Even if you have the same userid on Facebook and Google changing your password in Facebook will not change your password in Google unless you use some type of federated userid system like OAuth.

I hope I did not lose you there as this is an extremely important point. Back in the wild, wild, west days of Web 2.0 I was routinely signing up for new Web 2.0 services and easily had over 100 different accounts as I was experimenting with new services. As a new startup Web 2.0 service went online I would often setup an account to try out the service. Since these were startups most of them were free so monetary costs was not a barrier.

It did create a conundrum for me as I had dozens and dozens of accounts to deal with. I developed a system that kept my Web 2.0 accounts separate from my personal and work related accounts but it was very messy, … and still is.

If you are a 21st Century educator you probably have your fair share of Web 2.0 accounts. Everything from Twitter, Google Docs, Skydrive, Voice Thread, and Skype not to mention all your various email accounts for work and home. Given all of these accounts how do you best protect yourself against unauthorized access? The best way is to have what we call “strong” passwords that are not easy to guess or to hack into.

To help me explore this important topic further I have with me today Adam Dodge who is our chief security officer here at Eastern Illinois University. Adam is an expert in security and knows first-hand the importance of userids with strong passwords. Welcome Adam.

(Links mentioned in this Interview)

http://lifehacker.com/5505400/how-id-hack-your-weak-passwords

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2368484,00.asp

http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/innovation/08/20/super.passwords/index.html

http://its.eiu.edu/security/passwords.php

(Interview Transcript)

Tom: Welcome Adam.

Adam: Thanks for having me, pleasure to be here.

Tom: Sure. I wanted to invite you in this afternoon and talk a little bit about our user ID’s and passwords and how important strong passwords are in particular. The TechTalk for Teacher’s audience ranges from K-12 teachers all the way through university professors and things here on campus. So I just wondered if you could just give a few tips and hints and a little overview of how important the user ID and password system is.

Adam: Sure. As you mentioned earlier, passwords really are the keys to the kingdom. It’s what authenticates you and identifies you on most of the systems that you’re using within either your higher-ed environments or your K-12 environment or even online in a lot of these newer Web 2.0 services that are offered. So protecting your user ID and protecting your password particularly, are what is important to protecting the information that you deal with, protecting the service, making sure that you are the only one using that service under the account that’s assigned to you. By protecting your password, you’re protecting the information that you have access to. When somebody gets into your account, not only can they get access to the information that you have on these different services, they can copy that information, they can take that information, or they can masquerade, as you, which happens quite a bit in email accounts. Of course, in most of higher-ed, we are no strangers to phishing attacks, people that are trying to get a hold of our email accounts. Why they do that is they try to get a hold of them to then flood out other spam.

Tom: And phishing accounts with a P-H. Some people may hear that word and they think F-I-S-H. No, it’s P-H-I-S-H.

Adam: Yeah, phishing accounts. Actually 2010, the first six months of it, higher-ed actually saw a dramatic increase in the amount of phishing attacks that were coming into these emails servers and of course it’s an embarrassment for you. It actually causes problems for the organization your with, especially if you’re using your school or university or college account. Because what happens is they start to get blocked. So much spam gets sent out, all of a sudden nobody can send to say Hotmail because they’re blocking you.

Tom: And one of the great things that we have and a great service ITS provides, is that whenever they are aware of those, they can block the spam filters and things and being proactive on that helps tremendously.

Adam: Yeah. It’s one of the things we actually have daily reports looking at every morning when I come in. The email administrators have alerts setup so if one account is all of a sudden sending a lot of email over a normal threshold, they start getting alerts for that. We’ve tried to be a little bit more proactive.

Tom: Yeah. And we should backup and maybe just explain basically what a phishing attack is. That’s where somebody would send you an email and masquerade, as you said, as somebody else, and say ‘Hey, I’m your IT Department. We’re having system problems. Would you please send me an email, your user ID and password. We need to check something out’. And that’s the classic phishing attack out there. And if you’re not savvy enough to know differently, a lot of people do fall for that and that’s where your systems are compromised no matter how strong of user ID and password system you have because at that point, the bad guys--the hackers, have it at that point.

Adam: Absolutely, absolutely. We are here to talk about strong passwords, and those are very important. But, I don’t want to get too far ahead of, that’s not fair. But, a strong password alone is not enough to fully protect you online with these systems. You do really have to be careful about what information you’re sharing, how you’re sharing it, to make sure that all of that information is secure. But, that being said, a strong password really can do a lot to protect you. A lot of times, people think of passwords as just kind of, well I know I need it but I have 200 accounts. I don’t know how to keep track of all of these. I’m going to just put in, you know, my daughter’s first name or my dog’s name or my husband’s birthday. They’re going to put something in there that’s familiar with them. The problem is a lot of this information, especially with the popularity of social networking, Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, all of these other ones, is a lot of that information that normal people base their passwords on is now publicly available to anybody on the internet. What I like to tell people, is there’s a couple of different things you can do. One, generally speaking, the longer the password, the better. I like to go 8 characters minimum. Some of my other ones are a little bit stronger, little bit longer, little bit more complex and I’ll get into those topics in a second. The second thing you want to do is make sure you aren’t just using lowercase letters.

Tom: Mix cases.

Adam: Mix case. You want to make sure you have uppercase and lowercase. What this does is add to the complexity and it adds to what’s called the entropy of the password, the randomness of it. It’s not just a simple one lowercase. Because if you’re password is made-up of all lowercase, basically you’ve got thirty-two characters that it could be, and that’s it. It’s not going to be anything else. It’s going to be one of those thirty-two characters. Well, if you add uppercase into it, now anyone of those characters in your password could be one of sixty-four. Same thing if you add numbers into it as well as, you go ahead and you add special characters into it on top of that. All of those add to the complexity, make it more difficult. Some of the things I like to tell people, one of the things you can do, look around your office. Look for things that are there that can serve as reminders for what your password is. But don’t use whole words if you’re going to do that. If you’re picking something off of a calendar, one of the ones I used to use was off of a phonebook that I had sitting on my home office desk. It was parts of the word, so it was maybe the first three characters of this word, maybe these numbers, and then the last three characters of this word. It helped me because anytime I was in there, I could just look at that phonebook and I’d know exactly what my password was. But nobody sitting down there, at least I hope, would be able to pick that out. Other things you can use are kind of gaining in popularity, are called passphrases. These are actually whole sentences. You can use punctuation, you can use spaces, you can use apostrophes, hyphens, however you want to do it to try to make sure that your password not only is long enough, because like we said you want it to be complex. Thirty-two lowercase a’s is going to be very easy for somebody to break then say fifteen mixed-case full password. We could use, for example, Hello. My name is Adam! Because I’m really excited about who I am. That could be my password. You know full spaces within there. These kinds of things are going to help people. Help you protect your password from most likely brute force attempts. This is very common. Passwords have been around since computers have been around for the most part. Brute force programs, which there are several freely available, what they do is they just try your password, one after the next.

Tom: And sometimes you hear of dictionary attacks.

Adam: Dictionary attacks, yes, yes. Computationally, all it has to do is match. So, it’s very, very quick. Especially with more modern computers to do this kind of attack. Now, unfortunately, with some of the advent of graphics cards, with their own dedicated processors…

Tom: Yeah, I’ve been reading some articles on that.

Adam: Yeah, the GPU’s. It’s wonderful. In a lot of scientific endeavors are actually using these instead of having to build these massive cluster systems where you have, you know, fifteen, twenty, a hundred, machines all working together, they’ll have a few machines with several of these graphics cards and dedicate these specific processors to these highly complex, computational tasks which has been really nice. Especially for within the academia for people to, for not as much money, be able to get some more computing power for some of the research which is excellent. The problem is the bad guys have learned this too and so they can use these to brute force your passwords. So when you have multiple processors, you have multiple systems all being able to just do highly complex.

Tom: In prepping for today’s show, I have several links that I’ll throw out in our show notes. But one that particularly caught my eye since you’re talking about some of the computational power is an article out there Life Hacker and I’ll provide this in the show notes. But, they have a table out there talking about these brute force attacks and they have an example here that says if your password length is only three characters, you would only take .86 seconds to crack. And if it was only lowercase it would take .022, two-hundredths of a second to do that. If it were four characters it would be 1.36 minutes. If it were eight characters, it takes you up to 2.1 centuries. So that’s the importance of the length there along with that randomness out there. But, back to your point, eight characters 2.1 centuries if you only use lowercase it takes you to 2.42 days. So that’s dramatic right there and the number of permutations that algorithm goes through in those brute force attacks. So, I mean, we can’t stress it enough. The length is extremely important and then a little bit earlier in the article they gave the top ten most common passwords and the name of this article is How I’d Hack Your Weak Passwords, so that link will be in the show notes. They list the ten most common and then the sentence after that statistically speaking that probably should cover about 20% of you.

Adam: Yeah. And that’s the scary part I think of that list. If you look at that article, which is a great article, it really is, the fact that the top ten most common passwords that they have there, the fact that 20% or one in five people statistically will nab with one of these passwords is worry some for somebody like me who’s trying to keep all this information in these systems protected and safe. Yeah, it is very interesting in fact, there’s this great video that was put together by some college students.

Tom: I think down in Texas. Is that the one that’s on the ITS page?

Adam: Yeah, I think it was Texas. It was actually part of the edu-cause, they do a national cyber-security, video, and poster campaign.
Tom: We’ll put a link in the notes for that as well.

Adam: Absolutely. I use those all the time because I think they’re great resources. Freely available for everybody to use in higher education or I would assume in the K-12 space, by all means, go ahead and use those as well. But they’re really nice, because they are kind of…

Tom: Kind of plain language type.

Adam: Yeah. They’re plain language but they’re fun to watch too. Usually the winners. You know they’re not just these dull, boring. I’ll put myself into that category sometimes when I’m talking to people about passwords or talking about security. It’s not the most exciting topic, often and I’ll get glazed eyes.

Tom: But it’s so extremely important.

Adam: But these videos are really well done and yeah, we’ll have a link to that because it’s really nice talking about commonly used passwords. If you see one of yours on there, you need to change it right away.

Tom: Yeah. Number four on the list, you would think this would be common sense not to use, but password is password. And you know, 20% of that group of ten, that’s an extremely common one. Philosophically, on the strength and the randomness and things, people are people, but we’re human so I know that you get the reactions like ‘Oh I have to do at least 8 characters and it has to have a number and a special character, uppercase and lowercase. It’s like how am I ever going to remember it?’ But, please remember that you’re protecting yourself against that. Another layer of that security is, I know on some of our systems here, if you try a password and it’s incorrect three times, it locks you out for a period. And so that’s another protection measure. But also for, just the everyday user, please do not write your passwords on Post-It notes, although you see that from time to time. That just completely defeats the whole purpose of things. Like I said, I have a system without giving away all of the trade secrets of what you and I do.

Adam: Yeah. They’re out there and one of the big problems with that are the character substitutions. That was a very big thing for awhile. ‘Hey instead of the letter O, let’s use 0. Instead of I use 1.’ The problem is, those are very formulaic and if they’re very formulaic it’s very easy to program one of these password correcting programs into okay, well just try this letter with regular letters and let’s start substituting the numbers for the letters. So, you have to be careful about that and make sure you’re not tricking yourself into a false sense of security through that.

Tom: Yeah. And then I ran across another article today I think from PC magazine that just was very recent, but it just kind of had some of the common sense things out there. Just kind of to remember things, one of their statements was treat your password like your underwear, change it often. That’s another thing that I don’t think people probably do enough. Here at EIU, we have some systems that automatically expire after so many days that you must change your password. And that’s what it’s for, to protect and make sure that no accounts have been compromised and you choose something new.

Adam: Absolutely, absolutely. Because if you are say using a password that would take, we’ll say for instance, you have a password that the strength on average, it will be broken once every 12 months. Well, if you’re changing your password every six months or fewer, what you’re basically doing, not in all the cases, but you have some pretty good assurance there that you’re always staying ahead of them being able to crack your password. So, that’s a benefit to that. Make sure you do change your passwords, especially on your sensitive and work related files.

Tom: And like I said, I have different systems. This is philosophically, everybody has their own philosophy on how to do this. But because I do have so many Web 2.0, I use a completely different system. Other options for doing that, and I’ve used some of these in the past, biometrics, some laptops have had the fingerprint scanners. I’ve had a couple of HP’s around here like that. The worry there is, you need that backup plan just in case, knock on wood, that I’d lose a finger. But, the scanner itself could go bad and then you actually setup a strong password in that sequence to do that as well as, you know, this has been around for a long time, but I particularly remember the SunRay system where you had a card and you swiped your card. But then, once again just like a password, that’s only as good as you have that on your person and that’s easy enough to lose. And again, those keys to the kingdom are out there.

Adam: Right. Usually what those do, or what a lot of the newer systems are doing, for example I know PayPal you can actually get a token. It will go ahead and it will generate based off of some really complex algorhytms that they have. You will basically have this token that will spit out a string of digits. You go ahead and you enter those numbers in as long as you pair it with your account and then you will also need to know your password. So really what this does, is this is called two factor authentication. You have two factors generally, it’s either something you know, something you have, or something you are. You have to use two of those three categories. A lot of places, it’s not as common anymore, but a few years ago a lot of places were trying to taught two factor authentication. But really it was just ‘oh yeah, you just need to know your password, username, and a pin’. Well, that’s actually just three things you know. There’s no second factor in there. Hopefully, we start to see that become more common. The problem then becomes, as you were saying before earlier in the program, well am I really going to need to carry around fifteen of these little fobs and then ‘oh, which one was it for this account, which one was it for that?’ Same thing with the password. What do you do when you have one-hundred different accounts on different systems. What I like to tell people is generally one, what I do personally I’ll let you guys know. My work, because of the type of work I do, it’s always unique. I never mix my work password, it’s not even close to any of my other passwords. Generally, the other one that’s unique, my email account has a unique password I don’t use anywhere else.

Tom: We should also mention there that that’s extremely important, because the first thing that they ask you on a Web 2.0 service is, what is your email account? Because they send you back an authorization or a confirmation email to essentially activate that account and if you’re email account is compromised, once again that’s a backdoor way into some of those other accounts.

Adam: Absolutely. I would rather my Twitter account and my Facebook account and all those get compromised and my Web account or my email account stay protected then have them all using the same or similar password. Financial banking stuff I also use unique separate passwords for. A lot of my, I shouldn’t really be saying this…

Tom: You don’t need to give away all the trade secrets.

Adam: I will say that I do have some accounts, I’ll be the first to admit it, some of my accounts have horribly easy passwords. But I am not concerned about those accounts. You know, somebody gets into my Pandora on my radio account, they might delete some of the channels I have setup, I’m really not that concerned. So that is a very, in the terms of actual security, a very insecure password but there’s no risk to me where that’s involved. So those kinds of things. Actually, my NetFlix account too, if anybody wants to…I’m not going to tell you what my password is, but it doesn’t really affect me that much if you jump into my NetFlix account and start removing stuff from my watch instantly quo. So those kinds of things, I’m fine with telling people. Obviously don’t just have it be space or the letter ‘a’ and hit enter. Those do have some complexities, and some of those have complexity requirements.

Tom: But I will say, because there are many educators, twenty-first century educators, that are real progressive about using the Web 2.0 technologies. Anything as benign as Facebook or Twitter compromised and that can be extremely embarrassing because somebody could overtake your identity and start putting out status updates or posts or tweets or whatever it may be.

Adam: Absolutely.

Tom: You know, you feel very vulnerable if that’s ever happened to you. I mean, you feel violated.

Adam: Sure. And a great way to kind of overcome the different accounts for different ones or trying to remember really complex passwords, especially for websites and Web 2.0. Well, there’s a couple of ways. One, Google, Facebook, I’m not sure about MySpace, I haven’t really been on that in a couple of years, they are actually starting their own kind of federated ID where we’re kind of in the first stages of that. I don’t really know where this is going. Is Google going to come out on top?

Tom: Facebook looks to be in the early lead of that because 500,000 (corrected 500,000,000) half a billion users are out there. But even that, again philosophically out there, putting all your eggs in one basket, then if we do go ahead and go that route then you know we certainly need to make sure that’s secure because then you have a conglomeration of accounts using all of the same.

Adam: Absolutely, yeah. If you start using those federated ID’s, you want to make sure that account, say if you’re using Facebook Connect, you want to make sure that Facebook account is unbelievably complex.

Tom: So, it’s a balance out there of doing those. I know here at EIU, we have single sign-on for a lot of that, which has tremendously simplified that and tied systems and things together. But along with that, we do routinely, periodically, change. And that’s a required change and you can’t use, you know there’s different rules, where you can’t use the twelve previous passwords. Again, just to change one letter or something out there.

Adam: We have some complexity requirements and history requirements. We do have of course the routine password changes because we do have so many systems that are now using that same sign-on. We wanted to take some steps to make sure we were doing what we could to protect those systems. If you listeners are worried about how I’m going to remember all of these different passwords, another very viable option is use a password safe. A password safe or password vault are these programs, there’s a bunch of different ones from paid, to free, to open source that are available for all operating systems that you possibly use. Some even have apps for the iPhones and the iPads. What these allow you to do, is save your passwords into a program that actually incryptes them and you then have that one master password. And what you can do, is when you want to go to the website or need the password for that website, you just sign into your password vault and you can then copy that password out and paste it into the application. Very nice, but again, that’s another thing. Make sure that master password is sufficiently complex enough to protect all of your other passwords. But I do recommend those for people, especially those that have multiple accounts and want to use, like I recommend, different accounts for different systems.

Tom: I was just looking through the two or three articles I had bookmarked in my Delicious account and there’s one out here from CNN called How To Create A Super Password, so once again we’ll put those in the show notes. Let’s go ahead and summarize here the big things for just the average user out there to remember.

Adam: Okay. What you want to remember of course is pick a password that is not only sufficiently long enough, so let’s say minimum eight characters. You want to make sure you are including complexity in there as well, so that means make sure you have lowercase and uppercase letters, you’re using numbers, and at least one special character. That’s going to help make your passwords nice and complex to avoid people from brute forcing it. Other things that you want to do, make sure that you change it regularly, especially your work account. I always recommend that, financial accounts absolutely. Basically, if it’s protecting sensitive information or it’s protecting information that you don’t want exposed to other people make sure you are changing it regularly. Other things, watch out how you’re sharing accounts or passwords between accounts. Make sure you separate that. Again, no complex passwords. For simple things, might not be necessary, but you don’t want to share say your banking password with a social media site with your email or with your work account. Keep those all separate and on their own. Things you can try to do to kind of help reduce this complexity is use password vaults, federated ID, is hopefully going to be here soon, we’ll get a clear in that space, might be a good option. But, when you use those, make sure you’re setting your master password or that federated ID password, that’s need to be what that CNN article says is super password. You want to make sure that password is ultra secure.

Tom: Okay, well thank you very much for coming in today. And, hopefully our listeners have learned a few things and can protect their accounts a little but more securely.

Adam: Absolutely.

Tom: Alright, thank you.

Adam: Thank you.

Technology Pick of the Week

For my Technology Pick of the Week this week you get two for the price of one. It is just the first week of school and the ITC lost and found is already amassing a pile of USB Flash Drives. These small flash drives are wonderful for storing all of your data but you must also remember to safely remove your flash drive and take it with you when you finish using the ITC Lab computers. With 500 to 1000 students in and out of the ITC each day it is important that you remember to take your flash drive with you.

Losing a flash drive can be tragic if you have all of your homework files stored on it so it is also a good idea to get into the practice of routinely backing up your flash drive to your home computer so you have a least one copy of your work somewhere else. Flash drives do get lost, sometimes even get run through the washing machine so having a backup is a necessity for important files.

If you have an Internet connection you may want to sign-up for a free Microsoft Hot Mail or Live.com email account as you also get some other services that you may find helpful. I have talked about Skydrive before on TechTalk4Teachers and if you so choose you can use SkyDrive just like you would a USB Flash Drive. Your files are stored in the cloud for you to access anywhere in the world with a computer that has Internet access. SkyDrive gives you 25GB of FREE storage and I find this very valuable to be able to access chosen files online. The downside to this, along with most cloud-based services is that if you do not have an Internet connection or if your Internet connection is down for some reason you have no way of accessing your files.

Microsoft Skydrive - 25GB of free online storage in the cloud
http://explore.live.com/windows-live-skydrive

The other advantage of signing-up for a hotmail or live.com email account is that Microsoft has added a lite version of Microsoft Office in the cloud called Microsoft Web Apps. This was announced earlier this summer and web apps give you the ability to access lite versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote. This is not the full-blown version of these office products however they are quite polished and offer the familiar ribbon-interface. The advantage is that you do not have to install Office on your computer but rather use Word, Excel, PowerPoint, or OneNote from your Internet browser! This of course seems to be the Microsoft answer to Google Docs where your office applications are in the cloud. For the heavy duty lifting I still recommend the full version of Office especially for academic papers that require the use of APA or MLE formats. The advantage is that you now have an online alternative in the cloud available along with online storage if you so choose.

Microsoft Web Apps
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/web-apps/office-web-apps-overview-FX101825723.aspx

That wraps it up for episode 111 of Tech Talk for Teachers. I want to thank Adam Dodge of our ITS department here at EIU for taking the time to talk to us about the importance of strong passwords along with some other tips on how to be more secure online. Show notes for this episode and archived episodes are available on the web at the EIU Instructional Technology Center website at www.eiu.edu/itc To leave a comment or suggestion, please send an email to techtalk@eiu.edu or leave a comment on the Tech Talk for Teachers blog. Until next time, this is Tom Grissom.
Keep on learning…

Tom Grissom, Ph.D.

Episode 110 – Summer Crunch Time and 15 Minutes of Fame

2010-07-30T10:07:00.000-07:00

It’s Friday July, 30th, 2010 and welcome to episode 110 of Tech Talk 4 Teachers, I’m Tom Grissom. Summertime is rapidly coming to a close. Teachers and school support staff are beginning to think about all that needs to be finished in order to have a successful launch to a new school year.

Right Click Here to Download MP3
(7 minutes 56 seconds)

For many educators having a computer with Internet access has become the norm. I cannot imagine teaching today without the assistance of technology. There are just too many benefits for teaching and learning with technology. Our students today expect a technology-enriched learning experience as they have grown up in a world saturated with technologies.

We have become so reliant upon technology that we often take it for granted. Many do not realize all the hard work that goes into creating and maintaining a reliable and vibrant technology-enhanced environment.

It is now crunch time as we are beginning to run out of summer. Summertime is the best time for technology upgrades and updates as many faculty and staff are on vacations and staffing is at a reduced level. This is the least disruptive time of year for major upgrades and changes that need to be accomplished. There is never a time that will not be an inconvenience for someone so IT personnel do their best to schedule maintenance at the least busy times which is often at night or on weekends.

Thousands of technical support personnel are now working very hard to complete summer work that includes new computer installations, re-installations, and updates to existing computers. Tech staff are also building new and improved networking infrastructures including wireless access. In addition servers are being updated with the latest applications and patches to insure that equipment is in optimal working order. Yes indeed, there is a great deal of work that goes on over the summer time.

Here at the ITC I am faced with working on both the instructional and technical sides of things. If the technology is not in good working order faculty and students will not be able to use it for instructional purposes. We have about 160 general purpose lab computers in our college that are currently undergoing a complete makeover as we get ready for the fall semester. As of now only about 30 computers have had the necessary updates so we have a lot of work to do in the next three weeks. No matter how much you plan it seems like there is never enough time to get everything accomplished that you want.

In addition several college-level websites have been updated including the NCATE accreditation website for our fall site visit. New computers are in the process of being installed for new faculty and there have also been several office moves. ITS personnel are upgrading our email system. It has been one busy and productive summer here at the ITC.

Why do we go to so much effort? Simple, it is for our students. Our college is charged with educating the next generation of teachers and I firmly believe that we must provide a solid foundation so that students are familiar and adept with using technology in the teaching and learning process. Without a reliable technology infrastructure our students would not be able to benefit from all that is available. New technologies will come and go throughout ones teaching career and teachers should be constantly looking for new tools and methods that will make them a better teacher. The learning never ends.

In more general technology news this month Facebook hits the 500 million user mark. One-half billion people are using Facebook. Another Facebook news item this month is in regards to a security researcher that recently wrote a script that captured the public profiles of over 100 million Facebook users. Many college students use Facebook regularly and this is yet again another example of information being collected and shared in a way that a typical Facebook user might not be aware of. Links to a couple of articles related to this story are provided in the show notes.

Public data snatched from 170 million Facebook profiles
http://money.cnn.com/2010/07/29/technology/Facebook_profiles_leaked/index.htm?section=money_technology&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+rss/money_technology+(Technology)&utm_content=Twitter

"Leaked" data of 100M Facebook users came from public info
http://arstechnica.com/security/news/2010/07/leaked-data-of-100m-facebook-users-came-from-public-info.ars

Even though this information was collected from information made public by Facebook users I do not think the average user understands the intricacies of privacy settings. This particular example collected usernames and public profile data that could be used in the future for brute-force login attacks. Keep in mind that your account is only protected by your username and password, if your account is hacked all your information is available to the hacker(s). If you are a Facebook user be careful with your account settings and what you share with others as privacy concerns continue at Facebook. User data is being harvested and mined for information by other companies and future attempts may be made to link information about friends on Facebook.

In YouTube news, YouTube has just announced that it will be increasing the time limit of videos posted to the service from 10 minutes to 15 minutes. So now everyone has a shot at their 15 minutes of fame. A link is provided in the show notes to this announcement:

YouTube extends time limit to 15 minutes
http://youtube-global.blogspot.com/2010/07/upload-limit-increases-to-15-minutes.html

YouTube has been working on their Content ID system and now have in place a system that can identify copyrighted material as it is posted on YouTube. With over 24 hours of video being posted to YouTube EACH MINUTE of everyday this is a huge undertaking. This Content ID system allows YouTube to take material down that violates copyright in a proactive manner. I have also provided a link in the show notes to a recent TED Talk about how YouTube thinks about copyrighted material and it is worth a watch if you are interested in intellectual property rights and how YouTube is fighting copyright violations.

Margaret Stewart: How YouTube thinks about copyright
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UoX-YihV_ew

Technology Pick of the Week
My Technology Pick of the Week this week is another YouTube related pick. Sal Kahn created the Kahn Academy that provides free instructional videos on a variety of topics on YouTube. Links to the Kahn Academy are provided in the show notes.

Khan Academy website (scroll down to see the subject categories):
http://www.khanacademy.org/

Khan Academy YouTube Channel:
http://www.youtube.com/user/khanacademy?blend=1&ob=4

Sal got his start on the academy four years ago by helping his cousins with math. He uses a PC and tablet device to record screencasts that he posts to YouTube. Sal works through problems by drawing on the screen while explaining the steps involved.

Currently the Khan Academy has over 1400 YouTube videos on a variety of subjects and all are provided free of charge. If you visit the Khan Academy website be sure to scroll down the page to see the list of videos by subject area. This can be great supplemental material for students to learn more about a given subject area or to fill in knowledge gaps about a particular subject. Subjects include Math, Biology, Chemistry, Physics, History, Finance, SAT and GMAT preparation and many more.

YouTube seems to really be stepping it up with improvements in supporting HD content, increasing the time limit to 15 minutes per video posted, and the support of closed captioning. As an educator I am excited by what YouTube is doing and it is great to see beneficial uses of the technology flourishing. Technology itself is neutral, I would like to see more educational uses of YouTube in the future and instill upon our students that they have the choice of what content to watch, so choose wisely. Do not fill your brain with the junk food of the Internet as there is also plenty of worthy educational material to consume. If you have not heard of the Khan Academy before be sure to check it out. I highly recommend it as it is a great example of leveraging technology to benefit learners.

That wraps it up for episode 110 of Tech Talk for Teachers. Show notes for this episode and archived episodes are available on the web at the EIU Instructional Technology Center website at www.eiu.edu/itc To leave a comment or suggestion, please send an email to techtalk@eiu.edu or leave a comment on the Tech Talk for Teachers blog. Until next time, this is Tom Grissom. Keep on learning…

Episode 109 - The next best thing to being there, iste2010

2010-06-30T12:45:00.000-07:00

It’s Wednesday June, 30th, 2010 and welcome to episode 109 of Tech Talk 4 Teachers, I’m Tom Grissom. Across the country thousands of educators are on summer vacation and recharging their batteries for another school year. What many people forget about is that there are also thousands of educators taking time-out of their vacation plans and returning to school to catch-up on the latest developments in education.

Right Click Here to Download MP3
(6 minutes 45 seconds)

Many attend workshops, conferences, or go back to school to take graduate classes. With me today is such an educator. We have many teachers from the surrounding area that return to EIU each summer to take graduate level classes here. We have a guest on this podcast today to share what she is learning as well as offer her perspectives about how she is using Twitter as an educational tool to develop her own Personal Learning Network or PLN as it has become known.

Without further delay we will get right to it.
(Interview)

Cheryl: Hi, I’m Cheryl Walker. I never thought I would be a Twitter user but, Dr. Grissom has turned me into a big Twitter freak, and so now I get on Twitter every morning and check the “tweets”, or whatever you call them. And I have met some very helpful people and have bookmarked a lot of sites on Delicious. I never knew, for example, there were so many uses for Twitter in education, until I saw a “tweet” saying, “Use Twitter in education. And I went to that site and bookmarked that and then I also found a site called, issuu, it’s spelled differently: I-S-S-U-U, and it’s an online magazine and it has a lot of helpful hints. And one of the articles I found most helpful was called, “21st tips for Technology”, something like that. I bookmarked it on my Delicious account so, it’s there.

http://issuu.com/mzimmer557/docs/tools_for_the_21st_century_teacher

Tom: Okay, thank you! You know, one of the things about Twitter for teachers and educators, is that you get to meet people from all over the world. So I’m just curious, some of the people you’re following and talking back and forth, are they from just the United States or do you have anybody else from any other parts of the world?

Cheryl: There are a couple people from Canada, and I really sort of figured that out by accident, because of what they were “tweeting”. I thought, that doesn’t sound familiar to the United States, and then I thought about it, did a little bit of research, and I realized that these people were actually from Canada. And then there were some from the United Kingdom, I’m not sure exactly if they were from Great Britain or Ireland or what, but I could tell by what they were talking about that they were from over in the United Kingdom.

Tom: Yeah, and that’s one thing. Always check out the biographies. That is one thing I always tell teachers, if you’re new to Twitter and wanting to use it for educational value, make sure you put in your biography that you are a teacher, and just a little bit about yourself, like fifth grade teacher, whatever type of people you want to track to follow you. That’s one of the values out there. Also, whenever you go out and try finding new followers and things, if you find somebody else that’s a pretty prolific “tweeter”, you know, they make a lot of comments and have a lot of followers, if you go to their follower list and kind of go through and see who some of their followers are and you can follow them back. Just be selective with who you pick to follow.

End of Interview

My summer class is learning a lot from Twitter and as my students network of followers grows they will find increasing value with their PLN. A PLN does take some time to put together but if you put in the effort you will be rewarded many times over. As teachers, we can sometimes feel isolated in our classrooms but the world of the Internet and especially that of Personal Learning Networks opens up the entire world for collaboration that is fast and easy. Many of my graduate students now have followers from all over the United States and many are adding people from other countries as well.

Technology Pick of the Week

My Technology Pick of the Week this week is a couple of resources for those interested in adding to their Personal Learning Networks using Twitter. My first link is to a pbworks wiki called Twitter4Teachers and a link is available in the show notes.

http://twitter4teachers.pbworks.com/

The second link is to an older post from the Free Tech 4 Teachers blog about seven ways to find teachers on Twitter that offers additional resources for teachers wanting to find other teachers to follow.

The International Society for Technology in Education 2010 conference is currently underway this week in Denver, Colorado. Many teachers attending this conference are being introduced to Twitter and joining for the first time. The ISTE 2010 conference is one of the largest conferences dedicated to educational technologies and teaching.

http://www.freetech4teachers.com/2009/03/seven-ways-to-find-teachers-on-twitter.html

Even though I cannot be at the ISTE 2010 conference this year I am getting a taste of it as many of my online friends are there. Many friends are sharing links using Twitter and even streaming live presentations from the conference. I was able to watch Keynote sessions live from the comfort of my office and participate in a Twitter discussion in real-time!

You will see many people at the conference using the hash tag #iste10 or #iste2010 in the tweets they post to Twitter. This makes it easy to search Twitter for content related to this conference. A hash tag is simply a unique identifier that begins with the # number symbol also known as the pound symbol here in the states.

Here is a great Twitter tip.

If you have a Twitter account go ahead and do a search for #iste10 using the Twitter search box and you will see many educators posting from the conference using this hash tag. Be sure to check out the biographies of people on twitter making these posts. If you so choose go ahead and follow them so you can continue to build your Personal Learning Network.

If you have a Twitter account be sure to give me a follow at twitter.com/tomgrissom

That wraps it up for episode 109 of Tech Talk for Teachers. I want to thank Cheryl for being our guest on todays show and for her sharing how she is using Twitter to develop her own PLN. Show notes for this episode and archived episodes are available on the web at the EIU Instructional Technology Center website at www.eiu.edu/itc To leave a comment or suggestion, please send an email to techtalk@eiu.edu or leave a comment on the Tech Talk for Teachers blog. Until next time, this is Tom Grissom. Keep on learning…

Episode 108 - Did you quit Facebook?

2010-05-31T14:45:00.000-07:00

Tech Talk 4 Teachers

It’s Monday May 31st, 2010 and welcome to episode 108 of TechTalk4Teachers, I’m Tom Grissom. Today in the United States it is Memorial Day where Americans pause to recognize and honor those that have made the ultimate sacrifice in serving our country and protecting our freedom. Memorial Day also marks the beginning of summer time activities as schools are wrapping up the school year. Many schools in our local area held graduation ceremonies this past weekend and have dismissed students for the summer.

Right Click Here to Download MP3
(9 minutes 20 seconds)

Today is also Quit Facebook Day where some users of the Facebook service have pledged to delete their Facebook accounts today to protest privacy concerns and other recent changes of policies at Facebook. We will see how many actually follow-through and delete their Facebook account after today.

I have provided a link in the show notes to the Quit Facebook Day website and as of the time of this posting only 31,994 people had committed to quitting Facebook at this website so it looks like this campaign may have minimal impact upon Facebook with its 400 million plus membership.

http://www.quitfacebookday.com/

Facebook is used by the large majority of college students at our university and students need to understand the potential use and misuse of social networking services. This past week Mark Zuckerberg announced more changes at Facebook aimed to appease some users of the Facebook service by offering one-click privacy settings to help protect Facebook accounts. A link is provided in the show notes to learn more.

http://blog.facebook.com/blog.php?post=391922327130

Previous changes to Facebook privacy settings had over 70 settings that users could change and were very complex to manage. The most recent change provides a much simpler interface for privacy settings. Even with the most recent changes Facebook users should be aware that all it takes is one inappropriately checked Facebook setting to cause your account to become public. If you use the Facebook service you need to be aware of and change your privacy settings to your preferred level of sharing.

http://blog.facebook.com/blog.php?post=196629387130

Summer time is also a great time to catch up on listening to educational podcasts. One of the great things about podcasting is that you have a variety of content to choose from and listen to when it is convenient for you. This time-shifting has been a huge productivity boost for myself as I have been exposed to many podcasts from around the world that I otherwise would not have had the opportunity to listen to.

Another benefit of podcasts is that they can expand your knowledge and perspective if you purposefully choose what you listen to. We all need a little recreational time and there are many entertaining podcast choices out there to choose from. There are also many great educational podcasts that will increase your knowledge on any given subject. A little bit of purposeful searching can yield some treasures for your summer listening pleasure. For example, it has been interesting listening to educational technology podcasts from Australia where they are just beginning the winter season. I have been interested in Australian schools since the mid-1990’s when they pioneered many distance learning delivery methods and pedagogies. Presently some Australian schools are rolling out some massive netbook projects where each child gets a netbook for their learning needs. I will provide a link in the show notes if you are interested in learning what some of our Australian friends are up to.

Australian Netbook Projects:
http://www.education.vic.gov.au/management/ictsupportservices/netbooks/default.htm

http://www.itwire.com/it-industry-news/strategy/37602-nsw-has-handed-out-66000-student-laptops

Since this is the beginning of summer break for many teachers in the US I hope you take some time for relaxing but also realize that this is the perfect time to sharpen your skills by listening to podcasts of interest to you. If you find some great educational podcasts please share your selections with the TechTalk4Teachers audience by sending an email to techtalk@eiu.edu. Appropriate selections will be shared with fellow listeners in a future episode so please contribute your choices.

The month of May also witnessed the Google I/O conference where Google went on a tear of new developments and announced new API’s for developers and updated the developer community with new tools and products.

Here are a few of the many announcements made at Google I/O this month.
Google has thrown its weight behind the developing to the HTML 5 standard and also announced support of Adobe’s Flash player 10.1 for the new Froyo Android 2.2 operating system that includes a host of new features.

All attendees of Google I/O received the HTC Evo Android phone with front facing camera for video chats:
http://phandroid.com/htc-evo-4g/

Android 2.2 will be rolling out in the coming weeks for certain models. Happily the Droid is on the list of phones that will be receiving this 2.2 update. The biggest feature that I have wanted since I purchased my Droid last year, appears to soon be a reality. Version 2.2 of Android will allow tethering. Tethering allows you to connect your phone to a PC to get access to the Internet using 3G and 4G services. This will essentially turn my Droid into a mobile hotspot somewhat like a Mifi so I can connect my laptop to the Internet through my Droid phone. Of course the big questions will be the speed of the connection and how much it will ultimately cost. I hope that there will not be a monthly Gigabyte bandwidth limit as is currently the case with my wireless data modem from Verizon that is capped at 5GB per month. Currently I could easily exceed the allotted 5GB per month if I were not watching my usage closely.

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/btl/google-io-introducing-android-froyo-and-google-tv/34790

One of the most anticipated announcements made at the I/O conference is that Google TV will be rolling out in the fall. I suspect that many network TV executives are re-evaluating business models now that Google TV has thrown their hat into the ring of the TV business. Google TV is where the Web meets TV and TV meets the Web. Google TV will be built into certain new models of Sony TV’s and will also be built as a stand-alone box by Logitech and other manufacturers. Imagine having an overlay on your TV screen that pops up a Google Search box on the TV screen. You can type in your search and Google TV will display the results and you can mark for your programming choices. The big news here is that Google TV is integrated into the viewing experience. Many techies have their PC’s already connected to large screen HDTV’s but Google TV integrates the experience into an easier to use and more consumer friendly approach. It reminded me a lot of Windows Media Center when I watched the demos. Time will tell if Google TV is accepted by consumers but you should be seeing Google TV devices this fall at Best Buy stores in the US.

Over the past few years the line has become blurred between phones and computers with the introduction of smart phones and now Google is trying to blur the line between TV’s and computers. I have not heard anyone calling it smart TV yet as I believe that term is an oxymoron ;) What I believe is most interesting is that Google TV will have a built-in browser so you will have access to the entire Internet on your TV. Since Google TV is built upon Android and Google Chrome, it will only be a matter of time before we see thousands of apps from the Android Marketplace designed for Google TV in our living rooms.

Regardless of the success of Google TV the digital evolution continues as the Internet and broadband connectivity are producing more options for consumers. As cloud computing becomes more pervasive we will continue to see devices and services merge into the cloud. I have provided a link in the show notes that explains Google TV further, along with a video, if you are interested in learning more.

Google TV
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/05/announcing-google-tv-tv-meets-web-web.html

Technology Pick of the Week

My Technology Pick of the Week this week is a summary article from TechCrunch that provides a short history of YouTube along with some interesting statistics. Last month I shared a blog entry that featured some interesting statistics about the Internet in general and this weeks pick specifically highlights YouTube. Since YouTube is a Google property I suspect you will be seeing some cross-pollination between YouTube and Google TV in the coming months.

A link is provided in the show notes to a couple of articles on YouTube:

Tech Crunch YouTube Article
http://techcrunch.com/2010/05/16/five-years-in-youtube-is-now-streaming-two-billion-videos-per-day/

YouTube now streams over two billion videos per day and over 70 percent of traffic comes from outside the United States.

Another site from website-monitoring.com has taken some of the statistics provided by YouTube and placed them into an easily readable format.

http://www.website-monitoring.com/blog/2010/05/17/youtube-facts-and-figures-history-statistics/

Take some time and review just how much the world of YouTube has changed in just five years, these stats speak for themselves and should put to rest any of the criticism that YouTube is just a passing fad. Now the challenge for educators is to harness some of this power by providing useful content rather than endless cat playing piano videos ;)

That wraps it up for episode 108 of Tech Talk for Teachers. Show notes for this episode and archived episodes are available on the web at the EIU Instructional Technology Center website at www.eiu.edu/itc To leave a comment or suggestion, please send an email to techtalk@eiu.edu or leave a comment on the Tech Talk for Teachers blog. Until next time, this is Tom Grissom. Keep on learning…

Tom Grissom, Ph.D.

Episode 107 - A Fast and Furious April

2010-04-30T13:47:00.001-07:00

Tech Talk 4 Teachers

In this episode the month of April has witnessed some huge announcements that will directly impact Internet users. Apple releases the iPad, Facebook hosts the F8 Conference and Microsoft enters the cloud with docs.com

The ITC serves over 12,000 visitors for the month of April!

Right Click Here to Download MP3
(5 minutes 25 seconds)

Facebook Privacy Changes
http://www.macworld.com/article/150822/2010/04/facebook_privacy.html?lsrc=nl_mwweek_h_crawl

Facebooks Ambition
http://scobleizer.com/2010/04/22/facebook-ambition/

Docs.com
http://docs.com

Technology Pick of the Week
My technology pick of the week this week is a blog posting from Kapp Notes blog on interesting Random Web 2.0 Statistics

Kapp Notes
More Random Web 2.0 Statistics
http://karlkapp.blogspot.com/2010/04/more-random-web-20-statistics.html?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

Who owns the most servers?
http://geekpedia.wordpress.com/2010/04/19/googles-1-million-servers/

Episode 107 – TechTalk4Teachers Transcript:

It’s Friday April 30th, 2010 and welcome to episode 107 of Tech Talk for Teachers. I’m Tom Grissom. It’s been a very busy month in the technology world and I’d like to take a few minutes to cover three of the big stories that I think are going to have an impact on education in the coming months.

The first story involves the ipad. Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock for the past month, the Ipad device has been released to the public. The reviews are mixed coming in. Some are finding educational uses while others are still trying to find exactly where does the ipad fit in the education world.

One of the big stories this month for college students is the Facebook conference that was held this month. The FA conference made several announcements that will directly impact Facebook users.

First, Facebook is coming out with something they are calling instant personalization, in which they may be sharing user profile data with other services. For example, Pandora and Yelp may be exchanging data with Facebook, so that user profile data may be used by those services to provide a better experience for those users. While that creates instant personalization, it also comes at a cost for privacy. So Facebook users need to be aware to keep their privacy settings where they want so that information is not shared that they do not want to have shared with the world.

The other big announcement involves Microsoft and Facebook, in which they are doing a beta test with something called docs.com. This essentially is Microsoft Office coming to the web for Facebook users. The Office 2010 product will be released later next month for some users and the docs.com website is a web 2.0 cloud service that will allow Facebook users to create very simple documents like Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. It will not have the full functionality of the Office 2010. However it does give 400 million Facebook users access to Microsoft Office products. As this rolls out of beta, I’m sure we’ll be hearing more about this in the future.

Facebook Privacy Changes
http://www.macworld.com/article/150822/2010/04/facebook_privacy.html?lsrc=nl_mwweek_h_crawl

Facebooks Ambition
http://scobleizer.com/2010/04/22/facebook-ambition/

Docs.com
http://docs.com

At the ITC this month, we have also been extremely busy as this is the last month before our final exams. I just looked at some of the student traffic we had coming into the ITC and just yesterday we had just short of 1,000 students in and out of the ITC. That will put us over the 12,000 visitor mark to the ITC this month. With the retirement of Terry Hyder, we are down full-time position here at the ITC and I want to recognize the student workers here at the ITC for doing a great job and handling a lot of the workload. We continue to be extremely busy with students coming in and working on their project-based learning activities and this week we have been having a lot of LiveText questions as students complete their electronic portfolios and lesson plans online.

The other news at the ITC this month is that I started a new blog called Netbook Secrets. Now I only have two entries to date, but I plan on adding more over the summer that will share some of the experiences that we’ve had here at the in successfully implementing a netbook program. So be sure to keep your eye out for Netbook Secrets in the coming months. Be sure to check out the show notes, as I will have links for the articles regarding Facebook, privacy settings, and the docs.com website, if you’re interested in learning more about these services.

Technology Pick of the Week

My technology pick of the week this week is a blog posting from Kapp Notes. This is from a posting on April 12th regarding more random web 2.0 statistics. I thought I might share just a few of the entries that this blog is offering.

Kapp Notes
More Random Web 2.0 Statistics
http://karlkapp.blogspot.com/2010/04/more-random-web-20-statistics.html?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

Here are some interesting stats. Facebook has more than 400 million active users. By 2050 the population of the United States is estimated to reach 400 million. It reached 300 million in 2006. The average Facebook user has 130 friends and spends 55 minutes a day on Facebook. The average Twitter user has 27 followers. And one of the more interesting ones is according to YouTube’s fact sheet, for every minute, 24 hours of video is uploaded to YouTube. That’s up from 20 hours of video in May of 2009. So just imagine the content that is being added to the YouTube website. Also along with this, I will post a link to another graphic that shows how many servers different companies are using on the Internet and along with the Google YouTube service, Google now has over 1 million servers on the Internet, just to handle the huge traffic that Google must deal with every month.

That wraps it up for episode 107 of Tech Talk for Teachers. Show notes for this episode and archived episodes are available on the web at the EIU Instructional Technology Center website at www.eiu.edu/itc To leave a comment or suggestion, please send an email to techtalk@eiu.edu or leave a comment on the Tech Talk for Teachers blog. Until next time, this is Tom Grissom. Keep on learning…

Tom Grissom, Ph.D.

Episode 106 - Happy Retirement Terry!

2010-03-31T10:38:00.000-07:00

Tech Talk 4 Teachers

In this episode we speak with Terry Hyder who is retiring from 14 years of service to the Instructional Technology Center. Terry discusses some of the changes that have occurred over the past few years. Happy Retirement Terry!!!

Right Click Here to Download MP3
(8 minutes 38 seconds)

Technology Pick of the Week
My technology pick of the week this week is a word cloud service called ABCya, a link is available in the show notes.

ABCya Word Clouds
http://abcya.com/word_clouds.htm

ABCya is a lot like Wordle, a previous TechTalk4Teachers pick of the week, in that you can copy and paste text into a text box and then have it converted into a word cloud. One nice feature is the ability to right-click on a word and then delete the word if you do not want to have that particular word in your word cloud.

That wraps it up for episode 106 of TechTalk4Teachers. Show notes for this episode and archived episodes are available on the web at the EIU Instructional Technology Center website at http://www.eiu.edu/itc To leave a comment or suggestion please send an email to techtalk@eiu.edu or leave a comment on the TechTalk4Teachers blog. Happy Retirement Terry! Until next time this is Tom Grissom, keep on learning!

Full Transcript for Episode 106 of Tech Talk 4 Teachers:

Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Episode 106 - Happy Retirement Terry!

Tech Talk 4 Teachers
Tom Grissom: It’s Wednesday March 31st 2010 and welcome to episode 106 of Tech Talk 4 Teachers. I’m Tom Grissom
Terry Hyder: and I’m Terry Hyder.
Tom: Welcome Terry.
Terry Hyder: Hi!
Tom: Great to have you today. I wanted to invite you in because this is a very special day, bittersweet for me. But I wanted to welcome you and this is going to be your last day here at the ITC. Going to be retiring here, so, I want to wish you well for that and publicly recognize you for all the great work that you’ve done over the years.
Terry: Thanks, I have had a wonderful time. That’s the reason I’ve been here for fourteen years at just one job for campus.
Tom: Yep, fourteen years. One job here at the ITC, so things have changed a little bit in the last fourteen years, haven’t they?
Terry: Just slightly, yes. We’ve gone from, when I first came we had only one set of Ellison dies and they were letter sets and now we have well over 400 and they’re all different patterns and things like that. So that, plus the computer lab has grown immensely and I’ve gone from, was it the 8 inch floppy disk, yeah, type thing? To the little mini flash-drives.
Tom: Yep, the USB flash-drives.
Terry: So, that was something else as well.
Tom: Yeah, and we’ve been keeping data traffic counts and every year we’ve had over 100,000 student visits.
Terry: Oh my gosh.
Tom: So, I was thinking last night, adding that up, fourteen years, that’s 1.4 million student visits.
Terry: Holy cow!
Tom: So no wonder we’re tired in the evening whenever we go home. The building that were in was also renovated.
Terry: That’s right.
Tom: So can you tell a little bit about what that change was like from the older building to the newer building?
Terry: The building is really an elementary school. The hallways were very much narrower than what they are now. There were lockers everywhere, up and down all the hallways. When my husband came, he was head of the Department of Journalism and his office was the principal’s office and had the original principal’s desk and everything, wooden desk. But the ITC is now, was where Special Ed is now and it was very small. Where we are now, present day was a big garage type place. It had a big boat in it, it had boa constrictor in it, self contained, thank you very much. It also had a wheel for ceramics.
Tom: And where we’re at presently, it was the art studio?
Terry: Yes, the art studio and journalism was down here mostly on the first floor. College of Ed was up on the second floor. Dean’s office and everything was up on the second floor. They had two kitchens across the hall for home economics, the stoves and everything were still there and that was journalism’s computer lab. And that’s present day where the Dean’s office is. And so it was quite fun. We had a swimming pool, they filled that in with sand and you can kind of still see that. It was just crazy!
Tom: Okay, we’ve certainly changed over the years and we’ve evolved as the new technologies and things have arrived. One of the things that we do a lot of in the ITC is helping students with their project-based learning and we do a lot of project-based learning activities. I know our students always look to you, especially for like the bulletin boards and doing some of the Ellison dies and things like that. But what else has changed over, you know, the course of the last several years? What do you think was one of the biggest changes between when you started?
Terry: When I first started, we didn’t do any of that. In fact, everything that we had was in one four-drawer filing cabinet and that was it. You pulled the drawer out to get your markers. You pulled the drawer out to get an idea book out. So, we really didn’t have that much space to do anything with. We maybe had two tables versus our ten now. All the space that we have and plus we offer so much more now than they would have ever dreamed of.
Tom: Yeah, it makes a great place for them to come in and work on their projects.
Terry: It is just absolutely wonderful, these kids here do not understand how privileged they are to have this.
Tom: Yeah, it’s certainly a great asset for the college.
Terry: Take advantage, please. Yes, yes!
Tom: Anything else you’d like to share on the podcast here this morning?
Terry: That I’ve thoroughly enjoyed my job or I would not have stayed as long as I did.
Tom: Well you’re certainly going to be missed, I can certainly tell you that.
Terry: I love working with the students and I didn’t think I was, because I was a preschool teacher before and I thought, oh this is not going to happen. But, I did. I shifted gears and it was fine. I found that about myself, that I was more creative than what I thought I was. And helping out with the students and hashing it out, talking about what they had to do, and it just makes your day.
Tom: Thinking back, because I came to Eastern 98-99, and we were doing the computers on wheels and then we moved to the new building. And Pat Fuel, the former director here, we were doing all those checkouts and now then we have all the netbook carts and laptop carts and flip cameras and digital cameras. We just do a ton of checkouts.
Terry: We certainly do.
Tom: And the students are certainly doing those digital projects all over the place and that’s a big change. Every classroom is what we call a Technology Enhanced Classroom. We were the first college on campus to have that and it’s just really interesting seeing all the resources that the internet has to offer.
Terry: That’s the reason it is so good for these students to have a place like this to come to work. They just don’t realize that when they get out into the schools system, that they’re going to have to fight to get what they want as far as stuff. They’ll know how to use it.
Tom: Yeah, and that’s the big thing that we want to expose them to all the different technologies and things so that’s certainly what we try and do here. Well, I want to thank you very much and wish you the very best of retirements and enjoy those grandkids out there.
Terry: Oh, I am!
Tom: And some trips back home. So, thank you very much for all your service over these years.
Terry: Thank you for having me.
Tom: You’re very welcome.

Technology pick of the week

Tom: My technology pick of the week this week is ABCYa word clouds. ABCYa is a very simple word cloud creator and it’s very easy to use. It’s very similar to the wordle program which was a former technology pick of the week.

Technology pick of the week
Tom: My technology pick of the week this week is ABCYa word clouds. ABCYa is a very simple word cloud creator and it’s very easy to use. It’s very similar to the wordle program which was a former technology pick of the week.
http://abcya.com
You just simply copy and paste text into a text box and click on the arrow and it will automatically generate a very simple word cloud. Now, this one to me, is a little bit easier to use than wordle and one of the nice features is that you can also right click on a word and then delete the word. So, if you have a series of words that you paste in and there’s one word that you don’t want to appear on your word cloud, you can just simply right click, and then chose the delete option. And it does give you the option to save, which it will be a public save, and then also to print. But, ABCYa is one of those very simple word cloud editors out there. You can change the colors, you can change the font and layout and it also has a randomize feature if you don’t like the way the words are laid out the first time that you hit the next button. So, I’ll provide a link for that in the show notes it’s ABCYa word clouds. That wraps it up for Episode 106 of Tech Talk 4 Teachers, show notes for this episode and archive episodes are available on the web at the EIU Instructional Technology Center’s website at www.eiu.edu/itc . Leave a comment or suggestion or send an email to techtalk@eiu.edu or leave a comment on the Tech Talk 4 Teachers blog. I want to thank Terry Hyder for doing the interview today and certainly wish her the very best of retirements. Happy retirement Terry! Until next time, this is Tom Grissom. Keep on learning…

You just simply copy and paste text into a text box and click on the arrow and it will automatically generate a very simple word cloud. Now, this one to me, is a little bit easier to use than wordle and one of the nice features is that you can also right click on a word and then delete the word. So, if you have a series of words that you paste in and there’s one word that you don’t want to appear on your word cloud, you can just simply right click, and then chose the delete option. And it does give you the option to save, which it will be a public save, and then also to print. But, ABCYa is one of those very simple word cloud editors out there. You can change the colors, you can change the font and layout and it also has a randomize feature if you don’t like the way the words are laid out the first time that you hit the next button. So, I’ll provide a link for that in the show notes it’s ABCYa word clouds. That wraps it up for Episode 106 of Tech Talk 4 Teachers, show notes for this episode and archive episodes are available on the web at the EIU Instructional Technology Center’s website at www.eiu.edu/itc . Leave a comment or suggestion or send an email to techtalk@eiu.edu or leave a comment on the Tech Talk 4 Teachers blog. I want to thank Terry Hyder for doing the interview today and certainly wish her the very best of retirements. Happy retirement Terry! Until next time, this is Tom Grissom. Keep on learning…

You just simply copy and paste text into a text box and click on the arrow and it will automatically generate a very simple word cloud. Now, this one to me, is a little bit easier to use than wordle and one of the nice features is that you can also right click on a word and then delete the word. So, if you have a series of words that you paste in and there’s one word that you don’t want to appear on your word cloud, you can just simply right click, and then chose the delete option. And it does give you the option to save, which it will be a public save, and then also to print. But, ABCYa is one of those very simple word cloud editors out there. You can change the colors, you can change the font and layout and it also has a randomize feature if you don’t like the way the words are laid out the first time that you hit the next button. So, I’ll provide a link for that in the show notes it’s ABCYa word clouds. That wraps it up for Episode 106 of Tech Talk 4 Teachers, show notes for this episode and archive episodes are available on the web at the EIU Instructional Technology Center’s website at www.eiu.edu/itc . Leave a comment or suggestion or send an email to techtalk@eiu.edu or leave a comment on the Tech Talk 4 Teachers blog. I want to thank Terry Hyder for doing the interview today and certainly wish her the very best of retirements. Happy retirement Terry! Until next time, this is Tom Grissom. Keep on learning…
You just simply copy and paste text into a text box and click on the arrow and it will automatically generate a very simple word cloud. Now, this one to me, is a little bit easier to use than wordle and one of the nice features is that you can also right click on a word and then delete the word. So, if you have a series of words that you paste in and there’s one word that you don’t want to appear on your word cloud, you can just simply right click, and then chose the delete option. And it does give you the option to save, which it will be a public save, and then also to print. But, ABCYa is one of those very simple word cloud editors out there. You can change the colors, you can change the font and layout and it also has a randomize feature if you don’t like the way the words are laid out the first time that you hit the next button. So, I’ll provide a link for that in the show notes it’s ABCYa word clouds. That wraps it up for Episode 106 of Tech Talk 4 Teachers, show notes for this episode and archive episodes are available on the web at the EIU Instructional Technology Center’s website at www.eiu.edu/itc . Leave a comment or suggestion or send an email to techtalk@eiu.edu or leave a comment on the Tech Talk 4 Teachers blog. I want to thank Terry Hyder for doing the interview today and certainly wish her the very best of retirements. Happy retirement Terry! Until next time, this is Tom Grissom. Keep on learning!

Episode 105 - A fast February with some research

2010-02-25T16:01:00.000-08:00

Welcome to Episode 105 of TechTalk4Teachers, I'm Tom Grissom.

In this episode I share some of the research findings regarding a college-level student technology use survey.

Right Click Here to Download MP3
(7 minutes 30 seconds)

Technology Pick of the Week
My technology pick of the week this week is a visual presentation tool called Prezi, a link is available in the show notes.

Prezi
http://prezi.com

I have also included a link to my first Prezi with information about some of the research findings I shared earlier in this podcast in a visual form. Be sure to check it out at:

Student Technology Use (College-Level) Prezi Presentation
http://prezi.com/hmqyr-j_zju3/

That wraps it up for episode 105 of TechTalk4Teachers. Show notes for this episode and archived episodes are available on the web at the EIU Instructional Technology Center website at http://www.eiu.edu/itc To leave a comment or suggestion please send an email to techtalk@eiu.edu or leave a comment on the TechTalk4Teachers blog. Until next time this is Tom Grissom, keep on learning!

Full Transcript Episode 105 Tech Talk 4 Teachers:
Thursday, February 25, 2010
Episode 105 - A fast February with some research

It’s Thursday February 25th 2010 and welcome to Episode 105 of Tech Talk 4 Teachers. I’m Tom Grissom. Welcome to an abbreviated edition of Tech Talk 4 Teachers, as I wanted to get one quick podcast in before the month of February slipped away from us. I do have a little bit of cleanup work to do, as last episode, I have asked if anyone from India was listening. I didn’t receive an email from India, however, I did receive an email from Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates from someone who used to live in India. And Teeshen wanted to make sure she said hello and let you know she appreciated your email comment.
Now onto this week’s content. At the beginning of this week, we had a research fair here in our college and we recently completed a survey and we had 451 people respond, out of a little over 500. It works out to about an 83% participation rate. So, we did have a large number of students complete the survey and it was well represented.
To give you an idea, this is student college technology use. So we did have pretty good representation from all levels of college. Of the respondents, 12% identified themselves as freshman, 20% as sophomores, 30% as juniors, 23% as seniors, and 15% as graduate students. So pretty good representation across the board of the different levels. We of course ask about computer use and we’ve been at 90% plus computer ownership for awhile. But in this survey 98.4% of respondents reported owning a computer. To further break that down, we asked about the type of computer that they had and 12.7% reported having a desktop computer, 65.9% having a laptop, 19.8% said both a desktop and a laptop, and as I said 1.6% reported not owning a computer.
As far as operating systems, 91.2% reported owning a PC running Windows and 8.8% running a Mac with OS 10. We ask a general question, do you know how to burn a CD? And 92.4% of respondents said yes. Regarding social networking, we ask about Myspace and Facebook accounts. To break it down further, 51% reported only Facebook, 2% reported only Myspace, 33% reported both Myspace and Facebook, and 14% said neither Facebook or Myspace. In the question, do you own an MP3 player, 83% of respondents said yes, they own an MP3 player. Do you own a cell phone? 99.8% of respondents, so it looks like approximately one person out of the 451 did not own a cell phone. That one surprised me a little bit. I didn’t think it would be nearly 100%. Of those, of course, 95% reported having a texting service.
We ask a question about how often do you backup your data and this one surprised me and is probably a little frightening for the IT folks out there. 44.3% said I never backup. The question regarding listening to audio podcasts, 66% had reported that they had listened to an audio podcast. When we asked how they listened to an audio podcast, this is a little surprising. 90% said they listened on a computer and only 10% reported listening on an MP3 player. We asked if the students had iTunes installed on their computer and 77% reported yes, they did have iTunes installed. But going back to the podcast question, only 13.4% had ever subscribed to a podcast. Then we ask several questions about frequency of use of just some of the common technology tools. I won’t bother to sit here and read all of the different things. I will have a little bit more information coming up in my technology pick of the week however. It was an interesting survey. We had 83% participation rate and it’s interesting to see how the college use, or the technology use by college students has evolved over the years.
In general tech news, since our last episode, two big developments have occurred. Apple announced a new iPad device, which is going to be targeting use as a Ebook reader/audio-video consumption device. It’s not out yet. They just made the announcement late last month and the other thing that’s been in the news a lot lately is Google Buzz. If you have a Gmail account, you may have seen some information about this. This is something that Google kind of surprised users with and it’s not been getting very good reviews due to some privacy concerns. On my Droid phone, I do have Google maps and there is a new function that allows you to layer Google Buzz on top of your map. There are a lot of privacy concerns, because on the map you can literally see everybody that has made a status update and what Google is calling a buzz, similar to like Twitter or a Facebook status update. And not only does it give you the information on what the user said, it gives the username and also the location on the map, sometimes down to the street level. So there are some privacy concerns with that and Google has made several adjustments, but users are still getting accustomed to what it is and if it’s going to be useful as a tool.
If you’re receiving this in your feed today and if you happen to be attending the East Central Technology Conference tomorrow, I will be there. I will be presenting on podcasting some professional development opportunities there. So if you happen to attend tomorrow, make sure you stop by and give a shout out and say hello. My technology pick of the week this week, is a service called Prezi. I have several friends in my Twitter network that have been using Prezi and what it is, is a visual representation and it’s kind of like a PowerPoint that you can zoom in and zoom out of objects. It’s really kind of hard to describe. The best way is to experience it. So what I’ve done is I’ve attempted my first Prezi and it contains some of the research that I reported on earlier. So, if you’re interested, I’ll provide a link in the show notes as well as a link to the general Prezi.com website. Several presenters are using this now. It provides a lot of motion and it really can keep the audience attention, if it’s not overdone.
That wraps it up for episode 105 of Tech Talk 4 Teachers. Show notes for this episode and archived episodes are available on the web at the EIU Instructional Technology Center website at www.eiu.edu/itc. To leave a comment or suggestion, please send an email to techtalk@eiu.edu or leave a comment on the Tech Talk 4 Teacher’s blog. Until next time, this is Tom Grissom. Keep on learning!

Episode 104 – Happy New Year and a guest from Mumbai, India

2010-01-22T12:29:00.001-08:00

Welcome to Episode 105 of TechTalk4Teachers, I'm Tom Grissom.

In this episode I talk with my graduate assistant, Tehseen, about her recent trip back to India.

Right Click Here to Download MP3
(15 minutes 31 seconds)

Tehseen discusses her experiences with technology and how it has helped her stay in contact with friends and family back home while attending school here at Eastern Illinois University.

Drop us a note and tell us where you are from, you may send an email to techtalk@eiu.edu

WolframAlpha Query comparing Charleston, Illinois and Mumbai, India
http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=how+far+is+it+from+Charleston%2C+Illinois+to+Mumbai%2C+India

Technology Pick of the Week
My technology pick of the week this week is a report that is hot off the presses and I always assign this report to my preservice teachers as required reading. The name of this report is the Horizon Report 2010 and a link is available in the show notes.

Horizon Report 2010
http://www.nmc.org/publications/2010-horizon-report

This free report was released last week by the New Media Consortium and the Educause Learning Initiative provides a look into the future by projecting current technology trends out to five years and discusses their relevance to learning. The report discusses mobile computing, open content, ebooks, simple augmented reality, gesture based computing, and visual data analysis. This report has many examples of how up-and-coming technologies are being used inside and outside the classroom to benefit the learning experience. The report is only 40 pages long and is well worth the read so be sure to check it out.

That wraps it up for episode 104 of TechTalk4Teachers. Show notes for this episode and archived episodes are available on the web at the EIU Instructional Technology Center website at http://www.eiu.edu/itc To leave a comment or suggestion please send an email to techtalk@eiu.edu or leave a comment on the TechTalk4Teachers blog. Until next time this is Tom Grissom, keep on learning!

Episode 103 – Learning by Design - Project WOW

2009-12-18T11:04:00.000-08:00

It’s Friday December 18th, 2009 and welcome to episode 103 of TechTalk4Teachers, I’m Tom Grissom and I’m Judy Barford. That’s right we have a guest in the studio, welcome Judy.

Judy Barford discusses the value of project-based learning and shares the lessons learned from Project WOW that she has led over the past 12 years here at Eastern Illinois University in partnership with 3rd grade classes at the Carl Sandburg School in Charleston, Illinois.

Right Click Here to Download MP3

(26 minutes 14 seconds)

Be sure to listen to this weeks podcast as Project WOW is one of the most effective learning environments developed with Carl Sandburg 3rd grade teachers and students, EIU pre-service teachers and Mrs. Barford that incorporates theory-based research into practical learning experiences for all involved.

Project WOW National Parks Website:
Be sure to checkout the dozen projects about our National Parks created by Project WOW 3rd graders.
http://www.eiu.edu/~wow/classes/fa09/

Technology Pick of the Week

My technology pick of the week this week is a free ebook from author Seth Godin called What Matters Now, a link is available in the show notes. You do not need an ebook reader such as the Kindle to read What Matters Now as it is also available for viewing on a webpage or downloadable as an Adobe PDF document for viewing on your computer.

What Matters Now – free ebook in PDF format
http://www.scribd.com/doc/23711234/What-Matters-Now

This is a free ebook that is targeted more toward a business audience however there is much that applies to education. Seth Godin is a leading thinker in the marketing and Web 2.0 world and is also the author of several best selling books over the past decade such as Tribes, Purple Cow, The Dip, Small is the New Big, and many others. Seth has recognized that the world has changed and is giving away What Matters Now as a free ebook. What Matters Now is really a collection of insights from dozens of leading authors of today compiled in an easy to read 82 page ebook format. If you have some time over the holiday break give it a read and let your creative juices flow with new ideas. Seth has recognized the synergy between new technologies and marketing strategies that is making new things possible from individuals on an unprecedented scale. This same synergy is being applied to education by many educators as we strive to change the world by taking advantage of powerful technologies to amplify and share our message. It is truly a wonderful time to be an educator.

That wraps it up for episode 103 of TechTalk4Teachers. Show notes for this episode and archived episodes are available on the web at the EIU Instructional Technology Center website at www.eiu.edu/itc To leave a comment or suggestion please send an email to techtalk@eiu.edu or leave a comment on the TechTalk4Teachers blog. I also want to let listeners/readers know that this will be the last episode of TechTalk4Teachers for 2009. We will be back in mid-January 2010 with another new episode, until next time this is Tom Grissom, Happy Holidays and keep on learning!

Episode 102 - Tipping Point for ebooks?

2009-11-13T12:52:00.000-08:00

It’s Friday November 13th, 2009 and welcome to episode 102 of TechTalk4Teachers, I’m Tom Grissom. This week we have a special guest, Dr. James Harden, talks about the recent Diversity Conference held here at Eastern Illinois University.

Right Click Here to Download MP3

(19 minutes 35 seconds)

In the world of ed tech this week Amazon released the Kindle for the PC Beta ebook software. I have downloaded and installed Kindle for PC on a laptop computer. The whole process took less than two minutes and once I logged in to my Amazon account I was able to see all the books I had purchased in the Archive section of the software and was able to download them locally to the laptop. The Kindle for the PC interface is very simple and clean. This is beta software so there will be additional changes in the future but it is currently very functional and gives me another option of reading previously purchased content. I really do believe this event is a tipping point for ebook readers because now any of the billion PC users out there now have a way of purchasing and viewing an ebook using free software. Of course you still have to purchase the content from Amazon but the hurdle of accessing ebooks has now diminished with the release of this free software.

On a personal note I recently purchased the new Droid smartphone from Verizon and I am very happy with it so far. My cell phone contract expired a couple of months ago and I have been researching my options. Since I am currently use the Verizon network the new Droid phone was a logical choice. The Droid uses the new Android 2.0 software and comes with free built-in Google Maps navigation and this feature with free turn-by-turn GPS directions closed the deal for me. The App Store has approximately 10,000 apps that will keep me busy for a while as I explore the functionality of the Droid.

A third item of interest this week involves the five Kodak zi8 cameras that the ITC recently ordered. I made the Kodak zi8 video camera my Technology Pick of the Week on the last episode of TechTalk4Teachers and now that I have had a chance to get my hands on one and use it my views have not changed. The zi8 offers HD quality video recording and more importantly the ability to plug-in an external microphone that will allow for higher-quality audio recording. In my initial tests I am quite pleased with both the video quality and the audio quality. My only complaint is that the zi8 does not ship with an SD card which is required to record HD video, I knew this in advance so we ordered 16GB SD cards along with the cameras but I imagine many people purchasing a zi8 will be disappointed to find out they have to go back to the store to purchase a SD card before they can even use the camera out of the box. Now on to our interview for today.

Interview with Dr. James Harden about the Diversity Conference held at Eastern Illinois University

Technology Pick of the Week

My Technology Pick of the Week this week is the Beta version of the Kindle for PC software. I have provided a link in the show notes where you can download Kindle for PC beta to give it a try.

Kindle for the PC Beta Download
http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html?ie=UTF8&docId=1000426311

Kindle for PC allows you to read purchased ebooks from the Amazon store on a Personal Computer. Amazon has sold many Kindles but Kindles are dedicated devices for reading ebooks and are expensive for a single use device. The Kindle for the PC will allow you to read purchased ebooks on your computer.
The jury is still out whether most people will find reading an ebook on a Personal Computer enjoyable but it does open the market for ebook readers and it is no longer necessary to spend money on a dedicated reading device such as the Kindle. It also offers the ability to display color, something the Kindle has not offered to date. The Kindle does offer inking technology seems to be easier on your eyes to read so there still may be a place for the Kindle device depending upon your preferences.

That wraps it up for episode 102 of TechTalk4Teachers. I want to thank Dr. James Harden for the interview today and sharing some of his thoughts on the recent diversity conference as well as how he utilizes new technologies in the classroom with preservice teachers. Show notes for this episode and archived episodes are available on the web at the EIU Instructional Technology Center website at www.eiu.edu/itc just If you have questions, comments or suggestions please send an email to techtalk@eiu.edu or leave a comment on the TechTalk4Teachers blog. Until next time, this is Tom Grissom, keep on learning.

Episode 101 - Podcasting is Alive and Well, Powered by 3rd Graders

2009-10-30T13:05:00.000-07:00

It’s Friday, October 30th, 2009 and welcome to episode 101 of TechTalk4Teachers!

In this episode:
Podcasting with 3rd Graders, an interview with Mrs. Judy Barford, Early Childhood, Elementary, and Middle Level Education Department at Eastern Illinois University

Right Click Here to Download MP3

Show notes for Episode 101:

In this episode:
Podcasting with 3rd Graders, an interview with Mrs. Judy Barford, Early Childhood, Elementary, and Middle Level Education Department at Eastern Illinois University

Project WOW
http://www.eiu.edu/~wow/

Technology Pick of the Week

My Technology Pick of the Week this week is the Audacity software for recording and editing podcasts and other audio files. Below are some links to get you started quickly with podcasting using the FREE Audacity software.

Audacity Software Download Site (Source Forge)
http://audacity.sourceforge.net/download/

LAME MP3 Encoder - (required to save files to the MP3 format)
http://audacity.sourceforge.net/help/faq?s=install&item=lame-mp3

Audacity Tutorial
http://audacity.sourceforge.net/manual-1.2/tutorials.html

Poducate Me - Practical Solutions for Podcasting in Education
http://poducateme.com/

Poducate Me - Guide to Podcasting
http://poducateme.com/guide/

Visit the Eastern Illinois University Instructional Technology Center website at:
http://www.eiu.edu/itc

Do you like the new format? Please send comments and suggestions to techtalk@eiu.edu

Until next time this is Tom Grissom, keep on learning!

Episode 100 - Podcasting is Dead

2009-10-17T17:48:00.000-07:00

It’s Friday, October 30th, 2009 and welcome to episode 101 of TechTalk4Teachers!

In this episode:
Podcasting with 3rd Graders, an interview with Mrs. Judy Barford, Early Childhood, Elementary, and Middle Level Education Department at Eastern Illinois University

Right Click Here to Download MP3

Show notes for Episode 100:

Leo LaPorte’s Comment – Podcasting is Dead
http://onlinedesignbureau.com/blog/116-social-media-marketing/498-leo-laporte-declares-podcasting-dead

You can fast forward in the video embedded at this website to the 16 minute and 30 second mark to go directly to the “Podcasting is Dead” comments Leo made at the Online Media Association conference on October 4, 2009.

No More Podcast in The New Media Expo – 2007 Podcasting is Dead Comment
http://mwgblog.com/archives/2007/10/01/no-more-podcast-in-the-new-media-expo/

Also in this episode are the comments from three grad students regarding a recent podcasting assignment where the students gave their thoughts about listening to educational podcasts.

Technology Pick of the Week

Kodak Zi8 flip-style camera
http://store.kodak.com/store/ekconsus/en_US/pd/productID.156585800

Visit the Eastern Illinois University Instructional Technology Center website at:
http://www.eiu.edu/itc

Please send comments and suggestions to techtalk@eiu.edu

Until next time this is Tom Grissom, keep on learning!

tt4t_099 The journey to episode 100, one more to go

2009-09-25T14:00:00.001-07:00

Right Click Here to Download MP3

It’s Friday, September 25th, 2009 and welcome to episode 99 of TechTalk4Teachers, I’m Tom Grissom. We have finally made it to 99 episodes and with only one more show go to reach triple digits. Reaching 100 shows was one my goals when I first started this podcast and if feels good to be so close. Back in the day when podcasting was THE “hot topic” for educators it was rare for a podcast series to last 20 episodes, many shows started and then quickly “podfaded” as time went on.

Podcasting has succumbed to the cycle of technological innovation from being the next big thing to just another tool in the quiver of learning technologies available for teachers and students. It remains however an important tool that has much potential for teachers and students as an instructional tool and to also share their stories with the world.

Reaching 99 episodes of course could not have happened without your support and I would like to thank each and everyone of you who has tuned in over the past two plus years to listen to TechTalk4Teachers . We have had listeners from 98 different countries from around the world and I am still amazed at the geographic diversity this podcast has had. As we enter our third year it is time to re-evaluate where this podcast has been as well determine what direction to head into the future.

Recently I have been thinking about changing the format from a once a week show to an every other week show. One thing we teachers know is that there is not just one learning strategy that works all the time, we need to mix it up. I also do not want to get stuck in a rut as this show is produced from a labor of love. It can be a challenge to produce a show every week while working a regular day job with many duties and responsibilities. Those of you that have produced your own podcasts know what I mean. Episodes just do not magically appear. I want to keep things fresh and useful. The plus side of a weekly show is that we now have 99 Technology Picks of the Week and this has been an excellent way to share tech tools that can be used with an educational purpose in the classroom.

What do you think? Please drop me an email or leave a comment on the TechTalk4Teachers blog. This show is for all of us and your input is greatly valued. Let me know what you like, what you might change, and if you have time let me know what was your favorite episode of TechTalk4Teachers or what is your favorite Tech Pick of the Week. I look forward to hearing from you so please take that extra effort and drop me a short note, it will just take a minute and it means so much to podcasters like myself to hear from you.

Part of the purpose of TechTalk4Teachers is to discuss the issues and trends that are occurring in the world of teaching and learning with technology. We are living in tumultuous times and there are many issues on the table that will directly impact the education of our students for years to come.

K-12 schools are working through filtering issues and finding working methods of accessing Web 2.0 resources while at the same time maintaining a safe learning environment for our children.

Technology is expensive and many schools and universities struggle with finding a balance between accessing modern technologies while at the same time managing the budgets required for sustained technological integration which can be costly and recurring as old equipment is replaced with new.

Unfortunately the digital divide is still alive and well in America and the US government is currently working on a national technology plan, the FCC is studying ways to increase affordable broadband access for ALL Americans. Living in rural Illinois the digital divide issue is one that I have been personally affected by. Broadband access is increasingly becoming the currency for learning and those without high-speed Internet access will be left behind. Schools that do not have ubiquitous Internet access are also being left behind. We are living in a world of global competition and other countries in the world often have better Internet access than is available in many parts of the USA. We must be an advocate for affordable broadband access for our students.

There is also a big movement to e-books that is challenging the traditional dead-tree model of textbooks. We are at the beginning of this adoption curve and as standards evolve e-books will increasingly become an attractive option to traditional textbooks.

One-to-one laptop programs are becoming more common as laptops become more affordable and I believe the new low-cost netbooks will accelerate this trend.

These are just a few of the topics that have been discussed over the past 99 episodes of TechTalk4Teachers and as you can see there is plenty of material to cover for the future.

Technology Pick of the Week

My Technology Pick of the Week this week is a Web 2.0 service called Live Binder that allows you to build your own online 3-Ring Binder, a link is available in the show notes.

Live Binder : Online 3–Ring Binder
http://livebinder.com/

Getting started was easy and free and after signing up for an account you add a button called Live Binder It to your favorites in the toolbar of your browser. After signing in to your account any time you find something you would like to add to your binder you just click the Live Binder It link in your browsers toolbar.

You do have an option to make the binder public or private however the real power of this service is the ability to share your binders with others. If you decide to share your binder you are given options to email a link to others, share a web address with others or copy an embed code to place it into a webpage or blog. If you go to the livebinder webpage you will see a link to watch a video about some of the many features live binder has to offer, best of all its free.

That wraps it up for episode 99 of TechTalk4Teachers. Transcripts and show notes for this episode and archived episodes are available on the web at the Eastern Illinois University Instructional Technology Center website at www.eiu.edu/itc just click on the Techtalk4Teachers Podcast link. If you have questions, comments or suggestions please send an email to techtalk@eiu.edu or leave a comment on the TechTalk4Teachers blog. Until next time, and the 100th episode, this is Tom Grissom, keep on learning.

tt4t_098 EIU tech fair, netbooks, and the eeeasaurus

2009-09-20T17:19:00.000-07:00

Right Click Here to Download MP3

It’s Sunday, September 20th, 2009 and welcome to episode 98 of TechTalk4Teachers, I’m Tom Grissom. This past week was our annual technology fair here at EIU and the Instructional Technology Center had a booth at this years event to share some of the many innovations that we have been working on in the College of Education and Professional Studies.

There was a lot of interest in our netbook project and also in what we call our eeeasaurus classroom presentation system. The netbook project is going very well in our college and we shared what we have been doing with these very affordable alternatives to traditional laptops.

Netbooks are miniature laptops that typically cost between three and four-hundred dollars that offer a viable solution for use by our students in the classroom when lessons require technology integration.

Last year we needed to replace one of our mobile laptop carts and after much research and testing we elected to replace them with a netbook solution. We use technologies extensively throughout all of our programs and we serve a large number of students. Trying to reserve time in the ITC Lab is nearly impossible as we have 13 scheduled courses in our lab every week.

To help meet these needs the ITC utilizes mobile laptop carts for faculty to checkout for classroom use by our students for on-demand computing needs. This essentially makes every classroom in our building a computer lab when needed. We have been using this solution for over eight years now and our faculty and students use the mobile laptop carts regularly. Last year the ITC checked-out our mobile laptop carts 365 times to classrooms for faculty and students to use as part of lessons that required technology-integrated activites.

A mobile laptop cart solution requires a strong wireless access component so if you are considering a netbook solution you also need to address wireless access in your buildings if you plan on using Internet resources with netbooks.

The low-cost of the new netbooks meant that we were able to purchase twice the number of units for less than half the cost of traditional laptops. Because we were able to double the number of units purchased, at less than the price of a conventional solution ,we were able to place an additional set of netbook carts in another building that previously never had the ITC mobile cart service available. We can now serve more students and offer more technology-integrated lessons in our classrooms using this on-demand mobile netbook cart solution and we have done so without breaking the budget.

Here is a table of approximate costs comparing a netbook solution to a laptop solution for our needs.

Netbook Solution A
60 units x $400 per unit = $24,000

Traditional Laptop Solution B
60 units x $1000 per unit = $60,000

Thus in the example above we were able to save $36,000 over a traditional laptop solution. It is true that you can now buy a traditional laptop for much less than $1000 but it is also true that you can spend a lot more than $1000 on a traditional laptop. For schools that are experiencing budget constraints or schools that need to serve a large number of students a netbook solution makes a lot of sense.

Now if this were expanded school-wide or state-wide the savings become even more significant. 1000 units at $1000 each would cost $1,000,000 compared to a netbook solution of 1000 units costing $400 each where the cost would be $400,000, a $600,000 savings. Looking at it in a different way you could supply 2000 netbook units for a total of $800,000 and still have $200,000 savings while serving double the number of students compared to the traditional approach. That $200,000 in savings would go a long way for improving the required wireless access points that are also needed for a campus solution. In these days and times of economic turmoil netbooks are certainly something to be considered. Tax payers will also be appreciative of solutions that save significant amounts of public money that provide similar results to the old way of doing business.

Opponents of netbooks often state that the processing power of a netbook is not great enough for all computing needs and it is true that if you do need to do processor intensive applications like video production the current crop of netbooks would not be a good choice. However, netbooks were not designed for video editing, instead they have evolved to take advantage of Web 2.0 services in the cloud by accessing the Internet and thus the name netbook.

I have been using netbooks since they first became available in 2007 and a netbook easily serves 80 to 90 percent of the computing activities that I do. Most of the TechTalk4Teachers episodes have been produced on a netbook.

The other big advantage of the netbooks that we have discovered is the extended battery life that the netbooks offer. We easily get over 8 hours of battery life out of our netbooks and the latest models offer more than 10 hours. Compare that to the 1.5 to 2 hours of battery life that the old laptops were getting and you can see that we are quite pleased with the new netbooks. We checkout mobile laptop carts to classrooms regularly at the ITC and this advantage in battery life is HUGE, recharging between checkouts has been significantly reduced.

I also had several questions from visitors at the Tech Fair regarding the HDTV and netbook setup we were using in our ITC booth. I have provided a picture of our booth in the show notes.

The eeeasaurus is a very simple system and can be built today for under $1500. Rather than re-count the system here I will point you back to epidodes 82 and 83 of TechTalk4Teachers where I shared in detail how we built the now famous eeeasaurus classroom presentation system. Links to episode 82 and 83 are provided in the show notes.

tt4t_082 Meet the Eeeasaurus an affordable classroom presentation solution
http://techtalk4teachers.blogspot.com/2009/04/tt4t082-meet-eeeasaurus-affordable.html

tt4t_083 The eeeasaurus netbook project, part 2
http://techtalk4teachers.blogspot.com/2009/04/tt4t083-eeeasaurus-netbook-project-part.html

I also received several questions about the netbook connected to the eeeasaurus that was running the Windows 7 operating system. For those of you that are a bit more technical you will appreciate the fact that I had the full version of Windows 7 Ultimate Release Candidate OS, Office 2007, and Smart Notebook Version 10 applications running on the netbook in the ITC booth at the Tech Fair and it all ran very well.

The netbook I was using in the booth running Windows 7 had the Intel N280 1.6GHz Atom processor with only 1GB of RAM, it was a stock netbook with no modifications or upgrades, a pretty impressive feat.

So, if your school is experiencing budget cuts, as many are, or if you need to be frugal with technology purchases and get the most bang for the buck to serve more students I would encourage you to purchase a netbook and test it out for the situations you foresee your school using. You may be surprised at just how versatile these little guys are.

Technology Pick of the Week

My Technology Pick of the Week this week is a link to an article from Wired magazine from back in February of this year that provides additional background information about the netbook phenomenon. Since I have received many questions about netbooks this article does a nice job in describing the history of netbook development and a glimpse to where netbooks are heading in the future. A link is available in the show notes.

The Netbook Effect: How Cheap Little Laptops Hit the Big Time by Clive Thompson
http://www.wired.com/gadgets/wireless/magazine/17-03/mf_netbooks?currentPage=1

The computer industry is still reacting to netbooks. Many manufacturers have jumped on the netbook bandwagon but the netbook market is still evolving and time will tell if manufacturers can keep costs low. We are beginning to see a blurring of netbook models with new models sporting screen sizes larger than 10 inches, with increased screen size typically comes increased costs.

For many schools netbooks may offer an affordable solution to meet the computing needs of students. Time will tell if these small devices continue in their rise in popularity. Are you using a netbook? If you are drop me a note and let me know how you and your students are using them in the classroom.

That wraps it up for episode 98 of TechTalk4Teachers. Transcripts and show notes for this episode and archived episodes are available on the web at the Eastern Illinois University Instructional Technology Center website at www.eiu.edu/itc just click on the Techtalk4Teachers Podcast link. If you have questions, comments or suggestions please send an email to techtalk@eiu.edu or leave a comment on the TechTalk4Teachers blog. Until next time, this is Tom Grissom, keep on learning.

tt4t_097 Working with a net on the Internet

2009-09-11T18:52:00.000-07:00

It’s Friday, September 11th, 2009 and welcome to episode 97 of TechTalk4Teachers, I’m Tom Grissom. On the last episode of TechTalk4Teachers I discussed how we are increasingly seeing stories in the news related to the warning signs regarding Web 2.0 services. Over the past couple of weeks there have been a couple more high-profile cases that give some credence to the dangers of relying solely upon Web 2.0 services in the cloud.

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Cloud computing is the general term used where companies host their services on servers connected to the Internet and customers use the Internet to gain access to them. Many Web 2.0 services are free and therefore appeal to educators. As long as the servers are in good working condition and as long as customers have a good connection to the Internet everything works fine. The problems typically come when you do not have access to the Internet and therefore cannot use any Web 2.0 service. Another common problem for schools is that many schools filter and block these Web 2.0 services and therefore cannot be used at school.

This past week Google’s gmail web services experienced an outage lasting approximately 100 minutes. An outage on any of Googles servers is extremely rare so when an outage occurs it is big news. For those relying soley upon gmail for their email services users could not access their accounts through web access. If you were one of these users I suspect you may have panicked to find out that you could not log into gmail to check your email during this brief outage period.

I have provided links in the show notes to a couple of articles related to the Google gmail outage if you would like to learn more including a link to Google’s official blog with an explanation of what happened.

CNN Article on gmail outage
http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/09/01/gmail.outage/index.html

Google’s Official Blog
http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2009/09/more-on-todays-gmail-issue.html

There was another Web 2.0 incident that recently occurred involving well known technology blogger Robert Scoble who had his WordPress blog hacked and the hackers deleted some of his content along with some other nefarious activities. Hackers also broke into Scoble’s blog back in May of this year and he thought he had the issue resolved until the incident last week.

I have provided links to a couple of articles related to this incident in the show notes.

Scoble – I don’t feel safe with WordPress
http://scobleizer.com/2009/09/05/i-dont-feel-safe-with-wordpress-hackers-broke-in-and-took-things/

Here is a quote from Robert Scoble from a Venture Beat article regarding the recent hacker attack.

“They broke back in, but this time they did a lot more damage. They deleted about two months of my blog. Yes, I didn’t have a backup. I should learn to do backups (we’re doing them now). Life has a way of beating you if you don’t have backups.”

Venture Beat Article
http://venturebeat.com/2009/09/05/hackers-break-into-robert-scobles-blog-and-delete-older-posts/

This is very sad knowing that someone deleted files from your account and is even worse when you know you did not backup your files.

Web 2.0 services in this regard are becoming their own worst enemy because they have been so reliable in the past that we begin to take them for granted. We get lazy and do not routinely backup files because we rarely have a need to use backup files. However when we do need them we REALLY need them and kick ourselves for not taking a few minutes to protect hundreds of hours of work by simply copying important files to a backup device.

It really is RULE #1 of computing, ALWAYS have a backup of your important data files.

How do you know what’s important? I use the pain theory, if it would be painful for me to re-create something I have done using a computer then it is time for a backup. The seconds and minutes that it takes to make a backup is my insurance policy against disaster.

As Director of the ITC I occasionally get a student that comes to me with a flash drive that contains their 25 page report (that is usually due in the next hour) and says that their flash drive will not open their report, somehow the files have become corrupted. Maybe it was that trip through the washing machine. The first thing I ask them is, “Do you have a backup?” You can guess what the answer is most of the time.

Now this can happen to the best of us as illustrated by Robert Scoble’s case. The Scobleizer Blog ranks among the top 500 most popular blogs on Technorati and even a person with his knowledge and abilities has been burned by not adhering to Rule #1. He has paid the price and has lost about two months worth of content.

So the moral of this story is to always have a backup. For Web 2.0 services I call this working with a net on the Internet. When I post an Episode of TechTalk4Teachers to my blog site I also keep a local copy on my computer. That way in the unlikely event that my Google blog account gets deleted or hacked in to I have the original source files in a different location and I can recover if necessary.

It is also why I have a skydrive account where I save selected files to the Internet so I have access to them from anywhere there is an Internet connection. If you would like to learn more about skydrive checkout episode 67 of TechTalk4Teachers, a link is in the show notes.

Episode 67 Crunch Time (Skydrive)
http://techtalk4teachers.blogspot.com/2008/12/tt4t067-crunch-time.html

Technology Pick of the Week

My Technology Pick of the Week this week is from fellow listener Dr. Jake Emmett from our Kinesiology and Sports Studies department here at EIU. Dr. Emmett submitted Evernote to be considered for this weeks tech pick.

Evernote is a great Web 2.0 service especially for people who need a little help with finding things over time. Evernote’s slogan is “Remember Everything”

A link to the Evernote service is also provided in the show notes along with a link to learn more about this innovative service, as usual the basic Evernote account is free.

Evernote
http://evernote.com/

Evernote - Learn More
http://www.evernote.com/about/learn_more/

Evernote is great service for teachers and students and if you use this service you can place notes, documents, and pictures into your account and they all become searchable. If you need to find something and it is in your Evernote account you just type a search term and Evernote will find everything related to your search. Pretty handy for remembering everything for you.

One of the neatest technologies built into Evernote is the ability to read information stored in picture format (JPG). For example you can take a picture of someones business card and Evernote will recognize the text on the card and the text becomes searchable. Pretty Cool!

Thanks Dr. Emmett for the recommendation. I also invite other listeners of TechTalk4Teachers to submit your favorite tech tools to be considered as a future Tech Pick of the Week. This podcast is all about sharing so let’s share our favorites so we can all become better teachers.

That wraps it up for episode 97 of TechTalk4Teachers. Transcripts and show notes for this episode and archived episodes are available on the web at the Eastern Illinois University Instructional Technology Center website at www.eiu.edu/itc just click on the Techtalk4Teachers Podcast link. If you have questions, comments or suggestions please send an email to techtalk@eiu.edu or leave a comment on the TechTalk4Teachers blog. Until next time, this is Tom Grissom, keep on learning.

tt4t_096 Vanishing bits and warning signs in the cloud

2009-08-28T10:34:00.000-07:00

It’s Friday, August 28th, 2009 and welcome to episode 96 of TechTalk4Teachers, I’m Tom Grissom. It is now officially the first week of fall semester classes and we have met all the deadlines for having the technology infrastructure in place for a successful start to the school year. This summer has been particularly busy with a large number of new faculty and staff computers as well as the new netbook project we are implementing this fall.

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It is always interesting getting ready for the first day of school as there is literally a tidal wave of faculty, staff, and students that show up all at once ready to hit the ground running. We survived the first week of school and can breathe a sigh of relief as all the hard work over the summer has paid off with a smooth launch to the school year.

We are still in orientation mode as there have been many meetings this week and I will be meeting with several departments to give updates and provide professional development for new additions in the coming weeks. One thing you can say about technology is that you never get bored because it is constantly changing.

Of course the hope is that this change is for the better, at least it should be, otherwise why bother? We have been making our way into the Web 2.0 world over the past five years or so and there have been many growing pains along the way. Over the past month or so I have been thinking a lot about these changes and the consequences for educators.

This past month has had several items in the news that we need to address before we can move forward with confidence in this brave new and changing world.

About a month ago there was an article about how Amazon had deleted a couple of select books from their customers Kindle account without customer consent. A Kindle is Amazon’s version of an electronic book reader. Customers were however refunded the purchase price. This was all done in advance before any customer consent with the reason stated as a copyright issue with the purchased content.

I have provided a link in the show notes that describes this incident in greater detail. Ironically enough the books erased were from author George Orwell and included the books 1984 and Animal Farm. Amazon initially erased the e-books from the customers Kindle because of a copyright issue and has since back-tracked and has stated it will not erase e-books from customers Kindles in the future.

Amazon Erases Orwell Books From Kindle
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/18/technology/companies/18amazon.html

AMAZON SAYS IT WILL STOP DELETING KINDLE BOOKS
http://www.informationweek.com/news/personal_tech/drm/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=218501227

This whole incident appears to be very 1984ish where Big Brother can control everything, including taking away previously purchased reading material. That should give us all pause to be concerned about this over-reaching of protecting content. It is also a reminder that we are living in times of transition from the analog to the digital world where things are now possible because of digitization that were previously impossible in the analog world.

In the analog world of books Amazon would not have even considered going into a customers home and removing a previously purchased hard copy book from the customers coffee table because of a copyright issue. When things are digitized new possibilities are created, in this case for the worse.

These issues need to be worked through as we increasingly move our lives into the digital world now made possible by Web 2.0 technologies. I believe e-books have a bright future, however the transition that is occurring and digital rights management and terms of use need to be worked out before we will see wide-spread adoption.

Another Big Brotherish incident occurred over the past month that resulted in Apple not approving the Google voice application for their iPhone App Store. This incident is currently under investigation by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).

This situation is a tangled weave of competing interests between Apple, Google, and AT&T. AT&T currently subsidizes pricing for the iPhone based upon customers signing an extended data contract. Google’s voice application has some negative implications for AT&T in that it provides Voice over IP and texting capabilities that could possibly cut into the revenues of AT&T. AT&T pays Apple to reduce the cost of the iPhone and these subsidies are based on AT&T projections of future profits tied to customer data contracts. If AT&T starts to lose revenue then this may affect subsidies to Apple in the future.

Apple has said that Google Voice duplicates services already existing on the iPhone and other existing apps and that it also interferes with the customers iPhone experience. I have provided links in the show notes to a couple of articles related to this story if you are interested.

Apple Rejects Google Voice App, Invites Regulation
http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2009/07/apple-rejects-google-voice/

FCC Opens Inquiry of Apple's Ban of Google Voice
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124908121794098073.html

There was also some collateral damage to other apps in the App Store in that Apple is wanting to remove GV Mobile’s previously approve app from the app store. This incident is similar to the Amazon Kindle incident in that a company can decide to take away something that was previously approved for purchase and then refunding the customer whether or not the customer gives their permission.

Apple Yanks The Cord On GV Mobile. Is It Trying To Kill Google Voice On The iPhone?
http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/07/27/apple-yanks-the-cord-on-gv-mobile-is-it-trying-to-kill-google-voice-on-the-iphone/

This will be an interesting case to watch as these three Titans in Tech battle their way through the legalities of co-dependent terms and services with competing interests.

I guess the concerning thing for me as a consumer and as an educator is that a company may make a decision to reverse an application or service at their whim. Take this to the next level of a company controlling the actual content and then it becomes even more concerning and can easily lead to censorship and dictatorial control. This changing of terms happens rather routinely to Web 2.0 companies as they are purchased by bigger companies and are often shutdown, customers are then left without services.

Of course many of the Web 2.0 services are currently free and some say you get what you pay for but remember that the companies are often displaying ads for revenue and working out a business plan to make their service profitable.
We are definitely going through some growing pains as we work our way through this analog to digital transition of content delivery. This conversation needs to have all voices heard and not just the corporations as we develop the policies and laws over the use and sharing of digital creations.

We have been undergoing this transition for some time now but recently the capabilities of content delivery have increased due to increasing bandwidth availability. As broadband becomes more common so does the acceleration to digital delivery models of many things that were previously analog.

As people put more and more of their everyday life onto the Internet and as we educators move our curriculum online we need to pause and realize that we need to keep control of our own content including our digital pictures, writings, and videos. It is us that should be controlling the technology and not the other way around. We must not lose control to Facebook, Twitter, Blogger, the App Store, Flikr, Black Board or any of the other thousands of Web 2.0 services as we make this transition.

In my opinion we need to have a dual approach where we keep control of our original works and share a digital copy to the Internet. We may keep rights to the originals if we so choose, that way if a service goes out of business, changes the Terms of Service, or if a company starts charging for previously free services we have the option of deciding what we would like to do with our own content. This is just good computing practice. One of the rules I have followed for years is separating data from the application. Doing so provides you with the safety and control of the data (the thing that is valuable to you) and leaves your options open should you face a situation of changing application providers.

As for the actual software and services, in my opinion, the Terms of Services agreement should not be changed to retroactively take away previously purchased digital products and services without end user consent. That becomes a slippery slope.

Technology Pick of the Week

My Technology Pick of the Week this week is from my Personal Learning Network where I asked for recommendations this week.

My pick this week is called Posterous and comes to you from Twitter user @bookminder A link is available in the show notes to the Posterous website.

http://posterous.com/

The Posterous tagline is “the dead simple place to post everything, just email us.”

This service can be used to very easily post things to the web, as always, remember that things you post are public so do not share anything private, confidential, or sensitive in nature and abibe by your organizations policies.

It can’t get much simpler to post things to the Internet than emailing an attachment that creates a website for you.

When I clicked on their “email link” here is the message that I received.
“Replace the subject line and body with your first blog post and hit send! Include pictures, an mp3, or anything else you want to share. It's just that simple.”

Here is a link to my first Posterous link where I shared a picture of Washington, DC back from this summer while I was attending the National Educational Computing Conference.

My first Posterous posting:
http://gtgrissom.posterous.com/

Sharing does not get much easier than that!

I have also provided a link to the FAQ section for you to learn more about the Posterous service.

That wraps it up for episode 96 of TechTalk4Teachers. Transcripts and show notes for this episode and archived episodes are available on the web at the Eastern Illinois University Instructional Technology Center website at www.eiu.edu/itc just click on the Techtalk4Teachers Podcast link. If you have questions, comments or suggestions please send an email to techtalk@eiu.edu or leave a comment on the TechTalk4Teachers blog. Until next time, this is Tom Grissom, keep on learning.

tt4t_095 Countdown, T-7 days to first day back to school

2009-08-17T09:19:00.000-07:00

It’s Monday, August 17th, 2009 and welcome to episode 95 of TechTalk4Teachers, I’m Tom Grissom. We are fast approaching the first day of fall semester classes and there still remains much to do in schools all across America. Technology support staff are making that final push toward the first day of school. Many schools have already started, at EIU our official first day back to school is now one week away, we begin on August 24th.

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Summertime is a time when technological equipment gets updated with the installation of new purchases and is also a time for installing program patches and upgrading programs to the latest versions. In addition, there are often many moves that occur as faculty and staff change offices and computer labs are deconstructed for waxing of floors and then reconstructed again. All of this takes time and effort and before we know it it is again time for the first day of school.

The ITC has been very busy this summer with the day-to-day operations assisting faculty, staff, and students with summer school activities but we have also been working hard on a number of other projects. We have installed approximately 70 new computers for College of Education and Professional Studies faculty and staff over the summer. We have added 60 new netbooks that are housed in mobile carts and are available for faculty checkout for classroom use with students.

In addition we have updated the approximately 90 other ITC Lab computers including our main ITC Lab, BUZ 2445 Lab, and two mobile gateway carts. The good news is that all but a few of the faculty and staff new computers are installed and ready to go. The bad news is that we now have approximately 70 older computers to deal with that require the removal of data by wiping the hard drives and getting the older equipment ready for re-deployment or surplusing, so there remains a significant amount of work to be done.

One thing that I think surprises many people is the amount of time it can take to install a new computer. While I can make an image of a computer and have it in working order with all standard programs in less than 15 minutes of getting it out of the box the real time comes with transferring the data from the old system and customizing the computer to suit the needs of the end user.

Setting up a time with faculty and staff over the summer is also a challenge. A new installation involves the user backing up data, restoring the data, and installing any additional software that is not part of the standard application package. ITS and ITC staff help assist with this process. In addition this year we have had to deal with some email changes and conversions that add additional installation time. It is not unusual for this to take two or three hours per computer. With 70 new installations this summer the time really adds up. Add this to the other updates and changes we have completed and you can see that it has indeed been a busy summer at the ITC.

I always appreciate faculty and staff that backup their computers regularly and keep their computers up-to-date with the latest patches. Just like your car performing routine maintenance and care greatly improves your experience. You have heard me talk before about the importance of backing up data but I am still amazed that many do not have a regularly scheduled backup procedure and system.

I talked about the way I organize my files for backup way back on episode 61 of TechTalk4Teachers and you can refer to this episode if you would like to learn more about the backup system I have used over the years that has served me well. A link is available in the show notes.

tt4t_061 Its Halloween do you know where your backup is?
http://techtalk4teachers.blogspot.com/2008/10/tt4t061-its-halloween-do-you-know-where.html

By using this system I can literally change to a new computer in the time it takes to copy the backup files to the new system, usually less than 10 minutes.

Our ITS department is still working to expand network storage options and this expansion will be a big improvement that is long overdue. Faculty and staff will be able to save work to a network drive that will be routinely backed up by our ITS department. This will also cut down the time for installing new computers in the future as the end user data will be available on networked drives and will greatly reduce the amount of data transfer required by the current localized system.

We have worked very hard over the summer to provide the technological tools necessary for teaching and learning in the modern era. Now it is time to put them to good use by providing the best teaching and learning experience possible for our students. I now look forward to helping faculty and students with the integration of these fabulous tools into the curriculum.

Technology Pick of the Week

My Technology Pick of the Week this week is a flash-based application that can tell you what time it is anywhere in the world. As I work more and more with other people from all around the world I find myself needing a quick way to know the exact time it is somewhere else on Planet Earth.

This link came courtesy of my Personal Learning Network and I find it useful for converting Central Time in the United States to the time anywhere in the world. A link is available in the show notes.

World Clock and Time Conversion
http://www.poodwaddle.com/clocks2.htm

To use this website just click on the World Time link on the left-side of the graphic and choose your time zone. To select a different city in the world click on the appropriate button, for example click on AU for Australia and then select the city in Australia you would like to know what time it is there. The World Clock will display the current time for the selected city.

The site also provides other dynamic clocks including, population, illness, death, environment, energy, US crimes, food, and more so it may have other teaching uses in your classroom as well.

While I can make educated guesses about what time it is anywhere in the world this site gives me confirmation with the exact local time anywhere in the world. If you are using other world clock programs that you like please drop me a line and let me know what you are using.

That wraps it up for episode 95 of TechTalk4Teachers. Transcripts and show notes for this episode and archived episodes are available on the web at the Eastern Illinois University Instructional Technology Center website at www.eiu.edu/itc just click on the Techtalk4Teachers Podcast link. If you have questions, comments or suggestions please send an email to techtalk@eiu.edu or leave a comment on the TechTalk4Teachers blog. Until next time, this is Tom Grissom, keep on learning.

tt4t_094 Teaching Naked, No Thanks

2009-07-31T07:54:00.000-07:00

It’s Friday, July 31st, 2009 and welcome to episode 94 of TechTalk4Teachers, I’m Tom Grissom. It is the last day of July and you know what that means. Tomorrow marks the beginning of August and that means that the first day of school cannot be far away. For those of us in the northern hemisphere and particularly the United States many of us will be heading back to school for that first day of the fall term in August.

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Please remember that many staff, particularly technology staff, never left. Summer-time is a time for upgrading machines and systems during the so-called slow time of summer. This cycle has gradually been compressed over the years so that there really is no slow time for support personnel anymore. It is also becoming more common for teachers to work throughout the summer as there are many summer school programs across the US.

Upgrading T-1, DS-3, and other network connections is becoming a necessity for schools across the nation. As we rely more upon technology the underlying infrastructure must be updated to keep up with the demand. This work often is invisible, that is until something goes wrong with the network! Be sure to thank your technology staff that work very hard at providing the networking infrastructure that makes possible all of the magical learning technologies that we enjoy today without giving it a second thought. When we click on a link we expect it to work, to work fast, and thankfully the large majority of the time it does.

Of course things do not always work as planned or work as fast as we would like. In that case all good teachers have that Plan B in their back pocket. If the technology is not working the show must go on. This flexibility is a must for anyone teaching today. At our university every one of our classrooms is what we call a Technology Enhanced Classroom. All classrooms are equipped with a high-speed Internet connection, computer, projector, and most have document cameras and Smart Boards. Our college started this TEC project back in 1999 and ten years later this equipment is an expected part of our classrooms just as much as student seating.

From time to time a projector bulb does burn out or we experience network connection or computer problems but for the most part out TEC’s function as designed. We do have work arounds for most common problems like loaning a projector or laptop to a classroom if some of the equipment is not working properly. This is an inconvenience but certainly not the end of the world.

Some faculty seem to be more adept at rolling with the punches than others when things do go wrong. What type of faculty member are you? Do you have a Plan B? I have witnessed some faculty pack up their bags and stop teaching when something technological goes wrong. What kind of message does that send to our students? Can you teach without the crutch of technology?

Speaking of technological crutches there is a recent article that has been going around teaching circles the past couple of weeks from the Chronicle of Higher Education called Teach Naked, a link is provided in the show notes.

Teach Naked Article - When Computers Leave Classrooms, So Does Boredom
http://chronicle.com/article/Teach-Naked-Effort-Strips/47398/

By Teach Naked the author advocates taking all of the technology out of the classroom. It seems his real issue is with PowerPoint. It is an interesting article and worth a read and a discussion with teaching staff.

I have also provided a link to an article over at AcademicHack that is a counter-point that is also worth reading.

On what would it really mean to teach naked.
http://academhack.outsidethetext.com/home/2009/on-what-it-would-mean-to-really-teach-naked/

My viewpoint coming from a teacher preparation institution is that we are long past the PowerPoint argument. Many teaching programs have adopted constructivist teaching practices long ago (two decades) that makes the non-interactive PowerPoint model of delivery look like the horse and buggy days. In fact I would argue that we are now at a time in the teaching and learning evolution where digital technologies are such a part of todays student learning that adding a fourth type of learning modality called digital is needed in addition to visual, auditory, and kinesthetic.

The end lesson however remains that teachers must mix it up and use ALL of the different learning styles to be most effective in producing learning results. What is the best way to teach? There are many!

What do you think? I would love to hear your position in this discussion so please leave a comment on the TechTalk4Teachers blog, remember, we have the technology and we can use it! ;)

The truth probably lies somewhere in the middle, relying solely on technology in the classroom is just as extreme as relying on no technology in the classroom. The author of the Teach Naked article is no Luddite and does promote the use of technology outside the classroom by advocating those boring PowerPoint lectures be podcasted and consumed outside of classtime and keeping classrooms as low-tech zones. So we are going to take the boring stuff and turn it into a podcast? Hmmm.

Funny how we in education have long been criticized for teaching in 19th Century classrooms and now there is criticism for teaching in high-tech classrooms. Welcome to public education where there are many opinions and often no one right answer that pleases opposing views. Nothing like a provocative title to capture peoples interest.

The technology available today is here to stay and is being used to benefit the learning experience, the argument is not as simple as removing technology from the classroom but rather in the methods employed during the learning experience, both inside and outside the classroom.

One last comment about the article, what happens when there is no classroom? Many are already there and have been for some time.

Technology Pick of the Week

My Technology Pick of the Week this week is for the elementary level and can be used with or without a Smart Board but it works great with an interactive white board (IWB). The name of this weeks pick is called Stop the Clock and is an excellent interactive site where the goal is to match the correct digital time to each analog clock. It is interesting to note that we are living in times where many elementary level students may not have ever seen an analog clock. A link is in the show notes.

Stop the Clock
http://www.oswego.org/ocsd-web/games/StopTheClock/sthec3.html

This is an excellent example of where interactivity engages the student in learning the content with immediate feedback and also encourages the student to do the activity quickly as there is a competition component for the student that can solve the clock matching activity the fastest.

If you teach elementary level students and are doing a unit on time this year give it a try and let me know how it works for you.

That wraps it up for episode 94 of TechTalk4Teachers. Transcripts and show notes for this episode and archived episodes are available on the web at the Eastern Illinois University Instructional Technology Center website at www.eiu.edu/itc just click on the Techtalk4Teachers Podcast link. If you have questions, comments or suggestions please send an email to techtalk@eiu.edu or leave a comment on the TechTalk4Teachers blog. Until next time, this is Tom Grissom, keep on learning.

tt4t_093 We Choose the Moon

2009-07-20T19:32:00.000-07:00

It’s Monday, July 20th, 2009 and welcome to episode 93 of TechTalk4Teachers, I’m Tom Grissom. Today is the 40th Anniversary of man landing and walking on the Moon. I have provided some links in the show notes related to this anniversary and its importance to the United States and the world.

To listen click on the Play button >

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I grew up in the 1960’s and 1970’s and remember the Space race well. It had a profound impact on me. One of the iconic images I have is the TV shot of the Saturn V rocket clearing the tower. I remember seeing the big red U S A letters streaming vertically upward reaching for the stars as the rocket lifted-off. I also remember watching live TV coverage of that first step that Neil Armstrong took for all of mankind 40 years ago today.

NASA at 50
http://discoveryeducation.com/NasaAt50/

The Space race is also probably one of the reasons I ended up in the teaching profession and definitely why I pursued a science degree. It was as though America propelled itself into the 21st Century four decades prematurely and stands as a testament to what a nation can do when it commits itself to a common goal.

Nearly every kid has looked upward to the moon and wondered what it would be like to go there. It took a lot of science, an extreme amount of dedication, and the focus of a nation to make it there. It was not easy but we did it.

This 40th Anniversary of Apollo 11 reminds me of how ancient that event is compared to the children we teach today. If you are teaching freshmen at the college level then your students most likely were born in 1990, are now 18 to 19 years old, and will graduate in 2012. They were born 21 years AFTER Man first walked upon the Moon, an event that is ancient history to them occurring well before they were born. In fact, many of their parents may not have been born when Man first walked on the Moon, ouch, that reflection hurt. How can we make the Apollo 11 mission come alive if it is ancient history for them? Stay tuned for my Technology Pick of the Week for the answer.

How do we teach new generations that have no history as a reference point? That is one of the great mysteries of teaching and learning. How do we go from the unknown to the known? Finding relevance is the key and we must relate to the mental framework and mindset that is present in todays student and build upon it.

A link is in the show notes to the Beloit Mindset List for the Class of 2012 that provides an interesting reflection point to the lives of those freshmen that many of us teach. If you teach a younger grade level then your task is even more difficult as younger students have even less of a framework to build upon. Finding teaching methods appropriate for the mindset of our students is necessary in order for students to find relevance to link their new learning to.

Mindset List for the Class of 2012
http://www.beloit.edu/mindset/2012.php

In instructional design terms this is called defining prerequisite knowledge and too often we teachers make assumptions about what our students know, or are suppose to know.

In Vygotskian terms this is the search for the Zone of Proximal Development that we teachers aim for in guiding our students from the unknown to the known. Start at too basic of a level and we lose them to boredom, start at too advanced level and we lose them to difficulty. It is in the social interaction that this zone is negotiated and found. When we get it right magic happens and students can take quantum leaps in their level of knowledge and ability and can truly reach deep understanding of a subject area.

Vygotsky
http://tip.psychology.org/vygotsky.html

Determining prerequisite knowledge is one of the first steps in teaching any topic yet so many times we get it wrong before we even begin. We are driven by “covering” the material in the curriculum come heck or high water. Who cares about teaching for understanding when we have so much to cover. For me this is a fatal mistake in the learners development for there is much to be said for scope and sequence in order to reach a deep level of understanding. Skipping steps in the learning process often results in gaps that cannot be overcome.

Many are guilty of teaching the curriculum and not the student. This is where we lose many students, frustration sets in and students turn to mechanical methods of solving problems in an effort to get by rather than seeking understanding. How do we grab the students attention and make learning relevant? The wonders of technology can assist us and make even ancient history come alive for todays students.

Technology Pick of the Week

My Technology Pick of the Week this week is a website that showcases the Apollo 11 mission and is called We Choose the Moon, a link is available in the show notes. Many of our students were not around 40 years ago but there is not a reason that they too cannot experience this event in an authentic way.

We Choose the Moon
http://wechoosethemoon.org/

The We Choose the Moon website has minute by minute mission coverage and is currently running in real-time as things happened on the Apollo 11 mission 40 years ago. It is an interesting approach offering a historic recreation of the events in real-time that is very well done. If one did not know any different the transmissions could pass as happening today. I have been listening to the real-time transmissions today in the background and it is just like being there all over again.

This site will remain up after today and has a wealth of information about the Apollo 11 mission. Too bad many school children are out of school for the summer as this site has some excellent animations of the mission. This site has original video footage and original NASA transmissions that make it feel like it is happening now. You might want to bookmark this site and revisit it again when school is back in session to have as a resource for a unit on Space exploration.

That wraps it up for episode 93 of TechTalk4Teachers. Transcripts and show notes for this episode and archived episodes are available on the web at the Eastern Illinois University Instructional Technology Center website at www.eiu.edu/itc just click on the Techtalk4Teachers Podcast link. If you have questions, comments or suggestions please send an email to techtalk@eiu.edu or leave a comment on the TechTalk4Teachers blog. Until next time, this is Tom Grissom, keep on learning.

tt4t_092 Reflections from NECC09

2009-07-10T08:44:00.000-07:00

It’s Friday, July 10th, 2009 and welcome to episode 92 of TechTalk4Teachers, I’m Tom Grissom. I am back from the National Educational Computing Conference held last week and I am trying to find my “techlegs” and get caught up with work that was left undone while attending this conference. I heard estimates of over 18,000 people attending NECC this year, by the size of the crowds in Washington DC this was probably not far off. Despite the workload piling up back home, this conference was certainly worth the trip.

To listen click on the Play button >

Download MP3

Record attendance at NECC 2009
http://www.iste.org/AM/Template.cfm?Template=/CM/ContentDisplay.cfm&ContentID=23923

For those of us that are relied upon as frontline technology support taking time away from work is difficult to schedule and we tend to pay for this time away with a full in-box and stacks of to-do’s that were neglected when we were away.

Despite this cost getting away to conferences such as NECC is very valuable to me as it allows me to see what others are doing and to gauge where our programs are at compared to others across the nation. I am pleased that we seem to be holding our own and are very progressive with our implementations of technologies to support teaching and learning at our university.

I do get tired of the “getting ready for the 21st Century” refrain from many speakers as we are well into this century and it is time to move on past the rhetoric. Many are still trying to brow-beat teachers into technological submission with the 21st Century argument. Get over it, the 21st Century is here.

In order to change ones teaching practice, teachers must see AND experience value in order to utilize learning technologies. We must demonstrate the practical and avoid the preaching if we are to be successful with encouraging others to gain benefit from what technologies offer for learning. To this end modeling appropriate behavior is the best method for gaining converts.

I did not find any earth-shattering technologies at NECC this year. It felt like we are in a holding pattern now that Web 2.0 technologies are maturing. I did make it to many vendor booths but there was nothing that really grabbed me as being the next big thing.

I did spend quite a bit of time in the Smart Technologies booth and learned more about their new dual touch Smart Boards as well as getting my hands on a multitouch overlay for an HDTV that used some cool multitouch applications. As the cost of this technology comes down I believe we will be seeing a lot more classroom presentation systems with multitouch technologies at next years conference.

Smart Technologies also had their multitouch table at their booth and Microsoft had a Microsoft Surface multitouch table in their booth. With Windows 7 coming out in October we will start seeing a lot more PC apps that support multitouch as multitouch is built into Windows 7 natively for devices with proper hardware.

There were also a ton of netbooks at this years event as many teachers seem to have jumped on the low-cost netbook bandwagon. There were also several sessions on the iPhone and iTouch apps for educational use.

I did make it to the Asus booth where I was able to actually get my hands on the soon to be released eee PC keyboard with built-in LCD screen and a prototype eee PC t91 tablet that supports multitouch in a netbook form factor. Both of these devices fit niche markets but if they are priced competitively they will offer value. A link is available in the show notes to these two innovative devices soon to be released.

Asus eee Keyboard
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-10241052-1.html

Asus eee t91 tablet netbook
http://gizmodo.com/5310791/asus-t91-eee-tablet-hits-online-stores-for-500

The best part of the conference for me however was meeting the many people from my personal learning network in person. I met many people that I had met virtually via Twitter and it was great putting a face with their name. Rather than list them here I will just give a shout-out to my new friends from NECC for fear I might leave someone out. You are all very valuable members of my PLN and it was great meeting you in person. I also met many of the bloggers whose blogs I read regularly and had many productive conversations with what they were doing while comparing notes with each other.

Two more big things happened at this years NECC conference. First the name for next years conference has been changed from NECC to ISTE 2010 and will be held in Colorado. After 30 years of the NECC name tradition I am not sure how I feel about the name change but it was presented as a way to focus on a more international audience.

ISTE 2010
http://center.uoregon.edu/ISTE/2010/

The second big event was the unveiling of the new National Educational Technology Standards for Administrators. Last year the NETS Teachers Standards were revamped and this year the new Administrator Standards were premiered. A link is available in the show notes to the new ISTE NETS Administrator Standards.

ISTE NETS Administrator Standards
http://www.iste.org/AM/Template.cfm?Section=NETS

PDF File for the NETS Administrator Standards and Performance Indicators
http://www.iste.org/Content/NavigationMenu/NETS/ForAdministrators/2009Standards/NETS-A_2009.pdf

One thing ISTE might consider in the future would be to license the NETS standards with a Creative Commons license. The NETS standards are currently copyrighted using the old 20th Century model. Thousands of educators across the nation have provided input to the ISTE standards over the years and this is something that might be considered in the future now that we are living in a Web 2.0 world in the 21st Century :)

Technology Pick of the Week

Speaking of Creative Commons licensing my technology pick of the week this week is a new feature that was added to Google that allows you to search for Creative Commons licensed pictures.

This is great news for educators that want to find images that are not copyrighted and search for images that can be used for classroom projects legally. This new image search option is a tool that educators can use to teach about copyright issues and provides a solution to a long standing problem for online projects.

I have provided links in the show notes to the creativecommons.org blog with this announcement that explains how you use this new feature when searching for images using Google. You will need to click on the Advanced Search link on Google’s homepage and then click on the Date, usage rights, numeric range, and more link to see this option to filter the search for only Creative Commons licensed images.

Google Image Search Implements CC License Filtering
http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/15691

This is definitely a step in the right direction and I applaud Google for providing a useful tool for a long standing problem. It is one thing to identify a problem and quite another to provide a useful solution, thank you Google.

That wraps it up for episode 92 of TechTalk4Teachers. Transcripts and show notes for this episode and archived episodes are available on the web at the Eastern Illinois University Instructional Technology Center website at http://www.eiu.edu/itcjust click on the Techtalk4Teachers Podcast link. If you have questions, comments or suggestions please send an email to techtalk@eiu.edu or leave a comment on the TechTalk4Teachers blog. Until next time, this is Tom Grissom, keep on learning.

#NECC09

tt4t_091 NECC bound and loaded for learning

2009-06-26T09:05:00.000-07:00

It’s Friday, June 26th, 2009 and welcome to episode 91 of TechTalk4Teachers, I’m Tom Grissom. This weeks episode is a short one as I am in the process of heading out to the National Educational Computing Conference in Washington, DC better known as NECC that will be taking place next week.

To listen click on the Play button >

Download MP3

NECC is one of those conferences that I try to make it to at least every other year as it is focused on educational technology at the K-12 level. Since EIU is a teacher preparation institution this conference allows me the chance to connect with others from all around the world in person and share our experiences with one another. The conference has a huge vendor area as well as a large number of sessions provided by practicing K-12 teachers.

If you would like to experience some of the conference with me and other attendees you can follow me on my Twitter account, twitter.com/tomgrissom, you can also search for the #NECC09 hash tag as many people attending this conference will mark their tweets with this tag. I spend as much time outside of sessions as I do sitting in sessions as there are always informal meet-ups that occur at this conference. Twitter allows me and others to get instant updates that often lead to informal sharing of ed tech experiences. If you are attending NECC and would like to meet in person send me a Direct Message (DM) and we will see if we can get together in DC.

Technology Pick of the Week

My Technology Pick of the Week this week is a fun photoediting website that allows you to easily produce creative effects in your photos using Web 2.0 technology. The name of the site is befunky and a link is available in the show notes.

befunky – creative photo effects
http://www.befunky.com/

This site is very easy to use and you do not need an account to begin using it. You can browse photos on your computer and upload them to befunky and then it as easy as selecting the special effect you would like applied to your photo. Special effects include cartoonizer, inkify, charcoal, scribbler, and sunburst to name a few.

Checkout the befunky special effects at:
http://www.befunky.com/photoApps.php#

This site makes it easy to be creative and produce some nice looking artwork all at the click of a mouse. Even folks like myself that are not that artistic can produce some amazing artwork. Give befunky a try and let me know what you think.

That wraps it up for episode 91 of TechTalk4Teachers. Transcripts and show notes for this episode and archived episodes are available on the web at the Eastern Illinois University Instructional Technology Center website at www.eiu.edu/itc just click on the Techtalk4Teachers Podcast link. If you have questions, comments or suggestions please send an email to techtalk@eiu.edu or leave a comment on the TechTalk4Teachers blog. Until next time, this is Tom Grissom, keep on learning.