tt4t_096 Vanishing bits and warning signs in the cloud

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

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

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

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.

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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

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.

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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

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.

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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.

tt4t_090 The revolution is digitized, Twitter, the new News source

It’s Friday, June 19th, 2009 and welcome to episode 90 of TechTalk4Teachers, I’m Tom Grissom. This week the world has witnessed the ongoing struggles of Iranian citizens as they work through the aftermath of their recent election. What is interesting is that Twitter has become a new News source and its users have actually mocked traditional media and chided the old media for not covering what was happening in Iran immediately after the Iranian election this past week.

To listen click on the Play button >



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I first became aware of this by noticing a tag in Twitter named #CNNfail last Saturday night as it was becoming a trending topic in Twitter. Many people on Twitter that night wanted to see live coverage of the aftermath of the Iranian election and expressed their displeasure with CNN for not broadcasting live coverage by using the #CNNfail tag. CNN instead was broadcasting re-runs, and in the opinion of many on Twitter, were not covering an international event of interest to them. In fact many are still using the #CNNfail tag today one week after the Iranian election is over.

Twitter has in a sense become a new News source for many. Twitter users are experiencing real-time news from fellow Twitter users that completely bypasses the old media. Whether this is a good thing or a bad thing can be debated. Journalist are struggling to find a balance with real-time news coverage while at the same time checking sources for validity and trying to provide a rounded view of coverage. Of course this introduces the reporters bias into the reporting but this has always been the case.

I have posted a link in the show notes to an article by Robert Niles titled, Lessons for online journalists from #CNNFail and the Iran uprising, this article explains the conundrum journalists are currently facing as technologies are disrupting expectations of those that consume the news. Why bother with traditional media if you can get real-time tweets from individuals who are directly experiencing the news event?

Lessons for online journalists from #CNNFail and the Iran uprising
http://www.ojr.org/ojr/people/robert/200906/1752/

If you are interested in this topic this article is worth your time to read and ponder the age we are currently living in and how this episode may impact future News coverage as old media like CNN learn their lesson from the Iranian election coverage, or lack thereof. I must pause a moment and re-read that last sentence as I just called CNN old media, not so long ago CNN was the new kid on the block and established the first 24 hour cable network news (CNN) channel on June 1, 1980. That was 29 years ago and for those of us old enough to remember many were skeptical that the public would be interested in a 24 hour news station covering news from around the world.

Fast forward 29 years to the present #CNNfail debacle and it appears CNN has strayed from its roots at a time when more people than ever are interested in international news. I have also provided a link to an article in the show notes that describes a brief overview of CNN if you are interested in learning more about the history of CNN.

CNN – A brief overview
http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/nge/Article.jsp?id=h-2643

As I write this episode today the number one trending topic in Twitter is still #iranelection. Twitter has now reached a critical mass of users and the collective conscious of its users is becoming a very powerful thing. Many people on Twitter have changed their Twitter icon to a green tint to show their support for Iranians protesting the election results. When something is trending on Twitter I am sure that its impact has exceeded the expectations of the original founders of this service. Many times these trends are frivolous but sometimes, as shown by events this past week, a revolution may be in the balance.

I am sure that Twitter co-founders Evan Williams and Biz Stone never expected in their wildest dreams that they would get a call from the United States State Department asking them to delay routine maintenance on Twitter servers because of an election half-way around the world. A link from a Reuters article is provided in the show notes reporting that the US State Department did indeed ask Twitter to delay maintenance because they were concerned that it would disrupt one of the few remaining communication methods that Iranian citizens were using to get the word out about Iranian election protests.

U.S. State Department speaks to Twitter over Iran
http://www.reuters.com/article/rbssTechMediaTelecomNews/idUSWBT01137420090616

Having been in a previous position of life and death responsibilities as a computer systems administrator for a hospital I know first-hand the burden this level of support requires. Raising the bar of expectations that a service may be responsible for a revolution must be most humbling to its founders. Given Twitters track record with the Fail Whale and reliability problems in the past it must be a bit frightening that its services may be becoming mission critical to many users of its service.

People do tend to get upset if the service is not available and most have little understanding of the need for periodic server maintenance. Since Twitter is now a global service there is never a time that will not impact some users of its services so they do their best to minimize maintenance disruptions. The irony is that if they did not do this routine maintenance from time to time the entire service could go down. So here we are in a real-time world where the expectations of always connected services have become the norm.

Technology Pick of the Week

My Technology Pick of the Week this week is a reading recommendation called the Handbook of Emerging Technologies for Learning by George Siemens and Peter Tittenberger. Since many teachers are on or will soon be on summer break this handbook should be put on your summer reading list as it provides an excellent educational perspective on learning technologies and their uses in the classroom and online.

Handbook of Emerging Technologies for Learning (HETL)
http://umanitoba.ca/learning_technologies/cetl/HETL.pdf

While the target audience is for higher education faculty, teachers in the K-12 environment will also find it equally valuable as it mixes both pedagogy and technology to provide a foundational level of knowledge for transformational learning empowered by technologies.

That wraps it up for episode 90 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.