Sunday, April 17, 2011

EDLD 5362 Informational Systems Management Week 4 Classroom of the Future brainstorming

http://classroom2008.blogspot.com/2008/01/classroom-of-future.html

http://www.ncef.org/rl/classroom_design.cfm

I will begin by reviewing trends from the Horizons resource.. then picture my dream classroom from barebones to fully functional.

I'll begin by thinking about power and dampening.

The current classes in my building were built in 1979 and have one outlet on each of the 4 walls. I'll want power in the floor and multiple power strips installed on all 4 walls.

There will be wireless access points utilizing (new high powered wireless... call Andy)


There will be two Promethean smart boards (one for my instruction and one for student presentations) and a document camera for presenting both student work and teacher instruction

1 to 1 computing with all computers mapped to a shared server and students with their own logins

computer table pods with scanner, and printers on each pod with computers networked to them

The classroom desks will be modular as to accommodate several students into cooperative learning groups

The walls will be covered with whiteboards that can be used as either writing surfaces or projection displays

More as I think about it...

EDLD 5362 Informational Systems Management Week 4 video transcript

Horizon Report citation:

Johnson, L., Levine, A., Smith, R., & Stone, S. (2010). The 2010 Horizon Report. Austin, Texas: The New Media Consortium.




mediaineducation. (2007, September 12). Classroom of the future hd: what's new in educational tech [Video file]. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QcXEznPXj8k&safety_mode=true&persist_safety_mode=1



Chaffee, E. E. Listening to the People We Serve. In W. G. Tierney (Ed.), The Responsive University: Restructuring for High Performance (pp. 13-37): The Johns Hopkins University Press.




Vivet, M. (1996). The classroom as one learning environment of the future. Journal of Universal Computer Science, 2.





Classroom Of The Future HD: What's New in Educational Tech transcript
Identify trends
Multiple electronic display surfaces
Some would be large projected images with dedicated ceiling mounted digital projectors used to engage larger groups of students or entire classrooms
Wall mounted flat panels 42 inches or larger to with tilting wall mounts smaller groups of student would use these to display computer based materials
Perimeter walls would be made up of writing surfaces (whiteboards) that might even be magnetic to be used as tack surfaces
Corkboard for long term display of wall mounted projects
Study lightweight furniture that can be reconfigured to accommodate workgroups of various sizes
Comfortable rolling chairs and room would be a size that would accommodate circulation, messiness and chaos
Small mobile teacher workstation
Instuctors would be wanderers listening in on discussions moving around the room guiding students forward
The floor would be covered with a carpet like material and be covered with a grid of power receptacles that may demand more maintenance, than wall plugs, but the tradeoff is well worth it
Wireless network connectivity throughout the building
Ultra high bandwidth multimedia applications would be served by hard wired network connections around the room
Wall outlets would be charging stations and power various portable equipment
Zoned lighting so lighting by projection equipment could be turned off while leaving enough light for others to work
Indirect lighting for comfort and be daylight balanced
Automatic sensors would extinguish lighting when the room was not occupied
Have a quiet HVAC and independenly controlled from within each room
Acoustics would ensure the room not be too hard or reverberant and isolating to ensure that loud exuberant learning in one room would not disturb adjacent classes
Mobile cart of laptops (or iPads) available to support computer aided learning activities
Fixed work surfaces along a portions of the periphery of the room to assembly projects, use the document camera, printers or desktop computers dedicated to the room and laminating machines or other equipment used to support the production of multimedia material
Remote controlled of the room’s audio/visual technology would be controlled from a wireless tablet computer. Using it teacher or student could surf the web, access multimedia, control display devices, All a/v equipment would be IP connected and allow for central monitoring, control and remote technical support
This would limit the head count needed to support advanced technology
The room would be designed with a closed equipment niche which would provide access to the tech when necessary and hidden from view when appropriate
Rear access to the equipment would facilitate periodic maintenance and servicing
The room would have a dedicated PC, DVD player, and provisions to receive satellite and cable, as well as, internet based video programming and all the display systems would have connectivity for personal video devices like the video iPod
Ceiling speakers would be used to provide the sound for any recorded or live program material
Cameras located in the front and rear of the room would be used to capture classroom activities digitally for later viewing and distributed anywhere in the building or used for distance learning activities.
Video conferencing would allow for collaboration with field teams and remotely located groups; guest lecturers would participate this way as well
All rooms would be interconnected so that any room could serve as an overflow area for any other space
The degree of storage would depend on the particular requirements of the classes being held there and hopefully storage wouldn’t be the forgotten trade off in the inevitable building value saving exercises that accompany every new building project.
Here can and should be no single vision of the classroom of the future and the ideas here will get you started
Remember, future flexibility for any future classroom lies not within the specific technology or equipment choices made but in the basic room geometry sizing juxtaposition and based building infrastructure which includes power, conduit, connectivity, pathways etc… provided in the bricks and mortar of the building

EDLD 5362 Informational Systems Management Week 3 Assignment

Directions For this week’s assignment, you will evaluate and discuss your local school district’s Student Information System (SIS). Your local school district employs a SIS which handles many of your district’s needs involving the management, sharing, and reporting of student information. For this assignment, you may want to consult with your campus’ SIS manager, district SIS managers, and other teachers who use the SIS. You will want to ensure that the sources you draw from are appropriate and insightful so you will be able to formulate an informed opinion. You may even draw from your personal experience (if relevant) with your district’s SIS. These consultations will aid you in the evaluation of the efficacy of your district’s SIS. Before you begin, here are some factors to consider when evaluating your school district’s Student Information System. The factors below will help guide your thinking:

1. Total cost of software ownership including reoccurring ongoing costs. Many products have various tactics to appear inexpensive, yet have higher reoccurring or start up and configuration costs (i.e. software licenses, training, software maintenance and support). We receive SIS services from our region service center. It hosts the web-based site and is responsible for all updates and data warehousing. The business manager informed me that we pay $7000 quarterly for RSCCC (both the program and support) and $600 quarterly for web-hosting. The total is approximately $30,000 per year

2. Feature set. What are the base features of the software, as well as the secondary features? Most school districts select a SIS with as many functions built into the system as possible. What functions does your school district’s SIS serve? Our student management system (SMS) is much more than just a student data collection tool. It gathers data in the categories of budget, requisitions, asset management, human resources, finances, attendance, discipline, grade reporting, registration, scheduling, special education, student health, and test scores. Secondary features in each of these main student categories, respectively, are tardies, special population reports, master scheduling, instructional settings, shot records, and state assessment data.

3. Texas-specific functionality. Texas is a unique state in that it requires many specific reports and assessments from its school districts. Items such as Texas-specific tests, and attendance reporting require school districts to provide pre-identification files and loading of test scores back into the system. How does your district’s software provide a solution for these requirements by the state of Texas? Evaluate the software’s ability to handle these processes. Every year at the end of September, PEIMS Coordinators throughtout the state submit all the demographic data for every student enrolled in the district. The districts are sent pre-code labels and pre-code answer documents for the year’s testing using this data submission. The SIS also generates reports for TAKS, TELPAS, Fitnessgram, and several other data uploads. When the state declares that data is needed for a specific program, then our SIS programmer creates an upgrade that adds this utility.

4. Ease of use and reporting. With the many data elements your school district is required by the state to track, users need to have an easy and intuitive solution to maximize productivity and use of their time. Staff resources can be overburdened by a product that is cumbersome to use. Is your school district’s software user friendly, offering ease of navigation? Does the software ever require duplication of data entry? Our SIS is very intuitive and user-friendly. It is easy to navigate and is about to go web-based for access from any internet connected computer. It will soon be possible for district personnel to work on data entry from anywhere. I know, first-hand, that this program is not cumbersome or confusing because I used it daily and have never been to any training. The functions I can’t figure out can quickly and easily be answered by one of the office employees who use it more often than I. Also, it does not require duplication of data entry. In fact, it populates many satellite programs with its database of student information.

5. Customer support and experience of the support staff. Customer support and service is as important as the solution itself. During the evaluation of your school district’s software, you will need to assess the types of support available: e-mail, telephone, Web and the vendor’s commitment to quality of support. Does the vendor provide timely support with useful answers? Since our region service center hosts this service for the district, we get unlimited support with the service contract. We receive support by phone, usually, immediately, but always within one day. I recently helped set the district user computers up for the new web-based version of the program using a product called BOMGAR whereby the service center connected with my computer in much the same way VNC used to work. This makes it possible to have support personnel remotely view or control my computer to help with upgrades or with problems.

6. Thorough training in the software system. Are your school district’s users adequately trained in the proper use of the software system? In order to ensure that the use of the SIS is successful, all users need to be properly trained on the product. Are your school district’s users trained through the district, through the vendor, or both? Were you trained in you district’s SIS? If so, was the training adequate, and thorough? Additionally, there should also be a component available for ongoing training. The district users who are responsible for state data and financial submissions are trained frequently. They usually have training once a month or every other month to stay abreast of the new upgrades. Our district users aren’t trained throught the district or the vendor; they’re trained by region service center personnel. I have not had any formal training, but have learned to use the system for my own uses on my own, or as I mentioned earlier, by other district personnel. There is a component of ongoing training. Our personnel attends all trainings offered by the region service center.

EDLD 5362 Informational Systems Management Week 2 PowerPoint



I included a collaborative conversation outlining concerns for using Powerpoint for this assignment.

M: The website you sent has a good one, but according to presentation rules it is still too detailed. [1:05:19 PM] Shannon Copeland: I know.. Mine is too detailed too... I'm trying to get the content there and then start whittling it down [1:05:30 PM]M: I like your slide guy! [1:06:00 PM]M: The content looks good to, I agree that it needs to be limited a bit more, but overall infor is great!. [1:06:12 PM] Shannon Copeland: Thanks . [1:23:28 PM]S: what is in it that is too detailed? do you mean it just needs to be more of a general overview of both networks, with maybe some pros and cons of each. or how one might work better in your particualar situation? . [1:24:57 PM]M: in a power point presentation you are supposed to limit the number of lines and words so that the detail rest in teh speaker. . [1:25:04 PM] M: a busy slide is a distracting slide. [1:25:35 PM] S: but that is just knowledge from other sources, right? nothing in this set of directions? . [1:26:20 PM] Shannon Copeland: I really don't think this is a good way to do this type of presentation... It's hard to investigate, research, analyze, examine, construct, synthesize, reflect and interpret in a scholarly, critical manner in a medium used as non-detailed and pointed . [1:27:01 PM] M: I agree with you Shannon...this would work better if there was supposed to be a speech with it.. [1:27:14 PM] Shannon Copeland: Ppt should be used as a "reminder" type of presentation device.. I've always read, heard and taught that "less is more" [1:27:28 PM] M: no it is not a part of the assignment though. [1:27:31 PM] Shannon Copeland: Yes, a video presentation would be better. [1:27:59 PM] S: ok just checking to see if you had read directions for this that i hadn't. [1:28:16 PM]S: we had those back in the class in june didnt we? when we had to do the star charts?. [1:29:31 PM] Shannon Copeland: We'll see .

Friday, April 15, 2011

EDLD 5362 Informational Systems Management Week 1 Assignment

The Expectation of More Efficient Education The Expectation of More Efficient Education: From District and Classroom Management to Extraordinary Student Multimedia Projects

Shannon Copeland Lamar University   The Expectation of More Efficient Education: From District and Classroom Management to Extraordinary Student Multimedia Projects
The advent of the internet, not only, facilitated increased student interest and research, but also, assisted with better classroom and district management. I’m fortunate to have been the Technology Coordinator in my district for over a decade. This partnered with my position as special education supervisor led to the acquisition of a lot of technology due to the once huge special education budget.

My classroom benefitted greatly by my ability to purchase technology items such as, digital cameras and camcorders, computers, scanners, software, laptops, and more recently iPads. I interviewed several teachers for this assignment and explored my own knowledge about the topic. The interviewees include the annual staff supervisor, a business teacher, the PEIMS coordinator and a classroom teacher. I was able to help all of these individuals make the leap to technology in their fields. I inquired about the most significant changes my colleagues noted in relation to students and to their own classroom management. The classroom teachers all mentioned that they saw great strides in the performance and collaboration among the special education students and low socioeconomic students.

Technology integration strategies impact student motivation and self-esteem. This seems to be observed in non-traditional students and minorities, including low socioeconomic status (SES) groups. The studies presented showed that positive self-concept and achievement were strongly related to increased use of technology (Rose & Meyer, 2002). The studies also indicated that students benefitted positively from exposure to technology by gaining a sense of accomplishment and a higher sense of worth. The students engaged more with peers resulting in increased collaboration and interactions. This seemed to produce significantly more creative projects from which they drew higher self esteem and better attitudes toward school overall.

Authors Swan, Guerrero, Mitrani , and Schoener “ conclude that the less threatening environment, along with immediate feedback, individualized diagnostics, and greater academic support contribute to greater productivity among such populations” (Swan, Guerrero, Mitrani, & Schoener, 1990). Darling-Hammond mentions that teachers need to work together well to solve hard problems. Project-based learning, performance and exhibition learning take time to plan, but are the most effective learning activities. Collaboration among students requires a lot of socially intelligent work, such as relating to one another, dividing work assignments, and redirecting plans when dead ends occur. These skills assist students in being intellectually capable to work on student-centered projects.

I sometimes feel like West Texas is in a fishbowl looking out at everyone else making leaps and bounds with technology, but I noted while reading the Solomon and Schrum article, that they mention to readers that “you will notice that there are not a lot of examples as of yet in which an entire school system has reconceptualized itself to incorporate technology…” (Schrum & Solomon, 2007) Technology has been a windfall in the area of special education. I contacted our special education coop to ask about adaptive technologies being used with the more severe special education students. A few of the high-tech devices being used are text-to-speech devices, wheelchairs with electronic boards available for students, lacking speech, to use for communication with others, iPads, and smartboards. Creation of multimedia projects is a form of composition that low-achieving students have not had extensive access to in the past and this technology helps them to showcase their knowledge. Given the choice of writing a ‘get well soon” card for a hospitalized classmate and creating an Animoto video card, my students chose to create a digital card and students who would not have participated in the past, not only, helped, but also, all created separate cards.

My colleagues also reported that technology made their lives easier in terms of classroom management. Frances Neill shared her relief at being able to access a shared folder to grade her computer classes’ assignments. Prior to the world of technology in her classroom, she taught keyboarding, accounting, business and English I. “I was so happy to have the students save their work to a folder on the server and grade it from my computer without having hundreds of papers on my desk.” (Neill, 2011) Harla James explained how much more efficient producing the school annual was after retiring the old proof sheets she used to have to use. Web-based annual creation changed the whole process, making it faster and cheaper (James, 2011). I interviewed fellow teachers to discover how technology has made their jobs more efficient, but I visited with the PEIMS Coordinator to inquire about district efficiency after switching from paper forms to manage student data versus the computerized student management systems (SMS) that we currently use. Cindy Mills thought that the newest version of our SMS was going to be spectacular compared to sending reports in on paper as they had to do before online student data systems. (Mills, 2011).

References

Rose, D., & Meyer, A., (2002) Teaching every student in the digital age: Universal design for learning. Alexandria, Va: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development. Available online at the Center for Applied Special Technology web site. Chapter 6. Retrieved March 7, 2011 from http://www.cast.org/teachingeverystudent/ideas/tes

Swan, K., Guerrero, F., Mitrani, M., & Schoener, J. (1990). Honing in on the target: who among the educationally disadvantaged benefits most from what cbi?. Journal of Research on Computing in Education, 22, 381-403.

Edutopia.org (December 10, 2007). The collaborative classroom: an interview with linda darling-hammond. Filmed at the CASEL forum in New York City. Retrieved on Oct. 5, 2009 from http://www.edutopia.org/linda -darling-hammond-sel-video

Solomon, G., & Schrum, L. (2007). Web 2.0 new tools, new schools. Eugene, OR: International Society for Technology in Education

Neill, F. (2011, April 12). Telephone interview.

James, H. (2011, April 12). Personal interview

Mills, C. (2011, April 13)/ Personal interview

EDLD 5362 Informational Systems Management Week 1 Ramblings

I'm voicing my aggravation about the week 1 assignment. The assignment called for a 500-700 word paper with 4 sources that are either articles, chapters or books plus an interview with a person who's taught for 20 years (making 5 sources in all). The 700 words isn't enough after getting some crap in my paper from 4 sources. I barely had any room to report on my BRILLIANT interview! LOL... I finally cut it off in the 950 word range without most of what I'd learned about real school change. I didn’t have a cohesive conclusion because after I wrote something with enough substance to actually CITE using 4 outside sources, they was little room left to address the interview... It's not easy to just throw in some citations and make them make sense if you have to use 4 plus your interview... You cannot just randomly toss in a quote to cite without building it up enough to have it be cohesive and coherent and doing that uses lots of words. With the requirements they gave,it should have been about a 1500-2000 word assignment to produce quality... sigh, I wish I could go home. One, maybe two outside sources and the interview would have been about right for a 500-700word assignment

Here are the unused notes for my Week 1 assignment. Notes for 5362Week1 Assignment 1 The Expectation of More Efficient Education: From District and Classroom Management to Extraordinary Student Multimedia Projects

The advent of the internet, not only helped with student interest and research, but also helped with classroom and district management.

What is the most significant change you see related to students? Classroom management?

Media presentations, insert info about low socio benefitting and collaborating more.. Student who didn’t participate before are doing so now Harla, yearbook Frances business before/after internet Library scanner checkin/checkout, faster inventorying, see at a glance who’s stuff is due, no more card catalogue, books can be ordered online without searching thru’ catalogues.

Do students benefit more by using technology? Do they get a more quality education?

Encyclopedias, reference, correspondence courses for seniors getting college credit before graduation, textbook companies have vast multimedia add-ins for teaching, Study Island, AR, Promethean boards, Discovery Streaming videos, Web 2.0 tools.

What are the drawbacks of technology in school for students?

For teachers? cheating, outside threats (email, chat w/ unknown people) cellphone distractions, texting.. if tech is down, many times class can’t do assignments or enter grades… if tech goes down and isn’t backed up, all is lost, email
How does tech benefit schools at the campus and district levels?

Class scheduling Test disaggregation Gradebooks/report cards Cheating, online Cliffnotes, book summaries, closed off in a vacuum, only info being spooned from teachers, email large groups at once Online ordering of materials

Online testing Special ed records, IEP’s online Precoded answer docs/labels
Also, I've been disappointed in the quality of readings for this course. I teach in my own classroom that technology articles about internet and computer trends must be fairly recent to be good sources of information. 2 or 3 years is about the oldest you want some article to be and here we are in this course reading 5 and 6 year old articles about student technology and internet use in school.