Not everyone plays nice

Hey class bloggers! Just a warning: Not everyone in the blogosphere plays nice (duh, right? That's a common problem anytime you deal with people--not everyone wants to obey the rules).

What I'm talking about is there's a chance someone could post a nasty comment to your blogs. It's never happened to me yet, but it did happen to another instructor. If it happens to you, send me an email, and I'll explain how to delete the comment. It's not hard to do, so if it happens to you, it's easy to fix. If we get time in class and you want me to show everyone how to do it, I can.

Wouldn't it be nice if we all just were nice to each other? We won't have that problem when we're blogging in the millenium ... :-)

The link to this week's assignment

A student informed me that one of my links to this week's assignment is broken. I'll fix it today. You can actually access the assignment through the "calendar" link on my blogroll, but just to make it easier for you, here's the direct link to this week's assignment:

http://msed.byu.edu/ipt/west/intro_TI.html

A laptop on every campus

"As college freshmen head off to campus this year, they're toting cellphones in one pocket, iPods in another. And that click-clack you hear isn't the jingle of new dormitory keys - it's their fingers pounding instant messages back and forth."

Here's a debate for you! The Christian Science Monitor reports in an article today that about 3% of colleges are requiring their students to have a personal computer. A lot of universities are considering doing this, but they are not sure they want to. However, one professor said that they would never go back because it has helped their students so much:

"Everybody in the community talks with each other more frequently," says David Brown, a professor at Wake Forest University in North Carolina. "Students run into trouble, they e-mail one another, e-mail the faculty. The whole culture changes."

However, Donald Heller of Penn State takes the other side of the fence.

"There are much better ways to improve learning on campus than telling students they have to buy a laptop.

What's your take on this argument? The real issue here is should educational institutions require students to have a technology that they think will enhance learning? We require students to buy textbooks because we think it will enhance their learning. What if we did studies and found that IPods can be used for educational purposes. Should we then require everyone to have one? Some departments and classes here at BYU require students to purchase a remote-like device that helps them interact in large classes (physics 100 with Dr. Turley does this). Is this a good thing to do or not?

Taking it one step further, what about in high school? Should students ever be required to have a technology ... just like they are required to have paper, pens, etc.? Should schools provide technologies to students? If so, which ones?

Italkin' with your IPod

Okay, this doesn't really have much to do with technology in education, but then again, maybe it could. Now it appears that you can get a program called ILingo for the ever-popular IPod. It will translate and pronounce important phrases like "Where's the bathroom?" into 450 languages!

So the next time you're stuck in Spain and can't find el bano, you'll know what to say ...

I originally was thinking this didn't have any application to education because most people don't have IPods. But then I thought, what if they did? The trend in technology is that the price really bottoms out after a few years. For example, I saw a digital camera on sale at Wal-mart for less than $25. I swear it! So what if IPods ever became cheap enough that everyone had them--just like everyone has personal CD players now?

What ideas would this open up? If you, as a teacher, realized most or all of your students had this technology already, how could you utilize it in your teaching? I expect the foreign language teachers to just pipe right up, but how about the rest of you? The IPod has many potential uses--how could you use it?

Are you confused?

A student in another section of IPT 286 posted this on his teacher's blog:

"The set up of this class is very confusing. It would work much better if I had a hard copy of the syllabus instead of having to spend time on many different pages trying to figure what and when something is due."

I haven't heard any similar concerns in our class, but maybe I should ask directly: Are you confused about the setup of the class, and what websites are good for what? This is how I have set up the class:

• All class discussions and announcements are on the weblogs
• Turn in homework to Blackboard, unless the assignment sheet tells you to do it as a blog post
• Links to the syllabus, calendar, assignments, etc., are on my blog roll (the list of links on the right of my blog). FYI, I have updated the calendar and assignment page with links explaining a little more clearly WHAT you have to do with your blogs and what I EXPECT to be able to get the blogging and attendance points.
  

BTW, if you want a paper copy like this student did, of the class syllabus, you can just print one out, because it is linked on my blog.

Granted, it's always a little confusing to learn a new technology, so you have to give it a couple of weeks to get things going. I also know that new students who just added aren't in blogging groups yet, so they're a little outside of the loop. We'll fix that this Monday. Other than that, are there any questions? Post them here, and I'll try to answer them!

These blogs aren't working!

FYI, I couldn't subscribe to these blogs. I'll bet you haven't posted anything yet. If you post something, it will probably work!

emd26@blogspot.com
http://www.jamiecoons.blogspot.com/atom.xml
jmillerhealthed.blogsport.com

Survey assignment for this week

Here is the link to the survey that you need to take before Monday. Sorry it took us so long. The survey might take up to 20 minutes, so plan on that. It's very helpful for us, so please be thoughtful and thorough in answering the questions.

Click on the link to take the survey.
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.asp?u=75365608220

The first question of the survey asks whether you want to participate in a research study. Basically, we're researching some methods for improving the IPT 286/287 classes. If you want to participate, all we'll do is use your data--WITHOUT YOUR NAMES--to help us in our research. It won't be any extra work or anything, because everyone has to do the survey anyway. It just gives us permission to use your data in our research. If you have questions about that, you can email me! Thanks!

WARNING! If you start the survey and then close the window, you will lose everything and then have to start over again, so beware!

An alternative for this week's assignment

Class, remember that you need to do the Intro to Technology Integration assignment this week, and there is no class, of course, today. You will also need to do the Survey assignment, when we finish the survey and send it to you (I don't know when that will be).

On the assignment webpage, it tells you to read the Roschelle article. I think this is a really good article, and this is still my preferred choice for you. But I'm all about options, and I think it would be good to get some other ideas into our discussion, so here's a second option. If you want, you can read the material on the George Lucas Foundation website about technology integration. If you do this, I want you to look over ALL the information fairly thoroughly and then check out a video or article about the use of technology in a discipline similar to your own. If you do all this, it should be comparable to reading the Roschelle article.

I hope at least a couple choose this option--I'd like to hear what you think of this material on this site!

BTW- I know many of you are not blogging and/or checking your aggregators very frequently. The biggest flag is nobody is posting their blogs to my post asking you to do so. Warning that not reading my blog will get you very lost, very quickly because all class announcements (like this one) come through my blog.

I know I'm preaching to the choir on this!

Did you like the football game?

Sorry class, I have one more thing I just have to get off my chest! I just finished watching the BYU vs. Notre Dame game. Just for kicks, if you care about BYU football, respond to this post and tell me whether you felt optimistic after the game- yay or nay.

On one hand, we beat Notre Dame, the team of Rudy, Fighting Irish, Knute Rockne, Joe Montana, and the like! One of the most storied football programs in the history of football. We might possibly (honestly!) be the first team to hold Notre Dame to 11 yards rushing.

On the other hand, didn't that second half look sickenly like last year?

So what is it? Did you feel yay or nay after the game?

Accessing our Blackboard site

Hey class, I got this email explaining an easier way to access our class blackboard site. We don't use blackboard very often, but I do post some articles there for you to read (such as the one for the assignment this next week) and you can access me during virtual office hours (Monday/Wednesday, noon to 2 p.m.) under "communication" in blackboard.

Here's the email:

Hi!
As you all know BYU is now using a new version of BlackBoard. One of the nice things about this version is that it is not tied into Route Y at all. Please encourage students to access BlackBoard directly by going to the Blackboard link on the main BYU page, or just by typing in the URL blackboard.byu.edu. If there are any problems with logging in, students should call the Instructional Media Center (the number is right above the phone in the TLSC).

A high school blogsite

I've never seen this before, but I thought I'd pass it along to you. Turns out a high school has made its website a giant, massive blog! Yes, it's true! Notice how on every page it says when it was posted. At first, I thought, "weird!" Then I thought, "Way good idea." Think about it. With blogs,

• Any teacher could be a webmaster and add things to the website. It's so easy. If you were assigned to make a post on the school website, you could easily do it.
• Even students could be assigned to post information on the school website.
• The trademark timestamp that is characteristic of blogs instantly tells everyone how old each page of the website is. This is helpful to know when you are judging how accurate and current the material is. Don't we wish EVERY page of EVERY website had a timestamp on it?

What other benefits would you see from this? Now let's take it a step further: What would be the advantage of a class weblog? How could this be a good thing?

Imagine the future

Slashdot reports (it was from an article in internetnews.com, however) that there is a new internet speed record:

"The old record was nearly cut in half: the two parties, California Institute of Technology (Caltech) and the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), 'transferred 859 gigabytes of data in less than 17 minutes.' InternetNews goes on to say, 'This record speed of 6.63Gbps is equivalent to transferring a full-length DVD movie in four seconds.'"

What options does this hold for education? What if we could transfer simulations, video, multimedia, and ANYTHING as fast as we transfer text? Would this change the way we designed instruction? In what ways?

This could be a fun discussion. Anyone in our class want to be the visionary? What do you think educational technology will be like in 10 years? What options will be available to teachers that aren't available now? How would you teach if there were no technological barriers?