TECHNOLOGY: Tech Talk for March 2006
Everyone: Here is the latest edition of Tech
Talk, provided for your reading pleasure…
SIS Review Update
We have now met with four out of the five
Student Information System (SIS) vendors that we have targeted
for the initial stages of review. eSchoolPlus, Zangle, Aeries
and PowerSchool have all demonstrated the latest versions
of their software and answered questions about how their
software would fit into our district. PowerSchool presented
Premier 5.0, a new version of PowerSchool that addresses
some of the concerns that we have had about the system that
we currently have. One more vendor, Chancery Software, will
demonstrate their SIS in the upcoming weeks. After that,
the committee will meet to discuss which SIS vendors to ask
back for a more extended review. We anticipate that this
review will be open to a much wider staff presence, allowing
many of you to come for specific periods of time to see how
any new software might impact your workflow. Additional details
about these extended reviews will be made available as we
get closer to them.
The committee members are: Donna Alexander, Fran Bozdech,
Steve Butler, Barton Clark, Terrie Crotti, Cory DeMars, Connie
Ducey, Carol Eber, Chris Erlin, Joel Hames, Vickie Loustalot,
Jackie Lucero, Rod Milstead, Nancy Neu, Dorothy Ruppanner
and Charlie Uhl. If you have any concerns or questions, feel
free to contact me or any one of these group members. We
would be happy to share with you what we have seen so far.
Classroom Performance System Grant
One of the technologies
that has recently been spotlighted throughout the country
is a variation of an electronic immediate feedback system.
These are often small handheld pads that students use to
provide instantaneous feedback to the instructor. With
8 or 10 buttons, these pads can represent multiple-choice
responses, true/false options, or other methods of evaluation.
A teacher can use this to immediately gauge feedback from
the class, whether for understanding or for surveying. Certainly
not a replacement for traditional classroom communication,
these can nevertheless improve feedback in classes where
some students may typically avoid responding to whole-class
questions.
eInstruction is one vendor of these devices. You can visit
their website at www.einstruction.com. I am providing this
information not only to alert you to it, but to point out
that eInstruction has a grant program that provides a 32-pad
system and ”CPS” chalkboard to high school teachers
each quarter. If you are interested, I would highly encourage
you to visit the website above and click on the ”Grants” option.
I may also consider piloting a system like this next year,
if there is sufficient interest in using something like this.
If you are interested, let me know and I’ll keep you informed.
Curricular Websites (from eSchoolNews)
•
LearnOutLoud.com,
an online portal for audio and video learning material, has
launched what it calls the internet’s
largest directory of free educational audio and video content.
This directory contains more than 500 free titles, including
audio books, historical speeches, and university lectures.
In addition to extensive links to free audio and video content
— including collections of dozens of video lectures
from MIT — LearnOutLoud.com says it has produced dozens
of its own free audio titles for the directory. Examples
of free audio books that can be downloaded from the site
include Ralph Waldo Emerson’s
Self Reliance and James Allen’s As a Man Thinketh.
LearnOutLoud.com’s
catalog offers an extensive collection of nonfiction and
classic fiction titles organized into categories such as
business, language learning, and self-help. Audio guides
to foreign-language courses and other subjects also are available.
Sonic Foundry has created a web site that enables users
to watch expert presentations on literally thousands of topics
at no charge. Called Mediasite.com, the site is intended
as a resource for journalists, educators, researchers, students,
and just about anyone else looking for information on a variety
of topics — everything from the treatment of contagious diseases,
to Italian design, to virtual operating rooms. Users can
search for information by keyword, and the clips all include
audio, video, and rich presentation graphics. Users also
can skip ahead to anywhere in the presentation with the click
of a button. ”Mediasite.com offers a
glimpse into the future of web communications, where thousands
of recorded presentations by experts of all kinds are captured,
archived, and made publicly available, all from one centralized
location,” Sonic Foundry said. ”The content is easily
accessible through any web browser, without the need for
downloads or plug-ins.” At press time, the site included
nearly 7,000 presentations created and submitted by universities,
businesses, and government agencies. A search for the term
”teaching” revealed 60 results, including presentations on
formative assessment, teaching with online mentors, and best
teaching practices for technology-enhanced learning.
• www.digitalhistory.uh.edu -
Faculty at the University of Houston’s history department
and College of Education have designed the ”Digital
History” web site to support
the teaching of American history to K-12 students. The site
includes an online textbook, annotated historical documents,
and more than 70 interactive, inquiry-based modules. Students
can view a timeline to see notable political, socio-economic,
and cultural episodes in United States and world history.
eXplorations, part of the site’s inquiry-based activity
section, offer students the chance to delve deeper into such
topics as the early Puritans. In that activity, students
learn about symbols on gravestones and explore reasons why
the Salem witch scare might have occurred. The history reference
room gives users access to online encyclopedias, audio and
visual resources, and historical newspaper articles. The
page also leads users to a HyperHistorian, an expert who
can help in finding the answers to questions related to materials
found on the site. For teachers, there are free resource
guides, lesson plans, and learning modules. Writing guides
— including tips on how to write a history paper — also
are provided.
• Visitors
to the National
Science Foundation’s Biology
Research Overview site are
privy to an interactive tour that guides users through a
three-dimensional image of a human cell, complete with numbered
parts such as the mitochondria and the nucleus. Cutaways
reveal the inner structure of the cell, along with detailed
explanations as to how each component in the cell works with
others. Students also can find information about the latest
biology news and discoveries, while teachers can use the
classroom resources provided on the site--such as web sites
about biotechnology and botany--in their lesson plans. The
site gives information on topics such as how climates affect
life today, the role in technology in biology, and how living
creatures evolved from single-celled organisms.
• Talented
math students from middle school on up are encouraged to
enter the USA
Mathematical Talent Search (USAMTS), a mathematics
competition open to all middle and high school students in
the United States. Sponsored by the National Security Agency,
the USAMTS aims to help students develop their problem-solving
skills, improve their technical writing abilities, and mature
mathematically while also having fun. Problems are published
on the USAMTS web site four times a year, one month before
the solutions are due. The problems range in difficulty from
being within the reach of most high school students to challenging
the best students in the nation. Students can use any materials
to solve the problems, including books, calculators, and
computers, but all work must be their own. Each year, the
USAMTS consists of four rounds, each round having five problems.
Students are asked to submit solutions to at least two of
the problems in each round. They can earn 5 points for the
complete, well-written solution of each problem, and hence
they can accumulate up to 100 points during the school year.
Student solutions to the USAMTS problems are graded by mathematicians,
and comments are returned to the students. This year’s
special topic is ”expected value.”
Stanford on iTunes
Last Fall, Stanford University began
using Apple’s iTunes software to package and deliver a variety
of audio content. This includes Music, Faculty Lectures,
Sports, Books, Global Issues and other items. These are all
freely accessible using iTunes and can be played in your
classroom and/or provided to your students. The lectures
cover a number of different subjects and are something that
I would highly recommend taking a look at. Even if you can’t
use it in your classroom, there are still many lectures and
other items that are fascinating, made better because they
are free! To play these, you need iTunes, which can be downloaded
free at www.apple.com/itunes. Once you have this program
installed, visit itunes.stanford.edu to access these
great resources.
Wikipedia
Have you heard of Wikipedia? Found at www.wikipedia.org,
it is an online encyclopedia based on the concept of a ”wiki.”
A wiki is a collaborative web site that represents the ongoing,
collective work of many authors. Based on access from our
District, it is already a very popular destination among
our students. Boasting over one million English articles
(and many more in other languages… hmmm… useful
in World Languages, perhaps?), it is quickly becoming the
de facto fact source among Internet users.
The issue, though, is whether or not a collaborative effort
with contributions by potentially anonymous submitters is
accurate enough to replace traditional encyclopedias. Many
academics argue that releasing responsibility for content
inherently introduces inaccuracy, ”facts” that
are actually opinions, and other problems into a source that
many people will take seriously. Proponents of wiki-style
knowledge building counter that the community is itself the
best arbiter, and that many of the supposed inaccuracies
are quickly squashed by those who come across them. Wikipedia
itself is working on providing some measure of safety, especially
with ”hot-button” topics that can be defaced and
vandalized.
Whichever side of the fence you are on, I believe that it
is important that you are aware of this site and familiar
with its content. Since so many students use it, it is a
great opportunity to understand where they are going for
information. You will also find, linked from this site, other
wiki-style projects, including the transcription of copyright-free
books (Wikibooks), a wiki-dictionary (Wiktionary), Wikiquotes,
Wikispecies, Wikinews and others.
—
More
information about this
“Best of the Education Blog” Awards
eSchoolNews and Discovery Education teamed up to award four
education-related blogs as the best among all that were submitted.
The winners are:
— A PDF describing more about the awards, as well
as these websites, is located here: www.eschoolnews.com/news/pdf/best_of_the_ed_blogs.pdf
Atomic Learning
This is just a quick reminder about this
service. Please don’t forget that this can be a great resource
when you are using an application and just can’t quite figure
out how to do something. This is freely available to all
of our employees, students and student families. From within
the District, just go to www.atomiclearning.com and you will
be automatically logged-in.
Tech Talk Feedback
With just a few issues offered out to
the District, I would like to know if this is helpful, or
interesting, to you. Are there other types of information
that you would like to see? Are there things here that aren’t
useful to you? Do you have information that you would like
to submit for this newsletter? Any feedback you can give
me will help make this a better resource for you, whether
you are in a classroom, an office, or somewhere else entirely.
Thank you for your help with this.
Joel Hames
Director of Technology
Tamalpais Union High School District
jhames@tamdistrict.org
(415) 945-3798
|
 |
IN THIS ISSUE:
• SIS Review Update
• Classroom Performance System Grant
• Curricular Websites
- LearnOutLoud.com
- Mediasite.com
- NSF Biology
Research Overview
- USA Mathematical
Talent Search
•
Stanford on iTunes
•
Wikipedia
• “Best of the Education Blog” Awards
• Atomic Learning
•
Tech Talk Feedback
MORE:
See latest issue
See archives
|
