Greetings Educators,

In this column I would like to share some thoughts regarding cooking and working with technology in teaching.

Elizabeth Helfant over at Digital Learning Environments Blog has an interesting posting titled The Pancake principle. She makes a connection between technology integration and making pancakes, and offers three tenets of the Pancake principle. Her note inspired me to  take this analogy between teaching and cooking a but further.

The first tenet that Elizabeth puts forth is, and I quote:

Risk-taking and doing things for the first time are like making pancakes. You have to remember that the first one is never going to turn out right but the ones after that are usually awesome. The fact that the first one fails does not deter us from making pancakes.

The second is (and this is where the TPACK framework comes in):

The basic batter is the same, but you can always tweak it.

I loved this tenet because it has been on my mind quite a bit recently while working on a paper that we recently submitted to Tech Trends (the flagship journal of AECT). This piece, co-authored with Matt Koehler and Kristin Kereluik is titled (connecting really well with Elizabeth’s second tenet) is The song remains the same: Looking back to the future of Educational Technology.

The third tenet that Elizabeth presents is

Pancakes come in a wide variety.

This is actually something we wrote about quite recently in our piece published in Learning & Leading with technology (Too cool for school: Using the TPACK framework).

As you can see, I loved the analogy being made between cooking pancakes and technology integration. In fact I have been guilty of making a similar analogy as well – not necessarily to the specific task of cooking pancakes and technology integration but rather to the more general task of cooking as being analogous to teaching.

Of course the three tenets Elizabeth points to are there but there is one more I would like to point to. And this has to do with the difference between good cooks and those that can just make do (I am more of the latter than the former). The way I usually speak of this is by distinguishing between algorithms and heuristics. So a bit of a digression may be in order.

An algorithm is defined as a step-by-step procedure that has well-defined starting and ending points and is guaranteed to find a solution. A classic example (in the realm of cooking) is a recipe. Start with a set of ingredients, follow the steps blindly, and at the end of it you will have a dish ready to eat.

In contrast, heuristics are less stringent. They are like thumb rules or guidelines, which if followed, should result in a good solution. In the domain of cooking this means a more creative approach based on guidelines and broad rules of thumb. So good cooks are not slaves to the recipe. If they don’t have a certain ingredient that the recipe requires they don’t give up (which is my typical response, which explains why I am not a good cook). Good cooks improvise and through that they push the boundaries of what the dish can be. So in some sense what they come up with more than what they started to create.

So this understanding of heuristics is at the heart of good cooking (and good teaching – to bring the analogy full circle). Good cooks, and teachers, understand that there is no one perfect solution, but rather lots of good ones. There are no best practices, just lots of pretty good practices (I had written earlier about this idea of Best practice vs. Pretty Good Practice).

Good cooks and teachers understand that failure IS an option, and that’s ok. It is only through failure that we learn.

Clearly these same ideas apply to technology integration as well. What this analogy between cooking and teaching does is emphasize the value of creativity and risk-taking even while under-emphasizing following rules or recipes blindly. There is an art to cooking and teaching – and it is time we gave some value to that. It is only in this manner that we can truly take advantage of the potentials of these new technologies.

Dr. Punya Mishra
Director MAET Program
College of Education
Michigan State University
Web: http://punyamishra.com
Blog: http://punya.educ.msu.edu/blog/

BUILDING COMMUNITIES OF PRACTICE THROUGH SOCIAL NETWORKING

Greetings Educators,

With the advent of popular social networking sites such as Facebook, MySpace, and others we have instant access to online tools that can expand our connectivity with our friends, our peers, and those working in the same fields. Learning communities and communities of practice allow us to collaborate and share ideas and information with others without regard to boundaries or borders. Social networking is a tool that facilitates this activity.

As you may recall from a column I wrote a few months ago, I have become somewhat obsessed with, okay, *really* obsessed with Facebook.

In my last article I was struggling to get 100 friends and I am now pushing 200.

I started looking at who these “friends” are and I realized that many, if not most, are either family or people I know through my work at MSU.  As I travel and work in a number of foreign countries, many of my Facebook friends are colleagues and acquaintances from those countries.  We know that Facebook can keep us in touch, but what are some of the educational values that Facebook and other social networking sites provide?

In education we know that teachers often learn best when they learn with their peers and when they build “communities of practice” or “personal learning networks.” The potential impact of learning communities and communities of practice has grown exponentially over the past few years through online social networking tools. They have begun to define how we connect and interact with people; not just within our local “community” but also with people across the globe and in diverse cultures and environments. A community of practice can be defined as a group of people with a common interest and who have ways in which they can share best practices, ask questions, and share ideas. Living in a complex global environment, the idea of global communities of practice opens access to many who would have never before been able to communicate with others about educational issues relevant to them.

The MSU Educational Technology program has developed several ways for our students to connect to others in the field of educational technology, and remain connected long after they have completed our program.  Examples of some communities that we have established include the MSU EduTech group on MACUL Space and the MAET fan page on Facebook.

MACUL Space is a social network created on Ning for educators interested in educational technology to connect and share ideas related to the field.  Partnering with MACUL Space we have created the MSU EduTech group as a place for current, past and future students to share, collaborate and learn great ideas from each other in regards to educational technology.   Members use the discussion board area to share tips and tricks of using technology in the classroom.  In addition the 10 most recent articles from EduTech Today newsletter are displayed to keep members up to date with the program happenings as well as valuable research and information in the field.

We have also created the Michigan State University – Master of Arts in Educational Technology fan page on Facebook.  This fan page is another avenue for past, present and future MAET students to connect both socially and professionally.  The discussion board includes job postings as well as questions about technology updates.  The fan page also has links to recent articles, grants, and other valuable information related to the field of educational technology.

Some of our students have even created communities of practice to help continue their development of technology skills in the area of education.  Sergio Martinez (https://www.msu.edu/~mart1075/), a recent graduate of our MAET program, created a community of practice called the MAET Challenge on the social networking site Ning.  He states, “The motivation for starting this site was that I, as a first grade teacher, did not have the outlet necessary to maintain and/or challenge my tech skills. Hence the genesis is derived from a need to connect with other techies out there to constructively and safely display work for others to comment or simply to admire.”  You can learn more and get involved by accepting the challenge by going to http://maetchallenge.ning.com/.

Many social networking sites, such as Facebook, also provide you with the opportunity to join or create groups focused on common interests.

In doing the research for this column I joined an online community, “Teach for Lebanon” and found contact available with individual members, discussion forums, email, groups, and educators with common interests. We can share our ideas and share our needs and questions.

I would now like to challenge you the reader. Go on Facebook or Ning and find a group focused on your field or interest, sign up, and then report back to us what you found. What benefits does the group offer and how did you become a part of a “community of practice” or “personal learning network?” Think in terms of connecting with global communities and what both you and they can learn from participating.

And, if you participate in other communities of practice, share them with us and let’s learn as members of this newsletter’s community of practice as well.  We are interested in selecting a few examples of comments on this blog to highlight in future columns of our newsletter.  So we look forward to hearing from YOU!

Best Regards,

Joe Codde
Professor and Director
Educational Technology Certificate Program

Greetings Educators,

A few weeks ago my colleague and partner in crime, Matt Koehler and I, published an article in the journal Learning and Leading with Technology, the membership magazine of the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE).  In this article titled, “Too Cool for School, No Way” (http://tinyurl.com/c6p5ta/), we tried to make the argument that new technologies (such as Facebook, iPhone, Flickr, WordPress, Google Earth, GPS devices, YouTube so on) have the potential to fundamentally change the way we think about teaching and learning.

However, realizing this potential is not an easy task. Merely bringing these tools into the classroom will not lead to change and in fact may be a dangerous distraction. As educators we need to think through how these tools can function with specific pedagogical contexts for teaching specific subject matter. For instance even the same technology needs to be understood and used differently if teaching different subject matter or in a different grade level. For instance, using Google Earth to teach geography (http://www.google.com/educators/p_earth_discovery.html) at the high school level is very different from using it at the elementary level. Moreover, Google Earth does not constrain us to using it just to teach geography.  It can be used fruitfully for teaching mathematics (for instance check out http://www.realworldmath.org), something the original designers of Google Earth clearly did not consider when designing the software program. In the L&L article we have a bunch of other interesting examples that I won’t repeat here. But I do want to make two key points.

First, it is hard to predict what these new tools can do for us. Just as Google Earth could be used to teach mathematics, the educational possibilities of many of these tools is yet to be recognized or identified. A great example I recently came across was a classroom in Italy who used mp3 recordings of the moon landing and an open source audio-editing software program called Audacity to compute the distance to the moon! Who would have thought that Audacity, an audio editing program, could be used as a data analysis tool? You can read more about this fascinating project  at http://tinyurl.com/mqedva/.

Second, the fact that we don’t know which tools could be used for educational purposes makes it really hard to predict what we should teach in our teacher education and professional development programs. Clearly teaching specific technologies is doomed to fail. For those of us who remember the hype about Hypercard or the dreams about Dreamweaver, I wonder what we will think about the twitter about Web 2.0, blogs and wikis a decade from now.

What this means is that our emphasis should be more on developing flexible frameworks that support recognizing the potentials of new technologies and their integration into the teaching of subject matter. This is not a passive approach towards technology integration but rather one that sees teachers as creators of new ways of engaging students with powerful ideas. These are teachers who are designers of learning environments, fluent in their knowledge not just of subject matter, pedagogy and technology but in the way these three things are to work together.

In our master’s program we try to push for such flexible approaches towards educational technology. Through our on-campus, off-campus and online courses we attempt to create a way of thinking, a way of looking at the world that emphasizes these values of life-long learning and creativity, of engagement and play.

As our program is continually evolving and growing, the EduTech Today newsletter is undergoing a few exciting changes. First off, the Director’s column will now be shared between the Director of the Certificate program, Dr. Joseph Codde, and me (the Director of the Master’s program, Dr. Punya Mishra.) Another change to the newsletter is the addition of a few new column categories. We are adding three new categories: MAET News, Job Postings and Grants and other Funding as well as making changes to the Instructor Spotlight. The Alumni Spotlight has been merged with the Instructor Spotlight so we can highlight both our terrific alumni and program faculty.

We are transitioning to a new email service and therefore you may receive two newsletter emails this month. One from our old service and one from our new service, MailChimp. If you do not receive two emails of the same newsletter this month you may want to visit http://newsletter.edutech.msu.edu/subscribe to be sure that you are part of the new email list.

Lastly the number of issues that we will be distributing has changed. With our new format you will be receiving the newsletter bi-monthly (6 issues/year) instead of quarterly (4 issues/year). Many of the new columns that we have added are time-sensitive information that the quarterly format did not accommodate. The bi-monthly format will help you keep up to date with the latest information for job postings, grants and other funding, as well as other great tips and ideas for using technology in the classroom and ways to connect with the MAET program.

So once again thank you for being part of the MAET family. From all of us here at MAET central, all the best as you transition into summer.

Dr. Punya Mishra
Director MAET Program
College of Education
Michigan State University
Web: http://punyamishra.com
Blog: http://punya.educ.msu.edu/blog/

Greetings Educators,

You may recall that in the last edition of our newsletter I wrote about Facebook and the role of social networking in the classroom.  I have this small obsession with keeping my Facebook paged updated regularly (daily at least) but I’m now finding that it’s important to know a bit more about the Facebook phenomenon and what we might be inviting into our classrooms.

First, don’t get me wrong; I firmly believe that Facebook and other social networking tools have a role in the classroom and in education. How can we ignore Facebook when it has more than 175 million users and, due in large part to advertising revenue, is valued at over $15 billion after only 5 years?  How many of your students do you think have Facebook accounts? Try asking and see.

A poll of our readers in the last issue on whether or not social networking has a role in the classroom said that it clearly does (14 yes, 4 no) although statistically I’m not sure we can make that claim with only 22 responses.

However, over the past few weeks I’ve read a number of news reports about Facebook that’s given me pause (but it won’t stop my daily updates). The stories relate to how Facebook uses and stores information about its members. A bit worrisome for sure but let’s first go over some stats about Facebook taken from their web site (http://www.facebook.com/press/info.php?statistics):

They report:

General Growth

More than 175 million active users

More than half of Facebook users are outside of college

The fastest growing demographic is those 30 years old and older

User Engagement

Average user has 120 friends on the site

More than 3 billion minutes are spent on Facebook each day (worldwide)

More than 18 million users update their statuses at least once each day

Applications

More than 850 million photos uploaded to the site each month

More than 7 million videos uploaded each month

More than 28 million pieces of content (web links, news stories, blog posts, notes, photos, etc.) shared each month

More than 25 million active user groups exist on the site

International Growth

More than 35 translations available on the site, with more than 60 in development

More than 70% of Facebook users are outside the United States

From an education standpoint, what do you know about Facebook and, more importantly, what do the kids in your classrooms know when they sign up? Have you ever read the “terms of service” (TOS) for Facebook or for any web service for that matter? Or, do you do as I do and just click “Agree” whenever an agreement pops up?

The big hoopla recently with Facebook happened when they changed their TOS and the result would have been that when you opt out of Facebook your “stuff” stays – forever. My assumption has always been that, when I decide to stop using a Web service such as Facebook, MySpace, or other services, my information is deleted. I am always aware that online services make their money from advertising and that I’m bombarded with advertising from almost every commercial website. I’m also aware that while I’m a subscriber to a service my information is being shared. I just have to check my spam box to know someone’s snagged my name and email address.

But Facebook clearly went too far when they changed their TOS to read that we, as subscribers, are agreeing to grant them “irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, fully paid, worldwide license” to use our material and “use your name, likeness and image for any purpose, including commercial or advertising.” And that’s FOREVER! With this update in their terms they deleted the terminology that said users could remove their content at any time, at which time the license would expire. Therefore with this change in the TOS Facebook would retain users’ content and licenses AFTER the user terminated their account.

So Facebook subscribers revolted and they changed their TOS back or at least temporarily suspended their efforts to make the change.

Now the lesson here is to be better informed about what you agree to and, with the case of Facebook and other similar services, be aware of what your students may be agreeing to particularly if you’re using this in your classroom in some way.   I encourage you to read the article “10 Privacy Settings Every Facebook User Should Know” and maybe even share them with your students. I’m beginning to better understand why school districts have policies about accessing web sites from school computers and why lawyers make a lot of money dealing with issues like this.

For more information and to see a humorous take on this issue I would recommend viewing the YouTube video below. I searched for formal news videos on the subject but this one kept popping up. Of course, I subscribe to YouTube and have never read the Terms of Service. I’m now rethinking how I approach “free” online services and will attempt myself to be a better-informed user.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YxF0z8nrNtY

Best Regards,

Joe Codde
Professor and Director
Educational Technology Certificate Program

Is there a place for Social Networking in the classroom?

Although there is so much happening in the world of technology and education I sometimes find myself challenged on what to write about. Recently I’ve become somewhat addicted to Facebook and, as I was thinking about what to write for this edition of the newsletter, I was also clicking back and forth between my Facebook page, viewing Facebook emails, and then handling a Facebook chat with a student in Algeria. I was also noting that I had “98″ friends and had not yet reached “100.” So I obsessed about how to get two more friends. As this was happening, Leigh Wolf, our MAET program coordinator, came by my office and we chatted about Facebook, my writer’s block, and the idea that this article could focus on the educational applications of Facebook.

I did a quick online search through ISTE for articles on the educational uses of social networks and found resources on Web 2.0 technologies including blogs, wikis, etc. But I found little on the uses of Facebook, MySpace, or the other mainstream social networking programs. Then the thought crossed my mind, “hey, aren’t we using a blog for this newsletter??” Can’t we then ask our readers for their input on the use of programs such as Facebook and MySpace? The answer is “of course we can!”

As my conversation continued here in the College of Education on this topic I learned that Punya Mishra, associate professor and director of the Master’s in Educational Technology program, used Facebook during the summer MAET program. His graduate assistant, Michael Deschryver, said the following about the experience,

This was a hybrid sequence of courses, with two weeks of face-to-face classes, and then a month online. Students started using Facebook on their own during the face-to-face classes for social purposes, and we then decided to use it for all of the course interactions during the month online. This was very successful, and the students provided us with positive feedback about using Facebook for the course purposes. In addition, since we were “friended” by all of these students, we continue to see social, academic, and professional interactions among them after the completion of the summer courses, evidencing the potential for Facebook not only to extend learning beyond the classroom, but the semester constraints, as well.

In addition, Leigh pointed out that MAET students in the recent Plymouth, England graduating cohort did a video on the “Ten Educational Applications on Facebook.” The students, Fatina Al-Ahmad, Scott Christian and Suhasini Iyengar talk about using applications in Facebook for language, math, the environment, vocabulary, etc. You can see the great job they did by watching the video below.

Lastly, I use Facebook to talk with colleagues and connect with past students globally. This provides me with opportunities for conversations and perspectives I might not otherwise have. But can this be used effectively in the K-12 classroom? My Facebook probably looks quite different than a 14 or 15 year olds Facebook. How do we know they’ve accessed appropriate and approved content? What effect does the advertising have?

Many, many questions with very few answers. Your task is now to educate, inform, and enlighten our readers with your comments, your points and counterpoints, and examples of how you may be using social networks in your classrooms or in an educational environment.

Please take a few minutes to participate in the following poll on whether you agree with the use of social networking applications in the K-12 classroom. Then be sure to add your comments to this article by clicking on the Comment link at the bottom of this posting. Please feel free to speak your mind and/or share your examples. In the next issue I’ll provide you with the results of this survey and we can continue our conversation on this important topic.

PS: Feel free to add me to your Facebook ;-)

Best Regards,

Joe Codde
Professor and Director
Educational Technology Certificate Program

Greetings Educators,

I am pleased to be writing this issue’s column from Dubai where MSU has opened a new campus in Dubai International Academic City. Dubai has clearly become a cosmopolitan international center for commerce, education, and tourism and is also the construction capital of the world with over 25% of all the world’s cranes (in 2006 the number was over 30,000).

The new MSU Dubai campus is on a good day about a 20 minute drive from the center of the city. For a better idea of where it’s located in relation to the city of Dubai just use Google Earth and Fly To Dubai International Academic City.

As I travel throughout this region I’ve learned that Dubai is a bit warm, particularly during the summer months. Although the official weather report on Weather.com said today’s high was 38° C, while I was stuck in a traffic jam today in Sharjah it was 52° C (125° F) with roughly 50% humidity.

Now back to the topics of education and technology. I’m often accused of being a bit longwinded so I’ll do my best to focus here. From my notes taken during a meeting held at the Knowledge and Human Development Authority in Dubai (http://www.khda.gov.ae/En/Home/Default.aspx) there are approximately 182,000 students in Dubai with 149,000 in private education and 33,000 in public education. The number of schools, however, is approximately 82 public and 140 private.

The MSU Educational Technology Certificate Program and Master of Arts are on the ground floor with MSU in Dubai and we expect our first certificate classes to begin in October. As in Michigan an important element of our program (and one key to our success) is outreach. As most readers know we offer our classes in local schools where teachers learn in their own environment, with their peers, using equipment they have readily available in their classrooms. In Dubai it’s no different than in Michigan; teachers are pressed for time and change is often difficult. But again, as in Michigan, teachers are highly motivated when learning how to use and teach with technology in their classrooms. The challenge is to infuse technology into their practice of teaching and classrooms so that it’s seamless and invisible, integrated but not imposed.

Over the past two weeks I’ve met with key stakeholders in the Dubai education market; private school network owners, school superintendents, teachers, administrators in the Knowledge and Human Development Authority, and leaders in the Ministry of Education. The one element they all have in common is a strong interest in transforming schools and curricula to meet the demands of the 21^st century. Classrooms I’ve visited have been amazing and technology integration is clearly present. The challenge is now to infuse the technology rather than just use the technology.

Lastly, I want to introduce Myra Khattab who is our newest colleague and Outreach Coordinator for the Certificate program in Dubai. I met Myra on my last trip to Dubai. She is a graduate of our Ed Tech Masters program in Plymouth, England and agreed to lend us a hand with a professional development workshop we were offering teachers. It must have been karma as Myra’s background as a teacher, an MSU graduate, and her skills in educational technology were just what we needed to assure our program success in Dubai. Myra is also fluent in three languages with Arabic being her first language, French second, and English third. She’s a talented, energetic, and motivated individual and I invite you to read more about her in the Instructor Spotlight later in the newsletter.

For our new readers in Dubai and the U.A.E., we look forward to working with you and learning from you. Welcome & Ahlan wa Sahlan !!

Best Regards,

Joe Codde
Professor and Director
Educational Technology Certificate Program

Greetings Educators,

Welcome to our regular subscribers and a special welcome to our newest members in Dubai. Many of you may already know that MSU is opening a new campus in Dubai with classes starting this fall. And, yes, this will be a regular physical campus with a building, student housing, faculty housing and all the newest amenities. There are currently four undergraduate and four graduate programs slated to begin this fall. The Educational Technology Certificate and Masters Programs will be one of the first offered. You can see the list and complete information about MSU Dubai at http://dubai.msu.edu/ . This new campus will be serving the Emirates of Dubai as well as the larger United Arab Emirates and the Gulf Region.

As the audience for our program, and thus our newsletter, is growing and crossing many geographical boundaries let me begin this newsletter by first describing our program. Many long time readers are well acquainted with our programs and, for those readers, this will serve as a refresher. For our newest readers, this will be an excellent opportunity for you to learn about what we do and how our programs can benefit you and your schools.

The Educational Technology Certificate Program is a 3 course 9 credit graduate program offered in a format that is easy for teachers to attend and provides them with the knowledge and skills necessary to successfully integrate computer technology into their classrooms and teaching. This program is designed to prepare and teach in-service K-12 teachers and administrators how to both use and teach with computer technology. The emphasis is on enabling teachers to change their practice of teaching in positive ways. To do so, teachers learn new instructional and pedagogical strategies and learn ways that technology can enhance and support the learning process. Participants have the opportunity to improve their own skills in the use of technology, including Web 2.0 technologies, foster learning with technology, and develop approaches for teaching others using technology.

For the past 12 years the College of Education has offered this graduate program resulting in the receipt of an Educational Technology Certificate. Credits from the certificate program can then be applied toward the Master of Arts degree in Educational Technology. To accommodate teachers’ busy schedules, MSU will be offering this program in local schools in Dubai, as we do in Michigan, on evenings and weekends. Courses will start in Dubai immediately after Ramadan in the beginning of October. For those not familiar with the dates for Ramadan this year, it begins on September 1^st and ends on September 30^th. The entire program can be completed in just nine months. To date, more than 2,000 teachers and administrators have completed the program in Michigan.

The aim of the certificate program is not only to help individuals gain skills in using the hardware and software generally available in their institutions, but to help them use it in ways that result in observable gains in student learning. All course assignments require teachers to create authentic work that is appropriate to their discipline and that can be immediately integrated into their classroom to improve student achievement.

Our model for offering this program has been established on a long history of outreach. Rather than ask teachers to come to a campus, be that in Michigan or in Dubai, we establish relationships with local schools where the classes are offered in their buildings, using their computer labs, making it more convenient for teachers. Typically teachers within that building are the first to enroll and, if later there are seats open, we allow teachers from surrounding schools to attend. We also are very willing to pay whatever costs are associated with using the school facilities.

Watch for the next issue of the newsletter and we will share with you some facts and figures about Dubai and some of our experiences both traveling and working there in our new Dubai News column.

If you would like to learn more about the Educational Technology Certificate or Masters program, either in Dubai or in Michigan, please email me at: Dr. Joe Codde, joecodde@msu.edu. Or in Dubai contact Dr. Brendan Mullan at 971 4 375 5212, Email dubai@msu.edu.

Source: U.S. State Department Web Site: www.state.gov/p/nea/ci/c2422.htm

Greetings Educators,

When I first started in the field of educational technology some 17 years ago, I was amazed at the rate of change that occurred in the field in such a short amount of time. My first experience on a computer was writing a short tutorial and quiz program on a Radio Shack TRS 80 and I quickly moved on to a portable Compaq computer that was about the size of a sewing machine with dual floppy drives. Now looking back I see that, compared to the current pace of change, we were moving rather slowly. Back in “my day” we used Web 1.0 which was quite static. Users did not interact with the content; they only were able to read it. Now with the advent of Web 2.0, users have the ability to interact with the content with blogs, wikis, and podcasts. And this allows the average computer user to create and post content with minimal computer skills.

In keeping with the changing times we have decided to move our EduTech Today newsletter to a Wordpress blog so that our readers can take advantage of RSS feeds and include our articles in their RSS readers. If you have already subscribed to our program you will continue to receive our quarterly newsletter via email and have the added benefit of the RSS feeds. If you have not subscribed, you may do so by going to the Subscribe page.

We will still be sending excerpts of our articles out via email to accommodate our readers that currently do not have an RSS aggregator set up. To learn more about RSS aggregators you can view this short video at http://commoncraft.com/rss_plain_english. In our first course in the Certificate program we have students set up a Netvibes page that allows them to have a collection of RSS feeds all on one page. We provided a tutorial in one of our previous issues. You can access it by going to http://edutech.msu.edu/newsletter/netvibes/netvibes.html to learn how to take advantage of our new format.

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Greetings Educators,

Online virtual education, today’s hot topic in education, is one that continues to grow and gain legitimacy.

I’m a 58 year old educator and my early impression of distance education was that it was just a poor substitute for a traditional classroom. Later, with the advent of technology, my thinking changed a bit but I thought the computer only automated a poor substitute for traditional learning. But keep in mind that my first memories of distance education programs (more than 40 years ago) were those advertised inside matchbook covers; art, locksmithing, gun repair, and auto mechanics.

However, my impressions and understandings of distance education were just plain wrong. Over the past 15 years I’ve learned that correspondence and distance study has been an educational mainstay throughout most of the 20th century and now into the 21st century. Interestingly, one of the first modes of delivery for distance learning, and a high tech solution at the time, was radio. When the radio was first introduced in the early 1920s it began bringing education opportunities to many who lived in rural and remote areas. Since that time, many new technologies have improved the delivery of education including the telephone, television, video recorders, and computers. And with the advent of the Internet in 1969 the world of distance learning was changed forever. Today, with well over one billion people using the Internet, the opportunities for online education are expanding exponentially.

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Greetings Educators,

As readers of this newsletter may know (or know if you’ve tried to call me) I travel a lot. I’m regularly on airplanes and besides collecting a lot of frequent flyer miles I meet a lot of people. I fly to the Middle East and North Africa which means many hours on a plane and many plane changes. A typical flight is from Lansing to Detroit to Paris, sometimes to Marseille, and then on to either Beirut or Algiers. In addition to flying overseas, I regularly fly across the United States often going to Las Vegas (for work – really) and, most recently, to Key West (also for work, at least sort of). And this means someone is normally sitting beside me, often for many hours.

If you’ve ever met me you know I’m a bit “conversational” and I’m always interested in what people do. I’ve met many great and interesting people including a dentist specializing in veneers, a concrete engineer, contractors, a coffee sales rep, a Mississippi cotton farmer, an auto industry light specialist from Brazil, and many auto industry marketing, finance, and sales professionals. I had an air marshal sit next to me once although he wouldn’t admit it. And I’ve met a number of educators, professors, and teachers. (more…)

Greetings Educators,

As my work in Algeria winds down and we begin the final reports, I’ve begun to reflect on my experiences and the role that technology plays in education. Keeping in mind that Algeria is in the early stages of technology adaption whereas in the United States we began infusing technology many years ago, we set standards for students and teachers, and created a large base of research and experiences. In other countries, particularly developing countries, they’re in the very early stages and can learn lessons from our success and our failures. And we’ve made many mistakes over the past 10 plus years.

Although many issues related to technology use in education are important, what strikes me as one of the most important is how teachers infuse technology into their practice of teaching. In other countries I work with, including Algeria and Lebanon, teachers using technology means a fundamental change in the way they approach education. Although many teachers in these countries are adopting new instructional strategies based, as in Algeria, on education reform initiatives, the use of technology may not be affecting a significant change.

A body of research has shown that teachers who adopt a more constructivist model for using technology as a teaching and learning tool may find better outcomes.  In our Certificate Program we’ve focused heavily on “change with a difference” in order to help teachers make changes to their instructional strategies when integrating technology.  Unfortunately many teachers just adapt the technology to their current instructional strategies thus, it’s “change without a difference.”

Change is a key word here. The million dollar question is what impacts change with a difference? A great deal of research has addressed this issue and, from my perspective as a graduate program director, the key element is professional development.

Professional development programs such as the MSU Educational Technology Certificate and Endorsement Program (I’m always looking for ways to make a plug) must focus not only on technical skills but also on instructional strategies necessary for infusing technology into teaching. Without doing so teachers learn to use technology but only as an aid in their current practice.

As we at MSU explore this topic in greater detail we also look back at our program and how it has evolved over the past 12 years. When we first started we did indeed focus on the technical skills. But as times change and we learn more about the effective uses of technology our program has changed.

This fall, we’re rolling out an updated and new version of our Certificate Program. While we use the lessons we’ve learned over the past 12 years and use the most recent version of our program as a foundation, we’ve also included a greater emphasis on instructional strategies and understanding how many of the new technologies available can enhance learning rather than just support teaching.  As technology keeps changing and evolving so must our program.

If you would like to learn more about our programs and how, in particular, our program can help teachers successfully integrate technology into the classroom, give us a call. We’re always interested in talking with teachers and educators about teacher professional development. You see – that’s what we do!

Best Regards,

Joseph Codde
Professor and Director
Educational Technology Certificate Program

Contact us at: 517-432-9259
http://edutech.msu.edu

Greetings Educators,

As you may know from my past columns I have a project funded by the U.S. State Department’s Middle East Partnership Initiative (MEPI) that is coordinated through Creative Associates in Washington, D.C. The purpose of this project is to establish global connections between U.S. and Algerian secondary schools using the Internet. We are connecting 11 schools in Algeria with 11 in the United States.  But, rather than discuss the particulars of this project, I would like to focus for a bit on the idea of “globalization” and how classrooms, teachers, and kids have the opportunity to connect to our global society.

In a broad context, globalization is a multidimensional set of social processes that focus on and transform the “economic, political, cultural, technological, and ecological dimensions of contemporary social life.” (Steger, M., 2003, Globalization – A Very Short Introduction, published by Oxford Press). When we, as teachers, focus on education we can see that it has the power to transform our social networks by reaching far outside our established communities, and enables us to create new social networks and a better understanding of communities world wide.

One observation I’ve made while managing this project is that programs such as this have real people involved. Normally, when we connect using the Internet and technology, there’s a somewhat detached or impersonal process taking place. We’re directing our communications at a computer screen and then waiting for that computer screen to respond back. But I’ve visited both sides of this communication channel and I’ve seen the faces of the global connections. We need to keep that in mind. There are real kids on both ends and they are anxious to tell the stories of their communities, cultures, and countries.

As educators, given the advent of new technologies and ways to communicate worldwide, we have an obligation to do more than just inform our students about other communities. We must connect them with real people in real communities across the globe. We should take advantage of the many programs already available that allow classrooms to connect with other classrooms and allow the kids to build new international relationships and understandings. Three programs that come to mind are iEarn, ePals and Think.com.   It is with programs like these and the one in Algeria that we can help our students truly become global citizens.

The program with Algeria continues through the end of this academic school year and I’ll have far more to report at that time.  If you have any questions or comments on globalizing our classrooms please let me know. I am very interested in hearing from you.

Best Regards,

Joseph Codde
Professor and Director
Educational Technology Certificate Program

Contact us at: 517-432-9259
http://edutech.msu.edu

Greetings Educators,

Time marches on and this has certainly been a busy quarter for us on-campus. Our technology team recently hosted a study tour for a delegation from the Ministry of National Education in Algeria.  The week-long study tour was sponsored by the U.S. Department of State’s Middle East Partnership Initiative (MEPI) as part of its Partnership Schools Program (PSP) and implemented by Creative Associates International, Inc. of Washington, D.C.

The purpose of the study tour was to help the Ministry enhance its existing ICT (Information, Communications, and Technology – what we often refer to as educational technology here in the U.S.) efforts with practical, experience-based programming examples and ideas for the Algerian Education system.  The delegation participated in several presentations and school visits that included areas such as:

• Training staff in technology use and curriculum integration;
• Developing student skills using educational technology;
• Using technology to transform pedagogy, and
• Using software to manage records; communicate information;
  assign homework; initiate communications with parents; provide
  supplemental instructions to students; and increase accountability.

As part of the study tour the delegation visited Dewitt High School, Holt High School and Michigan Virtual University. As part of the visits they were able to view classroom teachers using technology to enhance student learning.

Upon completion of the study tour, participants identified 10 high-impact ideas that will benefit the Algerian ICT planning process.

Mr. Samir Boubekeur, Director of Donor Cooperation for Algeria’s Ministry of National Education and one of the attendees on the study tour commented, “The MEPI initiative has been the first communication between the Algerian and American education systems.  It is launching the relationship between our countries.”

In addition, as part of the Partnership Schools Program, Michigan State University is also connecting classrooms in Algeria with classrooms in the United States.  Four schools are currently part of a pilot program with 6 additional schools to be added in January.  The pilot schools are Dewitt High School, Durand High School, and Pinckney High School all in Michigan and Valley High School in Las Vegas, Nevada.  And, we are looking for two more schools to participate in the linkage program starting in January!  If you are an educator in grades 11 or 12 and are interested in having your class participate in this global initiative please contact me or Carrie Albin at 517-432-9259.  You can find out more information by visiting the e3link.org website. 
Best Regards,

Joseph Codde
Professor and Director
Educational Technology Certificate Program

Contact us at: 517-432-9259
http://edutech.msu.edu