This app design has been an intriguing challenge that fits right in to my life of predicaments and situations. I switched smart phone platforms for this course and have struggled with something akin to regret these past few months. An accomplished iOS user, I feel clumsy and frustrated with the Android, but I persist in my overcoming this obstacle. Last week I determined to get my apps organized into folders. I was successful, but in doing so, I inadvertently changed some setting within my Android that has prevented me from connecting (blocks editor does not see my phone).
I plan for my app to be used by EMT’s on the ambulance or on scene. They will enter patient information that can be sent via SMS to our local ER prior to our arrival. We have to be cautious about providing a patient’s name over our radio communications, but there are several “hot spots” during our transport that an SMS message can be sent prior to our arrival (we have a minimum 45 minute transport). I designed the app so that the user will interact via text box entries, check boxes, gps positioning. and SMS messaging. The environment has varied lighting, so I avoided the use of color, choosing a neutral dark gray and white for the primary screens.
I like being able to drag and drop functions in the Component Designer. It gives me an opportunity to play with the layout. The file size constraint is a potential setback. I am worried that as my app continues to grow, the size might get too big, so I have been resizing the photos in Photoshop to stay within the 5MB limit. I have frequent problems launching the blocks editor and am wondering why at this late date it is beginning to give me problems.
Archive for Standard 4: Management
EDTECH506: Concrete and Concise
There are many factors to providing critical prehospital care. EMTs have to know how to determine if a patient is in immediate need of advanced care. The students taking this course will refer to this condensed chart which follows Lohr’s three C’s. There is a lot to remember in this section, so I concentrated a lot of information in one spot. In doing so, I also designed it to be concise and concrete with the white text dominating the field. I initially had the blue text fields extending out to the edge of the page, but decided to increase the white ground a bit to balance the high contrast of the blue and red after my reviewer complained that it “hurt his eyes.” I decided the problem was one in which the figure and ground competed (p. 102). When I reduced the width of the blue, I found that the text was enhanced by the white space around the blue text box.
I analyzed the figure to see if I had unintentionally created a visual conflict. Originally, I had. The blue textboxes made the graphic look like a US Navy add with the blue and white “stripes” creating a 1+1=3 phenomenon (p. 100). My reviewer’s complaint told me that the figure and ground were causing visual conflict. The revision is much better – allowing the learner to “focus easily and quickly on [the] key message.” (p. 105).
Overall, I am pleased with this part of my project. I used the same colors as prior projects to begin developing a color theme of red, white, and blue to match that of our ambulance service. It will work because it is easy to read and put into a logical format. These are not cardinal elements, so leaving them unnumbered helps to reduce the tendency to rank the elements.
References
Lohr, L. (2008). Creating graphics for learning and performance: Lessons in visual literacy. (Second.) Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education, Inc.
EDTECH 597 – CRISIS MODE
I have been dreading this assignment. As a basic productivity app user, I am unskilled and unfamiliar with other app categories – especially games. Nevertheless, I have an awareness of the trend toward animating education, so I took this course hoping to gain new insight to the app phenomena. So it comes with some trepidation and much research (I have downloaded more apps in the past three months than my entire six years as a smart phone owner) that I finally have decided on a developer project. As an EMT in a remote location, I experience frequent communication setbacks between our ER staff and our ambulance service. We are equi-distant transport to rural ERs north and south of Riggins, but both requre a 3,000-4,000 foot climb in elevation. When we are called to wilderness areas to retrieve a patient injured or ill, our transport times exceed four hours – but for the most part we have a patient in the ER an average of one hour after we are initially paged. In the meantime, ER crews can be assembled and ready when the patient arrives – especially in critical care or life threatening events. With my plan laid out, I hope the little green droid and the blocks editor are ready for the challenge of my career.
EDTECH 597 – Hide and Seek
If you have ever experienced a moment of consternation upon exiting a mall or movie theater, the “Find My Car” app will put your fears to rest. Developing the app was an experience akin to finding your car in a packed lot. The design was pretty straightforward, but my desire to increase the font size caused the app to crash and not function well. App crashes were not the only problem, my blocks editor refused to load time after time. After a Java rollback, I was able to get the program to stabilize. I feel challenged to push this app, but I don’t know where! I added images to the buttons, and was finally successful in adding an Icon for the App Screen. Because I won’t be driving to my car, I used the walking option with Google Maps. Nevertheless, trial after trial I keep getting the same font argument error. Status update when/if a new functional version gets put out.
Update: The font argument was not about the font, but the incorrect block in the blocks editor. Third time was the charm! This tool is functional, but rather slow on my Android and takes a long time to load.
EDTECH597: Tour de Paris
I think I finally had fun with the blocks editor today. In fact, the process went so smoothly that I spent more time dreaming about (or was that researching) what I would do given the opportunity to travel to Paris than I did actually building the app. I am ready to create all sorts of map apps. My students could do this – identifying historical or significant land marks in math and photography. Viva le Apps!
EDTECH 501: School Evaluation Summary
Fishwater is a low-income community with the 2009 median income level of a family being $27,500 compared to the national average of $62,363 (U.S. Census, 2010). The present day economy of Fishwater is based on recreational activities such as hunting, rafting, fishing, and jet boating (Fishwater Chamber of Commerce, 2010), so much of the population works in hospitality and tourism services. As in many rural towns, community members support and actively participate in school functions (Fishwater Boosters, 2010). Because of the low-income status, 36% of students do not have a computer at home and a larger percentage (48%) do not have Internet access in their homes (School District, 2009).
Fishwater is located in the Big Canyon about 150 miles from Boise, Idaho. The town is located at approximately 1800 feet elevation surrounded by rugged canyon mountains (Fishwater Chamber of Commerce, 2010). Despite the geographical challenges, the two schools enjoy high speed internet connectivity via Metro Ethernet, which is currently 5MB (bidirectionally), but can be increased to 35MB delivered over copper, or 100MB over fiber. With over 150 devices, and 115 students, the district is technology rich. In addition, the State’s Educational Network video teleconference center provides additional online access to neighboring schools and universities. Access is available to all students and staff
In 2007, Fishwater Elementary and Junior Senior High School deconsolidated from a larger district to form the Fishwater Joint School District . The split was made to prevent bussing 1 hour each way for its (at the time) 140 students. The formation of a new district has allowed many decisions to be made locally, instead of at a distant district office. One decision was to implement new technologies with various grant funding opportunities. Another was to implement the Fishwater Online Learning Center dedicated to asynchronous classes, blended learning, and dual-credit courses. The center is proctored by a non-certified, but highly qualified, staff member. At any given period, the center is filled to capacity. Students use laptops, headphones and microphones to complete the interactive coursework.
This technology is not confined to the online learning center. Similar technology and related resources are available for all curricular areas. Classrooms are equipped with overhead projectors, sound systems, computers, dedicated student workstations, student response pads, and Interwrite ™ pads (interactive note pads). Some classrooms also feature interactive whiteboards and document readers. In addition, each school (elementary, middle, and high school) has a wireless laptop cart holding 12 laptops. Teachers use the cart regularly. Laptops have headphones/microphones that will eventually be used to consistently be tools for student creativity. High School teachers have access to digital still and video cameras, Kindle e-readers (15) and iPads (5); elementary teachers have access to an iPad lab (20 iPads).
The professional technical programs use technology and current industry standard software to produce such real-life products as the student newspaper, which is printed in a local area newspaper with a 3,000 – 5,000 delivery, providing an excellent venue to display student work. The desktop publishing class partners with the photography class to design, create, publish, and bind the yearbooks. The shop class use a CAD suite to design and manufacture various products that they later sell at a benefit auction.
Approximately 20% of teachers have fully adopted the student response pads and report they are invaluable assessment tools in both spontaneous and comprehensive assessment. Other teachers that use the pads occasionally report the pads take too long to initiate and cause too much of a classroom distraction. Most teachers indicate their interest in fully integrating the response pads if they could have additional one-one specialized training. Unfortunately declining funding prevents additional training. The teachers that have fully adopted the clickers have agreed to be mentors, but they have yet to actually do it.
Students and staff are heavily dependent upon information resources and use them daily, and resources are fairly comprehensive, providing depth or diversity, and moving toward a balanced delivery. Staff, students, and parents use Powerschool for administrative reporting, data collection, and progress monitoring. Grades are entered and reviewed using a web interface. Areas that continue to need development are training (using available tools for more advanced activities), assessment, and availability of formal and/or informal tech support.
The administration is fully in support of professional development in educational technology and is eager to implement new and emerging technologies. The district is technology rich, and professional development is offered to teachers three times annually. Despite the available technology, few teachers use it to its capacity Curriculum is somewhat dependent upon technology and used in multiple ways in most classrooms. The science teacher is a model of technology integration, whereas four of the fifteen teachers rarely use any technology. Interestingly enough, most veteran teachers (10 years or more of service) are eager to learn the new technologies. 20% of teachers cite lack of time to learn and plan for the technology as the main reason new technologies remain unused in their classrooms.
Currently the technology leadership team, comprised of one administrator, two board members, the technology coordinator, the business manager, the online classroom proctor, the science teacher, the first grade teacher, and one student, is developing a new comprehensive technology plan and use policy. Formal policy exists, and further planning and policy is currently under development for approval by the board of trustees. The comprehensive technology plan will be submitted to the state board of education in mid December after board approval. Two main themes are in place over the next three years: virtualization and integration of student devices.
The district has been operating for five years and has only recently begun to examine the cost of maintaining and acquiring new technology. Prior to this time, funding has been provided by a number of large ($50,000-75,000) grants. The grant funding has also provided professional development for staff members. They plan to have a technology line item for FY2013 of approximately $30,000, excluding the fractional time of a staff member maintaining the technology.
Currently the district is technology rich with full administrative support, high speed bandwidth, a glut of computers, current industry standard software, and a well maintained network infrastructure. At this stage it lies in the “integrated” status, with a few areas of immediate improvement. Additional resources and planning in staff development, technology integration, and more advanced skills taught to staff and students are still necessary to become an “intelligent” model as demonstrated by this survey.
EDTECH 501: Technology Use Planning Overview
The National Educational Technology Plan (2010) offers a non-prescriptive means of achieving the goals set forth by our nation’s educational leaders. Using it as a referance point provides a common lens through which to view our own objectives and progress towards those goals. In our district, technology planning committee members print out key segments to research and discuss at committee meetings. This blog features the main categories within this post to define how technology planning, implementation, and evaluation impact instruction and student learning.
Innovate and ScaleTeaching: Our district is miniscule. With 57 students in our junior/senior high school, technology offers students a competitive education that would be unavailable without synchronous and asynchronous online learning. Teachers are isolated in their subject areas, teaching six different flavors of their content area daily. Thanks to technology, the days of one person spewing forth knowlege are gone. From cutting-edge industry practices to details of ancient museum pieces, content delivery is supplmented with the vast resources of the Internet that brings a world of knowledge and ideas into the classroom.
Prepare and Connect: I am part of a team of instructional technology leaders made up of teachers, administrators, and other stake holders. Currently we are in the midst of developing a three-year tech plan to replace the existing plan that has met its useful life. Our past technology plan was designed for five years, as the State of Idaho had requested at the time. We have found it to be insufficient to address our expanding use of technology, even though it was beneficial in guiding our newly formed district in the path we are currently taking (our district is in its fifth year).
Infrastructure: Access and Enable: Previous to working in education, I worked in business management. One of the mantras of the day was to think/plan/act/evaluate with the end in mind. I believe that guideline rings true today. Even though we are designing a written technology plan, it’s the structure of our organization’s mission and vision statements that drives the adjustments needed when a new route or detour presents itself.
Assessment: Measure What Matters: Our committee recognizes that the planning stage is ongoing and needs flexibility as technological advances continually change the educational landscape. Because of this elasticity, we believe our tech plan should be designed for not longer than three years, which is in agreement with See (1992). I also am in agreement with See’s comment that “effective technology plans focus on applications, not technology.” Our committee strives to evaluate the effectiveness of current technological practices and endeavors to use technological and traditional methods to measure student achievement. The following example is how teachers in our dstrict have implemented student reponse pads, or “clickers.”
Productivity: Redesign and Transform After a committee determination that our district, teachers, and students would benefit from student response pads, we purchased a set for every classroom. The grant was written in such a manner that professional development for the integration of the devices was paramount to the technology. The first year, contracted trainers worked with teachers and teachers worked with one another redesigning their delivery and assessments to accomodate the devices. We experienced great success, with 75% of the teachers actively using their response pads and using the resulting data to steer their instruction. Students reported especially liking the instant feedback aspect of the systems. Three years later we have one teacher regularly using the response pads. What happened? Two key factors came into play resulting in technology without application: 1) administrative changes; 2) staff retirement, relocation, and replacing. The new staff does not have ownership in the decision, so they are reluctant to implement the devices because they do not see the added value. The unused clickers are waiting to shine, and Karen Roberts (1990) has provided me with 13 ways to bring them out of the storage closet and back into the hands of the students.
The National Education Plan (2010) and the articles provided at the National Center for Technology Planning have added insight and inspiration to the planning process that we are currently undertaking at our district.
Resources:
Robertson, K. (1990). PROMOTING TECHNOLOGY: 13 WAYS TO DO IT. Retrieved November 3, 2011, from National Center for Technology Planning: http://www.nctp.com/html/promoting_technology.cfm
See, J. (1992, May). Developing Effective Technology Plans. Retrieved November 8, 2011, from National Center for Technology Planning: http://www.nctp.com/html/john_see.cfm
U.S. Department of Education Office of Educational Technology. (2010). National Technology Plan 2010. Retrieved November 4, 2011, from ed.gov: http://www.ed.gov/sites/default/files/netp2010.pdf
EDTECH501: APA 1.6 using Zotero and Google Scholar
I have found the best thing since EndNote in a combo punch, and I am shamelessly endorsing them for the scholarly as well as those who are, well..less drawn to scholarly activities.
I eagerly partnered with Zotero for the software’s ability to organize my myriad wanderings and ponderings on the world wide web. Google Scholar is another lens that brings to focus the articles I need to extract the information I am looking for – in this case, mobile learning. I am including five correct APA citations as examples of the genius of Zotero. For a quick look at the FireFox plug-in, I chose to embed Arial’s tutorial. She has a few distracting “ums” and “uhs,” but her style captured my interest.
References
EDTECH 541: Considering the Outcomes
Social networking, Cloud-based computing, mobile devices, and Internet access offer myriad opportunities for my students to explore math on a whole new level. Excitement builds as I evaluate web sites, develop the LMS, and plan the online activities for my hybrid Algebra class.
Unexpectedly, I hit a policy barricade, beyond that a Family Rights and Privacy Act and Childs Internet Protection Act (FERPA/CIPA funding compliance barrier, and then headlong into firewalls and filter walls. Anticipation turns into frustration. How I will cross these obstacles becomes part of my planning and preparation.
Knowing I will have to have administrative and Board approval, I consider what solutions I will offer to provide relevant standards-based learning opportunities for student success. I have learned from Robleyer and Doering (2010) that I can use an evaluation tool to predetermine how to navigate the Internet and safely bypass common problems.
I work in reverse order, determining what content is relevant to my course. The Cisco ASA firewall, ESET Anti-virus, and WebSense internet filter work in tandem to protect our network and our users from the obvious risks of offensive subject matter, malware threats, privacy and financial compromise, or illegal activities, but sometimes they also prevent access to desirable or allowable sites. In response, I create a WebPortal which features the sites I have planned to use in my instruction. To avoid syntax errors, I carefully check the URLs one at a time to ensure they are functional. Using the URLs featured in the portal, I submit a whitelist to the filter.
One-third of my students have an IEP, one-third test within “proficient” levels, and the remaining third are “advanced.” Meeting the diverse needs of this student mix is going to be challenging. Eric Lawson’s article in the March 28, 2011 Technology & Learning prompted a grant to purchase iPads for a pilot program. The grant was funded. Eager to implement the recently purchased devices, I now have to consider what I must do to add the 3G access to our network. I call our consultants and they walk me through a process that allows our filter to work remotely so students can take the devices home, but remain accountable with publicly funded devices. I work with our administration to develop a new responsible use agreement for staff and students, confident that students will “love to use these handheld devices to learn about core curriculum standards within the classroom”(2011).
I’m getting closer to my objectives, but my most important task lies ahead of me. I must address the human element of this course. Even though my students immerse themselves in social media at home, their ability to use digital tools as a classroom resource is limited. Responding to the findings of a Cengage Learning/Eduventures survey (2010) entitled “Instructors and Students: Technology Use, Engagement and Learning Outcomes, William Reiders, executive vice president for Global New Media (Cengage Learning) states that, “Clearly, students are asking for better guidance, support, and training in using digital tools in the classroom and we, as an industry, need to pay attention and effectively respond to those needs in order to improve engagement and learning outcomes.”
In my opinion, my biggest responsibility is to provide training, model appropriate use, and enforce rules of netiquette, safe browsing, and responsible use of technology so that together we can soar into the 21st Century as learners and consumers in the digital age.
References
Brown, L. (2010, April 7). Debunking the Digital Native Myth: Higher Education Students Ask for More Support in Using Classroom Technology. Retrieved July 25, 2011, from CENGAGE Learning: http://www.cengage.com/trends/pdf/Survey Release and Results.pdf
Lawson, E. (2011). iPads, iPod Touches, and iPhones as Assistive Technology in Education. Technology and Learning .
Robleyer, M., & Aaron, D. (2010). Educational Technology Into Teaching (Fifth ed.). Allyn and Bacon, Pearson.
Stefanie Brimacomb: EDTECH Learning Log 