Promoting Tinkering in STEM Education

I just came across this via Facebook and had to share it.  This slidedeck was created by the coauthor of my favorite book on constructionist education, Invent to Learn, Sylvia Martinez.  It's a great read with lots of ideas and has a Kindle version too.

Tinkering towards technology literacy from smartinez

References: Martinez, S.  Tinkering and stem, good for girls and all. [Weblog]. Retrieved from: http://sylviamartinez.com/tinkering-and-stem-good-for-girls-good-for-all/

Virtual Learning Opportunities at VLACS

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I was skeptical of virtual schools, but after researching the VLACs website, I wish it was available when my daughter, now 30, was in high school.  She was finally diagnosed with ADD when she was 18 years old, a little late to help with the struggles she endured all through middle and high school.  She hated going to school and fell behind but, against my wishes, was "socially promoted" from 7th through 12th grade.  One of the statements on the site that brought it home for me was that "each student is directly accountable for every query, question or exercise" (VLACS, 2013), unlike the traditional classroom where students can hide in the back of the class and just go through the motions of attending class.  After viewing the sample tour of the technology class, I want to take the programming class myself!  

Click for Computer Programming Course Tour

The Virtual Learning Academy, or VLACS, was founded in 2007, and is an online school with offices located in Exeter, NH. It is funded by the NH Education Trust Fund, which funds charter schools. Although the site claims that funds are not taken from public school funding sources, it still has to add to the tax burden of the NH citizens.  All classes are taught by highly qualified NH certified teachers who are required to communicate with students at least monthly via phone or online.  They also submit progress reports monthly and have regular office hours so that students can pop in with questions. The one question I have that I could not find the answer to is what is the student to teacher ratio?  I am curious as to how many students each teacher has to split their time with, and as a result, how much time each student receives. Students also have an advisor who is available to answer questions about classes, credits and preparation for college.  The curriculum was developed by the Florida Virtual School, which was founded in 1997, but it is also reviewed and approved by the NH Department of Education. 

VLACS accepts full time as well as part time students, who need to supplement their school's curriculum, make up classes, or for enrichment activities.  Another benefit it offers is dual credit courses, which allow students to take college level courses, in partnership with SNHU and the NH Community College system, taught by teachers who have been certified as adjunct instructors by SNHU. However there are restrictions, students must have not earned a high school diploma, and must complete all course work before their 21st birthday.  This was a disappointment to me as I thought it would be a good opportunity for a student we have at school, who has graduated but is under 22, so has received an extension from this sending school for a year to work on "transition opportunities" while his adult placement it being developed. This particular student is also from out of state so there would be a cost. VLACS accepts non-residents if space is available, but they are charged $920 per full credit.  However I think this could be a good alternative for some of our current high school students who need additional classes required for graduation that we cannot provide or for those students who need enrichment or need to make up classes.  

Students are able to:

• work at their own pace (but within a timeframe which can be negotiated)
• be free of distractions from other students 
• use the latest technology to learn concepts
• participate in virtual tours of sites for authentic learning
• collaborate with other VLACS students online, to share materials and work on projects together

Restrictions include:

• Students must be under 21 years old while attending classes
• Cannot have earned a high school diploma
• Have not been expelled from a public school
• Out of state students are given access only after in state students have been placed

Other considerations include technology availability.  VLACS recommends that students have access to a high speed broadband Internet connection.  They also need to download Firefox browser and have access to Microsoft Office or Open Office software.  A modern computer with at least 1GB memory and 6GB of hard drive space is recommended as a minimum. Headphones and a microphone are also needed, as well as a removable disk media for saving work.  Windows Vista or Windows 7 OS is required, according to the website or Mac OS 10.4.9, but 10.6+ is highly recommended. Therefore the student's family or school needs to be able to supply the student with this technology.

VLACS also gives other schools a Partnership training, which helps teachers to navigate the course and communication systems, so they can help students in their schools who are taking classes with VLACS.  Teachers who take the partnership training are given access to their partnership website.

I think that virtual schools may be a great alternative for high school students who are not successful in traditional classrooms, because they are able to work independently, at their own pace, without distraction from other students, and receive 1-1 attention in all classes.  However, they need to be responsible and able to manage their time to complete course requirements within the allotted time. They also need the involvement of a parent or other mentor should be involved to help motivate and direct the students to ensure that they are taking advantage of this opportunity.  

References: VLACS [Website] Retrieved from: http://vlacs.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=178&Itemid=297
  

Do Virtual Schools have a Real Future?

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As a student in an online program, I don't know whether I should be criticizing virtual schools. But I wonder how beneficial they are especially to younger students.  I think those students need nurturing and socialization, which is part of the reason for going to school. They need teachers who can assist, observe and give immediate formative feedback to help them succeed. As Jason Boyers says in Online Done Right, "distributing information is not teaching" (2013). I cannot imagine children learning to read from a virtual school. In fact that was one of the comments from last week's discussions on libraries, that young children need to have limited screentime.

However at the high school level or beyond, virtual schools could be a good alternative for some students, especially when the distance to get to the school would be an inconvenience for the student. Some students just do not feel they fit in to the school environment. These students may thrive in a virtual environment, especially the more introverted students (Boyers, 2013), however they would have to be disciplined and able to focus on the task. Also I think that interaction and collaboration with peers in an essential piece, if it is done well.  I think the niche that these online schools has the most influence on is filling voids like credit recovery or offering classes that may not be available in the student's local school.  

At the adult level, MOOC's or online schools serve a variety of needs.  I am participating in a MOOC now to learn how to program Lego robots. Last summer I attended a MOOC (based at Harvard University) to learn programming with Scratch, which was attended by people all over the world.  But the one thing that I find consistent with all of the online courses or webinars that I have attended, is that they all have some level of interaction with the other learners and the teacher as well. The two MOOC's have utilized Google Groups or Google+. The Scratch Google+ community was a very dynamic way of interacting with other learners. The nature of the program and the online community within Scratch allowed people to ask questions of the community and share the link to their project with other learners, who could go in and modify their codes by remixing the project, but not changing the original scripts. They even had weekly "office hours" via Google Hangouts, where we could ask questions and see the education team's faces.  But it was nice to meet many of the participants face to face, including a woman who flew to Boston from Brazil, at a live symposium at the end of the course.  There were other things to learn about, that some knew better than others, so were able to demonstrate for the rest of us.  This is one of the things I have thought SNHU's online classes need to do better - use online tools that encourage collaboration and interaction between classmates.  In this class we have used Google Docs to collaborate a couple of times, but perhaps we could do more of this in other classes. 

There are two different virtual schools in New England, with different pricing models.  If you live in NH, VLACS Virtual Learning Academy offers free classes to residents.  The Virtual High School, charges between $300 per course and $3500 per year.  The question is is it worth the money?   Who pays for these courses, the students or the school?  What about students who cannot afford to pay for virtual classes?  Are taxpayers expected to fund brick and mortar schools and virtual schools as well?

I think that virtual schools have some alternatives to offer the students.  But we cannot sacrifice good pedagogy for the convenience of online learning. 


References:
Boyers, J. (2013).  Online done right, The importance of human interaction for student success. eLearn Magazine, September 2013. Retrieved from: http://elearnmag.acm.org/opinions.cfm?aid=2524201

In Defense of Libraries

EDU 641 - Module 8

When I was starting to work on this project, I went looking for images to use for my presentation in Simple Booklet.  I wasn't finding anything to my liking, so I searched for a picture of the town library where I grew up.  I was reminded that the beautiful old building was no longer the public library, since it had been moved to a bigger building many years ago. But it was interesting to find current photos of the building, which is now being used as a function hall.  I was pleased to see that it has not changed much, other than the lack of books and other library materials, the architecture is still the same, inside and out. Looking through those photos brought me back to a nostalgic time, when I loved to read and had the time. But even in the present, I see a need for library spaces.  In the school where I work, the media center is a favorite destination for most of the students.  It is a place to socialize, go online, do research, listen to music, watch movies, read ebooks, use iPads for reading and games, and even reading real books!  The kids still love to borrow books from the library and take them back to their classroom to read. 

The readings this week supported, in my mind, the need to keep "brick and mortar" libraries in schools.  I believe students in K-12 schools still need a place to go to get help from the Librarians or Media Specialists to navigate the research tools even more than in the past.  The Internet is a vast resource with accurate, but also a lot of inaccurate, information. I think a brick and mortar library with digital resources is the way to go.  Students need a place where they can browse through the books available.   As Liz Gray said, there are all different kinds of learners, so we need to have choices for them.


I go into more of this in my Simple Booklet.  Sorry but since this is a free account, they put ads in it.  This seemed like a great tool for creating ebooks, which can be shared via email, on social media sites and embedded in your blog or other HTML site. But I am having trouble getting the audio to work, which I saved for last.  I started this book 3 days agoso I don't want to redo the whole presentation!

This is the second time I have used this tool and the first time with audio, and I discovered it only accepts mp3, m4a and acc files, so my wma files, which I recorded first, did not work, so I had to go back and re-record them on my phone and then send the m4a files to my email and download then upload, but I still cannot get the audio to play, here or on the online version!  I have also attached audio files which I uploaded to Dropbox.  Simple Booklet didn't like Dropbox files, gave me an error message.  I linked to my Dropbox files below the book, so if you want to hear the audio, you can open the files along with the pages, you will just have to toggle back and forth between windows.   I was able to get it to come up on my phone and play the audio by clicking play buttons, and swipe to change pages.  To get it on a mobile device, snap the QR code below the book.

simplebooklet.com Audio files:    Cover Page     Page 1     Page 2     Page 3    Last Page

Technology Use by Generation

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Here is a timeline I created on TimeToast on the history of communication technology. In case it doesn't play here, here is a link to the live timeline.

I could not figure out how to put the generational data into the timeline. So I made an infographic of the data, using Piktochart.  It was a bit of a learning curve and not easy to use, a bit clunky, but after a few hours it seemed easier. I also could not get rid of the logo graphic at the top left that was on the theme I used. I re-created everything else, so I should have started with a blank page.  I needed to import some pictures.  I was using the free account, maybe the paid account would have more icons.  I was trying to fit everything in a confined space, because that is all I could see on the interface, but then at some point it suddenly expanded. It might look better if you can zoom in some. If you drag your cursor over the graphics, the numbers (data) appear!  If you need the link to the chart online it is here. I also just noticed that you can view the infographic in presentation mode by clicking on the icon on the top of the webpage that says Enter Presentation mode, it's very cool!

The data for the chart is here.  Most of the data was obtained from Pew Internet Research.  I found that some of the data was conflicting and repetitive due to it coming from different years.  Also sometimes the age categories overlapped, so it was hard to separate into the exact age groups that we were given. I could not find any information on numbers of email messages per generation.  But I found some other interesting information.  The thing that I found most interesting is the number of teens that have their own cell phones.  But was not able to get SMS info or device ownership for Generation @.

Realtime Board

Mike,

It was bugging me that you couldn't make the board flow, like in Prezi.  So I was playing with it and I found that you can, by taking snapshots of each slide by zooming in and using the camera icon.  Click on the movie screen button and the other buttons will appear below it.  You have to drag and zoom in on each slide then shoot by clicking the camera. Then you will see a number on each shot. See diagram below.  The arrow to the right of the camera takes you to full screen and you will see the advance slide buttons at the bottom of the screen, or you can test it using the left and right arrows to the left of the camera.

I am not sure what the purpose of the gray arrows are for, which I got by clicking on the diagram button next to the undo button at the bottom of the screen, unless they are just for planning?

Here's the resulting slideshow.  It is just a test so I didn't do all of the slides. Hope this helps.

Technology Configurations

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We were asked to come up with five activities and look at how they would fit into five different classroom technology configurations, noting issues that may be voiced by the classroom teacher and come up with solutions to those issues. 

I chose to use VoiceThread to present my issues, rather than writing them out as that seemed like it would be just a bunch of boring text.  I also wanted to try using VoiceThread again.  You can also comment using a microphone, phone or webcam or typing in text on the slide margins.  

I created my slides on the activities on Google Presentations, thinking I could import them into VoiceThread, although I found that VoiceThread didn't talk to Google!  So I downloaded the Google Presentation to PowerPoint and then uploaded that to VoiceThread.  

So here is the VoiceThread

And here is a link to my  VoiceThread, in case the embedded file doesn't work, or if you want to see it in full screen.

Also here is a link to my Google Presentation, so that you can access the links to the lesson plans.  However this presentation only has the activities slides, it does not include the discussion on the issues. That is in the VoiceThread.  Hope you find this interesting.