The structure of Google's Internet search MOOC

Google has posted the content of their Internet search MOOC. It consists of six 50-minute classes, and I went through the first one, to see how Google is approaching MOOCs.

The class consisted of an introductory video followed by five lessons with activities for each lesson.

Four of the lessons were videos showing screenshots and screencasts with a talking head in a small window, as shown below. The fifth lesson was a professionally produced video on how search engines work.

Each activity started with a boxed text summary of the points made in the associated lesson, as shown here.

The summary was followed by three or four activities. There were three types of activity:

• Multiple choice/true false questions, followed by the answers
• An admonition to think about something or answer an open ended question before proceeding (for example "What is something you have wanted to find that color filtering might have helped you locate faster? Reflect on this before proceeding to the next lesson.")
• An open ended question, followed by the response of an "expert" to the same question

#mooc #digitalliteracy #edreform #highered #bonkopen #pedagogy #edtec

Dabbleboard, RIP -- the end of a cool service

Dabbleboard, a cool, shared-whiteboard, vector drawing service is shutting down.

I didn't use Dabbleboard for production work, but it was a terrific tool for teaching students the difference between vector and bit-mapped images and illustrating synchronous collaboration.

This illustrates one of the risks of cloud computing -- you are stuck if you depend upon a service that goes out of business, raises its prices, etc.

I wonder if the folks at Dabbleboard would consider open sourcing it?

Draft of IT literacy paper

I just posted the draft of a paper called IT literacy – evolution, curriculum and a modular e-text.

In the paper, I review the evolution of the IT literacy course from the 1960s to today, then describe my Internet-era curriculum and the modular e-text (currently 104 modules) I am developing to teach it.

New IT literacy teaching modules

I've recently posted or revised 12 IT literacy teaching modules:

• The democratization of application development
  
• Application Characteristics
  
• Popular Web client and server programs
  
• Reading and writing on the Internet
  
• Rating and reputation on the Internet
  
• History of IT platforms and IT literacy
  
• Yahoo Groups
  
• The Web – vision, prototype and product
  
• Data quantity -- how much data?
  
• Innovation timing
  
• Exponential growth
  
• Technology progress
  

This brings the total to 102 modules. Each module has an annotated PowerPoint presentation and assignment, and many have videos, transcripts and other components. (I am adding them as quickly as possible).

Perhaps you can use one or more in a class or for self study. You can see how the modules are structured here and browse through them and here. You can also subscribe to announcements of future modules.

The 2011 Campus Technology Conference

I recently attended the 2011 Campus Technology Conference in Boston. Since I teach using Web 2.0 tools, am an e-text developer and my school is interested in using iPads, I focused on those areas and had a great time and learned a lot. I'll tell you what I saw, and you can follow the links at the end of this report to see videos and slides from presentations I missed.

Keynote session

The conference was preceded by a day of workshops featuring in-depth presentations and hands-on exercises. Two that caught my eye were Mark Frydenberg on Web 2.0 tools for the college classroom and Jenna Linskens on the applications and uses of the iPad in education.

Linskens stated that there are over 12,500 educational applications for the iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch -- that can be a bit overwhelming. Experienced teachers like Linskens and Frydenberg organize applications and focus on those that they find useful. Linskens mentioned 102 applications in 13 categories, including four "must haves." (What would be your "must have" iPad applications)?  Similarly, Frydenberg showed dozens of applications in 14 categories.

Michael Wesch

The next day, the conference got underway with an inspirational, entertaining talk by award winning teacher Michael Wesch of Kansas State University. Those familiar with Wesch and the videos he and his students have made documenting classroom atmosphere and engagement will find the first half of the presentation familiar. 

For example, over half of his students say they do not like school, but none dislikes learning and he expressed his disappointment in the kinds of questions students ask – for example "how long does the paper have to be" or "will that be on the exam?"

Wesch: required skills change over time

This presentation went beyond Wesch’s earlier work. He brought in his experience as an anthropologist in Papua New Guinea and got a bit Mcluhaneque in talking about the idea that media are more than communication tools -- they mediate and change relationships. A family gathered around a TV set at dinner time is not the same as a post-TV family. Educational needs are also different. Students who grew up during the TV era need to learn critical thinking, while those in the post TV world need media literacy for creating, filtering, organizing, distributing and rating information.

There were two and a half days of concurrent session presentations. The session format stressed quality over quantity -- each presentation was a full hour, so there was time for formal talks, demos and discussion.

Jeff Borden

Being interested in e-text, the first session I attended was "eText is Here" by Rand Spiwak and John Ittelson. They are e-text enthusiasts, but stress that the format wars were far from settled. The turbulent nature of the format and device wars was further emphasized by Jeff Borden of Pearson Learning in his presentation "Emerging Technologies in Content Delivery: eBooks and eReader Devices." Borden listed 23 e-reading devices and 18 e-text formats.

Borden is an informative, entertaining speaker. He gave two presentations, and both were recorded. I recommend watching the videos. You might also be interested in his directory of 500 e-learning tools.

Borden: tools change over time

In addition to keynotes and technical sessions, there were extended conversations with executives from Google, Apple and Microsoft. These ran concurrently with the technical sessions, and provided an opportunity to hear a strategic presentation and have plenty of time for questions and discussion. I only had time to attend one of these conversations, but will watch the videos of the other two now that I am back from traveling.

The exhibit floor

Campus Technology is not a purely academic conference -- there was a mix of academic and professional presentations, a show floor with vendor booths and an area where vendors made scheduled presentations. The exhibit area was large enough to include many interesting vendors and small enough that I had time to visit all the booths with products I wanted to learn more about -- like the three bears, it was just right.

Videos: I've just scratched the surface. Videos of the keynote sessions, conversation sessions, and featured parallel presentations are online.

Slides: The workshop and presentation slides are also online. Even if there is no video of a session you are interested in, you can download the slides, get a feel for the presentation and contact the author.

The Internet in K-12 schools, an Educause presentation

I recently attended the Educause conference. (Educause is a professional society focused on educational technology).

One of the more interesting presentations was by Julie Evens, CEO of Project Tomorrow. She reported the results of their survey of over 300,000 K-12 students, parents, teachers, administrators, and teachers in training.  The survey sheds some light on the preparation and proclivities of our future students.

Evans began with the student vision -- what students want and envision for themselves in their future education. The essential elements of their vision are that education should be socially based, untethered and digitally rich.

1. Socially based

Students want to use communication and collaboration tools to create personal networks of collaborators and helpers. They want to teach each other and learn from outside experts, online tutors and their teachers.

2. Untethered

Students envision technology-enabled learning that goes beyond classroom walls. They already have smart phones, tablets and laptops and want to use them in school. They want to take online classes and learn at their own pace.

3. Digitally rich

They want relevant, interactive teaching materials and self-administered tests -- for their eyes only. They also want digital tools so they can be content developers as well as consumers.

Evans says many students are "free agent learners." The survey profiled a typical middle school student as follows:

• 37% have searched online for self-directed learning
• 23% have found podcasts/videos to learn about something
• 18% took an online test or assessment on their own (my italics)
• 17% used cell phone apps to self organize
• 14% used online writing tools to improve writing skills
• 12% found experts online to answer questions

The survey also compares the views of students and administrators with those of teachers in training, concluding that teacher training needs to move beyond Microsoft Office:

While these future teachers have a desire to integrate the technology to support socially-­-based, digitally rich curriculum in their classroom, they are primarily being taught to use technology for word processing, spreadsheet, database tools or multi-­-media presentations. Less than 25 percent of these future teachers are being taught core skills which will enable them to leverage the power of technology for student achievement with online assessments, the use of student achievement data to inform instruction, or facilitate collaboration amongst students using Internet-­-based tools (such as blogs, wikis or social networking tools). Even fewer are learning how to teach online classes (4 percent).

You can read or download the slides from Evan's talk or a copy of the survey report.  The survey is done annually, and the 2010 version is online now.

Disclaimer

While these results are thought provoking, they are biased. Survey participants are self-selecting so they are already online and clearly interested in the topic. The work is funded by Blackboard, which has a clear interest in online education, but I have no reason to think they influenced the results in any way. Finally, Project Tomorrow grew out of the Net Day organization so they are probably fans of the Net -- that may have shaped the survey wording a bit.

In spite of the disclaimer, the survey results shed light on the future, and educators and prospective employers of today's kids should keep them in mind.

Follow this link for more on the preparation and expectation of today's university students.