School Evaluation Summary

As stated in the summary itself, I completed the survey primarily on my own experiences with the college. However, I did meet with several people in the school's administration to get answers to things I really wasn't aware of.

I think the most surprising part of completing this assignment was the enthusiasm I received from the administrators that I met with. There is a definite three-way divide at the university between administration, the school's IT department, and the faculty body, and I think that the divide is so engrained in the school's culture that we don't even think about how much more we could accomplish if we worked together more often. It was good to know that there was genuine interest both in helping me complete the survey, as well as getting feedback so that they can look at what improvements we can make in the future.

As a whole, I think the school does a good job of putting the students' needs first, to make sure that resources, faculty, and staff are available to help them meet whatever goal they have set for themselves. That said, I think there is still much more we could do in terms of using technology to help with that goal.

The links to my files are below:

School Evaluation

Maturity Benchmarks Survey

I have tried to set the sharing settings so that readers can add comments directly to the files, and comments are very welcome.

Kim

Technology Use Planning Overview

Start with defining technology use planning--how would you describe it?

Technology use planning is a formal recognition of the fact that technology is a required component of education in today’s society, and that the technology must be readily available to everyone in order to be effective.

The plan should include at least basic ideas about what kinds of hardware and infrastructure will be included, but also what software the users will need, and how many users are likely to use the technology. Security issues--especially the storage of sensitive student data--must also be included in the plan, along with policies on who has access to that data and how the data is accessed.

How might the new National Educational Technology Plan 2010 be an effective and powerful resource for technology use planning?

Our education system is going through a huge transformation now. Past educational models focused on reading books and memorizing facts, and a person’s education was measured by how much they remembered of those facts. Today's education system is being transformed by the fact that many (if not most) students have ready access to these facts in the palm of their hand, with a shift toward focusing on how to use those facts to generate new ideas.

This concept is repeated multiple times in the NETP2010. In essence, the old, traditional concept of individual memory is quickly transforming into that of a collective memory, where members of the Internet society can share information with each other easily and quickly, even over large distances, then use that information to generate new ideas. Students (and teachers) who do not have Internet access are left out of the ability to take advantage of that collective memory.

The NETP2010 stresses the need for an infrastructure and technology support that provide reliable access to technology--for students and teachers alike--to encourage full-time learning. This access also needs to be designed for 24/7 use, because the plan acknowledges that a lot of learning takes place outside the classroom.

I believe that this plan can help those at the administrative level of education systems, including both K-12 and higher ed, to understand both how technology should be integrated into the learning system, and why it is critical that we do so.

Do you agree with See about tech use plans needing to be short, not long term?

I agree in part. In a way, technology planning is like driving a car. You need to pay the most attention to the things that are closest to you, and adapt as the traffic around you changes in the here and now. However, you also need to look down the road, so that you have time to plan and prepare for things that are still in the future.

The idea of short-term planning revolves around the fact that technology does change quickly in unpredictable ways. A ten-year plan that relies on one kind of technology may be untenable after only three or four years into the plan, simply because of the shifting nature of technology dunes.

That said, I believe that some amount of long-term planning is desirable, and that it can be effective if done correctly. Some aspects of technology have remained constant--like the need to be able to identify users and allocate resources--and it is reasonable to predict that those aspects are likely to be relevant for an indefinite period of time to come.

An example is the assignment of usernames in a network, which has been a tricky issue since networks were born. The concept of using a person’s name looks good up front, since it is easier to remember a name than a random number. However, as the number of users increases, so does the likelihood of having more than one user with the same name. While network strategies can find ways around this (by including a middle initial, for example), if users are used to one specific system, it can be confusing when elements of the system don’t meet expectations. While no username system is perfect, a long-term plan that takes into account how users will be identified in the future without confusion is better than a short-term plan that looks only at the current user base.

Another example is the need for data storage, for all users of the system. Teachers and students need access to a secure location where the data they create can be stored, and some kind of backup plan should be in place to ensure that data is not lost. We know that data storage needs are likely to grow, so we need to plan for growth.

Long-term planning should include the ability to shift focus as part of the plan, while committing to stay on track with the focus of ensuring that technology will always be available at the same time.

What do you think about his comment that "effective technology plans focus on applications, not technology?" Do you agree/disagree?

In the ideal world, I would agree with this statement. To continue with the car analogy, a traffic system should be designed with the main goal of getting drivers from point A to point B as efficiently as possible, regardless of the vehicle they are driving now or in the future.

In the real world, this is hard to implement just because every piece of technology works a little differently, and users have to know how to use the technology before they can drive it to their destination.

While graphic user interface systems have certainly made devices more user-friendly and uniform, I have found that “uniformity” is in the eye of the beholder. A child who has grown up with technology can easily adapt to its different forms without blinking an eye, because their goal is the desired end result, and they understand that an icon is just an icon, and a menu is just a menu. For many adults, learning to use technology is a goal in and of itself, and if they don’t know how to use the technology, they can’t really see a path to the end result. They may not be able to recognize that Internet Explorer and Safari serve the same purpose, for example, or be able to find options in menus that are arranged differently from what they are used to using.

In my own world, my 18-year-old son can easily switch between Windows 7, Windows 8, Ubuntu, Mac OS, iOS, and Android because he is more aware of the similarities between the different user interfaces than he is of the differences. My husband, on the other hand, moans when he has to learn yet another version of Windows or Microsoft Office, and he has only figured out how to do basic things on his Android phone. While he does understand that a GUI is a GUI, he is much more likely to see the differences between the interfaces, and to see those differences as obstacles to his desired end result.

What experiences have you had with technology use planning and what have you seen for outcomes (both good and bad?)

I have been teaching adults how to use technology for a substantial part of my adult life, and while I have never been directly involved in determining a technology plan, I have certainly experienced its effects. The technology goals for our school are determined primarily by and for administration, and providing technology for use in the classes often takes a backseat to what administration believes is needed at that time.

About a year ago, the technology department at the university where I work decided to start replacing desktop computers used in student computer labs (most of which are used for computer classes) with virtual desktop devices instead. There was a small pilot study that a few people experimented with, and once the bugs were worked out, they replaced the computers in one of the labs in the next phase. When that was successful, they went to a nearly complete commitment to providing virtual desktops in all classroom labs, as well as to replace many of the administrative computers. That roll out proved to be disastrous, because they did not plan for the number of users on the server side of the virtual network. The server crashed completely at least once a day for several weeks in a row, and even when it was working, the virtual desktops were so slow that it was frustrating to try to accomplish anything at all. They had also completely gotten rid of the old equipment, so we couldn’t just go back to the previous setup.

This was only an inconvenience for most classes, since very few classes at the school rely on technology on a daily basis, and teachers had to help students find alternate ways to complete assignments that did depend on computers. For the computer classes that I teach, though, it was disastrous. We had to figure out how to share the labs that were still functional (because they had not yet gone virtual), and I frequently found myself ending class early after using my personal laptop to demonstrate the current assignment, so that students could go find equipment to use in other parts of the campus.

The worst part of this was that the school administration was completely oblivious to the problems we were having in the classrooms. The virtual rollout was completely successful in the administrative part of the network because there were so many fewer users, Even when they did finally become aware of the severity of the problems, there was little they could do except authorize whatever expenses they could make available toward fixing the problems.

The campus is now almost completely virtual, with only a smattering of desktop computers around campus. For the most part, this has been successful after the disasters of its beginning, but there are still many people on campus who distrust it and who discourage students from using it.

I would like to think that our IT department has learned from those mistakes, but I don’t really think it has. The disaster of the virtual desktops was by far the most catastrophic example of poor planning, but it is not the only one we have had in the dozen or so years I’ve been teaching them. Most instructors have decided that we cannot count on campus technology to be available 100% of the time, and very few of us go into a classroom to teach without a plan B that does not depend on technology.

Digital Inequality

Here is my VoiceThread video on Digital Inequality:



The problem of digital inequality is not really that new to me. I have been teaching computer classes for more than a decade, and during that time, I have known students who simply could not afford to buy a computer to use at home. The problem seems to be shifting now, to a point where students are more likely to have a "computer" at home, but more and more students are choosing to rely on smart phones instead of desktop or laptop computers, with the same result that they have to come to campus to do their work for classes that require the use of a computer.

Access to technology is not an overwhelming problem, though. A bigger problem in my classes is the fact that there is a wide disparity in previous experience using computers. I do have a few students every quarter who have not used computers very much in the past. In some cases, it may be because the student is from a third-world country, and they never had any opportunity to learn how to use them before coming to the United States to attend college. In other cases, it may be an older student who has simply never had a computer because they didn't need one. Yet another set of students are people who do not like computers, and who want to have as little to do with them as possible.

Alongside these students, often in the same classroom, I have students who can't remember a time when they didn't have a computer, and who are extremely comfortable learning new skills in the class.

This range of background knowledge causes many problems, and since I teach computer education classes geared toward non-computer majors, I see it in most of my classes. On top of that, we have to fit an entire semester into ten weeks' time, so it's not always possible to slow down and let everyone catch up.

In my computer applications classes, the disparity of experience is very obvious. The students who are less experienced with computers feel very stressed with each new assignment because of the amount of work required. For these students, the textbook assignments and projects can take an extraordinary amount of time to complete, because they often need to repeat steps or review the material to get the correct results. The more experienced students don't always need the same introduction to the material that the less experienced students need, and this leads to boredom on their part.

I have considered creating videos to replace the in-class presentations, but this would be an extreme time commitment on my part, and there is no evidence that the students would actually take advantage of them. We did actually use a textbook at one point that included online demonstration videos, but to the best of my knowledge, none of the students ever used them. Less experienced students would have the challenge of finding the videos to start with, and more experienced students wouldn't believe they had the time to view them.

The solution I am presenting here may be the best solution to the problem. The less experienced students would have more time to devote to learning the skills before using them in the textbook assignment, and the more experienced students would be able to skip over the introductory material and focus on learning the new skills. All students would still take the same exams on the material, to verify that they are in fact learning the same skills.

Kim Weiss

P.S. For the record, I am not really happy with the quality of the VoiceThread video. I am much more comfortable using PowerPoint to create narrated videos, but I understand that part of the goal of this class is to learn to use new technology. It would be very cool if Google would add a tool to Google docs that allows users to export a slideshow created in Google Docs directly to YouTube.

EDTECH Challenges

I believe that the biggest challenge for me right now is being in the center of the shift from lecture-based classroom models to an online, technology-based model.

For this assignment, I read the 2013 Higher Ed version of the NMC Horizon Report. I currently teach college classes, so I felt the content in that file was more relevant than the K-12 Report.

Two of the trends in that report stood out to me:
#5: The role of educators continues to change due to the vast resources that are accessible to students via the Internet.

#6: Education paradigms are shifting to include online learning, hybrid learning, and collaborative models.

I think that these two trends move hand-in-hand: we can't have one without the other. The Internet resources that are available to students now are a form of online learning, and online learning cannot happen without these resources.

A few years ago, in an introduction that I have most students write during the first week of the quarter, one of my students said something to the effect that he did not understand what the point of school is, since everything anyone wants to know is readily available on the Internet. This statement had an effect on me because it represents the heart of how education is changing. Today's students don't need to learn facts--facts about anything they might be interested in are as close as the palm of their hand. Instead, today's students need to learn how those facts can be molded together to create new ideas--something that they won't be able to find using Google or Wikipedia.

In short, the process of education is going through an evolutionary change right now. This is not a deliberate change. No student or teacher (or even administrator) is pushing to make these changes happen. Instead, it seems to be an shift brought about by how the general populace is now exposed to a wider bank of information than they ever have been at any other point in history.

When I look at the students sitting in my classrooms today, I am truly puzzled about why many of them choose to come to class. They show no interest in participating in the activities I am leading them through, preferring instead to work more-or-less independently, and occasionally popping up their heads to make a quick comment or observation. Many of those students would be better off taking the online version of the class, so they could fit the class into their schedule, instead of trying to fit their schedule into my class. There are typically a few students who are genuinely interested in learning the material in each class, and those students do prove that the classroom environment is still a valid model for some students, but those students seem to be fewer from one quarter to the next.

About a year ago, I decided that I wanted to specialize more in developing online content that could be used in the classes we teach, so I started looking into what I could do to learn this skill. While I probably could have found online training materials to work through on my own, I also know myself well enough to know that unless there is a strong external motivation (like meeting someone else's deadlines), I would keep putting off learning the skills.

I already have one Master's degree (in French Linguistics), but I felt that a second Master's in Educational Technology would help both me and my students. It's only been a few weeks since I started this new journey, and I have already learned new skills that I can put to use immediately in my current classes. I am truly looking forward to the rest of what is to come.

Here is the video I created. I hope you enjoy it.