Google Documents

I am a commited user of Google's Documents. There are four major "tools" available:

• Word Processor
  
• Presentation Creator
  
• Form Builder
  
• Spreadsheet (which is also a Data Base as are all spreadsheets
  

Why are these tools so valuable?

• They are Free!
  
• They allow for a collaborative effort which also produces a record of who did what when.
  
• Documents and presentations are available to online audiences if desired
  
• Chat (and in some cases audio and video) are available to "distant" participants
  
• Can't lose document (stored on Google's server)
  
• Accessible anywhere there is an internet connection without need for an application other than a browser
  

If Google's tool set is not a part of your instructional tool set you should try them. I think you will find them enormously useful and beneficial.

I Don't Know....Let's Find Out!

I love to learn and I want my students to love to learn. One way I try to accomplish that objective is to model the excitement that comes from learning. And that is perfectly OK to say "I don't know." because we can then say "Let's find out!"

Reader/Writers or Listener/Watchers?

In 1995 I published an article predicting that books would be replaced by silver discs by 2010. How wrong I was. Books have been (or are rapidly being" replaced by "The Cloud." At a later date I will elaborate on this new "Strange Prediction." Here I would like to summarize my 1995 belief that a new world was emerging in which a "listening/watching" culture was replacing a "reading/writing" one. The number of readers, and time spent reading was decreasing rapidly then (and still is). And many were wring there hands over such a calamity. I felt that it was not reading/writing that was the concern, but whether the new generation f listeners/watchers could be moved from being consumers of the new media to producers/authors/directors of audio and video products. Podcasts are an excellent tool in that effort!

Podcasts

This is the first semester in which I have used podcasts as a teaching tool. Podcasts are easily done. They are inexpensive to do. They are fun. And they are one way to turn our "listening/watching" students into creators/authors of the media they prefer to the books and written materials of the "reading/writing" culture of which I am a part. I discuss the contrast between "listening/watching" and reading/writing" cultures elsewhere in this blog.
Back to podcasts. My students this semester have created 29 podcasts on a variety of subjects dealing with educational technologies and other educational issues. I call the podcast series It's Time for Technology Talk: Conversations with Future Teachers. You can subscribe to the podcasts through iTunes or on the special blog devoted to the EDM 310 Fall08 Podcasts.

No "Burp Back" Education!

I am a vigorous opponent of "burp back" education. Yet it is endemic in our school systems, including our universities. Find some information that you think students should "know," force it down them through lectures, readings, or even videos, give them a a true/false or multiple choice quiz of these facts that they "should" know, and ignore the fact that we have excellent evidence that people forget information (and skills) they do not use in just about the same amount of time that it takes them to learn those facts or skills!
Today we have almost reached the place where we have "all information in all places at all times." (Gutenberg II, 1978). Our task as teachers, it seems to me , is not to teach and test for information but rather to teach students how to ask questions, describe things or events, compare and contrast, what they describe, and make arguments for and against a variety of propositions. In learning these intellectual skills they will, of course, have to use facts (which are easily accessible from a multitude of sources. Throw out the easily graded tests and quizzes, the regurgitation of facts and concentrate on projects and activties that teach students to THINK!

Blogs as Teaching Tools

I believe blogs are a very important teaching tool. They have many uses including: providing a space for: links to students' work, links to important blogs, web sites, audio and video materials, or documents (including those in .pdf format); a summary of class assignments; support materials for students; presentations done in Google Presentation or other presentation software (including PowerPont).

Student blogs provide space for students to write reports that are public, post pictures or presentations that are useful in the class, and create links to materials that they are worth sharing.

Blogs have other positive attributes:

• They are free!


• They provide for comments from others and those comments can be monitored before they appear if that is desired. Comments can also be removed by either the sender or the recipient.


• They can be private, public, or limited to a specific audience.


• They can be accessed anywhere in he world where there is internet access.

Many examples exist of blogs used in all grade levels of types of educatinal institutions. Search using Google's specialized Google Blog search engine or consult the sites recommended by my students.

To access the blogs of my students, go first to EDM310 Class Blog Fall 08 (my class blog). You will find the appropriate links to student blogs on the right side of the class blog.