Organizing Your Online Life

For the Organizing Your Online Life assignment, I was tasked with reviewing the website/service known as Blendspace.  Blendspace is a neat little tool which allows teachers to create interactive and semi-collaborative lessons on almost any topic.  Conceptually speaking, they are kind of like "PowerPoint on steroids," with the presentations using the "slide" metaphor ubiquitous to PowerPoint presentations, but augmenting them with the ability to embed live web-views, YouTube videos, and even multiple choice quizzes.  Due to the incredible breadth of the website in question, I found it a somewhat daunting task to boil it down into a 25 minute presentation.  In order to do so, I had to prioritize.

For starters, I decided to focus on the aspects of the site which were most novel and/or, not as easily available on other platforms.  So, although Blendspace does have the possibility of being very similar to PowerPoint, I decided to go for the full monty, and create a sample presentation which showcased all of the various features in ways which would at least seem to be semi-organic.

When it came to the handout, one of the things I noticed a bit cumbersome for novice users was the on-boarding process, which required several steps, as well as access to a pre-existing Google account.    As a result I primarily used the handout to help users with getting access to the site in the first place, making the judgement call that after they were signed-up, they could, if needed mess around with the site on their own indefinitely if need be.

On the increased use of computers to administer important tests.

In thinking back to our second class session, and the discussions which were had regarding the Better Balanced Assessment, one of the things which struck me was the increasing move toward students taking standardized, often very important tests, on computers.  

In preparation for this post, I went back and took another look at the Smarter Balanced practice test and one thing immediately stood out to me.  The user interface (UI) and user experience (UX) were bad.  Really bad.  And while, on the one hand, I am tempted to dimly shake my head and think, 'ah, well, let's be honest, do we really expect these guys to be designers?'  I have to realize that students are actually going to be using these and taking these.  Not only does that pose a problem for the all-digital future (if it comes to pass,)  but in the present I find it quite troubling, because it suggests to me that computer-taking students may be at a decided disadvantage to their pen-and-paper brethren, if for no other reason than the fact that the web page layout and system controls are poorly thought out.  Again, this does not take into account all of the OTHER reasons why computers as the sole means of administering standardized tests could pose problems (lower reading comprehension of text read off a screen as opposed to paper, the necessity of all schools to purchase enough computers to serve the student body, etc.)  Based merely on the UI/UX alone, I feel that some students may be placed at a disadvantage.

Now, in the fullness of time, if all students are taking test electronically (and ONLY electronically) this would theoretically shake itself out, perhaps with students simply getting lower scores across the board.  However, because the electronic nature of the exam requires far more input controls than a paper test (pencils don't need a detailed formatting menu or color palette options), every test will be a little bit different, and sometimes ALOT different, with some exams being well thought out and designed, and some of them being so kludgy and disgusting as to make moving from one screen to the next an exercise in mental focus and discipline.

To this problem, I have no real answers.  There are a great many decided advantages to taking a test electronically, insta-scoring and reporting chief among them, however I am not confident that the gains which we receive from pursuing a digital-only strategy in this particular case outweigh the potential harmful affects to students.

Death in Rome: A Simple (Yet effective, Flash-based game)

So, I have just finished playing "Death in Rome," A murder-mystery whodunit focusing around the death of one Tiberius Claudius Eutychus in Rome in the year 80 A.D.  (or C.E. for those who prefer the newer system).    SPOILER ALERT: Poor Tiberius died not of foul play, but of malaria, as is evidenced, by among other things, the mosquito bite mark on his neck, the evident blood letting on his arm, and the presence of honeysuckle in the room, all of which indicate a treatment for malaria was underway.   The cool things about the game however, and where it proves useful, is in the game mechanics- you have  limited amount of time, and every time you choose to investigate something in the room, the timer reduces by a little bit (to be honest I didn't pay too close attention to exactly how much time you lost per object.)  Once you were investigating whatever object it was which struck your fancy, you had the opportunity to ask for more information from several modern experts, along with a panel of three witnesses, to better help you understand what you were looking at, and give you more historical background knowledge.

 The verdict?  It was hoakey, it was cheesy, but at the same time, it was kind of fun, and I know that at least for the moment, I now remember that honeysuckle was used to treat various illnesses in ancient Rome, a fact which I did not know before.  In addition, I could see a game like this being very useful for younger players, as it forces them to make decisions about what to spend their time instigating, helping to hone discrimination skills.   That being said, I feel as though the utility of a game like this one is relatively limited to fact acquisition (which is not in and of itself a bad thing; without having basic factual information, it becomes difficult to move on to higher order thinking.)  However, I think I would put a game like this into the same category as something like a "Math Blasters" (a Windows 3.1 math game I still fondly remember), insofar as it really only teaches basic knowledge and skills, without going too far into addressing higher order thinking.

All that aside though, not a bad game for something written by the BBC.  ;)

BYOD and Dilemma It Poses

In the reading "should students use their own devices in the classroom?" They begin by citing an example of a teacher whose class was saved by the fact that most of her students had personal devices (in this case, cell phones) which allowed them to connect to the internet even when the school's own connection went down.  While I think that this is a shining example of BYOD in action, I think that there are a number of pitfalls and hurdles to BYOD in education which call into question it's prudence.  On the one hand, we have a teacher who says that students

"had done exactly what we educators always dream of: they assessed their learning needs and found the right tool to satisfy those need without adult intervention."

This is wonderful.  Not only are the students learning to problem solve independently, but they are also learning to use the technological tools they have at hand as exactly that- tools, as opposed to status symbols or expansive toys.  This is the kind of learning which I believe Dewey would have advocated; by way of experience, the students were learning not only new skills, but also a new way of looking at their own tools.  However.  With BYOD, one cannot ignore the socio-economic implications of the practice, as mentioned in the same "should students use their own devices in the classroom?" article.  Where BYOD has become a growing (and mostly successful) practice across college campuses and within companies across the country, one of the fundamental differences between these two organizations and the public school system;  In universities, you generally have a group of people who are all willingly subjecting themselves to the financial rigors of school, and in companies you have employees who are being paid to be there, the public school system is unique in which you have a group of students from potentially wildly varying socio-economic backgrounds who are required by law to attend and co-exist.  As a result, BYOD in public schools adds a dimension of both financial and social stress to students' lives which they neither explicitly signed on for nor are they being paid for, and which in some cases is unavoidable.  As a result, for all the good BYOD can bring (better equipment sooner, training on the latest OS's and hardware) it comes at a potential social emotional cost which may not be worth the risk.