An an experiment, we videotaped and published two student panels from last weekend's admission open house. Inspired by our recent work on a new web site design, I wanted to provide content that directly meets a priority audience need and fits how our audiences consume content.




We know that watching video has become increasingly popular online, and that it doesn't have to be very high quality to meet people's expectations. In fact, lower quality may connote greater authenticity than a highly polished product. We have also learned that middle and high school students, not their parents, are increasingly making choices among schools. We figure that students are even more likely to enjoy consuming information in a visual format.

We also know that prospective families want to find out directly what the student experience is like. What better way to learn than to hear from students themselves. Admittedly, the students were answering questions within the context of an admission open house, but their relaxed nature and eagerness shows the truth to the words they speak.

Simultaneously, I broadcast the events to uStream in order to practice this for the first time. It was so easy to do, aside from the fact that the audio didn't publish! I connected my DV camera to the Mac via FireWire, and then specified DV for video and audio input on uStream. One key lesson is that uStream dramatically reduces file transfer and processing time. Even if we are not interested in broadcasting live, the moment the event is over, we have a web-enabled, embeddable movie. Brilliant.

We will track statistics and listen to anecdotal feedback to determine whether we should post video or schedule interactive experiences more often. I can envision interactive chats with the Head of School or the broadcasting of sports competitions, arts performances, and distinguished speakers. Alumni in particular might enjoy tuning in to a substantive presentation from their old school. Parents might be able to watch a presentation from home that they could not attend in person. Automatically archiving everything is wonderful. Making the process really easy helps with adoption.


tags: ustream, video, brodcast, students

Our web site team is attempting to keep our audiences' needs and perspectives at the forefront throughout our web site redesign process. It's not easy! We naturally think about the school in terms of our relationship to it, and we have the inside perspective. This often results in ideas for organizing the web experience that mirror too closely the organization's internal structure.

Although our audience list includes internal constituents, we must remember to pay special attention to the external ones. We started the process by building lists of audiences that we need to reach via the web site. Prospective and current families, students, alumni, and employees topped the list. Next, we used a protocol developed at OneNorthwest to identify the values and needs of this audience as well as what the school wants them to learn/do from their web site experience.

Next, we developed specific "user stories." We each made up two mythical users and described what they wanted from the site, how they used it, what else we wanted them to learn, and whether they had a successful experience. This exercise was terrific, as it harnessed the creativity of all of the members of our group (techies and non-techies alike) to come up with possible perspectives on using the web site that we had not previously recorded.

Staying focused on audience was pretty easy until we actually got specific with content. Two weeks ago, we started to translate our audience work into actual web site information architecture. How should we organize the content and services on the site to meet the audience needs we identified? Our work immediately returned to a more traditional form, as we started pumping out content outlines that mirrored our organizational structure or replicated existing aspects of the site.

Do you design web sites? How do you retain your focus on the target audiences when you begin to organize content and design user interactions?

tags: webdesign

How ironic it is to read a commercial book about open-source software! I was nonetheless intrigued when Packt Publishing invited me to review a complimentary copy of Moodle Administration. Why not give book learning another try? I might find new value and improve my knowledge of Moodle.

Moodle Administration presents a clear and thorough review of essential concepts and tasks for Moodle site administrators. Büchner consistently focuses on his priority audience, staff who are tasked with installing and managing Moodle. He stays away from systems administration or course construction tasks. The guide will make sense in a variety of contexts, from campus-based schools and universities to virtual schools.

Moodle's own structure guides the book's organization. Chapter topics include installation, course management, user management, look and feel, security, backup and restore, backup and restore, and networking. This makes the book easy to use for a variety of purposes: an introduction to the new Moodle administrator, a refresher for a current Moodle admin, or as a quick reference for specific topics.

The Moodle community maintains its own documentation for administrators. These freely-accessible, maintained documents also cover the basics of site administration and follow Moodle's structure. Why buy the book? Overall, Büchner's focused effort demonstrates greater thoroughness and consistency than does the online documentation. One finds an appropriate level of detail and visuals throughout the book. That said, some explanations of the administrative interface reference and borrow from existing, free Moodle documentation.

The book helped fill a number of gaps in my knowledge, many of them new features in version 1.9 and some older. I will look into the Accessibility Options module as a way to provide screen-reading and high-contrast themes to three of our users. I enjoyed the clear explanation of how to set up parent roles using the mentee function, though I did not find the answer to my longstanding question of how to most easily provide parent access to their child's courses. I had heard of Mahara e-portfolio integration, but the book's explanation provided me with more complete context for the relationship than I had previously encountered. I learned a lot about how to synchronize enrollment with our student information system, which we may do one day. I also learned about file access via WebDAV, which could help teachers who maintain large file collections, but I was left curious when the book only demonstrated how to connect a Windows client to a WebDAV-enabled system.

I wish the book had spent more time on year-to-year transitions. Büchner alludes to year-end and start-of-year administrative tasks, underscores the importance of planning your course organization ahead of time, and explains both importing activities and restore from backup. Büchner could more fully explain different ways to help teachers who want to carry their course from one year into the next. I don't recall a reference to the Reset Course feature or manual approaches that teachers may use to keep some content and remove others from one year to the next.

Ideally, the Moodle community would make this quality of documentation available online. In the meantime, this book should find a receptive audience. I am pleased to read that Packt donates a portion of the proceeds from the sale of the book to the Moodle project. I trust that Büchner's company, Synergy Learning, regularly contributes core code and modules to the Moodle project.

While academic technology specialists and teachers bear the most responsibility to understand how Moodle may support a constructionist learning environment, the Moodle administrator also plays a role. Moodle Administration misses the opportunity to educate Moodle admins on what makes Moodle different from its peers and competitors. The book could draw particular attention to configuration and maintenance tasks that facilitate student-centered instruction. For example, what block configurations typically accompany the Social Format for courses? How could students use their personalized calendar views to manage their own assignments? How may one allow more student control over course content? What features do students use to monitor course activity, especially in discussion forums? How does one configure inline commenting to provide more opportunities for teacher-student dialogue around completed work? In other words, it is great to know the function of each configuration setting, but should we not also teach the purpose?

The book encourages me to explore two of Packt Publishing's other Moodle titles, Moodle Teaching Techniques and Moodle E-Learning Course Development. These may provide more of the broader perspective on administering Moodle that I seek. On the other hand, how many school staff would spend about $150 US in order to purchase them all?



Moodle Administration fulfills its primary goal, to provide clear, comprehensive explanations of all of the major components of Moodle 1.9 to staff responsible for system installation and maintenance. It should serve as a useful introduction to new Moodle administrators or a reference manual for current admins. Advanced Moodle administrators may find the text useful as a refresher.



tags: moodle, moodle_administration, packt, books

Our middle school visual arts teacher organizes a self-portrait project for his students based on the techniques of Chuck Close. In his classroom, he has the students use Apple Photo Booth to capture a photo of themselves and then modify it in the way they desire. They print the photo, add a grid using pen, and then begin to draw their self-portrait using pastel crayons on a larger, similarly-gridded paper.



I asked whether using Photo Booth's built-in image filters stunted the students' creativity in this project. On the contrary, Dale replied, it helped those students who needed a little push be more creative. Other students found plenty of creative space in the drawing portion of the assignment. The digital portion was just a starting point for the project. One student used Photoshop instead of Photo Booth to achieve a more custom effect.



New iMacs with built-in cameras made the digital portion of the project run more easily and faster for a number of students. They were more quickly able to get to the drawing portion than did students in past years. The teacher successfully used the digital tool to assist the creative process while retaining hand drawing as the central component.

tags: photoshop, photobooth, imac, techintegration

The Catlin Gabel students initiated an election night "headquarters" on campus, where they watched live video broadcasts, analyzed electoral maps, and played "first to 270." Note that the TV I set for them went unused! Streaming video filled that need and left space for other internet graphics. Many students opened their laptops to follow reports of their choice alongside the shared display.







tags: election, election08, obama, mccain

Position Title: DATABASE SPECIALIST
Department: INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
Reports to: DIRECTOR OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
Start Date: January 5, 2009
Full-time, Exempt

Catlin Gabel School is located in Portland, Oregon. Please apply at http://www.catlin.edu/employment/

Catlin Gabel School extensively and ambitiously incorporates technology into its academic environment as an education tool. Designed to continually pursue excellence in the development of student ability, individual creativity, and the enhancement of teaching practices, the Catlin Gabel technology program supports approximately 900 employees and students as they use 700 computers throughout campus. The school employs a team of skilled IT professionals and implements enterprise systems to support its operations. Catlin Gabel teachers and staff form a supportive community of professionals dedicated to individuality and lifelong learning.

POSITION SUMMARY
Administer the deployment, support, and maintenance of schoolwide database systems. Coordinate the use of database systems across campus. Provide database training and communicate professional development opportunities to administrative staff. Provide direct, general technical support to faculty, staff, and students.

ESSENTIAL DUTIES
•Manage schoolwide database systems and applications (primarily Blackbaud but also including Ceridian, AuctionPay, Follett Destiny, Nutrikids, open-source web applications, and others);
•Coordinate schoolwide database use with other staff members, especially the Schoolwide Education Edge Coordinator, the Development Services Manager, and the Admission Data Coordinator;
•Configure reports, exports, imports, and queries in response to division and department requests. Develop custom reports using Crystal Reports;
•Keep database systems up-to-date with latest patches and updates as appropriate;
•Maintain database integrity and security, including backup;
•Install and uninstall client and server database applications as needed;
•Assist users with data cleanup primarily through queries and search/replace;
•Support efforts to link web site and school database systems;
•Design data entry standards and monitor users’ adherence to them;
•Design and provide training to users of schoolwide database systems;
•Facilitate and encourage user access to third-party professional development opportunities;
•Create strategic plan for the evolution of database systems at Catlin Gabel;
•Evaluate new database technologies for their potential to support Catlin Gabel school operations;
•Integrate different database systems with an eye toward efficiency and practicality;
•Write and assemble documentation and training materials for the use of database systems;
•Troubleshoot and solve routine technical issues that faculty, staff, and students face;

SCOPE OF WORK
Manage schoolwide database systems, primarily interface with school administrative staff.

SUPERVISORY RESPONSIBILITIES
None

INTERPERSONAL CONTACTS
Daily interaction with faculty, staff, students, department colleagues, volunteers, and vendors.

SPECIFIC JOB SKILLS
•Strong skills and direct experience with Microsoft SQL Server essential. Familiarity with mySQL for Linux, and FileMaker Pro desirable.
•Application of best practices to database design and maintenance.
•Prior experience with Blackbaud Raiser’s Edge, Education Edge, and Crystal Reports highly desirable.
•Productivity applications including Microsoft Office. Ability to troubleshoot and resolve common Windows software and PC hardware issues. Ability to design and provide effective training to colleagues.
•Ability to articulate technical concepts and solutions to a diverse range of users;
•Capacity to cultivate collaboration and buy-in to schoolwide standards and practices;

EDUCATION AND/OR EXPERIENCE
Bachelor of Science in Computer Science from an accredited college or university, or equivalent experience. Training in computer programming, systems analysis/design and/or management, with a minimum of five years of database management or equivalent experience. Experience with Blackbaud applications highly desirable.

WORKING CONDITIONS
Daily interaction with faculty, staff, parents, vendors, trustees, and volunteers. On-call for problems. If a mission critical job in the school is jeopardized by a system or network malfunction, the problem must be resolved as quickly as possible. This could take place during non-business hours.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Catlin Gabel School believes that each employee makes a significant contribution to its success. That contribution should not be limited by the assigned responsibilities. Therefore, this position description is designed to outline primary duties, qualifications and job scope, but not limit the incumbent nor the organization to just the work identified. It is our expectation that each employee will offer his/her services wherever and whenever necessary to ensure the success of our endeavors.

Catlin Gabel is an equal opportunity employer committed to hiring and supporting a diverse workforce.

tags: database, specialist, dbadmin, jobs

Teachers make dozens of observations daily about students but have little time to share them with their colleagues. Students benefit when teachers have detailed knowledge of their talents and needs, yet often students exhibit different patterns of study and learning in different classes. How may teachers use technology to share their day-to-day student observations with each other? Doing so deepens the personalization of student instruction, a distinguishing feature of independent schools. It becomes invaluable during teacher-parent conferences, when teachers summarize the student experience for parents and simultaneously collect so much new information. A school that emphasizes awareness of student learning profiles needs such a system, because

In a web-based world, the core functionality of such a system is pretty straightforward. We even piloted this functionality in Moodle using a standard discussion forum and restricted course enrollment. The system needs a database to store the comments and a front-end for posting and viewing.



The fun lies in configuring the details of such a system. We have so far added the following features.

• Notes follow the student from year to year, so that institutional knowledge is retained.
  
• Blog-like format -- notes post in reverse chronological order.
  
• Student and teacher lists pull from school database, so they automatically stay up-to-date.
  
• Limit access to adults who currently have contact with student.
  
• Flag student learning profile information so that it's easier to find.
  
• Expire sensitive posts shortly, so that teachers may share urgent information with lower risk of exposure.
  
• Add second layer of password security so that system is not vulnerable to one lost password.
  
• Require SSL to protect information from packet sniffers.
  
• Each post generates an email notification to teachers, except when the teacher disables it or conferences are taking place.

Last year, we used such a system with two grades. Having declared the pilot a success, we have expanded the system to eight grades. Greater participation in the system has generated new, insightful teacher questions. Should we more narrowly define what kinds of information we post to the system? How does it alter the school's legal liability to permanently store information in a mySQL database that was previously either shared by email or not recorded at all? How much additional structure should we add to the system to keep notes organized as they accumulate? Is limiting access to current teachers too strict, considering the other meaningful teacher-student relationships that exist?

I am excited to continue to study and modify

tags: student_notes

I am spending a little bit of time trying to find a way to convert Flip video files into QuickTime or FLV format for posting on our web sites. This is not really a how-to guide, but rather a snapshot into my (limited) progress with this task at this moment in time. Perhaps I will make more progress later, or one of you fine readers will post a comment detailing a more helpful solution!

Our seniors spent a morning at the pumpkin patch with their first grade buddies and took twelve Flip Mino video cameras with them. They captured 340 video segments!



How may I produce one or more useful movies from these using the least possible effort? I don't want to simply post the videos directly to a site like YouTube, because some of the content is likely to be private or exceed their posting limits. I also don't want to require teachers to create YouTube accounts just to facilitate this conversion process.

Flip records in AVI format using 3ivx compression. If we go to QuickTime, we will want to convert into MOV format using H.264 compression. If we choose Flash video, then we will convert into FLV format (what does Adobe call their compression codec?).

Two issues are making this process more difficult for video than for audio. For one, Adobe and Apple can't seem to get along -- neither QuickTime nor iMovie has a FLV export feature, and I'm not about to insist that all of our teachers and students own a full copy of Flash to do this work. While some people suggest FilmRedux (formerly VisualHub) or FFMpegX, I have found these applications either too arcane for the average user or incompatible with either the import or export portions of this process. Is it possible that VisualHub used to have FLV export, but the SourceForge hosted version lacks that component?


QT Amateur (converted files but can't handle nested folders)


FilmRedux (wouldn't read 3ivx AVI or m4v files)


FFMPEGX (too many dependencies to foist on our users)


iMovie (successfully reads 3ivx files, allowing users to edit first)

QTAmateur looked to be a good option to batch convert the files into a usable format before starting editing work, but then I found that it took a long time to convert files in QuickTime format, and QTAmateur was not able to reach into subfolders to convert files located in there. Since I have twelve cameras, many files have the same name and must be stored in subfolders as a result.

Good news: iMovie '08 can use the video files straight from the Flip camera, once I have installed the 3ivx decoder that comes with the Flip (the software is stored within the camera memory). Given this, it may work best to do all of the clip selection and editing work in iMovie and postpone the task of format conversion to the end. This way, we are applying the time-intensive task of format conversion to the shortest length and fewest possible number of clips.

It will then be simple for a teacher or student to use iMovie's built-in Share tools to export to QuickTime, YouTube, or iPhone.



What about posting a FLV file to one's own web site? I don't see a straightforward way to do this that would be easy for other users to follow. If it has become difficult to build FLV conversion into desktop software, then let's push that task to the web site software, as YouTube does. This way, we won't burden users with that problem.

Drupal may fulfill the role of YouTube in this case. I will have to remind myself what modules provide on-the-fly conversion of uploaded files to FLV (Video, FlashVideo, FFMPEG wrapper, what others?).

Windows users may have more options.

tags: video, flv, drupal, flash, quicktime, flipvideo, flip

I continue to wonder at the gulf between the needs of our student laptop program and Apple's recent laptop releases. No kidding, they have won the heart of our kids, what with 80% of incoming ninth grade students choosing Mac over Lenovo both this year and last. At the same time, we have seen hardware repairs go way up, as kids drop the Macs, and they crack, dent, and break. I am a solid Apple enthusiast, but I also run a school technology program with pretty reasonable needs.

In recent years, we have cautioned parents and students away from the Aluminum MacBook Pro. Aluminum is a soft metal (it makes great foil and not so good jewelry). Most of our students (and teachers) who have the aluminum laptop have suffered dents and warps, some of which have increased stress on internal components and caused them to fail.

Now we have no plastic Mac to sell (at least once Apple's inventory of white MacBook is exhausted). I recognize that the new aluminum case is cut from a solid piece of aluminum, but how will it withstand impacts? Will it still dent and ding? Will the hard drive, located right at the corner, take the brunt of the blow? I want to see crash test ratings!

The new glass screen face is another point of concern. We already experience cracked plastic screens, and now it's covered by a layer of glass?



Let me be clear. This is not our students' fault, but their families get to foot the bill. If I had to move my computer from room to room ten times a day, mine would probably also get dropped or stepped on as well. Congrats to Apple for producing a machine likely to win the hearts of home users, graphic designers, and college students. That's not enough for our students. We need toughness, too. Why won't Apple produce a school-appropriate laptop?

Our "Mac tax" is currently $300. Families pay that much more to purchase a MacBook compared to a similarly equipped ThinkPad T61. The ThinkPad is more solid and comes with both a four-year warranty and accidental damage protection for the price. For the MacBook we start with a higher base price, pay a premium to get a four-year warranty that you can't buy in stores, and then charge another fee to fund a limited, school-sponsored accidental damage protection program.

As the economy tightens, families are not going to accept this different much longer. We may end up with two tiers of laptop purchase, a Mac for those who can afford it, and a ThinkPad for those who want a tough machine for the money. I'm glad that my son is only in first grade.

tags: macbook, thinkpad, laptopprogram, onetoone

Our middle school spanish teacher and I met with two staff members from Mercy Corps today to lay the groundwork for collaborations between Catlin Gabel students and schools in El Salvador and Guatemala. It quickly became apparent that we have at our disposal so many different options for how to take the first steps in that direction and subsequently deepen the relationships.


Spencer at the Centro Educativo Maya Ixil in Chajul, Guatemala.

Despite our experiences working with schools abroad, we mostly have questions at this time.

When will a satellite-enabled cell phone or laptop modem become affordable enough that we can bring internet connectivity to a remote village in a developing nation and leave it there when we depart? When will video Skype become a standard feature on mobile phones?

When will the numbers of kids in developing countries who are online in social networks reach a critical mass, so that appreciable numbers from an individual school can spontaneously connect with our students? What happens when we realize that students have far more developed competencies for social networks than do the adults?

When should we choose to set up a teacher-teacher professional development relationship with a school rather than going student-student?

Is a highly organized, teacher-led, curriculum-based instruction still the best model for global school-school partnerships? At what point can we turn the leadership of the relationship over to the students, for example by setting up a private social network for the exchange and then letting the kids go at it?

What language-social studies teacher partnerships can we leverage within our school in order to provide both meaningful learning experiences for both second language acquisition and study of world cultures?

How far into our school's core curriculum does a school's global education program have to penetrate in order to be successful?

Most of our global relationships are due to the passion and commitment of a single teacher. How does one broaden responsibility so that the school owns the relationship, and it continues after the original teacher departs or alters his/her priorities?

Spencer adds:

I would add one piece to the last comment about broadening our commitment and having the school steward the relationship as opposed to the individual teacher. I really like the model of individual teachers creating and fostering these international relationships, but we do need some oversight on the bigger picture of how many relationships we can sustain and to which we can dedicate ourselves wholly. Some relationships will naturally form and also end in time. I think this is ok and logical.

tags: globaled, skype, drupal

I am excited to recruit more teachers to attend terrific ed-tech conferences, especially those focused on learning and located nearby. I sent the following list to my colleagues today in an effort to build interest and make plans.

This year sees an unprecedented number of quality national conferences in educational technology both locally and further afield.

 

K12 Online Conference

October 13 - November 1

100% Online

http://k12onlineconference.org/

This free, fully online conference marks its third year in October.
Speakers record presentations in advance and then participate in online
discussions on a predetermined schedule. All the presentations are
archived for posterity. Most of the leading international figures in
educational technologies have a hand in this one. Now all you need to
do is to carve out some time to watch and participate.

EduCon 2.1

January 23-25, 2009

Science Leadership Academy

Philadelphia, PA

http://educon21.wikispaces.com/

SLA is a public school in Philadelphia with a progressive educational
mission and many thoughtful uses of technology. Their principal, Chris
Lehmann, has established a national reputation as an effective school
leader, education technology blogger, and school reform authority. The
school enjoys a partnership with the Benjamin Franklin Museum and
enrolls an ethnically and socioeconomically representative sample of
students from the city.

EduCon is the school's groundbreaking "unconference," where teachers
and theorists facilitate participatory discussions rather than giving
conventional presentations. They also took the groundbreaking step of
broadcasting the entire conference via uStream last year, making it
possible to attend and participate "virtually."

Northwest Council of Computer Educators (NCCE)

February 17-20, 2009

Oregon Convention Center

Portland, Oregon

http://ncce.org

This leading regional conference usually takes place in Seattle, so we
are fortunate to have it in our own backyard this year. The conference
boasts dozens of sessions and features nationally-known presenters. If
you have an idea of what you are looking for, this conference is likely
to offer it -- new technologies from all of the main vendors, and
teachers sharing their strategies.

PNAIS Spring Teachers Conference

April 20, 2009

Rowland Hall-St. Mark's School

Salt Lake City, Utah

http://pnais.org

Imagine the fall teachers conference that many of us attend annually.
Now imagine the entire thing organized around the role of technology in
education. Keynoted by Ian Jukes, the day promises to focus on 21st
century learners.

Association of Computer Professionals in Education

May 6-8, 2009

The Resort at the Mountain

Welches, Oregon

http://acpenw.org

This is the leading annual conference for computers in education in Oregon. Geared to technical professionals, this conference nonetheless contextualizes our work firmly in the context of teaching and learning. It offers an excellent opportunity to network with Oregon schools and build relationships with local vendors.

PNAIS TechShare

June 28-30, 2009

The Resort at the Mountain

Welches, Oregon

TechShare features practitioner sessions from our peer schools in Oregon and Washington, including Lakeside, Northwest, Evergreen, Overlake, Billings, Meridian, FAIS, OES, and Seattle Academy. The participatory format and small size encourages lots of informal conversation and networking with our colleagues at other institutions. Participants stay at the resort for three days and two nights, and the sessions encourage your participation and ideas. The conference is divided into two strands, "teacher" and "geek." This year's theme is "Small World," an exploration of tools and techniques that put our students in touch with peers and resources globally.

Building Learning Communities (BLC)

July 27-31, 2009

Copley Plaza Hotel

Boston, Massachusetts

http://novemberlearning.com

In 2008, Alan November succeeded in focusing this conference primarily on teaching and learning in a technologically-rich world. The best sessions were led by educators creating remarkably student-centered learning environments with technology. Student-led instruction, international collaborations, and social learning were all on display.

 

tags: techintegration, k12online, k12online2008, blc, blc2009, pnaistechshare

I spent a day and a half in Seattle to visit Seattle Academy of Arts and Sciences and attend the PNAIS Teacher Conference. I got to spend a good chunk of time with Vicki Butler, who graciously toured us through the Seattle Academy campus and gave us an in-depth look into their Moodle installation.

Seattle Academy has deeply leveraged Moodle to organize assignments and track student progress. Every teacher maintains homework assignments for every course. Teachers and students thereby benefit from Moodle's aggregation features -- each person has a meta-calendar that shows all of their outstanding work program-wide. In additon to built-in features, staff have installed optional modules and written custom code to more effectively track student progress. On their course home pages, teachers can easily view what assignment submissions remain to be graded and advisees who are falling behind on their homework. Advisors can quickly view overall course progress of their students. The school is experimenting with Mahara e-portfolio integration. I hope to learn from their use of roles and permissions in order to create a way for our parents to view course content without having to enroll in each one.

I am most interested in using Moodle to create immersive, social learning environments for students. Vicki showed me several examples of students maintaining glossaries, posting science videos, and holding discussions using Moodle's activity modules.

After checking Michael Thompson's keynote on boy education, I soon settled in with my colleagues from Lakeside, Billings, Meridian, Evergreen, and Seattle Academy to plan the PNAIS TechShare conference, scheduled for June 28-30, 2009 in Welches, Oregon. We selected a theme, "Small World," an exploration of global education and social technologies. This should lead to sessions on GIS, trip planning, international collaborations, global education, Skype, Drupal, uStream, and more. We are also hoping to walk the talk by coordinating live, international participation in the conference through uStream and Skype.

We speculated that it might be particularly effective to put a single person in charge of the remote participants in each session. Instead of occasionally reading out remote contributions, the backchannel facilitator could arrange Skype connections with remote participants and pull them into the discussion.

I also added Billings and Meridian to my list of schools with Drupal-powered public-facing web sites.

Can you imagine how much richer our daily professional life would be if the staff from all of these schools blogged?

tags: moodle, techintegration, techshare, pnais

A former student recently asked whether I could point him in the direction of resources on the effects of computing on schools in Africa. As the academic computing activities of an entire continent are far too diverse to capture in a single response, I collected a few links to identify some activities that might help provide some insight.

AfriGadget While not specifically about academic computing, AfriGadget uses grassroots reporting to collect stories of technical ingenuity under conditions of extreme resource limitation. AfriGadget best captures everyday Africa.

Konrad Glogowski: South Africa, A Reflection Konrad visits Cape Town to help teachers learn to integrate Web 2.0 tools into their instruction. He grapples with the relative modernity of South Africa and the huge differences in access to resources within the country.

dvGarage in Zimbabwe: Alex Lindsay teaches Zimbabweans professional 3D animation and compositing techniques. He seeks to create a PixelCorps of media developers worldwide for the new economy.

One Laptop Per Child Africa: the heavily scrutinized ubiquitous computing project has several test sites listed on this page. (Go to the parent page to find the link to South Africa.)

Ndiyo: a different approach to ubiquitous computing, developing a new thin-client, Linux desktop for community technology centers and schools.

In the mid 90's, I was involved in academic computing initiatives in Botswana secondary schools. This Google search result suggests that some academic papers exist on this topic, though most require membership to access.


tags: africa, computing, schools

Provide teachers with technology tools, and they will invent the most remarkable uses for them.(first grade caterpillar study)

During laptop maintenance this year, we saw an unusually high frequency of physical damage and virus infections to student laptops. We run a 1:1 student laptop program in the high school in which families own the computers and we provide the annual maintenance and ongoing support.

How does one cultivate a culture of care for one's possessions, especially computers? This assembly presentation was a simple attempt to remind people to be mindful of these fragile devices. At times, I have opened up a computer to show the components all crammed in there together with a minimum of protection. We can also remind people of the cost of repair and replacement.

The following slide show includes the visuals that I used for the presentation, but you will have to imagine the spoken portion or fill it in yourself!



tags: laptops

We recently held an event to showcase the high school science program at Catlin Gabel. To my great pleasure, the alumni office arranged for three alumni/scientists to share their experiences via uploaded video. The most memorable moment for me was one alum saying that he became interested in science because his parents consistently asked him, "What questions did you ask at school today?" Another alum does academic research on relationships between the social sciences and "hard" sciences. Fascinating stuff.







tags: scienceed

Here is another great Moodle design that two teachers are trying for the first time.



The teachers wanted a course site to replicate as much of their current course design as possible. Of all the different Moodle tools, Forum ended up being the most versatile, because it respects groups and allows students to easily upload files to share with the entire class (unlike Directory or Assignment).

The two faculty members teach six sections between them, which we created as groups. This will keep the class discussions sorted, just to make it easier to find the work of your classmates. If you give each group and the course unique enrollment keys, then the students will automatically sort into the correct section when they log in for the first time. You only tell the students the enrollment key for their section. No one ends up using the course enrollment key.



Throughout the course, students write each paper using the same writing and peer editing process. Moodle discussion forums allow each student to both make their work available to the entire class and specifically to the individual who will be reviewing it. The reviewer then writes a formal response paper and uploads it to the same forum. This keeps the original and review paired together (using Reply in the Moodle forum).



When the time comes to submit the final draft, the student uploads the file to the Assignment object rather than the forum. Why? This is the "instructor reviewed" draft, intended for the teacher instead of their peers in class. This is set up as an "advanced file upload" assignment object, though I renamed this type "Upload multiple files" in the English language file, because that more specifically indicates what our users will be using it for. Students upload their instructor reviewed draft and metacritical essay, and then the teacher responds using the Moodle grading interface, not to mark grades, but rather to upload a Word file that includes teacher comments as floating notes. This exchange between the teacher and student remains private.

Students complete WEDGE (Writing Every Day Generates Excellence/Ease) activities to start each class. These are posted to a separate forum. We take advantage of a nice feature of Moodle that allows any participant in the class to start a forum topic. This way, the students take charge of the operation of the class, creating the new container for the day.



Of course, the teachers also use the site for routine class management, posting syllabi, links, and calendar events to help the course run smoothly. They chose to use the Topics course format and organize the page by assignment type.



Most announcements will simply be posted as text to the front page or sent via email -- no need to take the extra steps to post to a News forum when the teachers are seeing the students most days of the week.

We considered using the Glossary activity for Word of the Day and then decided that a simple Forum would be just as easy to use and more familiar to the students. The teachers did not need the auto-linking feature that the glossary provides.



We only ran into two issues using these features. If the teacher creates a single forum prompt for all sections, then the students cannot reply to it! This Moodle "feature" is documented on Moodle.org but there do not seem to be any plans to change it. So, either the teacher posts the same prompt to three sections, the students post the prompt, or the teacher starts a thread to which you cannot reply and the students start a new thread to reply to it. A minor inconvenience that we will hopefully solve one day.

The other issue was the sharp dividing line between forums and assignments in terms of privacy of replies. Wouldn't it be ideal if one could post a "private" forum reply that only the author of the original post could see? Or if a student could submit an assignment but allow the rest of the class to view it?

Do you have experience setting up a high school English course in Moodle? What other features have you leveraged to make your course hum?

tags: moodle, english, highschool, secondary

School started today, and I can see light at the end of the tunnel. We have made our most significant changes to the network for the year, have almost finished annual maintenance on everyone's computer, and can soon settle in to the daily support of a school in operation. And I can find the time to start blogging again!

Today, I spent an hour with our U.S. History teacher, who is offering an elective titled "Election 2008" this fall. He wanted to build a course web site that would put the students' ideas front and center and provide many connections to outside resources related to the national and state elections coming in November. We stretched our practice of what Moodle could do to support such a course.

Here is the Moodle site as it currently stands.



Why the big blank space? We are using the "social" course format for this course, rarely used at Catlin Gabel. The social format is the most child-centered of the course formats in Moodle. It puts a discussion forum front and center, so that students' posts about election news, photos or cartoons, and statistics from the race can dominate the page. As the course begins, this part of the page will become an ever-changing river of student thoughts and reactions.

On the right-hand side of the page, we are pulling two RSS feeds into the site, one from the progressive Talking Points Memo and the other the conservative Washington Times. In this case, Moodle's practice of showing the feeds separately works well.

In the left-hand column goes more conventional Moodle content, especially links to course resources and activities. We did have some fun using embed code from YouTube and election-related widgets to embed interesting content into the sub-pages.

The teacher is planning to Skype in representatives from the campaigns and students from other schools. I have seen Moodle's Skype plugin but haven't quite figured out what exactly it does. Isn't the magic of Skype all in the application? Does it list your online friends or something? Please enlighten me, if you have worked with this before.

I will enjoy watching the students develop this page and engage in rich conversations as the course begins.

tags: election2008, moodle, constructivism

Should schools become more entrepreneurial? One person with whom I had a conversation the other day thinks so. Do you have special programs or events at your school? Spin them off so that they must be financially self-sufficient, forcing them to adapt to survive. Do you have untapped resources that you could leverage to raise revenue? Do you offer summer school or a summer teacher institute? How often do your buildings lay idle? What is your merchandise store like?

On the one hand, these ideas appeal to me for how they embrace the initiative of individuals. However, several distinguishing features of schools make me wonder how effective a business-style entrepreneurial approach would be in a school. For one, schools are culturally sensitive -- they place greater value on relationships and humanity than your typical corporation. Second, schools serve students, so if an experiment within the school's "core business" goes awry, students experience the drop in quality. Third, schools do not tend to hire for entrepreneurial wisdom. Whereas a business might cultivate an entrepreneurial spirit from top to bottom, how many individuals in a school are prepared to take strategic risks?

Maybe the answer is to start from the periphery of the school and proceed one step at a time. Perhaps the call is to ask schools to broaden their idea of how a school could operate. Let experiment -- with sharing content, outsourcing our school merchandise, or starting a rich summer program -- and then keep what works and discard what does not, but with an attitude that allows for failure rather than allowing it to retard innovation. If that goes well, then perhaps a day will come to shake up some of the assumptions that define the core program.

tags: innovation, entrepreneurship

Here are notes on my successful import of 200 classes into Moodle. This is part of a project to create a major assignments calendar for our upper school that calculates the number of major assignments by student rather than by grade, providing a more accurate view of potential conflicts before they happen.

First, I wrote a Perl script to export classes from Education Edge into a text file. I used the following SQL query and then formatted the results pretty.

SELECT DISTINCT
ea7classes.ea7classesid,
ea7courses.coursename,
deptentries.description as coursedept,
ea7courses.ea7coursesid,
ea7courses.courseid,
ea7classes.classsection,
periodstable.entryid as period,
ea7faculty.userdefinedid as facultyid,
ea7records.nickname,
ea7records.lastname,
ea7records.passportnumber as facultyusername,
ea7rooms.roomid

FROM
ea7courses
inner join schools on (schools.schoolsid = ea7courses.schoolsid)
inner join ea7classes on (ea7classes.ea7coursesid = ea7courses.ea7coursesid)
inner join ea7sessions on (ea7sessions.ea7sessionsid = ea7classes.ea7sessionsid)
inner join ea7academicyears on (ea7academicyears.ea7academicyearsid = ea7sessions.ea7academicyearsid)
inner join ea7classterms on (ea7classterms.ea7classesid = ea7classes.ea7classesid)
inner join ea7terms on (ea7terms.ea7termsid = ea7classterms.ea7termsid)
inner join tableentries as termstable on (termstable.tableentriesid = ea7terms.termid)
left outer join ea7coursefilters on (ea7coursefilters.parentid = ea7courses.ea7coursesid and ea7coursefilters.filtertype=163)
left outer join filtervalues7 on (filtervalues7.parentid = ea7coursefilters.filtersid and filtervalues7.recordtype = 1098)
left outer join tableentries as deptentries on (deptentries.tableentriesid= filtervalues7.filteridvalue1)
left outer join ea7classtermmeetings on (ea7classtermmeetings.ea7classtermsid = ea7classterms.ea7classtermsid)
left outer join ea7timetableentries on (ea7timetableentries.ea7timetableentriesid = ea7classtermmeetings.ea7timetableentriesid)
left outer join tableentries as periodstable on (periodstable.tableentriesid = ea7timetableentries.period)
left outer join ea7facultyclasstermmeetings on (ea7facultyclasstermmeetings.ea7classtermmeetingsid = ea7classtermmeetings.ea7classtermmeetingsid)
left outer join ea7rooms on (ea7rooms.ea7roomsid = ea7classtermmeetings.ea7roomsid)
left outer join ea7faculty on (ea7faculty.ea7facultyid = ea7facultyclasstermmeetings.ea7facultyid)
left outer join ea7records on (ea7records.ea7recordsid = ea7faculty.ea7recordsid)

WHERE
schools.schoolid = 'US'
and ea7academicyears.description = '2008-2009'
and ea7courses.ea7coursesid <> 404

ORDER BY
ea7classes.ea7classesid,
ea7classes.classsection

Then I installed and ran Moodle's Upload Courses contributed module. What a nice job the author did with this. Once I cleared all of the ambiguous teacher names, the courses imported in a flash.



I decided to create one Moodle class for each course/teacher combination. In other words, if one teacher teaches one section of ninth grade English, and a second teacher teaches two sections, I would create two Moodle courses. Teachers are pretty autonomous at our school, and this structure parallels what most teachers did with Moodle when I created courses only upon request. In cases where the teachers actually co-teach the course, I will need to remove one course and double up the teachers in the other remaining.

I embedded teacher initials in course IDs to distinguish them and provide a key for subsequent Education Edge searches based on this information, but will have to go back and embed them in the course fullnames as well -- the students can't currently tell the courses apart, because they only see the full names!

Rather than importing enrollments as well, I will allow students to enroll themselves on the first day of classes.

I edited config.php to show a limited set of default blocks for all the new courses. Unfortunately, the major assignments block I am working on did not show up, so I will have to add that subsequently with a script.

I am still working on a major assignments block for our Moodle that borrows concepts and SQL queries from Gary Anderson and pulls course enrollments from Education Edge. More on that later.


tags: moodle, blackbaud, educationedge

Catlin Gabel hosts one exchange student from Maru-a-Pula School in Botswana each year. Yesterday, our new student arrived in the States for the first time, but he had been in touch with his host family for weeks ... through Facebook. He also asked where to pick up a SIM card for his phone. This is the first time I have welcomed such a well-connected student from Botswana to the States! Now, if only we could find him a Euro-to-U.S. power adapter ...

tags: botswana, africa, cellphone, facebook

Our summer helpers have developed a killer room for the process of completing annual maintenance on our faculty and staff laptop computers. Note the ingenious use of the built-in projection system to get everyone through the long days!

I dug up this command today for a project, with the help of Doug's Applescripts for iTunes.


tell application "iTunes"
set current encoder to encoder "MP3 Encoder"
end tell

We like to set the default encoder for importing, especially on shared computers, in order to facilitate the conversion of audio files captured using Olympus audio recorders and Windows computers.

I also learned how to show all of the supported Applescript commands for an application: Script Editor -> File menu -> Open Dictionary. Now why didn't I know that two months ago?

Unfortunately, iTunes does not include support to show the Kind column in the items view, which I was hoping to script.



tags: itunes, applescript

Catlin Gabel teachers hone their iPhoto skills.

I just finished teaching a successful two-day workshop in iPhoto. Like many of our classes, I was so pleased that eight teachers and staff members chose to spend some of their summer time developing new skills that they may use this year. Photo management software inspires a lot of energy from our colleagues, so visual and personal yet also connected to their work here at school. Notable, a few attended simply because they were longtime PC users at work who were about to purchase a Mac at home. In this project-based workshop, I also learned much about the print publishing options of iPhoto, such as the ability to drop photos into individual day cells in the calendar tool. One teacher placed 160 photos into one twelve-month family calendar! I also noted how quickly I found myself teaching the students Flickr, in order to fetch Creative Commons photos to import and manipulate, when many had forgotten their digital cameras. One staff member created an entire musical slideshow about trout. Amazing.

tags: iphoto, photography, professionaldevelopment

Here's a shot of the Mahlum Architects offices, where I am waiting for our 9:00 meeting for the Catlin Gabel Creative Arts
Center. Note the central tables for discussion and sharing documents. The staff rearrange themselves periodically so that architects sit with their project teams.

Today, we take planning for data and audiovisual support to the next level. We are seeking to plan for future capacity without exceeding the budget, include flexible audiovisual solutions for classroom and gallery space, and ensure sufficient power everywhere for the laptop program.

To start the project, we will need to meet specific fundraising goals this year.

Today, I led day one of our MacOS class. I was pleased that five teachers and staff members chose to spend time learning more about an operating system. I wish more would seek such professional develoment, since good practice with one's OS can make a huge difference. Four of the participants were switchng to a Mac at school or at home, and only one just wanted to better get to know their computer.I used an emergent curriculum approach, which worked well for day one. A brief introduction, prompt about challenges faced or problems solved, and then we spent the rest of the time rolling with the questions encountered as the participants toyed with their machines.We also discovered that any Mac loaner laptop user could control the screen of any other's, because we used shared login credentials for our shared machines! We will have to change the remote management preferences, finding a way to allow screen sharing when useful and prevent it when not.

Dates and times look great in Excel until you try to concatenate them within a formula. Then you see Excel's messy raw date and time values. I have found it necessary to use the YEAR, MONTH, DAY, HOUR, and TIME functions to extract these values and then format them for a SQL query.

For example:



First attempt (didn't work)
="INSERT INTO `tour_dates` SET `datetime`='"&D2&" "&E2&"';"

The result:

INSERT INTO `tour_dates` SET `datetime`='38260 0.375';

Boo!

Second attempt (worked!)

="INSERT INTO tour_dates SET `datetime`='"&YEAR(D2)&"-"&MONTH(D2)&"-"&DAY($D2)&" "&HOUR(E2)&":"&MINUTE(E2)&":00"&"';"

The result:

INSERT INTO tour_dates SET `datetime`='2008-10-1 9:0:00';

Yay!



tags: excel, mysql, date, time, datetime

We have started our summer tech training workshops, classes that the IT staff and our media arts instructor teach on topics that our employees select. These require a lot of time and preparation from our staff, but our employees highly value the opportunity to learn. Our offerings this year include workshops on desktop publishing, Excel, iPhoto, Picasa, Mac OSX and Windows XP Pro. I am pleased that operating systems were a popular choice this year, given how overall proficiency with basic features is pretty low. I blame the software companies for annually rolling out new eye candy that help them market the products while underemphasizing fundamentals that help people work better. I wish that more people wanted to work on web technologies in the classroom, but we will have more opportunities to work on that once the school year begins.



One challenge is the wide range of skill levels present in each class. Each teacher handles this challenge in her own way. I make the workshop highly project based and let the curriculum emerge from student interests and questions. This does leave me scampering around the room a lot answering questions and solving problems, but it keeps everyone working all the time at their level. This disappoints some students who come to the class expecting a lot of direct instruction, but most participants leave happy. I will teach the MacOS and iPhoto workshops. Do send any killer activity ideas that you have organized or encountered.



tags: training, professionaldevelopment

The Flip Mino has the potential to be useful in our school, especially for students creating work for immediate review or sharing. The Flip seems highly compatible with efforts to encourage student construction of knowledge, visual literacy, and multiple forms of representation. I can see teachers and students using these devices to practice foreign language recitation, interview subjects for a variety of purposes, and gather material for oral history projects. I can imagine huge impact during our international trips. With a portable digital video recorder, students could turn their view outward, collecting sounds, scenes, and interviewing people to include in a presentation or learning portfolio upon their return. Multimedia art students should have a blast with the devices.

The device is small enough to take along anywhere and starts up quickly. User controls are simple, especially the big red record button in the middle. The price ($145 at Amazon) is twice that of a small digital audio recorder, about right in my opinion to gain video in such a small device.

The Flip has the potential to remove barriers to using video in classes, as the Olympus WSM-300 did for us with audio this past year. The relatively low cost makes it possible to put devices in the hands of students more often. The small size makes it easy to carry a device off-site or package a class set. You can keep the camera on you more often, since it slips into a pocket.

One huge key is the USB mass storage feature. Like the Olympus audio recorders, USB connectivity is built into the device. This eliminates the most time-consuming step in conventional video capture -- transferring footage from camera to computer. Now, one can transfer footage as a simple file copy or using The Flip's proprietary software. Each Flip comes with its own software installer on the device. If you want more control and flexibility, open the INSTALL folder and run the 3ivx installer. You will gain the ability for QuickTime Player (Mac) to open these compressed AVI files. An open-source decoder also exists.

In my one-day test, 2GB storage was more than adequate. I shot here and there during a three hour visit to the amusement park -- 25 short clips in total -- and only used 500MB.

For some reason, converting the files from compressed AVI to MOV. I am not sure whether the problem lies in the AVI conversion, the special compressed format that the Flip uses, or my slow G4 Mac!

The Flip software offers buttons to quickly post video to YouTube and other video web sites. I haven't yet tried them, but this could be a way to quickly get a movie into FLV format for the web.

For a $170 video recorder, the quality is excellent. A couple of weak points are the audio levels and zoom. In my single day of use, I found the audio pickup a tad weak, though it should be fine for interviews and other classroom applications. I also found the image too fuzzy at 4x zoom -- it may be digitally enhanced.

I wish that the Flip had multiple folders for organizing stored clips, in the manner that the Olympus digital audio recorders do. Then, two students could share one device but keep their work separate.

Flip makes less expensive video recording devices, but only the Mino has a rechargeable battery. I would like to avoid the impact of disposable batteries, even though a dead rechargeable device will then be useless for the remainder of that period. Now I need to seek a device to charge a dozen USB devices at once.

How long before this level of video recording is a standard feature on cell phones, in the way that still cameras have recently become?

Here is a sample I shot today at full size and converted from 3IVX to QuickTime H.264 at 1000kb/s in order to retain as much as possible the quality of the original shot. Or, you can download the 3ivx version directly.



tags: video, flip

Our faculty wants a "major assignments" master calendar, in order to identify days on which too many teachers have scheduled major assignments before they impact students. In Moodle, students automatically see all the assignments in their courses. I want a way for each teacher to see a summary of major assignments schoolwide as they schedule their own. To complicate matters further, it would be most helpful for a teacher to automatically see what major assignments their students (not all students) have on a given day.

I am thinking about how to implement such a feature in Moodle. (I am an average programmer). Since we want to track only major assignments, we need to find a way to distinguish major from regular assignments. We also need to write a function to count major assignments for the given day only for students enrolled in the class.

Ideally, this counting function would fire as the teacher selects the assignment date. That way, the teacher could easily move the assignment from one day to another and see the impact on students' workloads.

In our school, it would be less work to create a new assignment type called "major assignment" than it would be to add a "major" checkbox to each assignment type. In our school, major assignments are not likely to be submitted electronically, and keeping the function in a separate module would avoid making changes to Moodle core code.

I could use your advice and feedback on this idea. Is anyone else working on a similar idea? Is there a better way to approach this task? Am I missing an existing feature in Moodle that could help me achieve this end?

Many thanks.

Update

I also posted this to the Moodle forums. Here's an encouraging reply I received only seven minutes after submitting the question. Isn't that amazing?

Re: Idea for a "major assignments calendar"
by Gary Anderson - Sunday, 27 July 2008, 07:42 PM

Hi Richard:

We have implemented this at our school. We have teachers label assignments by putting them in bold (we have a patch that adds the tag to the title. We also have a simple block that looks for assignments that have this tag and counts the number of affected users. We have taken the extra step of having a user profile field that shows if they are in the class of 2007, etc.

It works nicely and has avoided many scheduling conflicts. While we are not prepared to put this in Contrib, hopefully the above ideas will get you started, and I can send you are code on an "as is" basis if you contact me.

--Gary

I also just figured out that Gary is from Seattle Academy of Arts and Science, which I hope to visit in October.

tags: moodle, homework