Punya Mishra’s Web

Recently I had been invited to the Birmingham School District to speak to the administrators, teachers and broader community about their recent initiatives on 21st Century Learning. I had a wonderful visit – which I was reminded of by this article (On the Front Lines of the Future) in the  Highlander, the Seaholm High School’s Student Voice. This is an extremely well written and honest article about the vision, implementation and challenges faced by schools seek to change how they do business. It incorporates thoughts from teachers and students both pro- and con and is really worth a read.

My visit and presentation is mentioned somewhere along the way (towards the middle of the article). Most of what I shared with the audience built on the work done by Kristen Kereluik and myself on reviewing 21st Century Learning skills and providing a synthesis of the same. This work had been originally presented at last year’s SITE conference (in a paper titled What 21st Century Learning? A review and a synthesis) and can be found here.

Thanks to David Reed-Nordwall, Director of 21st Century Teaching and Learning for Birmingham Public Schools, for inviting me for this event.

Dr. Matthew Kearney (who was featured in my recent post on student constructed iVideos) just wrote to inform me about a teacher preparation project currently underway in Australia. The Teaching Teachers for the Future (TTF) project is a $7.8 million project

… aimed at enabling all pre-service teachers at early, middle and senior levels to become proficient in the use of ICT in education. It will focus on the first phase of the Australian Curriculum subjects – English, Mathematics, Science and History – and will be completed in June 2012. [Emphasis mine.]

The project seeks to target “systematic change in the Information and Communication Technology in Education (ICTE) proficiency of graduate teachers across Australia.” The project is led by a slew of key organizations, including:

Australian Learning and Teaching Council (ALTC), and includes the Australian Council of Deans of Education (ACDE), the Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership (AITSL), Education Services Australia (ESA), the Australian Council for Computers in Education (ACCE), and the 39 Australian higher education institutions with pre-service teacher education programs as partners. [Emphasis mine.]

As can be clear this is a huge undertaking seeking to transform teacher training for the entire country. You can find out more about the project by going to their website http://www.altc.edu.au/ttf/

What is interesting is that the TPACK framework underpins much of the work in the project (a link right there on the front page)! How cool and amazing is that.

This year at the SITE conference in Nashville, I was often blown away by the fact that work done my Matt Koehler and myself, (on the TPACK framework) sitting on the 5th floor of Erickson Hall in East Lansing is being utilized by researchers across the US and beyond. For instance, our symposium included presentations on TPACK being applied in Ghana and Kuwait! That is indeed a great feeling.

But this TTF project is a different scale altogether. To have our ideas play an important role in the restructuring of an entire nation’s (actually an entire continent’s, since Australia is both a country and a continent) teacher preparation program… is something else altogether.

I am truly blown away.

I had posted earlier about the paper presentations I was involved with during the recently concluded SITE conference at Nashville. Matt Koehler and I were co-Program Chairs for the conference, and sadly Matt was sick and had to miss the trip. In the photo below the space between Gary Marks and myself, is where Matt would stand, if he had been there. (And of course, Gary would be making rabbit years over his head!)

As program chair I had the usual responsibilities, shake hands with everybody, smile a lot, make announcements, introduce speakers and so on. I tried to make these tasks (particularly the announcements) interesting and fun. Below are some examples of some of some of the things we did.

The first is a presentation in which I introduced our first keynote speaker: Yong Zhao. Yong and I go back a long time (almost 17 years!) so I had lots of stories to share, including one of my son when he was three years old! [See the slides here, PDF].

A few days later, I was asked to announce the poster award winners, I had some fun with that as well, particularly in creating, what I called, a “sting” video, revealing nefarious activities that occurred every SITE conference. Of course this was all good clean fun… You can find the video embedded below and the slides here PDF.

I also took some pictures during SITE. You can find them here

Finally you can see a music-video I created for the closing day reception as well as the final set of slides (once again in PDF format)

I was recently in San Diego for the annual conference of the American Association of Colleges of Teacher Education. I had served as a chair of the Innovation & Technology Committee for a while, and the committee invited me to participate in two different sessions. The current chairs, Glen Bull and Pamela Redmond (with Rachel Popham of the AACTE) did a super job of organizing the two sessions.

The first was a concurrent session on Integrating Technology into Teaching & Learning: TPACK’s Next Chapter. This session focused on the integration of technology, pedagogy and content knowledge, framed by review of the TPACK Handbook and the upcoming Practitioner’s Guide to TPACK. My task was quite simple really, to provide an introduction to TPACK and context for the handbook. I was preceded by Joel Colbert (former chair of the committee under whose leadership the Handbook of TPACK was published) and followed by Denise Schmidt (current member of the committee) who talked about the research they have been doing on TPACK at Iowa State University. The last speakers were Glen Bull and Pamela Redmond who spoke about the upcoming Practitioner’s Guide to TPACK. It was a pretty full room and I think all the presentations went really well.

Here are the slides of all the presentations, in pdf format.

The next day was a major forum on Preparing Millennial Educator Candidates. The session was moderated by Pam Redmond and included Colleen Kennedy who spoke about 21st Century Education: Impact and Applications of Social Networking, Richard Sterling who talked about Teaching writing in the 21st Century, Denise Schimdt speaking about Are “Our” Teachers Ready for the Millennials? and finally your’s truly who spoke about What does the future hold? I took this opportunity to share some of the work I have been doing with Kristen Kereluik on 21st Century Learning and our transdisciplinary course.

The slides for all the sessions can be found here, in pdf format.

For the past couple of years now, our family has been creating new year’s greetings using stop-motion video. This year was no exception. Here it is (on Vimeo)

A very wonderful holidays and a very happy new year to all of you,
from Shreya, Soham, Smita & Punya

You can see other videos made by us… just follow the links below:

• Happy 2010 (last year’s stop motion card)
• Happy 2009 (stop motion card made in 2008)
• Explore | Create | Share (3 short videos with typographical twists at the end)
• Finding Nemo, the sea-quel (a stop motion sequel to Finding Nemo)
• Shreya’s friends animate their names
• A commercial mashup
• or, view the complete collection (including the great Hari Puttar trailer)

A few weeks ago I posted a note about an assignment I gave my students in the on-campus version of the MAET program. They had completed an unit on motivation and had watched the RSA / Daniel Pink video and their task was was to create demotivational posters, (along the lines of those on despair.com) using ideas either from their readings/discussions or from the Pink video.

The posters were a huge success. In fact Daniel Pink tweeted them (Thanks Daniel) and lots of his followers ended up on my website to see the work done by the students, which is all very cool.

Well, I am now in Rouen, France, meeting with the students in the off-campus MAET program. I got a chance to work with each of the groups (representing year 1, 2 & 3) and had them create similar posters as well. So now we have a total of 17(!) posters. It is interesting to see just how different they are, even the ones that tackle the same concept do it differently.

I have included all of the posters below  — the one’s from East Lansing as well as the one’s created here at Rouen. Click on the words to see the posters (the names of the students who created them is provided below each of the posters).

Incentives Scot Acre Patrick Gillespie Marc Compton Shawn Telford	Individuality Kerry Guiliano Aaron Moran Mike Bammer Julie Howe Addy Hamilton	Motivation Barb Bedford Cheryl Schaefer Hope Andres Stacey Schuh	Rewards Grace Bammer Mary Wever Jessica Steffel Sarah Blazo	Curiosity Craig McMichael Chloe Tingley Lial Miller Katie Lorey
Teamwork Melanie Hosbach Fiona Scott Andrew Melmoth	Rewards 2 Sarah Pickles Katie Shefren Joost Guttinger Renee Codsi	Mastery Theresa Hamilton Larissa Lisayo Miguel Herrera	Dreams Cheytoria Hickey Bridget Reed	Grades Kristi Dix Patricia Liff Rugh Gadson Olivia Shillings
Autonomy Frances Snowden, Jessica Maisonnave, Andrea Ouimetto	Mastery2 Paul Blackwell, Brigette Jensen, Candace Marcotte	Collaboration Bill Marland, Christina Popowski, Jillian Johnson, Jamie Perry	Creativity John Hogan Michelle Cox Sean Sweeny Rehb Rajab Alfred McDonnel	Financial Incentives Dean Halverson Ashley Priem Shaza Ahmed Lauren Cortesi Camiella Hudson
	Material Incentives Rawad Bon Hamadan Jason Shulha Eliza Mantyh Patty Kolinski	Motivation 2 Bossel Deiry Susie Dina JP Bennett Kelly Cunningham Kristin Bergeron

The TPACK Radio/Video show that we had created for ISTE is now available on Vimeo. I think this version is easier to embed and view (as opposed to a 21MB download, as it was the previous time around).

TPACK Radio/Video Show ISTE 2010 from Punya Mishra on Vimeo.

A fake radio/video show created for ISTE2010 by Punya Mishra with Matt Koehler (and a bunch of other people who are thanked in the video). We were asked to create a video for ISTE, a conference that neither of us (Punya or Matt) could attend. Our goal was to create an engaging 15 minute video that would convey our ideas about technology integration in teaching, specifically the TPACK framework. The entire thing (including the two Mastercard & UPS commercials) was scripted, shot and edited over 4 days. More details (and credits here)

Three different news-stories/articles came to my notice today all connected by the infamous brood parasite the cuckoo. The first is a part of Olivia Judson’s blog (on the NYTimes) on biology and life (read Cuckoo! Cuckoo! here), the second is is about how scientists have tried to understand what it is that the cuckoo does to trick other birds into caring for the cuckoo’s eggs (read, Scientists Get Bird’s-Eye View of How Cuckoos Fool Their Hosts) and the third is regarding a new way of engineering design and optimization inspired by the Cuckoo! (read about the ‘Cuckoo Search Algorithm‘ here)  .

Olivia Judson makes a very important point about how our perceptual systems prevent us from seeing the world “as is.” For instance, as it turns out what we “see” when we see a cuckoo’s egg is very different from what the bird sees. As one of the articles say:

In the past, this kind of analysis was tackled by humans comparing eggs by eye, but human vision differs hugely from that of a bird. Birds can see ultraviolet light and because they have four types of cone in their eyes, compared with three in humans, they see a greater diversity of colour and pattern.

What this means is that over evolutionary time, cuckoos and the host birds are engaged in an arms-race to develop better and better deception (on the cuckoo’s part) and detection (on the part of the host birds) mechanisms. As a consequence one of the host birds studied:

… lay probably the most diverse range of eggs of any bird in the world, and this is likely to be an outcome of the long co-evolutionary battle with the Cuckoo Finch.

The eggs are analogous to a bank note, in terms of the variety and complexity of markings, perhaps to make them very hard to forge by the parasite.

So the same techniques used by currency designers to reduce forgery (the intricate markings that are the defining characteristics of today’s currency notes) is used by the host birds as well. Of course forgers keep coming up with better techniques to trick us, as do the cuckoo birds… all this of course leading to a runaway race where every innovation by the forgers (read cuckoo birds) has to be matched by the police (read host birds).

Now, it turns out that a couple of engineers have take this a step further, utilizing the idea of this evolutionary war to develop a better search algorithm! So what we have here is an interesting confluence of evolutionary forces and the manner in which scientists have tried to understand how these forces work and leading to the development of new technologies and techniques for solving engineering problems. How very cool is that!

All this is interesting in and of itself, but there is a deeper point about perception being made here that I would like to highlight. Olivia Judson says it much more eloquently than I ever could, so I quote:

Which makes me wonder: what are we missing? Like the birds — like any organism — our sensory system defines the way we perceive and interact with the world, and it is limited in important ways…

And in a more metaphorical way, the sight of the cuckoo chick makes me wonder what we miss by our routine habits of thought. To what extent do our preconceived notions narrow our perception of the planet, and ourselves?

What a great question? What are we not seeing? How do we learn to see?

Followers of this blog (and people who have seen my presentations on creativity) know that this idea of “learning to see,” is in my opinion, the most critical first step towards being creative. I have talked of this in terms of “recognition v.s. perception” and it underlies my arguments for repurposing technology (that I go on and on about, most recently here). I think it is important that we continually ask ourselves this question that Olivia Judson leaves us with:

To what extent do our preconceived notions narrow our perception of the planet, and ourselves?

In other words, what are we not seeing?

(H/T Ken Friedman for the first and third links and Google for the third).

Martin Gardner, 1914 – 2010

Martin Gardner died five days ago. Gardner was an influential writer about mathematics and was one of the greatest influences on me (and my friends) as I was growing up. His recreational mathematics column was the main reason I subscribed to the Scientific American back in high school. A few years ago a couple of my high-school friends wrote a mathematical novel (see my posting about Suri & Bal’s A Mathematical Ambiguity) and the high point for them was the fact that Martin Gardner agreed to write a blurb for the back cover. (My point of pride was that I was thanked in the acknowledgments page, putting me cheek-by-jowl with Martin Gardner!).

More personally, it was through Gardner’s writings that I was introduced to authors like Douglas Hofstadter, Raymond Smullyan, Scott Kim and James Randi — people who in turn ended up becoming immense influences on my thinking and way of looking at the world.

Martin Gardner, through his writing, his sense of humor and playfulness, his emphasis on rationality as a tool for understanding the world, his love of mathematics and learning, will always be with me. I know that in some  powerful, deep and fundamental way, he made me who I am today.

I just read this great interview with Diane Ravitch on Slate.com (The wrong stuff). Diane Ravitch started out under George H.W. Bush as a strong supporter for NCLB (and all that goes with it, educational testing, school choice, charter schools etc. etc. etc.). Recently, however, she has had a change of heart, most clearly documented in her new book The Death and Life of the Great American School System. In this interview, she is honest about the process of coming to reject some of her most deeply held beliefs. The interview is worth reading for many reasons, not to least for her thoughts on how difficult it is for individuals to question their own belief structure, particularly when it is connected to broader social networks of which one is a part.

The part of the interview I want to highlight (though the entire interview is worth reading in full) is regarding the importance of failure for education/learning.

What do you think about the role of wrongness in education? It seems to me that making mistakes is crucial to learning, yet by and large mistakes are discouraged and punished in our schools.

We have reshaped the education system—largely through federal legislation—to an approach of “right answers, right answers, right answers.” But life’s not like that. We’re putting a tremendous amount of value on being able to pick the right one out of four little bubbles. But this turns out not to be a very valuable skill. You can’t take this skill out into the workplace and get paid for it.

My research assistant did a blog for the Washington Post about this mantra of “Failure Is Not an Option.” Her point was, you can’t learn anything unless you fail. Failure has to be an option. What does success mean if there’s no failure? It just means that you’ve dropped the bar so low that everyone can walk over it.

TPACK Newsletter, Issue #7.1:
Special SITE & AERA Conference Issue

March-April 2010

Welcome to the seventh edition of the TPACK Newsletter, published four times each year between September and April. If you are not sure what TPACK is, please surf over to http://www.tpack.org/ to find out more.

Gratuitous Quote About Technology

“For a list of all the ways technology has failed to improve the quality of life, please press three.”  ~Alice Kahn

In This Issue

-1.      Gratuitous Quote About Technology
0. In This Issue (–> You are here)
1. Update on Newsletter
2.        TPACK SIG Meeting at SITE 2010 in San Diego
3.        Recent TPACK Publications & Presentations
4.        Recent TPACK-Related Dissertations
5.        TPACK at California Council on Teacher Education Spring Conference
6.        Coming up: TPACK at SITE
7.        Coming up: TPACK at AERA
8.        TPACK Work in Progress
9.        New Hybrid Ph.D. Program at Michigan State (Connecting with TPACK)
10.      Learning and Doing More with TPACK
–.         Un-numbered miscellaneous stuff at the end

1. Update on Newsletter

The TPACK newsletter currently has 707 subscribers!  In addition to being a palindromic number, this also represents a 9.2% increase in membership during the last two months.

Many thanks to those of you who sent in corrections so quickly to version 7.0 of his newsletter! We have incorporated them in this 7.1 edition.

2. TPACK SIG Meeting at SITE 2010 in San Diego

The TPACK SIG meeting is scheduled for Wednesday, March 31 from 8 – 9 AM in the Marina 3 room at the SITE Conference 2010 in San Diego, California. Please mark your calendars. More information about TPACK-related papers and presentations at SITE can be found below.

There are some leadership opportunities in the SIG that may be of interest to members (faculty and graduate students). We hope to welcome many at the meeting. We look forward to seeing you there.

3. Recent TPACK Publications & Presentations
Below are several recent TPACK publications and presentations that we know about. If you know of others that were shared within the past several months, please let us know (tpack.news.editors@wm.edu).

Articles/Chapters

• Blanchard, M. R., Harris, J., & Hofer, M. (2010). Grounded tech integration: Science. Learning & Leading With Technology, 37(6). 32-34.
• Figg, C. & McCartney, R. (2010). Impacting academic achievement with student learners teaching digital storytelling to others: The ATTTCSE digital video project. Contemporary Issues in Technology and Teacher Education, 10(1). Retrieved from http://www.citejournal.org/vol10/iss1/languagearts/article3.cfm
• Grandgenett, N., Harris, J., & Hofer, M. (2009). Grounded tech integration: Math. Learning & Leading With Technology, 37(3), 24-26.
• Groth, R., Spickler, D., Bergner, J., & Bardzell, M. (2009). A qualitative approach to assessing technological pedagogical content knowledge. Contemporary Issues in Technology & Teacher Education, 9(4), 392-411. Retrieved from http://www.citejournal.org/vol9/iss4/mathematics/article1.cfm
• Hardy, M. (2010). Enhancing preservice mathematics teachers’ TPCK. Journal of Computers in Mathematics and Science Teaching, 29(1), 73-86. Retrieved from http://www.editlib.org/p/33136
• Kramarski, B. & Michalsky, T. (in press). Preparing preservice teachers for self-regulated learning in the context of technological pedagogical content knowledge. Learning and Instruction. Doi:10.1016/j.learninstruc.2009.05.003
• Lee, M. H. & Tsai, C. C. (2010). Exploring teachers’ perceived self-efficacy and technological pedagogical content knowledge with respect to educational use of the World Wide Web. Instructional Science, 38(1), 1-21. Retrieved from http://www.springerlink.com/content/d510480505435104/
• Pan, N., Lau, H., Lai, W. (2010). Sharing e-learning innovation across disciplines: An encounter between engineering and teacher education. Electronic Journal of e-Learning. 8(1). Retrieved from http://www.ejel.org/Volume-8/v8-i1/v8-i1-art-4.htm
• Tanti, M., & Moran, W. (2009). Warts and all: Integrating ICT in teacher training. International Journal of Learning, 16, 641-655.
• Van Olphen, M., Hofer, M., & Harris, J. (2009-10). Grounded tech integration: Languages. Learning & Leading With Technology. 37(4), 26-28.
• Wang, Q. (2009). Guiding teachers in the process of ICT integration: Analysis of three conceptual models. Educational Technology,
  49(5), 23-27. Retrieved from http://qywang.myplace.nie.edu.sg/Publications.htm
• Whitehouse, P., McCloskey, E., & Ketelhut, D. J. (2009). Online pedagogy design and development: New models for 21^st century online teacher professional development. In J. O. Lindberg & A. D. Olofsson (Eds.), Online learning communities and teacher professional development: Methods for improved education delivery (pp. 247-262). Hershey, PA: IGI Global.
• Young, C., Hofer, M., & Harris, J. (2010). Grounded tech integration: English Language Arts. Learning & Leading With Technology, 37(5), 28-30.

Presentation(s)

Jamieson-Proctor, R., Finger, G. & Albion, P. (2010, April). Auditing the TPACK capabilities of final year teacher education students: Are they ready for the 21st century? Paper presented at the Australian Computers in Education Conference 2010, Melbourne, Australia. Retrieved from
http://acec2010.info/proposal/248/auditing-tpck-capabilities-final-year-teacher-education-students-are-they-ready-21st.pdf

4. Recent TPACK-Related Dissertations

The following TPACK-based dissertations have been released recently. There may be more… (and if so, you know whom to contact with that information

• Chase, E. (2009). Extension educators’ perceptions of the use of digital technology in their work. Michigan State University, Lansing, MI. AAT 3381427
• Nathan, E. J. (2009). An examination of the relationship between preservice teachers’ level of technology integration self-efficacy (TISE) and level of technological pedagogical content knowledge (TPACK). University of Houston, Houston, TX. AAT 3388727
• Sheffield, C. C. (2009). A multiple case study analysis of middle grades social studies teachers’ instructional use of digital technology with academically talented students at three high-performing middle schools. University of South Florida, Tampa, FL. AAT 3394182

5. TPACK at California Council on Teacher Education Spring Conference

The annual meeting of the California Council on Teacher Education (March 25 – 27, in San Jose) has a strong TPACK thematic focus. There will be keynote presentations and panel discussions led by TPACK regulars like Punya Mishra, Judi Harris, Glen Bull and Mario Kelly. http://www.ccte.org/conferences/

6. Coming up: TPACK at SITE 2010

Here is a list of presentations related to TPACK at the SITE conference at San Diego, March 29 – April 1. There are 34 papers, presentations, poster sessions and symposia related to TPACK that will be included in this conference. Please note the SIG meeting at 8 – 9 am on Wednesday, 3/31/10 as well. Specific locations and times for the presentations can be found on the SITE Conference Web site.

We have tried to capture all of the entries but if we missed yours (or one that you know about), do let us know (tpack.news.editors@wm.edu).

Tuesday, March 30

• SITE’s Digital Fabrication Initative Glen Bull, University of Virginia, USA; Gary Marks, SITE, USA; Nick Sanham, Aspex, UK; Willy Kjellstrom, University of Virginia, USA
• Digital Skills as a Basis for TPCK Leikny Ogrim, Oslo University College, Norway

Wednesday, March 31

• The Decision-Making Processes of Preservice Teachers as They Integrate Technology Charles R. Graham, Brigham Young University, USA; Nicolette Burgoyne, Brigham Young University, USA; Jered Borup, Brigham Young University, USA
• Differentiating TPACK Development: Using Learning Activity Types with Inservice and Preservice Teachers Mark Hofer, College of William and Mary, USA; Judith Harris, College of William and Mary, USA
• Strategies for Teacher Professional Development of TPACK, Part 1 & 2 Joke Voogt, University of Twente, Netherlands; Ann Thompson, Iowa State University, USA; Punya Mishra, Michigan State University, USA; Petra Fisser, University of Twente, Netherlands; Ghaida Allayar, Public Authority of Applied Education and Training, Kuwait; Douglas Agyei, University of Cape Coast, Ghana; Matthew Koehler, Michigan State University, USA; Tae Seob Shin, Michigan State University, USA; Leigh Graves Wolf, Michigan State University, USA; Mike DeSchryver, Michigan State University, USA; Denise Schmidt, Iowa State University, USA; Evrim Baran, Iowa State University, USA
• Raising the Bar for 21st Century Teacher Preparation Mark Warner, Kennesaw State University, USA; Cherry Steffen, Kennesaw State University, USA; Jim Cope, Kennesaw State University, USA
• Developing a Game-based Learning Environment in Classrooms: A Conceptual Model Wen-Hsiung Wu, National Kaohsiung University of Applied Science, Taiwan; Wei-Fan Chen, The Pennsylvania State University, USA
• A Case Study of Investigating Preservice Mathematics Teachers’ Initial Use of the Next-Generation TI-Nspire Graphing Calculators with Regard to TPACK Orhan Curaoglu, Middle East Technical University, Turkey; Lingguo Bu, Florida state University, USA; Lydia Dickey, fsu, USA; Hyewon Kim, fsu, USA; Recep Cakir, Amasya university, Turkey
  
• Using Online Videos in the Science Methods Classroom as Context for Developing Preservice Teachers’ Awareness of the TPACK Components Richard Hechter, University of Manitoba, Canada; Lynette Phyfe, University of Manitoba, Canada
• “Bit by Bit Putting it All Together” How a Holistic View of Assessment Changed Our Perception of the TPACK Framework Colleen Sexton, Governors State University, USA; Michael Gordon, Governors State University, USA; Kathleen Hickey, Governors State University, USA
• Reconsidering the T and C in TPACK: Repurposing Technologies for Interdisciplinary Knowledge Kristen Kereluik, Michigan State University, USA; Punya Mishra, Michigan State University, USA; Matthew Koehler, Michigan State University, USA
• Advancing K-8 Mathematics and Science Teachers Knowledge for Teaching with Technology through an Online Graduate Program Margaret Niess, Oregon State University, USA; Henry Gillow-Wiles, Oregon State University, USA
• Testing a TPACK-Based Technology Integration Assessment Rubric Judi Harris, College of William & Mary, USA; Neal Grandgenett, University of Nebraska at Omaha, USA; Mark Hofer, College of William & Mary, USA
• Aspiring to Reach 21st Century Ideals: Teacher Educators’ Experiences in Developing Their TPACK Mia Kim Williams, University of Northern Colorado, USA; Teresa Foulger, Arizona State University, USA; Keith Wetzel, Arizona State University, USA
  
• Auditing the TPACK Competence and Confidence of Australian Teachers: The Teaching With ICT Audit Survey (TWictAS) Peter Albion, University of Southern Queensland, Australia; Romina Jamieson-Proctor, University of Southern Queensland, Australia; Glenn Finger, Griffith University, Australia
• The Validation of an Instrument Measuring TPACK Nicolette Burgoyne, Brigham Young University, USA; Charles R. Graham, Brigham Young University, USA; Richard Sudweeks, Brigham Young University, USA
• Concerns-Based Conceptual Change: A Theory of Change for Teacher Education Philip Molebash, Loyola Marymount University, USA
• Expanding the Practice-Based Taxonomy of Characteristics of TPACK Kamini Jaipal, Brock University, Faculty of Education, Canada; Candace Figg, Brock University, Canada
• Taking TPACK to the Classroom: Teacher Candidates Get ‘Handy’ for Class Candace Figg, Brock University, Canada; Jenny Burson, LeTourneau University, USA

Thursday, April 1

• Measuring TPACK in a Preservice Teacher Education Course Utilizing a Blended Model of Instruction Rob Horgan, Queen’s University, Canada
• Coding Pre-Service Teacher Lesson Plans for TPACK Kristen Kereluik, Michigan State University, USA; Greg Casperson, Michigan State University, USA; Mete Akcaoglu, Michigan State University, USA
• Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK): A Content Analysis of 2006-2009 Print Journal Articles Mario Kelly, Hunter College, City University of New York, USA
• Values, Beliefs, and Perspectives: Teaching Online within the Zone of Possibility Created by Technology Kathryn Dirkin, CMU, USA; Punya Mishra, MSU, USA
• Using TPACK as a Model for School Development Kirsti Engelien, Department of Teacher Education and School Development, University of Oslo, Norway; Kjersti Stundal, Gjerdrum secondary school, Norway
• TPACK as Shared, Distributed Knowledge Hæge Nore, Akershus University College, Faculty of Technical and Vocational Teacher Education, Norway; Kirsti L. Engelien, University of Oslo, Department of Teacher Education and School Development, Norway; Monica Johannesen, Oslo University College, Faculty of Education and International Studies, Norway
• Technological Pedagogical and Content Knowledge for Music TeachersWilliam Bauer, Case Western Reserve University, USA
• Storytelling as a Strategy for Integrating Technologies into the Curriculum: An Empirical Study with Post-Graduate Teachers Clara Coutinho, Minho University – Braga – Portugal, Portugal
• Pre-Service Teacher Technology Integration: The Team-Taught Cohort Model and TPACK Grace Ward, University of Maine Farmington, USA; Theresa Overall, University of Maine Farmington, USA

Friday, April 2

• Must Technology Take Place in Mathematics and Science Pedagogy? – What Do Chinese Educators Think? Kun Shao, Webster University, USA
• Observational Measures of Technological, Pedagogical, Content Knowledge (TPACK) in the Integration of Laptop Computers in Elementary Writing Instruction Julie Mueller, Wilfrid Laurier University, Canada
• Hong Kong Home Economics Teachers’ Preparedness for Teaching with Technology Kitty Ho, University of Southern Queensland, Hong Kong; Peter Albion, University of Southern Queensland, Australia
• Student Engagement with the Authoring of Digital Media in Sixth Grade History Curby Alexander, University of Illinois at Springfield, USA
• Preparing Foreign Language Teachers to Implement a Technology-Rich Curriculum JungJin Kang, Michigan State University, USA; Xiaopeng Ni, Michigan State University, USA; Guofang Li, Michigan State University, USA
• Examining the Validity of the TPACK Framework From the Ground Up: Viewing Technology Integration Through Teachers’ Eyes. M Brooke Robertshaw, Utah State University, USA; Ronald B. Gillam, Utah State University, USA

7. Coming up: TPACK at AERA 2010

The annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association is scheduled for April 30 – May 4 in Denver, Colorado. TPACK will be well represented there, with approximately 12 presentations (that we could find) related to the construct.  They are:

(Symposia)

Perspectives on TPACK
Chair: Gerald A. Knezek (University of North Texas)
Discussant: Ann D. Thompson (Iowa State University)

• Exploring the nature of Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge using Factor Analysis Deanna Archambault (Arizona State University), Joshua H. Barnett (Arizona State University)
• Lost and found in Translation: A TPACK Survey of Mid-Career Teacher Beliefs and Practice Lisa G. Hervey (North Carolina State University)
• Measuring the TPK Component of TPACK: An Alternative to Self-Assessment Andrew Frederick Barrett (Indiana University)
• Knowledge Growth in Teaching Mathematics-Science with Technology: Moving PCK to TPACK in Online Professional Development Maggie L. Niess (Oregon State University), Emily H. Van Zee (Oregon State University), Tina L. Johnston (Oregon State University), Henry Gillow-Wiles (Oregon State University)

Innovative Pathways to the Development of Teacher Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge: Empirical Accounts From Preservice and In-Service Teachers
Chair: Chrystalla Mouza (University of Delaware)
Discussant: Ann Thompson (Iowa State University)

• Evidence of TPACK in Preservice Graduates’ Rationales for Future Technology Use Joan E. Hughes (University of Texas-Austin)
• Preservice Teachers’ Technology Integrated Planning: Contrasting Quality and Instructional Variety by Development Approach Mark J. Hofer (College of William & Mary), Neal Grandgenett (University of Nebraska-Omaha), Judith B. Harris (College of William & Mary), Karen Work Richardson (College of William & Mary)
• Using Classroom Artifacts to Judge Teacher Knowledge of Reform-Based Instructional Practices that Integrate Technology in Mathematics and Science Classrooms Maggie L. Niess (Oregon State University)
• Effects of Practice-Based Professional Development on Teacher Learning in Technology Integration Chrystalla Mouza (University of Delaware)
• GeoThentic: Designing and Assessing with Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge Aaron Doering (University of Minnesota), Cassandra Scharber (University of Minnesota)

(Individual Papers)

• Developing TPACK in Mathematics Instruction. Andrew B. Polly (University of North Carolina-Charlotte)
• Using TPACK Without Knowing It: Preservice Teachers’ Perceptions of Integrating Instructional Technology in Social Studies. Erik Jon Byker (Michigan State University)
• The Continuing Development, Validation, and Implementation of a TPACK Assessment for Preservice Teachers Denise A. Schmidt (Iowa State University), Evrim Baran (Iowa State University), Ann D. Thompson (Iowa State University), Matthew J. Koehler (Michigan State University), Punya Mishra (Michigan State University), Tae Seob Shin (Michigan State University)

8. TPACK Work in Progress

Bob Isaacson, who works in the Faculty Development Division in the U.S. Army’s Defense Language Institute, shared a draft of a paper that he’s working on at present with us. It uses TPACK to describe “Training Requirements for Foreign Language Teaching Online.” In the paper, Bob concludes, “The TCPK construct can provide a conceptual framework for faculty development specialists to develop training that will enable foreign language teachers to make the transition from traditional face-to-face teaching to online distance teaching using both best pedagogical practices for teaching foreign languages at a distance and existing technology resources and tools.” If you would like to communicate with Bob about his work, please email him.

9. New Hybrid Ph.D. Program at Michigan State (Connecting with TPACK)

The idea of TPACK is deeply grounded in practice. Keeping this in mind, and in order the develop the next generation of TPACK-fluent scholars and researchers, the Educational Psychology and Educational Technology program at Michigan State University is now offering a hybrid doctoral program focused on the evolving roles of technology in learning. This cohort-based, blended program (which combines online coursework with intensive summer classes on campus) is designed for bright, established professionals currently working in K-12 schools, universities, policy centers, and research institutions who want to earn a Ph.D. while continuing in their current positions. The goal is to bring together a cohort of practitioners, using the powerful collaborative tools we now have, to create, explore and share; to engage in dialogue and dissent; to critique and conduct research; and to experiment with new technologies, new pedagogies and new content. To find out more about this program please click on the following links:

The official program Web site:

• http://edtechphd.com/

A few other Web sites/ blog posts that describe the program in greater detail:

• http://tinyurl.com/edtechphd1
• http://tinyurl.com/edtechphd2
• http://tinyurl.com/msutechphd

10. Learning and Doing More with TPACK
Interested in learning more about TPACK or getting more involved in the TPACK community?  Here are a few ideas:

• Visit and contribute to the TPACK wiki at: http://tpack.org /
• Join the TPACK SIG at: http://site.aace.org/sigs/tpack-sig.htm
• Join and contribute to the TPACK Google group at: http://groups.google.com/group/tpack/
• Review and provide feedback on the TPACK Learning Activity Types at: http://activitytypes.wmwikis.net/

Feel free to forward this newsletter to anyone who might be interested in its contents. Even better, have them subscribe to the TPACK newsletter by sending a blank email to sympa@lists.wm.edu, with the following text in the subject line: subscribe tpack.news FirstName LastName (of course, substituting their own first and last names for ‘FirstName’ and ‘LastName’ — unless their name happens to be FirstName LastName, in which case they can just leave it as is).

If you have a news item that you would like to contribute to the newsletter, send it along to: tpack.news.editors@wm.edu If you are interested in volunteering to help run the newsletter (we need help!), send email to: tpack.news.editors@wm.edu

Standard End-Matter
If you have questions, suggestions, or comments about the newsletter, please send those to tpack.news.editors@wm.edu. If you are subscribed to the tpack.news email list, and — even after reviewing this impressive publication — you prefer not to continue to receive the fruits of our labors, please send a blank email message to sympa@lists.wm.edu, with the following text in the subject line:  unsubscribe tpack.news

- Judi, Matt, Mario, and Punya

Judi Harris, Chair, College of William & Mary
Matt Koehler, Vice-Chair, Michigan State University
Mario Kelly, Futon, Hunter College
Punya Mishra, Recliner, Michigan State University

A few weeks ago I had posted about the hybrid Ph.D. program that we recently announced. There has been terrific interest in this program (but we are still looking for more people – so keep the emails and questions coming).

As we were reviewing the various emails we are receiving, it struck me that we (here at MSU) have not really done a good job of capturing all the different options we offer to practicing educators (teachers and administrators in K-12, community college and higher education settings).

The goal in each of these programs is to work collaboratively with practitioners to creatively integrate technology in their practice. Built around the TPACK framework these programs run the gamut from a 10 credit certificate in Ed Tech, to a 30 credit master’s degree, from an Edupunk orientated refresher that can be taken for credit or no-credit (for those who already have a master’s), to two versions of a doctoral program (on-campus and the new substantially online hybrid program).

This led to our designing a graphic that attempts to capture all of our different initiatives. (Thanks also to Leigh Wolf and Robin Dickson for their input. Any errors are of course mine, and mine alone.) The blue arrows indicate “points of entry” i.e. spots that you can enter the program.

These “blocks” build on each other but there is no obligation to do the whole thing. Each block is self-contained i.e. there are multiple “off-ramps” from the program. Also, classes are customized to the needs and requirements of practitioners and can be taken in a variety of formats: online, face to face (on campus, off campus and abroad) as well as hybrid combinations thereof. For instance, we have students who have taken some certificate courses over weekends, at sites near their schools, followed that with some coursework on campus and online (over summer and regular semester) and received their master’s by completing their courses with one final summer, abroad.

Read the rest of this entry »

It’s good to be back at Twente, meeting old friends and making some new ones. I had a pretty light day yesterday, which was good because I had gone around 30 hours without any sleep. After checking into the hotel and getting a short but much needed nap, I took a walk around campus. Though I don’t have my trusted D70 with me I did manage to get some pictures. One of the first things I did was go back and catch up with my “man with his head in the water” photo from last year (see him here), though this time his condition seems a bit more critical due to the snow. Here he is.

You can see more photographs by clicking in the image below

Mark Ambinder at the Politics blog at the Atlantic

President Obama plans to name Howard A. Schmidt, a veteran cyber security warrior with experience at senior levels of government and industry, to fill a long-anticipated cyber coordinator position at the National Security Council, administration officials and outside consultants confirmed.

As far as one can see Mr. Schmidt is well qualified for this position, having served both in industry and in the government in the past. However, one fact about his background caught my attention and prompted this note. In describing his qualifications Ambinder wrote

Schmidt has credentials unique to the job: he received his masters in organizational management from the University of Phoenix, a (fully accredited and esteem) mostly online university.

Apart from the typo on esteem, what struck me was this positive mention of the University of Phoenix, something I often do not see or hear. Over where I live and breathe, the good old-fashioned bricks-and-mortar university, the University of Phoenix is not regarded as having much esteem. I have argued here and elsewhere that this will soon change. That most of us at the “traditional” university have underestimated just how powerful the forces of change are. Online learning (and for profit universities) are here to stay and maybe even take over universities as we know them.

Reading about Mr. Schmidt’s credentials just reminded me just how quickly this change is happening.

Now here’s an important story coming out of Denmark: Students in Denmark Allowed Full Access to the Internet During Exams

I have always been a believer in allowing students to use any resources they can during examinations. If we care about authentic assessment, what can be more authentic than that. When I have a question that I need an answer to, or some topic I need to learn about, the first thing I do is go to Google. Why should students be denied that resource? Knowledge today is as much in our brains as it is distributed in artifacts (my laptop) and on the web. So it is heartening for me to read the following:

…the Danish government preach [sic] that the Internet is so much a part of daily life, it should be included in the classroom and in examinations.

With that belief, the government have taken the bold step of allowing full Internet access to several high schools during their final year exams. The implications of this are significant, particularly for the kinds of questions we ask in such exams. Clearly these have to change. No longer can we ask simple factual questions the answers to which can be easily found on the web. We have to ask questions that push students to compare and contrast opposing points of view, questions that push them to think critically about information, questions that push them to come to their own conclusions based on the information they can find.

I am not sure the Danish authorities have gone that far, yet. At least the story does not describe how assessment has changed. Their approach seems to be to constrain significantly the amount of time students have. As the story says:

Surprisingly, students themselves admit it’s not easy to cheat using the Internet during an exam. According to the JP news agency, students are given a very short period of time in an exam to sift through the mounds of data they can call up on the Internet to answer a single question.

One can argue that this is somewhat authentic, given that we often have limited time to come up with answers to questions.

Read the rest of this entry »

My friend, Martin Oliver, over at the London Knowledge Lab sent me the following link about a TPACK related publication that appeared in the International Journal of Education and Development Using Information and Communication Technology, aka IJEDUICT. (Boy, that’s a long name for a journal, and I dare you to pronounce the acronym.) As it turns out, I was not acquainted with this journal. A quick browse showed that it had a strong international authorship and readership. Sadly most of my publications (with a few exceptions) have been in US journals, and doubly sadly, most authors published in US journals are from US universities. This is so parochial and a pity because there is a lot that we can all learn from each other, especially in a field like Ed Tech.

Any a bit of TPACK-searching on the journal website led to three separate mentions (technically there are two since one of the mentions was in an editorial describing an article in that very issue that utilized the TPACK framework). Anyway, for the record here are the citations (and links).
Read the rest of this entry »

There is a nice article in the State News about Jere Brophy including quotes from his daughter Cheri Spier, my department chair Dick Prawat, and my former advisee (now faculty member at Drexel) Aroutis Foster.

Read MSU professor dies, honored by colleagues as field pioneer

The Lansing temple recently organized a special Diwali program. My daughter Shreya participated in a dance and I, as always, took photographs of the event. Click here or the image below to see all 161 of the photographs I took.

Enjoy.

You can also read a poem written by Shreya on Diwali on her blog Uniquely Mine.

A decade into the 21st century, how are we doing with the movement to “position 21st century skills at the center of US K-12 education.” The National Journal Online has been conducting an discussion on this topic… some very interesting views represented there, from both sides of the spectrum. I have some definite opinions on this, which will have to wait for another day (I am swamped with work right now) … but for now here is the link to the discussion: Has The P21 Movement Succeeded?

What do you think? What do we mean by 21st Century skills? How are they different from traditional skills (such as critical thinking) that were the rage some time ago? What is the role of content knowledge in the 21st Century? What about trans-disciplinary, or inter-disciplinary knowledge? … Important questions, worthy of discussion and thought.

One often hears the criticism that students today don’t know how to write… the part of the blame is placed on technology, on the limitations of texting and twittering! For instance, here are two quotes from a book review TXTNG: THE GR8 DB8 by Marcus Merkmann in the New York Post.

[Texters are] vandals doing to our language what Genghis Khan did to his neighbors 800 years ago – John Humphrys, British TV presenter.

Texting is bleak, bald, sad shorthand which masks dyslexia, poor spelling and mental laziness – John Sutherland, author

Of course all this is presented with no real data! A contrasting perspective is presented by research conducted by the Stanford Study of Writing project conducted by Andrea Lunsford. Describing this research, Clive Thompson writes in an article in Wired:

technology isn’t killing our ability to write. It’s reviving it—and pushing our literacy in bold new directions…. young people today write far more than any generation before them. That’s because so much socializing takes place online, and it almost always involves text. Of all the writing that the Stanford students did, a stunning 38 percent of it took place out of the classroom—life writing, as Lunsford calls it. Those Twitter updates and lists of 25 things about yourself add up.

It’s almost hard to remember how big a paradigm shift this is. Before the Internet came along, most Americans never wrote anything, ever, that wasn’t a school assignment. Unless they got a job that required producing text (like in law, advertising, or media), they’d leave school and virtually never construct a paragraph again.

Well, maybe youth today are writing more, but is it any good? Turns out that college students today are not just producing a greater number of words, but these words are of better quality as well.

Lunsford’s team found that the students were remarkably adept at what rhetoricians call kairos—assessing their audience and adapting their tone and technique to best get their point across. The modern world of online writing, particularly in chat and on discussion threads, is conversational and public, which makes it closer to the Greek tradition of argument than the asynchronous letter and essay writing of 50 years ago.

There is actually one concern that this research has pointed out, however the accusing finger points not at the students but rather at us, the professors. For today’s students:

… writing is about persuading and organizing and debating, even if it’s over something as quotidian as what movie to go see. The Stanford students were almost always less enthusiastic about their in-class writing because it had no audience but the professor: It didn’t serve any purpose other than to get them a grade.

Now this is something to think about…

And finally, what about the pernicious influence of texting on student writing… sadly, no evidence of that could be found!

Glad to put that myth to rest!

Finally, just in case something thinks that this “adult” condemnation of what young people do is something recent… well, turns out there are historical antecedents for that as well. The quotes below are not directly related to the issue of technology and writing, but are revealing about our attitudes all the same.

We live in a decaying age. Young people no longer respect their parents. They are rude and impatient. They frequently inhabit taverns and have no self-control — Words inscribed on a 6,000-year-old Egyptian tomb.

What is happening to our young people? They disrespect their elders, they disobey their parents. They ignore the law. They riot in the streets, inflamed with wild notions. Their morals are decaying. What is to become of them? — Plato, 4th Century BC

The young people of today think of nothing but themselves. They have no reverence for parents or old age. They are impatient of all restraint … As for the girls, they are forward, immodest and unladylike in speech, behaviour and dress — Peter the Hermit, 1274 AD

As they say, Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose…. The more things change the more they stay the same

Note: I am not sure the Stanford project looked at the different kinds of media use that students engage in today (photos, video, mashups etc.), because that is a huge part of how the very idea of literacy is being redefined today. I don’t necessarily want to get into that issue here in this post, but is clearly a huge part of the kinds of literacy activities students today are engaged in.

TechTrends is a leading journal for professionals in the educational communication and technology field and is the official publication of the Association for Educational Communications and Technology (AECT). The current issue has 5 articles devoted to the TPACK framework (including one by yours truly with Matt and Kristen Kereluik). I am providing titles and key quotes from each (with a link to the article written by us).

Mishra, P., Koehler, M. J., & Kereluik, K. (2009). The song remains the same: Looking Back to the Future of Educational Technology. TechTrends, 53, 5. p. 48-53.

The TPACK framework emphasizes the role of teachers as decision makers who design their own educational technology environments as needed, in real time, without fear of those environments becoming outdated or obsolete. Using this approach, teachers do not attend to specific tools, but instead focus on approaches to teaching that endure through change in technologies, content, or pedagogies. Teachers with flexibility of thought, a tolerance for ambiguity, and willingness to experiment can combine traits that perfectly design and tailor their own educational content, pedagogical, and technological environments.

David Passig recently wrote on the topic of melioration, or “the competence to borrow a concept from a field of knowledge supposedly far removed from his or her domain, and adopt it to a pressing challenge in an area of personal knowledge or interest” (2007)… According to Passig, melioration is a skill that affords teachers the flexibility to experiment with a vast array of technologies to meet their specific educational needs. Novel frameworks and concepts like TPACK and Passig’s melioration are starting to look at educational technology in a new way. These new perspectives focus on overarching cognitive skills, competencies, and creativity rather than technical understanding and functional knowledge of specific technologies

Read the rest of this entry »

Imagine controlling machines, typing text or juggling balls using nothing but the power of thought. What sounds like far-fetched science fiction is gradually becoming possible, providing hope for disabled patients — and new gimmicks for the computer gaming industry. Read more in Playing With Your Head: The Dawning Age of Mind-Reading Machines

What implications do these new technologies have for learning and education? I mean even Mattel is getting into the action… As the article says

The new system Mattel is introducing at computer trade shows is called “Mindflex.” According to the company’s fact sheet: “A true mental marathon, Mindflex exercises the brain in an entirely new way as players learn to continuously control their brain activity.”

So, you ask, how does it work? To train the brain, the user puts on a headband with sensors at the temples and a cable connected to something that looks like a mini miniature golf course. Then the user tries to master the first task: balancing a small ball above an air current, causing it to levitate and making it pass through a plastic ring.

At this time these interfaces work only in one direction, from the brain to the computer. But can the reverse, from computer to the brain be far behind? The power being discussed here is truly revolutionary. We have all known that computers are cognitive tools i.e. working with them changes the way we think. However, at some level changes in brain states are mediated via our senses and through movement, a somewhat inefficient process. What these technologies indicate is the future is in a merging of our brains directly with the computer… where the distinction between us and the machine will be increasingly blurred till we won’t be able to tell one from the other. Imagine having access to Google like search engines whenever a question pops up in our heads? How can we tell where the brain ends and the machine begins?

I just discovered that TPACK made the Top Story of the Week for Educators on eSchool News!

Written by Laura Devaney, Senior Editor of eSchoolNews the article is titled, TPACK explores effective ed-tech integration. It is a pretty comprehensive piece with quotes from Matt and me, as well as Judi Harris, Mark Hofer and others. Don’t take my word for it, check it out…

Last Friday we celebrated the latest graduates from the MAET off campus program. These were students, who for the most part, have completed the MAET program over three summers in Plymouth, England. We here at MAET headquarters are extremely proud of their achievements. We had a small ceremony to celebrate their success and to wish them all the best for the future.

A video of the ceremony can be seen below. I, as representing the College of Ed and the MAET program, was asked to give a small welcome speech and you can see that in the video as well. I am including below, for the record, the text of what I said…

Text of welcome speech by Punya Mishra, Director MAET program
July 24, 2009
Read the rest of this entry »

The recently concluded NECC conference had quite a bit of TPACK related presentations. Sadly neither Matt nor I could make it to NECC… maybe next year!

One I discovered just today (h/t @mhines on twitter) was one titled School 2.0 & Understanding by Design.

Clicking on the link will take you to an archived webinar organized by ISTE, ASCD, SRI International, Central Susquehanna Intermediate District with funding support from US Department of Education. It is worth a listen if not for anything else but for a somewhat neat way of tying together TPACK with the Understanding by Design framework. This is something we have been doing for a while, though haven’t explicitly written about – so it was cool to see this convergence of ideas.

I also liked a slide they had titled Technology Integration 2.o! It does have a certain ring to it, doesn’t it? Maybe that is what we will start calling TPACK!

Judi Harris told me about two other sessions:

Making the Ideal Real: Reciprocal Mentoring and Technology in Preservice by Foulger & Gerard

Developing TPACK: Teachers’ Technology Integration Knowledge in Action by Harris & Hofer. Slides posted here.

You can actually see the video here:

The recent (and ongoing) evens in Iran sadden me deeply… but also give me hope. The scenes and news emerging from there speak of courage and a need and demand for freedom. What is also amazing has been the use of technology particularly twitter to get news out of the country.

A few decades ago it was audio-cassette technology that led to the fall of the Shah of Iran. Ayotollah Khomeni had been exiled to France and his speeches would be secretly smuggled into Iran – where an informal underground network of people would dub and re-dub these tapes and pass them around. New technologies lead to new ways of sharing information, new ways to mobilize.

My heart goes out to these protesters as I obsessively track news coming out of Iran. The two best sources of news on this are Andrew Sullivan’s  Daily Dish and The Lede of the NYTimes. Or better still follow the incoming Twitter-feeds collected here.

I try to be scrupulous about giving credit where it is due and yet I messed up big time. This happened over a year ago and to my dismay I did not think about it or realize it till this moment.

A year or so ago we received the 2008 MSU-AT&T Instructional Technology Awards Competition for our course TE150: Reflections on Learning. In my first blog posting on this I tried to give credit to each and every person who had worked on the design of this course… and guess what I missed one of the most important people who had helped us get started: Ken Dirkin.

If this had been anybody other than Ken I think I would not feel as bad. Ken, you see, is the most amazing guy. Ken is always been available, whether in thinking of TE150, or the design of this website, or any of the classes I have taught. He is way more than the typical technology person. He is a film-maker, designer, and all around smart guy. He has a wonderful sense of the potentials of technology, a keen taste in design and a wicked sense of humor. I have felt comfortable calling him at home, at any odd hour, for any technical problems I face. And he has always stepped up, above and beyond the call of duty (in fact I think that all the help he provides is outside his immediate official responsibilities). Most importantly I consider him a friend. And then to completely forget his contribution… How could I do that!

To say that I feel terrible for this lapse is an understatement.

In the case of TE150, Ken was the guy who helped us make concrete some of our initial thoughts and visions. He was the person who suggested we use Moodle, helped set it up, created the specs for our server and in many, many ways helped make this course a reality. To have forgotten to thank him, official is a terrible lapse on my part. (I take little solace from the fact that Matt Koehler, my partner in crime, seemed to have made the same mistake.)

It is too late now to go back and place his name on the official list, but I have changed our original posting to add his name at the rightful place.

I hope have learned something from this. I know Matt and I have received a great many accolades for the work we do. It is easy for us to forget just how many people have helped make all this possible.

Ken, this is my public apology for having missed your contribution to TE150. I am truly sorry. I know this may be a case of too little, too late… but again better late than never. Thank you and I owe you one (actually a lot). Big time.

Noah Ullman just forwarded me this story in the The Chronicle of Higher Education titled Professor encourages students to pass notes during class via twitter. It is amazing to me that this merited being called news. If you have been following this blog you know that this is something I have been playing with for a while (in fact based on a suggestion made by Noah). For the record, here are some links to what I had written: Microblogging in the classroom & Microblogging in the classroom II. In fact one of my students even tried it out in an undergraduate course he was teaching that semester.

I see this as a way of fruitfully utilizing the fact that all my students bring laptops to the classroom (something I have written about here and here)… seems a better solution than having them just check email or update their facebook status

It seems to me that the story didn’t speak to one critical aspect of micro-blogging, how is the twitter feed brought back into the classroom discussion. The problem is that the microblogging tends to exist in a separate “space” from what the class is doing – and coming up with strategies for integrating these two spaces (the face to face AND the microblogging) is what is key. Finding the right balance is is something we struggled with in our experiments. One thing we learned, no big surprise here, is that context matters. A tool that works one way in a doctoral seminar with a dozen or so participants works very differently in an undergraduate class with twice that number of students.

Figuring out the parameters within which these new technologies and tools can be used is what we need to pay attention to. More often than not the discussion is restricted to the “tool” not its pedagogic application. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the comments that follow the Chronicle article. Take a look at them, they tend to follow the time honored rules of talking at cross purposes, with some of the silly comments that, sadly, characterize internet discourse.

Paul Morsink & Bakar Razali, two graduate students in our college have been doing this interesting variant of the 60 second lecture. They record short videos of individual faculty members talking about anything that interests them and through that allow viewers to learn more about faculty members at MSU’s College of Education. The results of their efforts are now available for all to see (yours truly is represented there as well, as is Matt Koehler). Their goal is to have a video for each and every faculty member in the college – they have around 23 so far. Check out the hobnob video project.

For one reason or another, I have three consecutive posts regarding the earth and sun and moon – i.e. the local area in the solar system. I had just completed my previous postings (on on seeing through eclipses and measuring the radius of the earth) when I came across this news story (h/t Geekpress): School kids measure distance to the Moon Read the rest of this entry »