What is Google Wave? 2 Minute You Tube Video

As I was doing perp work for our upcoming Google Wave owau, I found this short 2 minute video. I think you'll like it. I'm still thinking of a fun, applicable and exciting activity for our owau session. Let me know if you have ideas. Mahalo!

Instructional Design Presentation: Using Scenarios in ELearning

I enjoyed viewing this presentation located on Cathy Moore's blog, so I thought I'd share with you too. I especially enjoyed the black and white slides with the following messages:

• Our job is to help people solve problems in the real world vs. learn
• It's the design, not the technology
• Our job is to design an experience vs. information

http://www.slideshare.net/CathyMoore/how-to-save-the-world-with-elearning-scenarios

Ideas for National Ed-Tech Plan?

What are the stakeholders saying as the U.S. Department of Education prepare and new National Education Technology Plan? E-School news excerpt begins with "Train every pre-service teacher to teach online in teacher-education programs at colleges and universities; invest in the development of open courseware with federal and state funding; encourage the use of technology to create new forms of assessment that better measure student learning gains; provide national standards for school IT support, with recommendations for optimal staffing levels and required skill sets..." Click to read more.

I really do hope someday in the near future every pre-service teacher will be prepped to teach online. The main challenge of offering any online program is adequate staffing of highly qualified educators. Hence the significance of A'o Kumu and its potential impact on transforming online learning for Hawaiian learners in the State of Hawai'i by first building capacity with our educators within the D.O.E. and charter schools.

Want to share your mana'o with leaders working on the national ed-tech plan? Visit their Web site at: http://edtechfuture.org.

100+ Google Tricks for Teachers

Google is definitely becoming the product of choice for educators. With functions targeted specifically for the education industry supplemented with video tutorials and integration ideas for educators for free (for now), why not?! :) Here's a useful link I thought you'd want to bookmark and also share with our A'o Kumu educators.

Teach Hub's 100+ Google Tricks for Teachers: http://www.teachhub.com/news/article/cat/14/item/323

Google Waving

Guess what I did this weekend?! :) I Google Waved. Lucky Brent received an invitation to a Google Wave account and invited me. He has 20 account invitations, so I'm pressuring him to share the good fortune with our DL 'ohana because we'll definitely appreciate it. I didn't have too much time to explore too much at this point, but I did download the Sudoku extension and played that live with Brent.

I also got lucky the following day receving an invitation directly from Google Wave, but not as blessed as Brent. He got 20 invites to send out but I didn't. :( Nonetheless, I'm very happy to have a Google Wave account to test out.

Brent's Google Over Google Wave blog:
http://brents21stcenturyteachingblog.blogspot.com/2009/11/google-over-google-wave.html

Nice Color Themes for Web design, curriculum development, flyers, etc...

These resource links came through my Google Reader from one of my RSS feeds and I thought it would be good to share with our team since we work on instructional design and curriculum development. These links are also on my delicious site if you'd like to copy them over directly from there.

ColourLovers: http://www.colourlovers.com/palettes/top
Color Schemer: http://www.colorschemer.com/

Parents speak up about schools preparing students for 21st century learning

From the Speak Up survey results released recently on parent perspectives on schools preparing students for 21st century learning, it seems that parents agree with their child(ren) that schools aren't preparing students for 21st century learning and believe that using technology is essential for learning. Interestingly, but not suprising, students have different views on technologies integrated in education. Students prefer mobile devices, games, simulations an collaboration tools (wikis, blogs, etc.) while parents prefer online textbooks and interactive whiteboards.

Report is downloadable off of Blackboard's Web site: http://www.blackboard.com/Solutions-by-Market/K-12/Learn-for-K12/Leadership-Views/Education-in-the-21st-Century.aspx

The Journal article: http://thejournal.com/articles/2009/11/02/are-schools-preparing-students-for-21st-century-learning.aspx

"Message in the Waves"

This video was shared by a classmate in my A'o Makua Mālama 'Āina course and I wanted to pass it along for you to view.



Also, before I forget, I wanted to share these diet and nutrition links to start the list of resources we could reference when we are ready to move forward with our next A'o Makua course focusing on diet and nutrition.

1. Hawai'i Foods (provided by UH, CTAHR) - provides nutritional facts for local and other foods such as loco moco, haupia, kalo, and much more.
   http://www.hawaiifoods.hawaii.edu/learn.asp
2. Cool Food Kidz - a kid-friendly website about nutrition, exercise, and general health.
   http://www.coolfoodplanet.org/gb/kidz/

10.5 Million PreK-12 Students Forecasted to Attend Classes Online by 2014

According to research firm Ambient Insight, more than 2 million preK-12 students currently take online courses (full and part-time) and will increase to 10.5 million by 2014. I was interested in finding out more on the research which contributed to this forecast, but you would need to pay $4,825 for the full report. The executive summary link provided in The Journal article wasn't too useful either. None the less, it's good to know that the trend for online learning will continue to grow rapidly over the next couple of years.

The Journal article link: http://thejournal.com/articles/2009/10/28/10.5-million-prek-12-students-will-attend-classes-online-by-2014.aspx

FETC Fall '09 Virtual Conference

I attended the FETC Fall ’09 Virtual Conference last week Thursday and was impressed with the set up and logistics, given that I was participating in a virtual conference. It reminded me of Second Life, but with much easier navigation tools. You couldn’t fly, but you also couldn’t get lost. :) I especially liked how I could go to different areas as a participant to join a session, visit the presentation booths or go to an area to view archived presentations and download session handouts. Everyone attended synchronously and I could tell there was a lot of interaction going on. The best marketing tie in was that the more you participated virtually, the more points you received and chances to win for prize drawings. It was a good strategy to hook in people to participate actively in a virtual environment.

If you have a chance to view the archives, I would recommend viewing Chris Dede’s presentation on “Three Types of Immersive Interfaces: Implications for Learning and Teaching.” At Harvard University, they have received a lot of grants to exploring new technologies for educational purposes. He mentioned towards the beginning of his presentation that he had purchased a $400,000 3-D virtual technology in the 80s, which is now much cheaper. However, indicated that he knew it would be a trend in the future once the technology became affordable. In today's technology, it looks like Second Life is providing that type of 3-D virtual environment in an affordable way. One new technology he showcased involved using cell phones having an overlay (similar to playing a virtual game when you visit a particular location). He also shared some GPS mapping projects that they had worked on campus a couple years ago.

Sign up to view archived presentations: http://virtual.fetc.org/microsites/fetc-virtual/event-home.aspx

21st Century Skills: What Do They Look Like?

I attended a Webinar last week on this topic and thought I'd share with you a couple of highlights. Brad Flickinger, the presenter, provided real life applications in the classroom tied directly to 21st century skills. A good presentation to view, especially those of us working on development of A'o Kumu, Ke Kumu: 21st Century Technologies and Culture-based Learning.

Brad provided a good summary of 21st century skills for both students and teachers.

• Students: creativity & innovation, research & information fluency, communication & collaboration, critical thinking, problem solving, decision making, digital citizenship, technology operations and concepts
• Teaches: facilitate & inspire student learning and creativity, design & develop digital-age learning experiences & assessments, promote & model digital citizenship & responsibility, engage in professional growth & leadership, model digital-age work & learning

This is something we should definitely look at incorporating into our course development process (maybe in the intro area or minimally a checklist sheet for teachers to incorporate in their electronic portfolio to showcase they have learned these skills?)

One statement that stuck with me and something I totally agree on was when Brad mentioned that the intent for us to focus on 21st century skills is really about students learning skills required of them in the new global economy vs. focusing on learning a specific technology, for example MS Word 2007. Although we would integrate and have students learn MS Word 2007 in the curriculum now, the focus should be on providing them skills to be able to navigate and utilize a word processing software 10,20 years from now, whatever form the technology takes at that time.

He also provided Atomic Learning resources that I felt would be useful for our team to look at. If you haven't checked out Atomic Learning lately, you may want to take a look. There is much more than software tutorials now.

1. 21st century skills projects from Atomic Learning
   http://movies.atomiclearning.com/k12/21st_cs_tutorials/
2. Technology integration projects: lesson accelerators from Atomic Learning
   http://movies.atomiclearning.com/k12/21st_cs_tutorials/

Archived presentation: http://www.media.qualitytech.com/client/new_bay/2009_1008/160453/launch.htm

iNACOL Publishes Standards for K-12 Online Programs

Another milestone for K-12 online learning. This 3rd version of publication on national standards for K-12 online programs incorporates a set of standards program leaders need to assure quality online programs. What a great resource to validate that it takes a lot of effort to offer quality programs, especially as it involves alignment to organizational goals, focused strategic planning, continual program improvement and ongoing professional development of personnel to ensure quality online programs.

The Journal article link: http://thejournal.com/articles/2009/10/06/inacol-publishes-standards-for-k12-online-programs.aspx

Direct link to standards document: http://www.inacol.org/research/nationalstandards/NACOL%20Standards%20Quality%20Online%20Programs.pdf

I think we should integrate the self evaluation form (end of document) into our program planning process and review annually. What do you think? :)

H1N1 and Online Learning? What's the Buzz?

U.S. Dept. of Education, Dept. of Health & Student Services, private industries and International Association for Online Learning (iNACOL) share advice on ensuring how learning can continue admist H1N1 flu outbreak season.

The Journal article: http://thejournal.com/articles/2009/09/22/government-and-private-industry-share-advice-on-how-learning-can-continue-during-flu-outbreak.aspx

Ed Gov Web site: http://www.ed.gov/admins/lead/safety/emergencyplan/pandemic/index.html

Recommendations PDF:
http://www.ed.gov/admins/lead/safety/emergencyplan/pandemic/guidance/continuity-recs.pdf

Who would have thought a couple of years ago that viruses and online learning would be recommended by both government and private industries? Maybe lessons learned from Katrina?

Online Professional Development Cost Saving in the Long Run?

Digital Directions Article: Online Professional Development Weighted as Cost-Saving Tactic

I'll preface by saying that I'm biased, so I definitely think demand for online professional development will increase because schools, districts and states will realize that in addition to providing flexibility for educators who have limited time in their schedules, there are also cost-savings involved.

I particularly liked how this article laid out cost savings by comparing f-2-f and online PD

• Online course: text heavy = $5,000, interactive w/ graphics & video = $30,000
• Day long f-2-f PD for 104 district math teachers = $16,000, substitute teachers = $13,000

I think KSDL should work on a cost analysis for KS. How abut the CBECE Emergency Operations Plan training, which now involves 200+ staff? Pretty easy for online estimated cost since we already have our project sheets set up to track hours it would take to develop an an online course. What do you think the analysis it would look like? I'd estimate that the cost savings would be much bigger because we have teachers on various islands and travel cost itself is probably a big chunk, which doesn't even cover the PD day.

I liked how Michelle Davis ended the article, "Just like online learning isn't for all students, it's not for all teachers either." Doesn't that sound familiar? :)

What do you think about trends for online PD? What about for KS? Looking forward to your thoughts.

21st Century Skills: What Do They Look Like? Webinar

Good one for those of us working on A'o Kumu development of ke kumu, 21st century technologies and culture based learning.

Thursday, October 8 10 am PST / 1 pm EST
Wondering exactly what 21st Century Skills are all about? Trying to determine what steps to take to begin bringing 21st Century Skills into classroom projects? Join this presentation and discussion around 21st Century Skills concepts, examples, and real world advice on how to bring them into the classroom.

More info: http://www.techlearning.com/article/22632

Dorothy's side comments: I was looking for the easy to share function, which they had, but Blogger wasn't on the list. It made me think of another function to include in our revamped tribe house. Kelly, sorry, too lazy to post again in your blog site. Could you note it down? Mahalo.

Did You Know 4.0 (designed by XPLANE) on YouTube

Today, I thought I'd share this video below, which is the latest edition of the popular "Did You Know" presentation.

Testing Audio Pal

Want to try it out yourself? http://www.audiopal.com.

Google Links...

After reading about several Google initiatives from various sources, I thought it would be a good topic for me to blog about.

1. Google Books - Google settles lawsuit with the Authors Guild, the Association of American Publishers and a handful of authors and publishers. See what's coming up in the future. http://books.google.com/googlebooks/agreement/
2. Google Lit - an online project that combines the satellite imagery of Google Earth with the instructional goals of literature study http://www.edutopia.org/economic-stimulus-education-technology-new-york
3. Google Apps Education - free email and collaboration tools for educational institutions, including infrastructure options (probably will have costs attached in the future) http://www.google.com/a/help/intl/en/edu/index.html
4. Google Wave - want to be the first 100,000 to try beginning Sept. 30? Sign up at http://wave.google.com/

Any other Google products you use that is worth mentioning?

A Vision of K-12 Students Today

I enjoyed watching this video on You Tube. How about you?

$125,000 Base Salary for Teachers

In September, the Equity Charter School in New York will be opening their doors to 120 5th graders, many from low-income Hispanic neighborhoods and low academic scores. The school's philosophy is based upon the belief that the most important factor in achieving educational equity for low income students is to invest in attracting and retaining teaches. By doing this, they hope to acheive success. All teachers will earn a base salary of $125,000 with an annual bonus up to $25,000. Their operating budget will be based upon per student allocation and they plan to save money on support staff. In exchange for high salaries, they will be assuming additional administrative roles, working from 8-6 p.m., subbing for each other and spending summers on professional development. Many eduation and policymakers will be tracking this school closely.

Read more about this at ABC News, http://abcnews.go.com/US/Story?id=8436814&page=1

What do you think about teachers being paid $125,000 salary in exchange for additional responsibilities while ensuring student success? Looking forward to your thoughts.

Study Finds That Online Education Beats the Classroom

A pretty catchy title for an online article published by the New York Times...I received an email from Aaron linking to this article, which referenced a 93-page report on online education, conducted by SRI International for the Department of Education.

Although the report is somewhat long, what I found interesting was their approach to this research. They did a systematic search of the research literature from 1996 through July 2008, which identified over 1,000 empirical studies of online learning. After screening for the following, a meta-analysis was done:

1. contrasted an online to a face-to-face condition
2. measured student learning outcomes
3. used a rigorous research design
4. provided adequate information to calcuate and effect size

The result of the meta-analysis found that, on average, students in online learning conditions performed better than those receiving face-to-face instruction.

Kudos to those involved in this research. Although I'm not a researcher myself, it was eye-opening for me to read through how they conducted the meta-analysis and some of the key findings like "Instruction combining online and face-to-face elements had a larger advantage relative to purely face-to-face instruction than did purely online instruction."

Another thought that came through my mind was that if the researchers only compiled and analyzed literature searches of other studies, there might be a bias towards online learning because only mainly those in the DL field would be more prone to work on publishing online research studies. Nonetheless, I still think this study is definitely a big step forward for those of us who have seen first hand how powerful online education can be when done right and are advocates of online education.

Indigenous Health, Walls Of Silence, Kamehameha Schools…

Did you know that we're being blogged about in Australia? :)

KSDL was highlighted in an article in "The Australian" by Ernest Hunter titled Walls of Silence Fail Them, which was followed up by the Pigs Will Fly: The Can Do community blog by Gail Plowman titled Indigenous Health, Walls of Silence, Kamehameha Schools...

It sure feels good to know that what we do is being cited and referred to as a model for other indigenous populations. What a nice way to start the work week, especially after reconnecting to Princess Pauahi's mission last week through our divisional huaka'i to Mauna 'Ala and the Hertiage Center. I'm interested in your thoughts as you read through Gail's blog. Please comment when you have a chance.

I was inspired as I read her blog because I know there is so much more we can and should do to service our Hawaiian learners. We've all worked hard to build a strong foundation. Now it's a matter of strategically planning how we expand our services to increase our impact and reach into our communities....imua.

Correct Pronunciation of Roadways & Place Names

I thought I'd share today's 'Āha'i 'Ōlelo Ola segment, thinking that it would probably be a useful segment to post as a course announcement or link as resource (especially our A'o Makua courses). Puakea, who's interviewed in our owau blog video on Princess Ruth is also featured in this one.

Mobile Learning Gaining Steam

Blackboard's announcement of their acquisition of TerriblyClever Design, a mobile application developer for education is an interesting one. It looks like mobile learning is gaining steam in the education field now in the U.S. Hopefully we'll see more successful case studies in the near future. I remember seeing examples during a conference a couple of years ago highlighting Japanese students integrating mobile learning, but haven't seen too much since.
http://www.blackboard.com/Company/MobilEdu.aspx

I follow Judy Brown on Twitter (judyb) just to keep in touch with the current trends for mobile learning, but haven't dived into exploring too much. She's a great resource for this topic.

Coincidentally, I saw an email come through today with Edweek.org sponsoring a free Webinar.
Title: Cellphones as Instructional Tools
Time: Thursday, July 23, 4-5 p.m., Eastern time
Registration Link

Thoughts on the future of mobile learning for K-12?

Ed Images and Videos

Here are two feeds I thought were interesting from the Free Technology for Teachers blog.

• The World Images Kiosk - 75,000 images
  San Jose State University did a really good job with their database. Click on the California Ed Standards link and you'll see they even linked up images to use for benchmarks. Now if they could do one for Hawai'i, that would be awesome.
  http://www.freetech4teachers.com/2009/07/world-images-kiosk-75000-images.html
• Skype Explained Visually
  Too bad we don't use Skype with our DL learners anymore. Otherwise, this would be a great video to integrate. I also looked at the Common Craft videos and thought these would be good resources to keep in mind.
  http://www.freetech4teachers.com/2009/07/skype-explained-visually.html

Google Wave in 10 minutes

I know many of you didn't have a chance to view the 90 minute Google Wave video link I provided earlier, so here's another link I found during my blog scans this AM. Looking forward to seeing what happens after Google Wave is released.

http://christytucker.wordpress.com/2009/06/23/google-wave-in-10-minutes/

The Kemp & Other ID Models

Have you heard about the Kemp Model for instructional design? It sounds similar to Dick & Carey, but shows a non-linear model which also incorporates project management and support services in the outer rim. Michael Hanley, in his blog, indicates that it describes a holistic approach to instructional design that considers all factors in the environment. http://elearningcurve.blogspot.com/2009/06/discovering-instructional-design-11.html

Apparently, there are quite a few other ID models. These weren't covered when I was in ETEC, but I think they're all fairly similar in concept/theory using ADDIE as the base foundation. Personally, I think it was good for myself to have learned Dick & Carey because that provided me with background to better understand these other models. Here's another link from the same blog towards the bottom in the reference link.

http://www.effectperformance.com/sites/prestera/html/M4/L1 - ISD/M4L1P1.htm

Interested in hearing your thoughts, especially our IDs. :)

Aviary & Leadership Food for Thought

I saw the Aviary link from another blog post a couple of days ago, but have been busy with annual reporting, so I'm catching up now and wanted to share with you this link. This Web browser screen capture tool, Aviary, is free and you don't even need to install any type of application. Simply type "Aviary.com/" in front of the URL after http:// in your browser! I don't think it works for all pages, depending on the URL you're at, but I'm thinking it comes in pretty handy, especially when you're on a computer with no pre-installed screen capture software.
http://aviary.com/

This morning, the link "What Makes a Tech Leader" grabbed my attention and the post from Tech and Learning blog staff was a nice read for an early morning. I felt inspired after reading his thoughts and I hope you will too. Continuing to learn more everyday...
http://www.techlearning.com/blogs/21840

NECC 2009 Videos from Digital Directions

For those of us who aren't able to attend NECC 2009, you can take a look at these video snippets to gain some insight from ed tech leaders. I enjoyed viewing Susan Kirkpatrick, Chris Dede and the high tech field trip videos.

http://www.edweek.org/dd/collections/videos/necc09.html

The Story of Kamehameha's Birth, KGMB

This came in through my Twitter feed this morning from KGMB 9. Reminded me of the Kamehameha I DVD Curriculum Support & Dissemination worked with us on. Maybe something to pull into A'o Makua announcements?
http://kgmb9.com/main/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=18747&Itemid=173

Ten Ways To Get Beyond Powerpoint With Classroom Projectors

A quick read. When I read this, I was thinking about our A'o Kumu program (for educators). A good resource to include for our teachers working with students in the classroom? http://techlearning.com/article/17198#

KSDL Twitter @ 100 Followers

It's been almost 3 months since we've began Tweeting and we're at 100 followers now. :) Hmm...wondering what we should do next to find out more from our community followers to engage in interactive dialogue via Twitter.

Google Wave Video Showcasing Interface to Developers

As a follow up to my former Google Wave post from the eCampus article earlier, I saw this blog site with the link to a video showcasing the interface from Google PMs assigned to the project. I haven't finished watching the video yet, it's a long one, but thought I'd share the link with you before I forget to blog about it. Well worth watching.

http://leekraus.blogspot.com/2009/05/google-wave-as-learning-tool.html

New Online Word Processor by Adobe: Adobe Buzzword Beta

Brent sent me an email to take a look at Adobe's new online word processor, Buzzword, so I thought I'd share. Thanks Brent. :)

When browsing through the features, it reminded me of Google docs. I haven't tried it out yet, but if you do, please let me know. It's in beta right now, so it'll be interesting to see whether or not they'll attach a price tag on it in the future.

http://www.adobe.com/acom/buzzword/

Adobe Connect Best Practices Resources

I just exited out of a webinar and had my first experience of having Adobe Connect dial my telephone to connect me for the audio portion. It was similar to an audio conference call where I could speak anytime and I was also given the option to mute myself via phone as well.

Several useful resources were shared:

1. Best Practices for Webinars http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobatconnectpro/webconferencing/pdfs/Best_Practices_for_Webinars_v4_FINAL.pdf


2. Best Practices for using Adobe Connect Pro VoIP http://www.connectusers.com/tutorials/2009/03/voip_best_practices/


3. Capturing and Encoding Video for Use in Connect Pro Meeting http://www.connectusers.com/tutorials/2008/12/video_best_practices_in_meetings/index.php

The Various Roles of Instructional Design

I found this blog post an interesting read. I remember when I graduated with an Ed Tech degree, there were rarely any job postings for instructional designers. I was having such a hard time explaining to others, including my parents, what I did. :) With so much going on in eLearning, now there are IDs within so many organizations (academic & business).

http://jonathansid.blogspot.com/2009/06/various-roles-of-instructional-design.html

Google Wave, Emerging From Google Later This Year

eCampus News Article, June 8, 2009

Google Wave has great potential for education. New online collaborative tool combines eMail, instant messaging, and file sharing in a dynamic environment. The company says the free feature is "a new model for communication and collaboration on the web." Google Wave runs in a web browser and combines elements of eMail, instant messaging, wikis, and photo sharing in an attempt to make online communication more dynamic. Click on link above to read more.

Audio Recording Tip

Here's an Audacity tip I picked up from a Webinar today. Record your audio at:
􀂃 16 Bit
􀂃 44.1KHz
􀂃 Mono
􀂃 WAV

Royalty free music: http://www.royaltyfreemusic.com/

NOAA's New Online Estuary Game

eSchool News article: June 1, 2009

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Ocean Service has unveiled a new online educational game called “WaterLife: Where Rivers Meet the Sea.” Developed through a partnership with Montgomery College’s Computer Gaming and Simulation program in cooperation with NOAA’s National Estuarine Research Reserve System, the web-based game provides science instruction for students in grades 4-7 through a series of challenges and animations. The game occurs inside the ecosystem of an estuary on the West Coast of the United States. Following a young girl named Valerie, players interact with Oscar the sea otter and the fictional Claminator, a geoduck clam. To succeed, players must learn about the factors that produce healthy estuaries, food webs, and why estuaries are essential to both ocean life and humans. During the course of the game, students recycle and clean up trash, remove obstructions in waterways, replant the habitat to bring back food webs, and battle pollution monsters to restore Oscar’s home. http://games.noaa.gov