What is the state of Ed 2.0?

Monday, November 30th, 2009

Lightspeed Systems and netTrekker recently sponsored a survey to determine which Ed 2.0 tools schools are using and why. You can download the full report (Safe Schools in Web 2.0 World), but I’d like to share a few key findings here.

The most often cited reasons for adopting Web 2.0 technologies were:

  1. learning needs,
  2. engaging student interest, and
  3. increasing students’ options for access to teaching and learning.

Districts are at different stages of use and adoption of different Web 2.0 technologies. Several examples follow.

Online communication with parents and students and multimedia resources are used by many teachers, and most districts have plans/policies that promote their use. Use of video and incorporation of media are frequent occurrences in large districts.

Teacher-generated online content is used by a significant number of teachers. Almost half of the districts have plans/policies that promote the use of this technology, and more districts are considering their plans/policies related to it. Based on this, it seems likely that teacher-generated online content will be an important area of growth. District technology leaders value sharing of teacher-generated online content as a way of sharing expertise and not having to constantly “reinvent the wheel.”

Student use of virtual learning environments (including online courses) was uncommon on the part of teachers in most districts. Almost half of the districts reported that very few or no teachers use this technology, while only one-fourth of the districts indicated that about half or more of their teachers currently use it. However, more than one-third of the districts have plans/policies that promote the use of this technology, and more districts are considering their plans/policies related to it. Based on this, it seems likely that student use of virtual learning environments will be an area of growth.

Online social networking as part of instruction is used by very few teachers, and many districts’ policies don’t allow use of this technology. Key barriers to adoption appear to be:

  • lack of teacher knowledge/professional development,
  • concerns about student safety and security,
  • lack of time, and
  • insufficient access to technology.

You can access the full report here.

Hope this information helps frame the issue for you. Anything too surprising?
Joel

Posted in 21st Century Learning, Ed 2.0, Policy Research | Comments Off

Social Media – What is the school’s responsibility?

Monday, November 16th, 2009

Karl Fisch posted an interesting discussion regarding the role of schools in promoting social media use.  Consistent with many discussions of this topic in which we have participated, the flow of the issue is something like this:

1. Should we encourage social media use by students?

Yes! – for lots of reasons. Our students are already immersed in social media privately, and will be professionally, so they need to learn to use it effectively and responsibly. These tools are great for promoting project-based learning, collaboration, etc. Engagement! Engagement! Engagement!

2. BUT – if the school provides the tool, assigns the use of the tool, or in some other way encourages its use by students – is the school responsible for the content created, student actions, etc.?

Our friend Bud the Teacher is essentially arguing no – part of the learning responsibility is the freedom of the students to use the tools, etc. Karl is not so sure, concluding…

Transparency and community building by teachers, schools and districts is something I very much support, and I think what St. Vrain is doing is very compelling and very interesting, but I also think it’s uncharted territory and there are some pretty complicated issues involved. This is a really important conversation to have, so I’d love to hear your thoughts on this.

Ditto! We believe the vast majority of customers – today – believe they own the responsibility to monitor and control content and behavior if they have provided, encouraged, or required use of the tools. We may move to a more Scandinavian model eventually – but that certainly seems to be the norm today.

SO – we have some very interesting product development work underway attempting to marry access to tools, encourage collaboration, etc., with easy-to-use-and-enforce integration of existing AUP and filtering policies. We’ll have an actual product to test in January, but for a sneek peak, see my short “talking head” overview of the concept.

We remain very interested in any feedback you may have.

Joel

Posted in 21st Century Learning, filtering | 2 Comments »

Linux Content Filtering on the March?

Monday, November 9th, 2009

Chris Dawson recently posted about the use of Linux devices–and the need for a kid-safe version.

The entire post is very interesting, but here is a summary of this piece of the discussion:

Edubuntu, combined with easily customized skins, pointing to IBM cloud-based proxies for content filtering, and secure replication of user data and filtering profiles, all wrapped in an easily deployed virtual machine. Call it Ubuntu Kidsafe, Safebuntu, Parentbuntu, or whatever you want. However, if you’ve tested Ubuntu 9.10, then you know that Ubuntu One (built into the latest Ubuntu) does a nice job of replicating documents to the cloud. The Ubuntu Kidsafe idea is an easy extension of this technology.

Here at Lightspeed Systems – we have a slightly different take.

In a nutshell, watch our main site (if you are a customer or a Linux in education user), as we will be releasing a Linux mobile filter soon. It, like our PC and Mac versions, integrates fully with our gateway software to enforce your local policies, AUP, etc., where ever the student or staff laptop goes. We’ve designed it this way because most of our customers feel that the responsibility for filtering school-issued devices rests with the school, not the parent. Further, it seems easier for IT to manage if policies are simply integrated with the existing, on-site filtering solution.

Parents can get similar protection by pointing a home computer at our hosted filter for free . Details at: www.lightspeedguide.com.

Just an FYI on the product front -  back to policy next time.

Joel

Posted in 1:1 Mobile, filtering | Comments Off

How do we best resolve safety-access tradeoffs?

Monday, November 2nd, 2009

Safety – Access Balance

“We have teachers who want to use the internet for all kinds of content and experiences for our students, but we have tech coordinators who are locking down our networks. What do we do about that?”
Kathleen Barnhart (Illinois Board of Education)

Finding the balance between safety and optimum instructional experiences is rapidly becoming one of the toughest issues in education.

Barnhart asked the question at a forum provided by the State Educational Technology Directors Association (SETDA), and she posed it to Aneesh Chopra, White House Chief Technology Officer, and Jim Shelton, the Assistant Secretary for Innovation and Improvement at the US Department of Education. Both had interesting answers.

Chopra, who served in a similar role for the Governor of Virginia and worked with the Virginia Department of Education on a number of projects, noted, “The typical role of the IT leader in an organization is cost management of decisions around procurement, etc, and it is really about risk mitigation.” He went on to say that you always will want the “lock the network down” voice, but you also want someone who will say ‘there are ways to involve students and content from the internet’ and you get those people to work it out.

Shelton’s answer paralleled that of Chopra. He said, “It is incumbent on all of us to create the environment in which people can take a little risk.”

Good idea – how do we actually do that?

Joel

Posted in 21st Century Learning, Ed 2.0, Policy Research, Web 2.0 in Schools, compliance, filtering | Comments Off