Wi Fi School Buses

One school district has extended the school day by equipping a school bus with wi fi access and laptops. So far, the project is working well for this Arizona school district, where students have bus rides of over an hour each way. This same school system, which is outside of Tuscon, AZ, has also replaced textbooks with e-books. One spokesperson for the federal Dept. of Education has indicated the experiment is part of a wider effort to extend the school day. The company that manufactures the routers to equip school buses with the laptops already has contracts out with school systems in Florida, Missouri, and DC. Wonder how long it will be before the idea catches on in other places. To read more about this method for extending the school day, check this New York Times Article: Wi-Fi Turns Rowdy Bus Into Rolling Study Hall.

Photo credit & information : http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/12/education/12bus.html?hp Joshua Lott for The New York Times
Jerod Reyes, left, and Dylan Powell use their bus's Wi-Fi to do homework on their way to school.

Parody of Classroom Technology Usage

Recently, students at The University of Denver produced a video parodying the integration of technology into the classroom. Yesterday's The Chronicle of Higher Education carried an article about the creation of this video and embedded the video into the article. Check out the article in Wired Campus: "Class Produces Parody of 'The Office' to Highlight Challenges of Teaching With Technology." Let us know what you think of the content of the parody, the remarks found in the article, and blog postings following the article.

I've embedded the video here in event that you want to view it before reading the article. Enjoy! Remember the video is a rendition of students' parodying teaching with technology. What solutions can you bring away from their parody? Why do you think the students invested time in making the video? Why would the prestigious, well-read The Chronicle of Higher Education include an article of this kind and the video parody? Why do you think a decision was made to not only report that students made the video, but to also post the video?

Digital Textbook Initiative Enters Phase II

Last year, Governor Schwarzenegger of California initiated a digital textbook plan, and the process began for implementation of digital books in science and math classes. This year, as the initiative reaches phase two, the push is for adding social studies and extending the number of online resources to meet a variety of math and science content areas. Check the Digital Education Blog, “California Expands Digital Textbook Initiative.” In Phase I, teachers reviewed online textbooks for alignment with the state curriculum standards. The report, Digital Textbooks, Phase Two, sponsored by California Learning Resource Network, provides links to the state standards and the process for submitting suggested resources for review.

For background on the topic, read the earlier Digital Education blog, California Faces a Curriculum Crisis, as well as a number of blogs posted to “Computers in the Classroom” about digital textbooks. (See below for a list of three of these blogs.)

As California is often a forerunner in reform, do you think the concept of digital textbooks will spread to other states? One respondent to the Digital Education blog California Expands Digital Textbook Initiative wonders if New Jersey will follow California’s lead. What about other states, or do you think the initiative should be a national one?

What do you see as the pros and cons of digital textbooks? Do you think the shift to online books is inevitable? If so, what do we, as educators, need to do get prepared? What are the pedagogical benefits, the financial factors, and other variables to consider?

Here are three other blogs on "Computers in Classroom" that I have posted on the topic of digital textbooks:
"Textbook Graveyard" (September 16, 2009)
"Digital Media Replace Standard Textbooks" (August 9, 2009)
"No More Paper Textbooks" (May 30, 2009)

For some public, local opinion on the initiatives in California, check the "Sacramento Scoop," from which the graphics in this blog was obtained: Governor Schwarzenegger Wants School Textbooks To Go Digital.

Vooks In the Classroom and Beyond

Books with pop-up videos create a new reading experience, and are finding their way into schools. Called Vooks (Video+Books=Vooks) can be read on computers, iphones, iPods, and online. While some experts contend that Vooks, multimedia books, are necessary to lure young readers accustomed to working interactively, others fear the new format forebodes the end of the reading experience as we once knew it. In addition to video feeds, social network tools are also finding intertwined with Vooks.

For instance, HarperCollins has added to its young adult mystery series "The Amanda Project" (check it out) the opportunity for readers to discuss plot hints with one another via an online discussion group, and plans to incorporate readers' comments into character and plot development in future books, making young readers collaborators in the authoring of the book.

The verdict on books with video clips, social networkings features, music loops, and other embedded media is mixed. Read more about the possibilities and responses to it at this article from the Oct.1, 2009 New York Times: "Curling Up with Hybrid Books, Video Included." Within 24 hours, the article had over 100 comments posted. Check the comment section after reading the article to see how readers have responded to the news. Also, check E.W.com's article, video included, at: "What is a Vook and Will It Change the Way You Read?"

What do you see as the potential of Vooks in the educational setting? Will Vooks be welcomed in schools? What do you think will be the reaction of educational reading experts? Some are quoted in the New York Times article. Do you believe that hybrid books are a wave of the future that educators can't deny and need to embrace?

Image from theamandaproject.com

Textbook Graveyard

If you did not catch this ABC broadcast ipods, Laptops Replace Textbooks, check it out now. It is a continuation of at least two other blogs I have posted about the inevitable fate of textbooks as we know them today. The article got me thinking: when was the last time I used a textbook for teaching Computers in the Classroom? I can’t recall every using one, but maybe I did in the age before the Internet was pervasive. What’s to be gained by forsaking textbooks? Do we need them? Some schools have already gone textbook-free and at least one school outside of Boston is dismantling its conventional library, giving away its book collection. For those who argue that placing the technology in the hands of school children will be too costly, what about the costs of textbooks themselves that need to be furnished for the full school population and go out of date? Check the article Schools Dump Textbooks for iPods and Laptops. Is it time to dump the textbooks.

In fact, here is another article that I just came across today, Books Face Extinction as High Schools Go High Tech. It seems every day I am finding another press release on the demise of the printed page. We can't escape the fact. As teachers, how can we prepare ourselves for the inevitable? Historically, people clamoured and resisted the invention of the printing press. Are we facing another revolution in the way we communicate?

Take the time to read and study both the articles mentioned, and note that you are doing your reading online, not in print. Are you spending more time nowadays reading online or in print? Even if our students are ready for the conversion, are we as teachers willing and ready to shift our teaching strategies?

Digital Media Replace Standard Textbooks

Two months ago, on May 30, I posted a blog about California schools going green and phasing out textbooks. Now the trend has gone national, and it is not just a matter of textbooks losing their value, but the technology invigorating the curriculum in ways that textbooks simply cannot. In Vail, Arizona, at the Empire High School, students go online to access lessons, complete homework, and listen to teacher podcasts. In the same district, at Cinega High, students retrieve via the Web English, history, and science lessons.

Check out Beyond Textbooks to learn how teachers share online lessons, post PowerPoints presentations and videos, and share links to Internet resources. With students wired 24/7, the push for online technologies in educational arena is natural. Students are regularly using social networking sites, iPods, blogs, wikis, and a host of other interactive tools. Rather than buck the trend, teachers need to embrace technology's promise. Although not all students have access to smartphones and iPods, grants and government sources will with time put mobile technologies into the hands of those who cannot purchase these soon-to-be basic instructional supplies.

In California, where adoption of a textbook is traditionally statewide affair, Pearson publishers has submitted four options for its flexbooks, online supplements to textbooks. In a August 8, 2009 New York Times article, reporter Tamar Levin wrote educators believe "it will not be long before [textbooks] are replaced by digital versions—or supplanted altogether by lessons assembled from a wealth of free courseware, educational games, videos, and projects on the web.”

How soon do you believe textbooks will be antiquated? Are you ready for a shift to digital, interactive learning environments in lieu of flat-page textbooks? What advantages do you envision in interactive technologies supplanting standard textbooks?

Photo credit: Heidi Schumann for The New York Times with caption: "In California, high school interns try out digital "flexbooks" created by the CK-12 Foundation." Information in this post taken from Tamar Levin's article "As Classroom Go Digital, Textbooks May Become History." Second photo from the Beyond Textbooks site.

No More Paper Textbooks

Free digital textbooks hit California Schools. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger announced plans for digital math and science for the 2009-2010 school year. Faced with budget woes, it is not surprising that the Gov. opted for the change. Schwarzenegger sees the plan as way to encourage collaboration among school districts. Plans call for compiling a list of digital textbooks aligned to state standards. A few questions come to mind: Will digital textbooks improve student learning? Are teachers ready for the change? Will digital textbooks be more up-to-date than regular ones? How soon can we expect most textbooks to be digitalized? To find out more about digital textbooks, read this article in Curriculum Matters, California Going Digital with Math, Science Textbooks. What do you see as the pros and cons of textbook moving to the digital format?

The End of Books as We Know Them

Kindle books already available speak to the possibility that in the near future, books as we know them might be a palm away. In a palm-size computer device, thousands of books are available, readily accessible, readily organized, and ready to end the clutter of home and office bookcases.

What do you believe the future of books online will mean for education K-12? We already use the Internet to access information from online databases, limiting our need to find magazine, newspaper, and journal articles on the shelves of libraries, unless libraries are conceived of as virtual spaces and no longer as physical spaces within the school building or the local community.

To learn about Kindle books, which are just the tip of the iceberg, dive into this New York Times article, assuming a password log-in does not lock you out. If it does, do an online search to find out about Kindle books or e-books, or try this link to another New York Times article featured on Feb. 26th, A Walk Through A Crop of Readers

Be sure to post your comments on this controversial topic. Remember that when Guttenberg invented the printing press, people of his time mocked his innovation. Online e-books seem hardly as revolutionary, but are they? Do you think they will be the innovation of the future? Will they end the clutter of personal book collections? Will they mean the end of libraries and bookstores as we know them today? What advantages do e-books offer? What disadvantages? Is the onslaught of technological books inevitable?

Here are the URLs for both the articles referenced in the post.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/06/technology/internet/06google.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/26/technology/personaltech/26basics.html?scp=3&sq=Kindle%20Books&st=Search

credit for image: last URL provided above