Reflections on my project:

This semester long project has been a “growing” experience for me. This project not only gave me different insight into implementing technology in higher education setting with adult learners but I also successfully mastered the Google Page Creator tool. I faced with number of difficulties including having to change the tool from new e-portfolio tool to be implemented at Lehigh to this free online tool from Google. I think this is an eye opening experience for me or anyone else who is working in this field. In reality instructional technology projects are very much like many other information technology projects and hence there are very few projects that are implemented on time and with-in the budget.

Another important learning experience for me in this project was dealing with adult learners especially student teachers. I working with student teachers is as challenging as in-service teachers. May it is something to do with the name “Teacher”. As teachers most of us still feel that we should be an authoritarian and be always in control of our learning as well as classroom. Both as a technology student and teacher, I came to understand the important of trusting technology and using them like the way adolescent students would. Unless we, teachers or adults try it that way, we will always be two generations behind the technological development and instructional technology will not succeed in schools.

This project also taught me a lot about e-portfolios and this will be one of the area I will continue my research. Hopefully, after I graduate, I will be able to help the pre-service teachers in Maldives to create their online portfolios.

Comment on Classmates project:

Discusses a classmate’s project that you found particularly interesting and that you’d like to learn more about. Perhaps you liked the technologies involved, or you thought the application of the technology to the learning goal was especially creative, or you thought interesting issues arose during the implementation.

I liked Tim’s project because he was able to really get the teacher and students participation. Also he had the opportunity to continue with his field project and get it supported by school principal. Its is these kind of projects or endeavors that are likely to be successful and adopted in schools as there is backing from influential people in the school. According to Tim he worked on what the teacher wanted and gave her suggestion as to how other technologies will be of use for the task. I feel this is a better approach than those teachers who expect everything from technology person because teacher is also playing an important part in the project and therefore will be more likely to be motivated to work for its success.

This is a fascinating video from Introduction to Cultural Anthropology class at Kansas State University, Spring 2007. It shows what exactly students do these days and how some student experiences are changing.

There are some socking findings from this study which was compiled using a Google Doc with 367 edits by 200 collaborators. Here are some of the stats from 133 students surveyed:

• “My average class size is 115.”
• “18% of my teachers know my name.”
• I complete 49% of the readings assigned to me. Only 26% … relative to my life
• I will read 8 books this year.” “2300 web pages” “and 1281 facebook profiles”
• “I will write 42 pages for class this semester.” “And over 500 pages of email

I am not sure what happened to my original post on this weeks activities . I think I have overwritten the post and I am no longer able to see it in my blog. Also this was the post I tried to test the “trackbacks” feature. I am sure I was able to post it and send track backs to class blog but I am not sure what happened after that.  Here is what I think I did during this week.

I emailed Dr. Bishop requesting details of possible projects that I can work on. As usual she immediately replied with all the details and suggestions for me. I decided to work on producing tutorials on how to use the new e-portfolio system. These tutorials will be used by teacher ed students in Dr. Waddel’s class.

I forced myself to start working on the project because I need to submit  initial draft of project documentation. I am not very sure if all what I do at this point can be of use in future. I am still doubtful of the new custom made e-portfolio system. If its not ready in another two weeks time, I may have to work with Lifang to create tutorials , for Dr. Waddel’s  teacher ed students, on creating student portfolio’s using available resources at Lehigh( designing Websites using HTML editor and uploading to Lehigh server space).

As of new e-portfolio system , at this moment , I am unable to log-in with my Lehigh user name since the system only allows user names with four characters only.   I am expecting to get a temporary log-in name and password from IT-team, so that I can test the system.

Also last week, Dr. Hammond emailed both of us( me and Lifang ) with  detailed information on how he expect things to happen. He also gave us some important documents to get a sense of existing level of instructional materials and students capabilities.

Here is a one minute podcast I created on Jing, another cool product from TechSmith, the makers of Camtasia and SnagIt. download the file here.

The University of Denver eportfolio implementation at Lehigh is another major project that is currently in the testing stage. I believe this will be very useful for college of education as well the college of business and at other colleges. As a student instructional technology program, I have seen some of my classmates struggling to design and upload their personal portfolio Websites. The eportfolio has tools and features that makes the task of creating a portfolio Website easier and simpler. It focuses on the content rather than on the technology. This means creating a portfolio is very easy as it does not require knowledge of HTML or web development packages.

This eportfolio system is also used at Florida International University (FIU) and I had the opportunity to listen to one of the team member from FIU. From the discussion and conference call with Lauren Wass of FIU, I found that they faced several challenges during their implementation and there are some issues still to be solved. These are similar to issues related to implementation of an open-source software as there may not be too much support available. The eportfolio project is taking hours and days to troubleshoot and customize according to the needs. This is one of the major drawbacks of such a project.

One particular question I had in mind was on the future of this product, if University of Denver stops their development. I had a long conversation with Jason from College of Business on these issues. He told me that this was discussed and the legal issues has been sorted and put on fine print to ensure Lehigh will be able to use the product even if University of Denver stops their development.

Good News..

George from IT Team told everyone during the team meeting on last Thursday that he was able to setup and use the system with few problems. The issue of authenticating users using the banner and customizing all the other features will be the next major challenges.

Access to a K12 classroom:

I don’t have access and need help getting matched up with a teacher. I am interested working with a high school teacher. Also I am not very sure what I may be able to do for a project at this point in time since I am not very familiar with the curriculum and schools.

Brainstorming for a project

I am interested in a project using a wiki for a collabrative learning experience. I found great tool named xtimeline . This tool allows creation of a timeline on a subject, and let others to contribute to it as well. This works much like Wikipedia where multiple users can add information to an ongoing project.

Welcome to shameem’s TBTE 415 blog.
I hope you will enjoy reading my comments on the course “Technology in School Settings” that I am taking at Lehigh University. You are welcome to add comments on any of posts.