Well I must admit, the orientation session of the masters program had me a little frustrated...with technology of all things. For example, to make things easier for the school to run, all teachers have a phone in their room with an extension number. That very tool, the extension number, made it too hard for Louis to include me in the conference call. Add to that the time delay I experienced in the video and audio and I was left me holding my head in my hands thinking that this was going to be a long program.
However, after a week of thinking and getting myself organized, last night's first class in WiZiQ had me very excited. I'm still battling some technology issues (I'll discuss in a bit...) but have a much better outlook with how easy it was to be a part of the class. As far as my expectations for ME-IT, I've been looking forward to understanding some of the lingo my colleagues at school are using.
Even more than that I'd like to use some of the technology to collaborate with other classes/teachers in the building as well as allowing my students to collaborate. In the block schedule, it's sometimes very hard to get any cross-curricular projects going but I've already been thinking about using GoogleDocs between teachers to create lessons and allow students to work together. An example would be having my science students run a lab and collect their data, organizing it into tables in GoogleDocs, then having a math class studying statistics analyze the data for us and add their analysis to the document. After my students use this analysis to formulate their conclusion, I'd like to have a technical writing class edit that work. This sharing of information could be accomplished without any face time between the classes and without (hopefully) much difficulty. Another area in which I'd like to use GoogleDocs would be when students in my class are working on projects together. Right now, we email attachments back and forth between students and I'd like to see the use of GoogleDocs for ease of collaboration.
Thinking about how to set up GoogleDocs and the article about how to set up a blog got me thinking about the issues with child safety in school while accessing the internet. How do we balance those concerns with decent access? Right now, I can unblock certain sites for up to 15 minutes at a time, but this can limit what is to be accomplished.
This is where the technology issues I mentioned above are cropping up. Because I live in the northwoods, I am unable to get broadband at home. So, I travel to school to participate in class (the coffee shops, etc. all close by 5 or 6pm in the winter and the library closes at 6 or 7pm.) But while working at school, I am subject to the internet filter and what categories have been deemed "access denied". In order to prevent students from publishing personal information on line while at school, all social networking sites (like Ning) are blocked. That means that I've been blocked too.
Hence my frustration...but enough about that, the curriculum/technology director at the school and I have been chatting about it. (You'll know if the conversations aren't going well because you'll see me at the local Dairy Queen which I believe has WiFi and is open past 8pm - either that or I'll ask a local hotel to let me sit in their lobby on Tuesday nights!)
What I really want to know is "How cool is it to just log on at home and take part in class?"
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Ann, I must admit the ability to access the class from home is truly wonderful and I feel for you that you can not. I personally have always been someone who would rather work from home as opposed to seating in a classroom. I'm pretty sure I have severe adult on-set ADHD so the more I have going on around me the better I seem to focus. Well at least it keeps me out of my own head. As for your connection issues, I'm sure you've thought of these and maybe none of them work, however, in case you haven't you might think about looking into a mobil broadband card through a cell provider. I'm not sure if you get cellular service where you are but the cards I've used in the past have always worked really well even when I couldn't get service with my phone. Also if you have to go through school, your IT should be able to set-up a stand alone network for you to access that would allow for you to have a block free access. I just put in a new lab in my classroom and actually have all 18 computers on a seperate network. Being a drafting teacher we are sending and receiving 1,000's of kb of info/sec so rather than slow the schools network I work off a seperate network. It really wasn't too difficult for the IT to set-up and though it has some hassles with the student access, I overcome that by using a program that allows me to view all the students computers from my computer and this greatly reduces their ability to get away with things. In addition, the IT guy should be able to create a second administrative account for you that would allow you to overcome the blocks. I know the IT guys hate giving up some power, but I would think that for this he/she may make an exception. The IT person should be able to still identify and track what you are doing so I can't see it as being a huge security issue but then again I'm not an IT. Again, I'm sure you have looked extensively into what you can do to rectify the issue but hopefully you will find the solution. Come join the rest of us in the lap of luxury. It's GREAT!!!!!!!!!!!!
ReplyDeleteHi Ann, I do feel for you on the technology issues. Most of what we are doing thus far is very new to me and I have experienced challenges too. The lack of internet access has not been a problem for me, but I too experienced some filtering problems at school. I can access hi-speed at home, but maybe you can talk to your technology coordinator about reducing the blocks and filters on your computer at school so that you can work from there. I know my tech coordinator can give me unlimited, unfiltered access to my office computer at school if I needed it so maybe you can do the same. good luck!
ReplyDeleteVery similar to the above two comments. In our district our IT director has set up a system, where staff is initially blocked, but using their login can gain access that is then maintained for that user. This way the standards of what is allowed is the same and the IT dept. can still check on the relatively few sites that get added by staff members loggin in. Good Luck.
ReplyDeleteAnn, you show what many people do not realize, that Broadband is not available everywhere - and we cannot make assumptions that there is equity in access for students in rural (or for that matter suburban and city) areas.
ReplyDeleteKeep us posted as to what issues you find and how you solve them - this will be a great journey together.