Session 7

Ed Norman Syndrome

The Ed Norman syndrome follows a model of network design commonly used in the business industry. When designing a network for a business you look for established processes to increase productivity, and security is very important as it can compromise important information. Also, employees do not have the need to use any other software as everything has already been selected by top management in order to increase or keep productivity. In education this model of network design cannot work, but administrators still use it because it has proven to be effective with employees. But this model is not effective when you are dealing with students because it limits the amount of tools and resources that they can use for learning.

I have seen in one district the use of a standardized program to meet the technology needs for students. This program consists of several parts, an email software that provides communication between teachers and students, and provides a calendar of activities and assignments as student reference. Also, access to two research databases for students, and during the implementation process the district selected the different sites that students can use to conduct research mostly taking out entertainment sites commonly used by students such as hotmail and myspace, but providing access to sites that provide both teachers and students with learning tools. This overall program aims to increase communication between administration, teachers, and students while maintaining network security.

I think that the Ed Norman Syndrome is an extreme case in regards to security, but some of its features are still needed. Taking all the necessary steps in order to maintain the integrity of the network is necessary regardless of the consecuences it has with education because a network is a great investment and like any other investment you need to take care of it because it is very costly to maintain and even more expensive to fix. Also, access to the internet needs to be restricted, using a proxy serves is a bit extreme, but allowing student to browse only sites that have been prescreened for content. Access to the internet cannot change much from the Norman model because school districts are liable over what students access.

I think that technology committees in which IT, administration, and teachers communicate can help solve this issues. This committees can determine security settings, software, and overall access in order to better serve students. I think that we need to see education as a business and see that there are liabilities and responsabilities over the use of technology in the workplace even if we are looking for benefits in learning.

Session 6

My experience in regards to barriers to technology in the classroom is very limited. I have worked with teachers in the past as a technology mentor and as an assistant to a technology grant at Cal State and during that time I heard some of the barriers to technology use in classrooms from many teachers who have share their experiences. From what I have heard I think that they are still the same as the ones mentioned in the podcast. Lack of computers, lack of time, and not enough training seem to be the most common.

After hearing some cases I think that an actual barrier to technology is still the shortage of hardware. Some of the teachers comments included that there are not enough computers in the classroom, and that scheduling the use of computer labs and LCD projector setups is difficult because it needs to be done with great anticipation.

Barriers such as lack of time and not enough training can be proxys, as they can be solved by improving the communication between administrators and teachers. I have heard comments from teachers who think that technology can assist them in the classroom and help maintain student attention, but they feel they do not have have enough time during the day to complete their assigned duties and still take time to go through the implementation process. District administration leadership can help solve this problem, but their focus, specially in California, is to meet the required standards and try to raise school scores. Therefore preparation days during the year are focused on that main purpose. I think this would be different if learning with technology was more effective than the traditional way, but unfortunately this is not the case, at least what research has shown.

I think that not enough training can be similar to the explanation above, but district technolgy personnel from the districts that I have worked with are very enthusiastic and have many different technology workshops available afterschool. Unfortunately, many teachers do not attend. Some of the examples of technology that I have seen in this workshops provide great tips that can actually be implemented and save you time, for example the use of the site www.4teachers.org. I think that this problem can also be solved with better leadership skills from the district administration. Teachers attending this workshops have to do it at their own time, and most administrators do not provide insentives for teachers to attend. In one case that I heard, administrators did not feel the technology integration program provided by the tech. personnel office was of very much importance and preferred not to participate or encourage their teacher to participate.

I think that district technology personne and teachers have the will and the necessary tools to solve many of the problems barriers to technology bring, but administrators need to realize that they play a big role in this too and that their support and leadership is important in order to institute better communication.

Project Focus Area 1

For my project in focus area 1 I created an RSS feed for my program website. The RSS feed can be accessed from the home page (link is located on the right side, on the news section) at the address below, it will provide some information on how to access and subscribe to it.

http://rimspi.csusb.edu/interngrant/test/index.html

To create this feed, first you need to create an xml formatted document. This document provides the description and links of the feed, it is formatted for RSS 2.0 which provides a the necessary code to be accessed with most aggregators (e.g. Explorer 7 & Mozilla's FireFox). Here is an example of the code.

http://rimspi.csusb.edu/interngrant/test/rss/rssfeed_sourcecode.doc

There are many special features that allow you to customize your feed. I decided to use a css stylesheet to go along with my feed, it provides it with a distinctive look for navigation. Here is an example of the code.

http://rimspi.csusb.edu/interngrant/test/rss/cssstylesheet_rss.doc

The purpose of this project is to visitors who subcribe to this to receive updated content directly to their aggregators, which is similar to an email, but without spam or viruses. Some RSS feeds allow subscribers to select specific content they would like to receive, but this is a future project for our site as we add more information.

Session 5

After listening to this weeks podcast I started to think about technology's best practices that I often use. I think that a technology integration best practice that I often use is programming (html, cgi, php, etc...). As technologies change the basic understanding of programing keeps constant. There have been many software programs that assist you in creating a website. From netscape composer and frontpage to dreamweaver and adobe software. Even though the programs change knowledge of programming allows you to manipulate them at your convenience and get the result you want. Knowledge of html coding allowed me to better understand CSS as it was necessary when setting up the site's different layers. Knowledge of cgi and php scripting has allowed me in the past to create feedback forms for the websites that I have maintained. Even if many different companies provide online services that create this types of forms for you, knowledge of scripting allows you to create your own customized forms to receive the information you want and interact better with your audience.

Weekly Activities
Listen to podcast and posted results
responded to other posts
Project 1
integrated RSS to my website
tested subscription capabilities
created tutorial for users
created first feeds
Project 2
Started compilation of data that will be part of my presentation
Selected the Ed-Media conference for submittion
Project 3
Brainstorming ideas for my proposal to better establish my objectives, budget, and expected results.