Relative Advantage of Spreadsheets

While spreadsheets don’t have the appeal of other instructional software, they still have a lot of potential value to add to the teaching and learning process. “Teachers use them primarily to keep budgets and grade books and to help teach mathematical topics (pg. 122).” However, such tools as Excel and Google Spreadsheets are not confined to accomplishing simple managerial tasks alone.

Spreadsheets can “help people visualize the impact of changes in numbers (pg. 122).” For instance, teachers and students can input data for a given trend and manipulate variables to observe resulting changes. This application is effective in showing how the average of a range of numbers might change when a new outlier is introduced into the data set.

Additionally, “Teachers can use spreadsheets to help them prepare classroom materials...that they would otherwise have to do by hand (pg. 125).” Examples of this include self-grading assessments and inventories enable by Google Drive, student-created reading logs, and school-home communication requiring parental input and feedback. In addition to providing for a more efficient manner of creating materials, cloud-based spreadsheet software also creates a safe and accessible place for data and information to be stored.

In various classrooms, teachers and students are finding incredibly innovative ways to utilize spreadsheet software for improved learning and demonstrations of mastery. Students are now using spreadsheets to “create neat timelines, charts, and graphs, as well as products that require them to store and calculate numbers (pg. 125).” In other words, these active participants in the learning process are identifying ways to use spreadsheets to meet their own learning needs.

As with any other technology tool, the value for teaching and learning is created in the ways that it is applied by the user. No single tool has a relative advantage for student achievement in and of itself. The same can be said for spreadsheet software. However, often, we overlook valuable educational technology because it does not brandish bells and whistles. For educational purposes, spreadsheet software has a lot to offer to students and teachers. Its relative advantage might just be dependent on whether or not we are willing to accept that.

Resources:

Roblyer, M.D., & Doering, A.H. (2013). Integrating educational technology into teaching. Boston:

Pearson/Allyn and Bacon Publishers.

Relative Advantage of Slide Presentations

"PowerPoint is dead!" has been declared ad nauseam in education circles. The idea fueling the remark is that Microsoft's slide presentation software (and other slide presentation software for that matter) is too passive of a means for sharing and learning new information. But as with any other technology tool, the value or lack thereof isn't determined by the design alone. It is determined by how we choose to use it. In other words, PowerPoint is not dead. We just suck at using PowerPoint.

In the classroom, visual slide presentations offer additional entry points for learners to comfortably access content knowledge and learning. Again, the relative advantage of these presentations highly depends on how they are used. Patti Shank, PhD points out that, "text is where most PowerPoint users start to get into trouble." She goes on to say, "[teachers] put too many words on slides and tend to put them into dreaded bullet lists."

Still, PowerPoint and other slide-based presentation software can make teaching and learning more effective and efficient, even with a little bit of text here and there. If they couldn't, then how would we explain the popularity of online presentation sharing websites like SlideShare? The key to creating a meaningful presentation is not in the platform you use, but in the presentation's design and the presenter's preparation.

Good slide-based presentations generally adhere to a set of common design principles that work together to amplify the content over the presenter. As Jesse Desjardins shared in his presentation titled You Suck at PowerPoint, "You're not giving a document, you're giving a presentation. If your audience is reading what you're saying, then what's the point of you being there?"

To effectively share content through a slide presentation in the classroom, we must remember to build significance into our presentations. By doing this, we move beyond simply passing on information to actually making meaning with our students. If transformative learning is our goal for instruction, then we must understand that "Significance creates passion. Passion attracts attention. [And] attention leads to action." For our students, action means applied learning in varying situations.

PowerPoint isn't dead. When used the way it was intended to be used, PowerPoint creates opportunities for nonlinguistic learning, interactive participation, reflection of learning, active assessment, and efficient preparation and delivery of instruction for teachers. Though slide-based presentations should not be relied upon in every lesson, utilization of the medium is an integral part of a diverse teaching and learning experience.



Resources:

Desjardins, J. (2010, November 3). You suck at power point: 5 shocking design mistakes you need to avoid [SlideShare]. Retrieved from:
http://www.slideshare.net/slideshow/view/5652173?login=jessedee&title=you-suck-at-powerpoint

Kapterev, A. (2007, July 31). Death by PowerPoint and how to fight it [SlideShare]. Retrieved from: http://www.slideshare.net/thecroaker/death-by-powerpoint

Shank, P. (2011, May 6). Using PowerPoint effectively in your courses. Retrieved from: http://www.facultyfocus.com/articles/instructional-design/using-powerpoint-effectively-in-your-courses/

Relative Advantage

Instructional software is nothing new. However, the ways that teachers and students are utilizing many of its tools are. Roblyer & Doering claim that "it used to be easy to classify a software package by the type of teaching function it served--drill-and-practice, tutorial, simulation, instructional game, or problem-solving program. But many of today's software packages or systems fulfill several different functions (p. 78)." As teachers, we need to adopt an active role in responsibly analyzing available instructional software packages to "ensure it supports [our] specific teaching needs (p. 79)." In other words, we need to determine whether or not a given instructional software legitimately creates a relative advantage for teaching and learning.

Instructional software generally offers multiple advantages to the teaching and learning process. To list them all would be quite a task. However, some that are included are 1) providing work examples for students and receiving immediate feedback on correctness, 2) enabling students to learn a topic in a self-contained instructional unit, 3) gaining an understanding of how a real life system works through a computerized model of that system, 4) adding elements of gameplay to learning activities, and 5) providing opportunities for students to foster component approaches to problem-solving. To learn more about what instructional software can offer, along with a list of related resources, view my VoiceThread presentation here.

After gaining an awareness of the potential uses of instructional software in education, we must effectively turn inward to identify any existing needs in instruction that are currently going unmet. Only after we do this should we begin looking for appropriate instructional software packages to remediate such deficits in the classroom. However, once a need is identified that instructional software has the potential to meet, how are we supposed to go about locating and evaluating the effectiveness of a given instructional software design? To answer this, I've embedded a SlideShare presentation addressing that issue below. You can also find it to share at it's original URL.

Instructional software evaluation from fawzif2000

As with identifying the presence of an instructional need, determining the effectiveness of instructional software has multiple components. Important to consider in this evaluation process is the existence and quality of the following seven characteristics:

1. Content
2. Design
3. Use among different ability levels
4. Assessment
5. Ease of use
6. Technical quality
7. Documentation and support

It is a comprehensive approach to the integration of instructional software in the presence of a legitimate need that results in improved teaching and learning. When relative advantage is identified and the necessary prerequisite steps are taken in the technology integration process, effective instructional design can create "learning environments that provide learners opportunities to apply their knowledge to solve practical problems and invite exploration [that] can lead to faster learning, greater retention, and higher levels of motivation and interest (Van Dam, Becker, and Simpson, 2005)."

Resources:

Fawziff2000. Instructional software evaluation criteria [Slideshare]. Retrieved from http://www.slideshare.net/fawzif2000/instructional-software-evaluation

Roblyer, M.D., & Doering, A.H. (2013). Integrating educational technology into teaching. Boston:
Pearson/Allyn and Bacon Publishers.

Van Dam, A., Becker, S., & Simpson R.M. (2005) Next-generation educational software: why we need it and a research agenda for getting it. Educause Review Online,  40 (2), 26-43. http://www.educause.edu/ero/article/next-generation-educational-software-why-we-need-it-and-research-agenda-getting-it 

Acceptable Use Policies

It comes with registration at the beginning of each new school year. Students and their parents are handed a piece of paper outlining the school district's Acceptable Use Policy (AUP) which they must sign in order to use computers and peripheral technology at school. While such an effort might create the allusion of intelligent digital citizenship practices, many schools simply provide this information and require parent and student consent in order to comply with the federal government's E-Rate program, which provides low-cost Internet access, along with its Children's Internet Protection Act (CIPA).

Traditionally, Acceptable Use Policies have been used as a means of building walls around open Internet access in schools (One element of CIPA's requirements is to utilize an approved Internet filter on district networked computers). Much of this has been done out of fear for exposing students to inappropriate or offensive content. As with any preventative measure, one must ask at the risk of what?

In a 2012 Mindshift article, Rich Halverson, a learning scientist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison claims, "It's a historical hiccup in the history of learning . . . Here we had the most historical advances in the history of learning banned from schools out of fear."

In that same article, the author adds to Halverson's observation, stating, "Fear was definitely the word you heard when talking to school administrators--no doubt partly because in the age of the Internet, 2001 was a long time ago, and the Web was still unknown territory for plenty of people back then. Also, all it takes is one student downloading pornography and sending it around the school, or one case of sexting that makes it in the news, for a school to find itself in serious hot water."

In light of such a dilemma, school districts throughout the country are beginning to look at AUPs with a different frame of mind. Rather than unilaterally protecting students from exposure to content online, some are starting to see AUPs as an opportunity to help students develop an active sense of responsibility as they learn to function in an ever-connected world.

In the Katy Independent School District in Texas, the focus has been placed on online connections opening up a world of opportunities. Rather than a formal Acceptable Use Policy, Katy ISD grants access to student, parent, and teacher education regarding online access with multiple district-developed resources including cyber safety webpages for all stakeholders in their district. Here, visitors will find the district's policies on privacy, social media, cyberbullying, and copyright issues. But contrary to what is seen in many AUPs, Katy ISD hasn't simply assembled a list of blacklisted activities. Instead, their AUP insight on how to know whether or not one is infringing on policy standards while also identifying ways to engage in safe and responsible Internet use.

In New Jersey, the New Milford School District utilizes a more conventional AUP for their parents, teachers, and students. As with many others, it delineates inappropriate uses of technology in school and explains the consequences of such actions. However, as can be seen at their flagship New Milford High School, the existence of an AUP does not deter from responsible and engaging use of technology as an integral part of the learning process. Not only are students enabled by a trusting relationship with school administrators and faculty when it comes to Internet access, they are encouraged to bring their own personal computing devices, which are subject to the district's AUP, to school to support their own learning. Such a practice is successful in the context of New Milford's approach to teaching user responsibility and accountability as a digital citizen in the 21st century.

Regardless of the format or presentation of an Acceptable Use Policy, in order to provide a non-restrictive, yet safe learning environment for students online or off, certain principles should always be present. Purpose, policy, and scope, as can be seen in the AUP for Boise State University, form the framework for successful policies. Still, within such a framework, education must be the focus as opposed to restriction. The specific details of such education should be subject to legal use of Internet technology and published online content with much consideration given to ethical treatment of other Internet users.

Our goal shouldn't be to identify the pitfalls of Internet and technology use and barricade our students and staff from falling prey to such threats. Instead, we should direct our efforts toward creating an understanding of acceptable, ethical, and responsible use which serves as filters in the minds of those who operate in our district organizations.



Resources:

Boise State University. (2010, October 21). Policy 8000: Information technology acceptable use. Retrieved from: http://oit.boisestate.edu/aboutoit/governance/policies/policy-8000/

Bonneville Joint School District #93. (n.d.). Computer use agreement. Retrieved from: http://www3.d93.k12.id.us/media/42287/3270f.pdf

Katy Independent School District. (n.d.) Cyber safety. Retrieved from: http://www.katyisd.org/dept/technology/instructionalinnovations/cybersafety/Pages/default.aspx

Mindshift. (2012, April 6). More school districts welcome cell phones in class. Retrieved from: http://blogs.kqed.org/mindshift/2012/04/in-the-digital-age-welcoming-cell-phones-in-the-class/

New Milford School District. (n.d.). New Milford acceptable use policy. Retrieved from: http://www.newmilfordschools.org/nmhs/media/Internet_Acceptable_Use.pdf