Ed Tech

Google Takes Aim

I recently noticed that I’m more and more frequently opting to use Google Docs rather than my locally installed software as I’m taking notes in focus groups sessions and create spreadsheet for a survey tool comparison project, and as a result I’m paying an increasing amount of attention to “New Features!” and Google Labs to see how my user experience has changed or will change very soon. In looking through the new features list yesterday, I noticed several items listed that strengthen my belief that Google is quietly taking aim and positioning itself to take over the educational web technologies market.

Is Google planning on creating its own Learning Management Systems? Old news! (See Matt’s post from earlier this year.) Over a year ago, the Wall Street Journal hypothesized on the Five Companies Google Might Buy Next, but as I look through new features and those that Google says are “keeping us busy”, I wonder if Google would even consider acquiring a company like Bb. Why would they? They already have (or are working on) manyof the pieces that come together to make an LMS, and with Google’s tendency to gobble up companies, they could easily acquire the missing pieces.

LMS features and how they relate to existing Google technologies

Collaboration

Communication

  • discussion boards/listservs (Groups)
  • email (Gmail)
  • IM/chat/audio conferencing (Talk)
  • annoucnements (Alerts)
  • web-based calling, voicemail (Voice)

Class Management

Recent tweeks Google is making that seem more “education-friendly”

  • Improved view of revision history in documents (gradable collaborative documents)
  • Upload several different file types and either convert to google docs format or view in google docs viewer (universal file type – instructor can view document submission whether created in Word, Word Perfect, PDF, Google Docs, etc.)
  • Upload different versions of a file (assignment submissions, including rough drafts)

Google Labs, acquisitions, “keeping us busy” items and New Features! and how they could eventually effect education

Future Google Conquests Predictions

  • Prezi (mind-mapping)
  • TechSmith (testing) – however…
    Google could create a secure testing browser by modifying Chrome
    Google already is working on Breadcrumb, which could eventually become an alternative to StudyMate
  • Epsilen (learning outcomes measurement and portfolios)
  • Survey Monkey (advanced survey functionality)

Future Educational Google Site Name Predicitons

  • Google Edu – Google’s LMS, including all of the above
  • Google Meeting – Google’s web conferencing system that combines Talk (chat, private messaging, audio conferencing) with Docs (live document sharing/collaborating, collaborative drawing and whiteboard, file sharing) and Moderator (event moderating)

It’s only a matter of time.

(Finally) Playing with Prezi

People have been talking about Prezi for a while now, and I’m finally giving it a try. (I’m pretty sure Matt and Harriet used it over a year ago at TxDLA, so I’m definitely behind on this one. Oh well.) Below is my first whack at prezi for my eLearning Online Course Design workshop.

In the workshop, we basically we cover three main areas in this workshop: instructional design (the basics), learning objectives (and using the Goals tool in Bb Vista), and structuring your content (and using Learning Modules, Folders, and Selective Release in Vista). We spent a full hour (out of the two-hour session) on learning objectives, and I knew I’d made an impression when one of the participants came up to me afterwards and said, “This really goes against the ‘fly by the seat of your pants’ mentality that we’re all tempted to take, where we don’t work on our class until a week before we meet.”

Prezi
Click to view prezi.

Lessons learned after using Prezi:

  • Limited design options (fonts, shapes, colors), but this keeps it simply and easy to use
  • I zoomed/focused a bit too much on each individual point. Useful sometimes, but other times it’s too much.
  • I like the ability to easily zoom out and focus on a topic discussed earlier, rather than having to find it in my sequence of slides then later trying to find where I am.
  • Definitely a time suck. Not on the scale of the Sims or Second Life, but set aside a couple of hours for you to explore.
  • This “non-traditional” presentation is definitely impressive. … At least to those who are not overly-tech-savvy.

Why Do We Need To Argue Online vs. Face-to-Face Anyways?

After reading all of these reports that study and compare online courses versus face-to-face course, I have to ask: why on Earth do we even need to know which one is better?  Why are so many people intent on setting up some battle royale where only one or the other can survive?

Online learning has its pros and cons, just like face-to-face learning does.  So, it is not suprising that some studies are finding that hybrid approaches work best.  That should not surprise anyone – you take the best of both worlds and the results are bound to be awesome.  Peanut butter and chocolate – need I say more?

We need to realize that sometimes the online option is chosen not because it is superior, but because it is most convenient.  People want a certain degree, for example, but it is not offered near them.  So the compromise to not getting the degree at all is to take it online.  Whether it is better than getting the degree face-to-face is irrelevant – it is the only option they have.  Or maybe even the person lives near a college with the degree, but has such a crazy work schedule that asynchronous learning is the only option.

Or it may even be that they can go get the face-to-face degree, but opt for the online one because some bad article some where convinced them that online learning is “better.”  They might be the type of person that doesn’t do so well online, and end up dropping out before completion.

All that these crazy studies are going to do is discourage people from getting a degree or training or education of some kind because they will be fearful of getting a lesser education.  We need to quit proving to people that one or the other is better and just present them with the facts and let them chose the option that best suits them.

Wow… why does that concept sound so… familiar… ? It is almost like…. some other industry out there uses it or something….

Higher Education: Guardian of Knowledge

I am glad to see that I am not the only one feeling a bit… uneasy?… about how ed tech is going.  Brian Lamb and Jim Groom do a good job of articulating some of my concerns and growing fears in this article: Never Mind the Edupunks; or, The Great Web 2.0 Swindle:

We dream of higher education that embraces its role as a guardian of knowledge, that energetically creates and zealously protects publicly-minded spaces promoting enlightenment and the exchange of ideas. We need green spaces for conviviality on the web.

New Year, More New Ideas for Learning Management Systems

As the new year rolls on, I’ve been pondering Learning Management Systems more. I know – not a big shock there.  I’ve been examining some of the weaknesses of our New Vision SLE (Social Learning Environment – our new term for the LMS) idea, and might have stumbled upon some interesting ideas. I need to work on some of these some more, but here is what I have been pondering:

  • Why do we have to turn in assignments any more? Why can’t technology be used to detect our work on class projects on other sites and automatically submit these for us?
  • Why are class discussion so hard to grade? Why can’t we make them easier to grade?
  • In fact – why do class discussions have to be so contained? Why can’t they happen anywhere we want them to online? Why can’t the SLE just pull it in for us?

I’ve been pondering many of the ideas of Jim Groom that they use at UMW Blogs… and I might have come up with a pretty wicked way to combine those ideas with the New Vision SLE.

But I need to bounce these off of my partner in crime Harriet first – she always comes up with good ideas to sort out the problems with my ideas.