The AT&T Fellows Program - Indiana University

AT&T Fellows Final Reports

Nov 2006

Name	Dr. Gary Pinkston
Title	Assistant Professor of Ed. Technology
Department	Educational Technology
Campus	IUS
Project Title	Teacher Education Without the Wires
Project Goal	The project had multiple and closely interrelated goals that are integrated into the conceptual framework of the IUS School of Education: Integration of technology Provide innovative and appropriate technology solutions Authentic assessment Record experience in a multimedia format
Type of Technology Used in the Project	SONY Clie PDAs with multimedia capabilities

Executive Summary of Results

Need for the Project

Briefly explain why you believed there was a need for your project and what teaching approach was used to address this need.

There are no funding options, other than grants to provide technological experiences for faculty and students. The world has embraced technology with open arms, while schools are often deserts of obsolete technology and frequently void of cutting-edge devices.

Capturing and subsequently aggregating student performance in authentic situations (e.g., with a teacher in front of a group of children or in a simulation activity or non-paper and pencil task) is problematic when done manually. PDA technology seems to be well suited to on-site assessment and simultaneously managing student data through the use of customized rubric databases. Precise observational goals and a convenient medium were needed so that the data collected from the student teacher observations could be aggregated and analyzed.

Use of Technology

Briefly explain how your project used instructional technology in a new or different way.

The project intent was to demonstrate and implement PDA technology in collaborative, data, and informational gathering school environments. The project goal was to integrate, extend, and enhance existing technology and traditional instruction, student and faculty collaboration and communication, rubric and portfolio based assessment. All within a wireless educator oriented electronic environment.

My project has attempted to increase the student efficiency in learning techniques by providing short video clips which demonstrate correct laboratory procedures. Students will review these before class, so that they will know the expectations for safe and proper procedures. This will shorten the class time needed by the instructor to describe and demonstrate the techniques.

Another set of important procedures that students learn in this course is how to stain bacteria on microscope slides for identification. I am using animations and simulations of these procedures for students to view on-line before they are required to perform the procedures in class. Again, the goal is to familiarize the students with the techniques they will be learning before they arrive in class.

A significant core of tests in the course involve the using proper techniques and procedures that the students have seen on-line and practiced in the laboratory, to inoculate various microbial media. The tests rely upon color changes that take place in the agar or broth. The students gain little by re-practicing the techniques. In this hybrid course, the tests are described in detail, supplemented by video clips and photographs showing how the test is performed and the appearance of positive and negative results.
Students perform these tests in-class only when working to identify an unknown bacteria.

The final section of the course involves studying a survey of medically important microbes. Traditionally, students spent hours reviewing a range of prepared microscope slides during the class period. In this hybrid format, these microscope slides have been photographed at several magnifications so that students can study and learn this material completely on-line. Each organism is linked to information that describes the associated disease and associated medical information.

Instructional Design Plan

Describe how the use of technology used supported your teaching approach:

What student learning outcomes were expected?
How did your teaching plan encourage active learning, provide feedback, address respective learning styles, and build collaboration?
What resources were used? (campus technology support services, etc.)
Would your project be easily understood and executed by other faculty?

IUS students using the PDAs have created movies, taken still pictures of students at work, record student achievement, and documented field trips and a variety of other student experiences. The still pictures are in JPEG format and easily imported into most contemporary multimedia and productivity software programs such as Microsoft Office. The movies created on the SONY PDAs are in QuickTime (©Apple Computer) format and can be easily imported into iMovie by Apple Computer, with no conversion or into Adobe Premiere when converted into avi. files. Still images, movies, and other digital creations can be combined into powerful multimedia movies and shared with appropriate audiences.

IUS students also used a Palm based gradebook on their SONY PDA to take grades while working with students, rather than depend on their memory or notes. This saves the teachers time and allows for more immediate and authentic assessment of students. To accompany the grades, IUS students took pictures or included interview/conference notes or video recordings. Again, this is as simple as touching a couple of icons on the screen. A popular grade program that can be used on a combination desktop computer system and a Palm operating system is GradeQuick by Jackson Software. This software allows for the synchronization of data between the PDA and the desktop computer. This gives the IUS students the freedom to roam the classroom taking grades or other routine information in a more authentic and frequent fashion without the added burden of repetitively transcribing information onto a recording sheet and then into a computer.
The built in voice recorder allows the IUS students to record verbal notes to themselves and record students presenting oral reports or reading aloud. Such oral reading may later be used for assessment of fluency and other miscues. For those IUS students who find they do not pick up all miscues when producing a running record or who may be asking aides to assist with oral reading assessment, this “back-up” recording is often helpful.

The information the IUS students record enables them to make more informative and accurate comments when talking with the principal, counselor, parents, or students. And the recordings of student work may be shown to parents during parent-teacher conferences.

Some teachers may believe a tape recorder, personal computer, and a video camera could accomplish many of the same tasks; that assumption would be mostly correct. But with the battery life of the PDA being fairly long, along with the small size of the PDA, and hence, easier portability, the PDA is used with far more frequency in most classrooms. So, while in many classrooms an observer might watch a teacher circulating with a clip board, the IUS students at Galena may often be seen circulating with their PDAs.

After using the PDA for many tasks during the day, the IUS students simply sit down at a desktop computer, drop their PDA into its cradle, and upload the day’s information for further editing. This takes only seconds, and now their assessments, recordings of joyful happenings in the classroom, and other documents can be easily stored and retrieved.

The IUS students using a conversion program called Documents-To-Go which translates Microsoft Office Word and Excel files the IUS students can created and used these file types on either their desktop or PDA and move them back and forth to whichever machine they are working on at the time.
The willingness of IUS students, faculty and classroom teachers continually “pushed the envelope” benefits students who see new types of technological literacy positively impacting their education and thus creating a fertile field for new ideas and applications to mature in.

In practicum settings used the PDAs to:
Perform authentic assessments of students
Access critical information
Keep records about student observations
Teach students to:

Use PDA PowerPoint presentations
Record a wide variety of field experiences in sound, still, and movie formats
Create on-line portfolios
Access lesson plans
Wireless Web access
Multimedia portfolios

Potential to Impact Student Learning

Clearly define how your project improved student learning - include specific examples of how your project:

Fostered depth of learning
- Students were able to reflect more fully on their practicum teaching experiences through the use of the PDAs. They recorded movies and pictures that showed their progress and effectiveness in classroom settings.
Fostered the learning of large numbers of students

Approximately 50 IUS students used or shared a project PDA

Has broader applications that will affect learning K-12 or community environments?
- Digital movies
- Digital still pictures
- Spreadsheets
- Databases
- Address book
- Date book
- Memo Pad
- To do list
- Outlook synchronization
- Calculator
- MP3 music
- Sound recording
- Presentation software
The PDAs were used in K-12 schools not only by IUS faculty and students, but by a select group of classroom teachers.

Assessment Plan

Briefly explain the effectiveness of your assessment plan:

What measure of assessment was used?
How did your approach obtain measures of performance?
Did you feel your measurement was accurate and effective?

Plan for Colleague Development

Describe your role and activities as a mentor:

What mentoring activities were implemented to assist colleagues
Faculty were provided with bi-weekly mini workshops to coach them in the use of the PDAs and Practicum students were given in-services on the uses and applications of PDAs which helped to develop colleague's instructional technology skills.
One of the more surprising effects of the project was the increased use of desktop computers in conjunction with their PDA. There was a significant increase in faculty use of several desktop software programs. The use of MS Outlook and database software on desktop computers increased 29 and 21 percent respectively over previous implementations. The use of the PDAs went from zero to 100% due to the fact no faculty had used them before. Faculty used the PDAs in unexpected ways such as note taking with supplied keyboards (86%), using electronic resources with the PDA (64%), and spreadsheets (54%) by the participants.

How do you think your contributions to the Knowledge Base will help colleagues planning similar projects?

This project approach is readily applicable to other contexts and disciplines that require self reflection. What comes to my mind are settings such as in the arts where students must watch or listen to themselves discretely.
The project sequence has been replicated twice using the following steps:

IUS students in Reading/Language Arts Practicum at Galina Elementary volunteered to participate in project.

Students attended a series of workshops on the use and application of the PDA.
Assessment forms were created for students to conveniently enter data while participating in their practicum experience.
Students were assigned to teachers who also use PDAs in their classroom.
IUS students in teams went into classrooms and used their PDAs for student and self assessment.
Students used their PDAs to take still pictures, QuickTime videos, spreadsheet numeric data, and typical PDA applications such as contacts, calendar appointments, task tracking, and notes.
Students were observed and helped by IUS faculty and project sponsor for the duration of practicum experience.
Galena teachers were provided on-site instruction on the use of the PDAs.
Galena teachers used their PDAs in ways similar to the IUS students and often discovered new applications for the multimedia aspects of the SONY PDAs.
What tips would you offer?

Final Comments on Project Results

Do you think you met the goals of your project?
What, if anything,would you do differently?
Did you have any unexpected outcomes? (positive or negative)
Would you recommend this teaching approach to colleagues?
What other comments or suggestions would you offer to complete this report?

The project goals were met, though there were some surprising perks to the project in that the users often used the PDAs in ways not envisioned. For example, most of the users applied the multimedia capabilities of the PDAs more often than any other aspect of their capability.

If I had to change something I would not have attempted to use the PDAs to access the Internet. That technology at the time was not mature enough to be useable and the technological hurtles were far too cumbersome.