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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Manning, Susan, 1960-
The technology toolbelt for teaching / Susan Manning, Kevin E. Johnson. — 1st ed.
p. cm. — (The Jossey-Bass Higher and adult education series)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-470-63424-0 (pbk.)
ISBN 978-1-118-00518-7 (ebk.)
ISBN 978-1-118-00519-4 (ebk.)
ISBN 978-1-118-00520-0 (ebk.)
1.Educational technology. 2. Computer-assisted instruction. I. Johnson, Kevin E. II. Title.
LB1028.3.M36 2011
371.33′4—dc22
2010046962
Teaching is not easy, and teaching with technology is a little like trying to hit a moving target. Tools change, versions are updated, and few of us have time to completely analyze and thoughtfully render what that means for instruction. This book is dedicated to the brave teachers who do their best at integrating technology.
And as we did in our first book, we would like to dedicate this book to our families. We didn't get this far without good guidance from our parents, and we couldn't have worked through the development of this book without awesome support from our husbands and children.
Susan has a neighbor who has every tool imaginable in his garage. When residents on the street start home improvement projects, they first visit Fred's garage and have a conversation with him about what they need and what they might borrow from him. He doesn't try to convince them to buy a table saw when what they really need to borrow is a hacksaw to trim a 1-inch piece of PVC pipe. Fred understands that tools should be used in a specific context for a specific purpose. He saves the neighbors time, aggravation, and money.
That is exactly what this book is about, except that the context is technology tools. Instead of coming into Fred's garage, you will come to us with instructional problems that might be solved with technology.
Today's instructors feel pressured to integrate technology into their traditional or online instruction, but they're not quite sure what to do or why they should use these tools. With the proliferation of free or inexpensive Web-based tools, the pressure to be “cool and tech savvy” seems even greater. Teachers who incorporate new tools into their instruction are perceived to be cutting-edge. Those who do not embrace tools are sometimes viewed as unfavorably resistant. Rather than taking sides, this book examines how teachers might use technology tools to address instructional problems.
The caveat is that whatever tools teachers choose to incorporate must be part of the instructional design from the beginning, not cool add-ons. If tools do not address specific instruction problems, they are worthless. What sets our book apart from others is that we provide a decision-making process, a matrix, with which teachers can examine individual tools and determine whether these tools can truly address the instructional needs. We only introduce tools as a means to carry out pedagogy.
We wrote this book for the broadest market of instructors: those who teach in higher education and those who teach in elementary and secondary schools. That may appear to be too wide a scope. However, we believe that whether you work with our youngest or oldest learners, the twenty-first century demands some inclusion of technology. Very quickly those twelve-year-olds in middle school who know how to surf the Internet and view what they want on YouTube are going to be coming into higher education classrooms looking for some inclusion of media.
We wrote this book for both online instructors and those who teach in traditional classrooms. It may be easier to see the application of some tools for a wholly online course, but many of these tools are still appropriate for a brick-and-mortar setting. They may be tools that are used by the teacher in the classroom or tools that are used by the students at home.
This book is organized by themes. In Part One we lay the foundation for using tools in the context of instructional design. We begin in Chapter One with an overview of instructional technology and the Internet, considering such popular themes as Web 2.0 and where we are headed in the future. In Chapter Two we introduce several models of instructional design and tie these to the selection process for technology tools. In doing so, we offer a Decision-Making Matrix and a supplemental guide of questions that teachers can use to examine technology tools and deliberately consider whether these tools support their pedagogy. The Decision-Making Matrix is used throughout the book.
Part Two introduces an array of tools that address problems of organization. Teachers who are disorganized lose valuable time and resources. Chapter Three introduces calendaring tools that can help manage time. Chapter Four contributes to time management with scheduling tools that allow multiple parties to arrange meetings. Chapter Five introduces readers to mind maps or graphic organizers, Web-based tools that help organize thoughts and ideas. Staying organized with bookmarks and favorite Web sites is the dominion of social bookmarking, the topic for Chapter Six. Chapter Seven addresses tools that can help manage digital or virtual documents or files, some of which may be quite large and unwieldy. (For example, where do you put a 100 MB movie?)
Part Three continues our discussion of Web-based tools by introducing the idea of using these tools to communicate and collaborate. Such tools can encourage instructor-to-instructor, instructor-to-student, student-to-student, and guest-to-class communication and collaboration efforts. We begin with what may be the most popular tool in online education—discussion forums. Chapter Eight looks at both text-based and voice-enabled discussion tools. Chapter Nine specifically addresses Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) tools, which allow parties to talk to each other in a manner similar to using a telephone. Imagine having your class talk to a class halfway across the globe! Instant messaging and chat programs are the focus of Chapter Ten. Not only do these tools make faculty more accessible to students but also students can use them to complete academic work. Chapter Eleven examines blogs and their instructional uses, whereas Chapter Twelve considers wikis for collaborative work. Microblogs as instructional tools are discussed in Chapter Thirteen. Chapter Fourteen introduces Web conferencing, allowing real-time communication between students and teachers with visual and audio components.
Part Four addresses an ongoing dilemma for online instructors—finding ways to present content when teaching online. This is one area in which students bring relatively high expectations given the sophisticated media they see online in other contexts. In Chapter Fifteen we address audio tools, such as podcasts. Chapter Sixteen adds video to the instructional mix. Screencasting, one specialized form of video presentation, is introduced in Chapter Seventeen. Chapter Eighteen looks at the ever-popular narrated slideshow. Chapter Nineteen, which considers graphics and images, reinforces the idea that a picture is worth a thousand words.
The age-old question of how teachers assess learning is the focus of Part Five. Traditional tools for assessment, including quizzes, surveys, and online tests, are examined in Chapter Twenty. Chapter Twenty-One looks at rubrics and matrixes that may be used to evaluate performance-based or authentic assessment. The topic of e-portfolios rounds out our discussion of assessment tools in Chapter Twenty-Two.
Part Six concludes our tour of tools with those that help transform identity, tools that are uniquely twenty-first century. These are technologies that were not available to the average teacher or student ten years ago. Chapter Twenty-Three examines the use of avatars. Chapter Twenty-Four considers virtual worlds. Finally, Chapter Twenty-Five looks at social networking and the online identities of students and teachers.
This book is not a comprehensive listing of every tool available. It is not a sales guide for one product over another. Because technology changes so quickly and products move from beta to market (or disappear) within a matter of months, we have limited the number of tools. For each category, we have tried to select several tools that we think have some longevity and that will meet teachers' needs. Most important, we apply our Decision-Making Matrix to a couple of specific tools per chapter to model how instructors might consider additional tools they find in their own research.
Hearkening back to the example of Susan's neighbor, we suggest that you read this book with an instructional problem in mind. In other words, if you're going to visit our garage and ask about a tool, consider a project you want to tackle so you can ask for the right tool. First read Chapters One and Two so that you understand the framework of the following chapters and how to use the Decision-Making Matrix. From there, jump to whatever chapter you believe is best going to solve your instructional problem. You do not need to read this book in a linear fashion! It may be interesting, however, to stay within certain parts so that you can see how tools are designed to address one problem better than others.
We would like to acknowledge the friends who have helped us experiment with the tools and lent their faces for screenshots. We also came into contact with several innovative companies, such as TweenTribune and Edmodo. In the technology world, it's rewarding to find a tool and meet the people behind the technology.
We would also like to thank Erin Null, Alison Knowles, and the editing team for making us look so good.
Susan Manning is best known as a teacher's teacher. She develops faculty and prepares them to teach online. Susan teaches online courses for the University of Wisconsin at Stout and the University of Illinois' Illinois Online Network in online learning, instructional design, technology tools, the synchronous classroom, and group work online. She has taught hundreds of teachers, including international instructors from Saudi Arabia, Denmark, Vietnam, and Russia. Susan's teaching career began with adult students learning English as a second language, and she often introduced them to new technologies she thought could help them learn. These students reminded her that basic human interaction and communication skills always trump technology.
Susan's online career began more than ten years ago when she became an online student and earned her certification as Master Online Teacher from the University of Illinois. In addition, she holds a doctorate in adult education from Ball State University, a master's in college student personnel from Bowling Green State University, and a bachelor's degree in communications from Truman State University.
Susan also puts her teaching and development skills to work as a producer for LearningTimes, LLC. Susan helps coordinate synchronous online conferences, but her favorite role is training presenters to enter the brave new world of presenting online. Finally, she can be heard regularly on the LearningTimes Green Room podcast, a series she cohosts with friend Dan Balzer as they examine issues and topics related to learning.
Kevin E. Johnson is CEO of the Cutting Ed, Inc., a consulting company that specializes in helping clients envision education and training for the twenty-first century. He has more than twenty years of experience working in education and figuring out how to use technology to his advantage.
Kevin started with technology as a fourteen-year-old teaching himself to program. Completing his bachelor's degree at Eastern Illinois University and his master's at the University of Illinois, Kevin developed curriculum and taught in academic and corporate environments for the next thirteen years. Due to his desire to save paper (not to mention not wanting to fight for the copy machine), he started providing lecture notes and other resources to students on CDs. As the Internet emerged, he began teaching Web development courses. It was a natural transition to move from burning CDs to placing course content on the Web. Before long, Kevin was interacting with his students electronically, and his interest in online education began.
THE JOSSEY-BASS HIGHER AND ADULT EDUCATION SERIES
In our opening chapters we lay the foundation for using tools in the context of instructional design. We begin in Chapter One with an overview of instructional technology and sort through the definitions of technology and educational technology. We then review the development of the Internet as most of us recall it, considering such popular concepts as Web 2.0. What distinguished Web 2.0 from Web 1.0 largely had to do with the ability to interact with and change content, to share and subscribe (for example, to Really Simple Syndication [RSS] feeds), and the granular nature of content. For example, an English instructor could share a learning object on correct APA citation styles, which could be dropped into a variety of science courses to address that one point. What we do in the future will depend on how the Web continues to develop.
In Chapter Two we introduce several models of instructional design and tie these to the selection process for technology tools. Herein we assert that technology tools must be used in the context of instructional design. We therefore offer a Decision-Making Matrix and resource that suggests more questions teachers should ask as they examine technology tools and deliberately consider whether these tools support their pedagogy. We explain the nuances of these questions and their implications as you move forward in the book.