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Essay Contents: Comments on ...

NEW Comments and Products on Adobe's new educational authoring package.

• Remote control and network software for class and home for classroom management and child internet safety.
• Classroom technology -1
• Free Software (Moodle and PHP)
• About SCORM, Standards, and Accessibility
• Learning Management Software and Computer-Based Training
• Bulletin Boards and Whiteboards

NEW Visit our News feeds on Education Technology and just Education

Comments on Classroom Management and child Internet Safety

Read an essay about the uses of remote control and intranet software in a classroom. Then read about how such software can be used in the home and how it can be used to foster child internet safety.

Classroom Management by Remote Control Software

Parental Management by Remote Control Software

Safe Internet Practices for Children

Identifying sites that are not kid-friendly is a part of protecting children from inappropriate Web sites. An article in PC World Magazine suggests the use of Scandoo and SiteAdvisor to get site ratings. These last two links take you to PC World's download page for the items.

Key Network Magic Features:

* Easy home network setup
* Automatic printer sharing
* One-click file sharing across Windows Operating Systems
* Wireless Network Protection
* Home Network Health & Security
* Remote File Access and Photo Sharing via a personal website with Net2Go

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Comments on Classroom Technology

Conventional wisdom says that teaching students to use computers in the classroom will prepare them for the future, a primary function of education. It is also believed that computer-based learning is more motivating and effective than traditional methods, claims that could be overstated. Personally, I see the usefulness of technology in education with teachers using software that accomplishes the objectives of a lesson. Technology provides tools for additional strategies that teachers can use. Some students can even learn entire units or courses from computerized instruction, such as the online schools offer. Teachers and good lesson planning are not replaced by computerized instruction; most students benefit from the human touch. In fact, many online courses include frequent student-teacher conferences via internet chat rooms and forums to ensure that the student knows that the teacher is available and is monitoring his learning progress. Software for teaching online runs the gamut from word processing and email to presentations, CBT to to full package LMS. A CBT template can provide a presentation set-up with lecture, media and question pages, testing capabilities and even test grading. A full LMS package would add the forum, grade-book, record-keeping, office site, and other administrative capabilities. Moodle is an LMS package when combined with the php bulletin board and a conferencing package, it is quite powerful. Adding flash pages of interactive activities, and a bit of hands-on can be included in the lesson. Of course, the capability to download and upload assignments rounds out the technology.

A Presentation for Determining Tech Needs of a Classroom

Many LMS are designed based on this ADDIE model behind training.

Comments on Free Software

A magazine about tech in classrooms is Technology and Learning. The July 2006 issue discusses funding resources and challenges and free open source learning software. Read about it online. (Use the Publications/Technology & Learning links to locate the issue.) (Clicking on the image will take you to allzine.com, where you can order the magazine for yourself. The text link takes you to the magazine site so that you can search the archives.)

A free online and hard copy journal for educators is eSchool News. It, too, covers all things ed tech. Another website that discusses educational technology is Schooling Today.

More all things tech info for schools: a directory of products and technologies matched to white papers

For all kinds of information about all things educational try this site:

http://www.edfacilities.org/index.cfm

It, too, is a source of white papers and research articles.

In looking on the web for information about LMS and CBT, I constantly ran across the terms below. Below are a few reference sites so that define the terms.

What does it mean to be SCORM, ADL-SCORM, and or AICC compliant Go 1? What are the Standards? What qualities are included for Accessibililty Go 1 Go 2? Of course information can be gleaned from Wikipedia, too.

Comments about Lesson Authoring Software

Learn about LMS and CBT

Read a white paper about LMS from George Seimens, an elearning expert. While there bookmark the site elearnspace.com site. Seimens has lots great stuff to pass on to all educators concerning new learning technologies and elearning philosophies and tecniques. He sees connectivism as the supporting learning psychology and both critiques and suggests on-line learning methods.

I especially like this quote from him in terms of planning curriculum:

" Implementing an LMS as part of a holistic learning environment gives the end user flexibility and control to move in various paths (driven by learning needs, not by LMS design)." G.Seimens

To this end I hope that administrators and school planners and curriculum developers will develop a whole package of interlocking softwares, devices, classroom designs, and bricks and mortar hands-on materials and supplies into a comprehensive educational package--plans that will support the way today's classroom teachers operate in their unit plans now. Of course, teacher workshops will be necessary for teacher training. Teacher and administrator conventions expose educators to the technologies available, but who puts it all together for one classroom's use? Schools systems should have a technology person whose job is to explore the system deliveries best for their system and a committee of subject-matter teachers to determine which systems work for which subjects. This is part of the School of the Future projects. 1. 2. 3. 4.

Read a prediction from 1998.

Buy 3 CBT Flash templates from

About elearning knowledge objects that can be used with an LMS:
The Rapid Train Technologies Suite.

Ok, I did some more research and discovered a bit more about what happened to Breeze and Authorware by Macromedia. The original information on these products is in the light blue and teal below. What follows now is the result of a more extensive research session --Val, 12/9/06

This is What I have Discovered: The 4 components of the Rapid Train Technologies Suite

Authorware has been replaced by . Macromedia Breeze Meeting has been replaced by Acrobat Connect Professonal. Acrobat Professional and Adobe Presenter 2 round out the suite. Note: Both Studio 8 and Creative are bundles with Dreamweaver.  Creative is a bundle of Adobe Acrobat Professonal and Dreamweaver.  Studio 8 has Flash, Fireworks, Flash Paper and more with Dreamweaver.

Breeze involves a server account and serverside software, (as does cold fusion, which involves a database).  You can load your elearning courses onto the Breeze server if you like, but the material produced with the Captivate software can be used on a desktop pc or the web and can be read through the desktop or browser using a flash player, which is downloaded free from Adobe, cnet.com or download.com. You can also load the courses produced by this set of software in Adobe's Rapid Train Teachnologies Suite into a Moodle or Blackboard LMS.

The LMS is the software set and server site that coordinates the courses, communication softwares, the website for the instructors, and the grade and correct answers databases, forums, and any other management software and websites required to make the course a public class entity on a web server.  Not everything has to be hosted on the same server.  But there must be some coordination between it all.  Blackboard is a company that offers such a site.  Moodle is an open source software that many schools and others have chosen to place on their hosting server to develop the LMS package themselves.  Global eSchool offers a teacher the opportunity to develop a course in Moodle on their site then present it to students that pay for taking the course. Visit a teacher's office and the home page itself which are examples of Moodle webpages to get an initial impression of some of what Moodle can do. (Yes, my office will do.)

<<<<<The products mentioned in the light blue below have been replaced with Adobe's new software in its Rapid Training eLearning Suite. eLearning Products
Rapid eLearning: * Adobe Connect Training * Adobe Presenter * Captivate * Acrobat
For those who don't know, Adobe bought Macromedia last year. --Val, 12/7/06 >>>>>

Studio 8 for Schools

This is the Macromedia/Adobe LMS. I have linked to the Macromedia Studio 8 for K-12 presentation because it is so impressive a package at a very reasonable price. It even includes some beginning lessons and training. Visit the site from this link for more information. You might want to combine this with Aurthorware. This package seems to be similar to NetSupport Schools in its class management capabilities.

Macromedia Studio 8 - documentation kit from

Adobe Flash MX 2004 has a template for tests and learning presentations, but it is nowhere as useful as the actual LMS software packages, especially for the teacher who does not write one's own programming code or action scripts.

If you really want to be impressed, click on the all products choice at the menu for Products while at the Adobe site. Run the Breeze overview video. Eventually, schools will use the same types of training media that businesses are using for conferencing and training now. Eventually, these systems will be affordable for schools--or can a school system work out an all-district licensing now that would make purchasing possible.

Get Adobe products for website development and image processing..

Just a thought, school administrators and technology people should be sent to a few training conventions and seminars to get a feel for what is out there. Teachers should be trained in the new technologies. Curriculum writers should be writing for the these technologies--but wait, it is already happening. Now if only school budgets would catch up. You can read about Microsoft's school of the future plan.

Get white papers on writing online lms or cbt from Adobe. Explanations for Scorm and standards and accessibility are within the set of papers. How to make and use flash and webpages to make training packages are discussed. The Rapid Learning and other elearning suites (Toolbook, Blackboard, Moodle, etc.) incorporate the disparate packages into one set to accomplish many of the tasks described.

Toolbook

This authoring program includes Flash templates and objects to construct lesson pages. It produces really awsome results and is used by business training professionals.

Authorware>>> Breeze>>> now Adobe Connect and Adobe Presenter

Has been replaced by Adobe Rapid Train Technologies. The Adobe product for making the initial lms presentation is Adobe Presenter. Read what a blogger has to say about it at http://labnol.blogspot.com/2006/09/adobe-presenter-for-converting.html

Adobe Presenter will work from a PowerPoint file to incorporate flash, audio, and video lms files with multiple types of test question options. Read about it at the Adobe site. Be sure to watch the flash video that describes the entire Rapid Learning elearning package (Rapid Training Learn More image.). Read the page that describes the Rapid Learning. It too connects to the flash video that will make all clear to you--except the price. The video is a good introductiory description of the scope of training/elearning requirements.

This program is by Adobe, who now owns Dreamweaver who first wrote Flash, the animation/short video software. It includes a grade management, test-maker, and lesson presentation capability combining written, video and audio formats. (The text link above will take you to the Adobe site for information about Authorware. The image and text links below will take you to techdepot.com to purchase the softwar--or just check on the price!.)

Macromedia Authorware ( v. 7.0 ) - complete package  

Moodle

This is a free GNU server and pc set of programs that create a school on-line as illustrated by Global E-School, which uses Moodle to create its website. Combine it with a bulletin board software (Go to phpbb) and a database to make a complete LMS.

The forum for k-12 FOSS can provide networking and advice.

Intralearn 5.0

and

Blackboard

These are full LMS packages offered by Microsoft partners. Blackboard offers a bulletin board set-up with some of its packages.

Bulletin Board Software

SchoolhouseStation

Courseroads.com

phpbb

More Comments about Free Software

Read one professor's comments concerning commercial vs. freeware for schools. Blackboard vs Moodle Read about FOSS (freeware) from PBS Teacher Source Learning.now.

You can purchase the ones above, or get your webmaster to combine the free GNU products Moodle and phpbb and database and forum products into a school website that does all the functions found in the commercial products.

You can, as teachers, homeschooler, or administrator obtain an office and classroom space at TappedIn for free. Forums and message boards are available for public and private access.

More links are listed below and on the Freebies page. Look on this page for protection software from McAfee, some programs that will enhance your home computer use, be of interest to you as you run a website, and more. Go to the other pages for curricular software packages. (See links in margin and top of page.)

McAfee Product Tip Without a firewall protection, your PCs can be hijacked almost instantly when connected to the Internet. Installing an always-on firewall like McAfee Personal Firewall Plus will keep you safe from hackers. Save over 40% on McAfee VirusScan Online

An Open-Source Directory of Educational Software

An Open-Source Directory of Free Software On-line

Another directory of training software

another site's list go

Interactive Whiteboards

This site offers information about these electronic devices and their usefulness in the classroom. http://www.edfacilities.org/rl/interactive_whiteboards.cfm

A source of these whiteboards is Smart.

Some examples of whiteboards are found here and in the hands-on activities here. Java script and flash seem to be the software used for writing the activities, with some database for storing and accessing some of the elements, although there is indication of other software involvement. Time to do more research! What will such a package cost?

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While researching the net for software and on-line learning info, I kept coming across the term ADDIE Model of Training. I copied this from Wikipedia for your information.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instructional_design
contains this information:

Instructional design models

Perhaps the most common model used for creating
instructional materials is the ADDIE Model.
This acronym stands for the 5 phases contained
in the model:

* Analyze - analyze learner characteristics,
task to be learned, etc.
* Design - develop learning objectives,
choose an instructional approach
* Develop - create instructional or
training materials
* Implement - deliver or distribute
the instructional materials
* Evaluate - make sure the materials
achieved the desired goals

Most of the current instructional design models
are spin-offs or variations of the ADDIE model;
other models include the Dick & Carey and Kemp ISD models.
One commonly accepted improvement to this model
is the use of rapid prototyping. This is the idea
of receiving continual or formative feedback while
instructional materials are being created. This model

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modified 12/7/06