I’m headed to Philadelphia later this week to attend the EduCon 2.3 conference. This will be my second trip to SLA, and I am every bit as excited to go back as I was to attend the first time. The main difference between this year and last is that I have decided to add my voice to the conversation as a presenter. I’m honored to be presenting amongst some of the great thinkers in our profession. I’m also humbled by the opportunity to learn along with many of them on a daily basis.

I will be facilitating a discussion around a topic that is very important to me, e-Books. More specifically, I hope to explore how, why and when e-Books should be included as part of the instructional process in the early elementary classroom with an eye towards developing an instructional model that could be used in Pre-K and Kindergarten classrooms across the globe.

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As part of the Akron Ready Steps program, I am currently engaged in a study of an e-book instructional model that integrates the e-book into the preschool classroom. This is a four phase study that will last the entire school year. We recently wrapped up Phase 1 of the study and debriefed our teachers on a number of aspects of the instructional model. After an initial read through, I am particularly intrigued by their comments on what they liked about the eBook shared reading experience. A short excerpt:

Mrs. Brodie

I like the computer.  The monitor is large and I like the touch screen.  The children like the e-book experience and it is a chance to share a book with a small group of children.  I think it is good for the children to hear different voices read the books.  I sometimes am able to get a hard copy of an e-book.  The children really like looking at the e-book and then the hard copy or vice versa.

Mrs. Campbell

The children love hearing the books read.  The readers’ voices really make the book.  The children like being at the computer and turning the pages.  The children also like the animation in some of the books.

Ms. Sowers

I like working with the small groups in the e-book experience.  I like being able to choose between automatic and manual.  I liked many of the narrators and realized that the quality of the narration and graphics is what keeps the children’s attention.  I like being able to push the pause button on the book so that I can talk with the children before moving on.  The pacing of most of the books keep even the three year olds engaged.  Some of the graphics are really colorful.  I like the words highlighted as they are being read.  It helps keep the children’s attention on the words.

Mrs. Taylor

I like the interaction of the children with the book and with me.  I like doing the e-book with a small group of children and being able to stop the book and review vocabulary words or talk about a subject.  I like the animated voices.  It keeps the children interested.  I am trying to work on being more animated when I am reading a book to children.  The children like the animated voices.  I like that the children can push the page turner button when it is flashing.  I like the highlighting of words during the reading.

Educators from across Ohio came together in Columbus today, as Ohio became the 14th state to become a “21st Century Leadership State.” The Ohio 21st Century Skills Summit was a day of learning, leading and celebrating Ohio’s dedication to developing a comprehensive 21st Century Skills educational implementation plan. The following are my notes from the day long event (which I took on my iPad using Evernote). Items in BOLD are my own personal thoughts, all other items are quotes or paraphrases from the various speakers.

Ken Kay keynote:

Lots of gray hair in this room. Hope the message isn’t lost on maturity;-)
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I’ve been working with Dr. Lisa Lenhart for about 6 years at the University of Akron. She gave me a start as a graduate assistant back in the 2004-2005 school year, as I was working on my principal’s license, and I’ve hung around ever since. Lisa has opened up a lot of doors for me, and I have the utmost respect for her as an educator, a professional and a person. She’s currently working on revising one of her textbooks, Reading and Learning to Read, and I received the following email from her about a week ago.

Would any of you be willing to ask your kids these questions and give me their quotes back? I’m working on my book revision and we’re going to put student voices in……..I won’t use their names. Any responses at all would help. Thank you so much,
Lisa

How does (or did) your teacher teach you to read?

List three things you know about good readers.

What do you dislike about reading in school?

Tell me about a time someone had to read out loud and they weren’t very good…..

If you could be in charge, what would you use to teach kids to read?

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As a TumbleBooks subscriber, I recently received an email announcing the launch of a BETA TumblePad 2.0 downloadable ebook reader for PC and Mac. This presents an interesting opportunity for teachers who have computers or laptops in their classrooms, but not internet access. This is actually the case in some of the Head Start classrooms that are part of the Akron Ready Steps program that I work closely with. I spent some time this morning the downloadable e-Book reader for Mac and thought I’d share some highlights and thoughts about this product with my Raised Digital readers. You’ll need to click on the images to view them at full-size.

• Installation is pretty straightforward.

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A few weeks back, I posted “Examining the Purpose of a Dissertation Literature Review,” in which I outlined the Doctoral Research Forum I am participating in. I think the concept that the University of Akron College of Education faculty are pursuing could lead to a valuable educational experience for doctoral candidates. Additionally, I commend my UA profs because this type of collaboration between course instructors is a largely unheard of at UA. However, I have been struggling throughout the forum assignments. This is largely due to the fact that each of the past four weeks we have been required to read a scholarly article, post a written response on the Springboard (UA’s LMS) discussion forum and then respond to at least one of our colleagues responses.

This week, the game changed a bit and student participants were asked to provide feedback. From the Discussion Forum posting:

This week’s discussion is about the Research FORUM in general.  The FORUM instructors greatly value your feedback.

1. What do you think about content and process of the FORUM is effective?
2. What suggestions do you have for improving the FORUM?
3. What other comment, observations, questions, etc. would you like to share?

The following is my response. I’m sure it will be well received by some, and not so popular with others. Because of this, I titled the SUBJECT of my forum topic “Disclaimer: Honest feedback. Personal opinion.”

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[SWF]http://brueckei.org/jsb_content/currere_engage/pinar.swf, 440, 260[/SWF]

Full Screen Version of Learning Object

This semester I’m enrolled in an independent study with Dr. Lisa Lenhart and Dr. Jennifer Milam from the University of Akron. The course is Introduction to Curriculum Theory, one which isn’t currently offered as a part of the College of Education’s Curriculum and Instruction doctoral program. The main text we are using to guide our discussion of curriculum theory is William F. Pinar‘s 2004 work, “What is Curriculum Theory?” From the course syllabus:

Curriculum theory is, then, about discovering and articulating, for oneself and with others, the educational significance of the school subjects for self and society in the ever-changing historical moment. As a consequence, curriculum theory rejects the current “business-minded” school reform, with its emphasis on test scores on standardized examinations, academic analogues to “the bottom line” (i.e., “profit”). It rejects the miseducation of the American public” (Pinar, 2004, p. 16).

As I’ve been working my way through the text, one of the concepts I’m trying to understand more deeply is the significance of the re-conceptualization of curriculum studies. After reading the first few chapters, it’s quite clear that Pinar has some issues with the historical context of curriculum theory. In fact, he is very intent on voicing his opinion regarding the complexities and contradictions of curriculum theory and practice as most educators know it.

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For the past year, Dr. Kathleen Roskos from John Carroll University, Dr. Karen Burstein, Director of the Southwest Institute for Families and Children and I have been researching use of eBooks with early literacy learners. Most recently, our team has started a study that will look at instructional interactions with eBooks that promote early literacy development and vocabulary. After viewing the David Merrill TED video and blogging about it in this post, I began to consider how our research team might incorporate these devices as part of our work. I was so excited about this possibility that I decided to email the Sifteo team to see if they might be open to collaborating with us on research in the future.

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Have you seen the TED talk with David Merrill yet? The one where he demos these little building block thingies that are actually computers and can communicate with one another? While it’s over a year old, if you haven’t seen it yet, I’d highly recommend you take a look at it. The objects in the video are called Siftables and they are a product of work that Merrill started at the MIT Media Lab along with his partner Jeevan Kalanithi. Recently, Merrill and friends formed a start-up company called Sifteo to continue their work. They are closing in on a commercial launch of the product. From their website, Siftables are:

…sets of cookie-sized computers with motion sensing, neighbor detection, graphical display, and wireless communication. Siftables act in concert to form a single interface: users physically manipulate them—piling, grouping, sorting—to interact with digital information and media. Siftables provide a new platform on which to implement tangible games...

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I’m creeping closer towards the completion of my doctoral coursework. This means that the beginning of my own educational research study and dissertation writing is not to far from my future. As a part of my coursework at the University of Akron, I’ve been participating in a Doctoral Student Research Forum that includes students from three research method classes (Data Collection Methods, Advanced Statistics and Advanced Qualitative Methods) and their respective College of Education faculty.

In a fairly progressive undertaking by UA College of Education faculty, Dr. Kristin Kosksy, Dr. Susan Kushner Benson, Dr. Xin Liang, Dr. Jennifer Milam and Dr. Sandra Spickard Prettyman, doctoral students from 5 different sections of those classes have been assigned to small discussion groups. From the course requirements we were provided, the purpose of the forum is to:

…provide College of Education doctoral students with an opportunity to work with other doctoral students and faculty in a collaborative and collegial manner while exploring and reflecting upon contemporary research topics.

Most recently, we have been reading and discussing articles relating to the purpose of a dissertation literature review. We began with David N. Boote’s and Penny Beile’s Scholars Before Researchers: On the Centrality of the Dissertation Literature Review in Research Preparation. From there, we moved on to Literature Reviews of, and for, Educational Research: Commentary on Boote and Beile’s “Scholars Before Researchers” by Joseph A. Maxwell.

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