Heading into the new year, I thought I’d begin again with a potentially useful post that speaks to the current accountability zeitgeist in education. I have difficulty believing that the benefit of standardized tests outweighs the loss. At the same time, I think it a) helpful to be able to talk about learning in a way that is understood by all; and b) necessary that we pay attention in some way to outcomes.

But as any thoughtful researcher will agree, methodology - the philosophical and theoretical framework that guides data collection - is a crucial part of research design. However, the tests that drive AYP are guided by a methodology that often is not shared by teachers themselves. Maybe some teachers, but certainly not all, would choose similar skill-and-drill assessment tools for tracking learning in their classrooms. I argue that for a classroom-based research design to have integrity, teachers’ own pedagogy should be incorporated into the assessment. This does not mean that we can’t have standards outlining *what* should be counted, but that we should allow teachers and local administrators to come up with the ways most in keeping with their classroom and school philosophies on *how* to count. This is certainly not the direction we’re heading, but to me it’s worth saying. For the time being we can imagine how we would prefer to evaluate as we move forward in the AYP lockstep that dictates how we will.

Happily, I’m as yet aware of no national or state-wide mandated tests for technology standards, although - also happily - we already have some agreement on what should be counted. What follows is a short list of a few indices for technology learning assessment. We’ll try to grow the list this year.

1) Computer (or internet) Outcome Expectancy - the consequences students anticipate from computer or interenet usage, independent of indivudal skill or competency - i.e., what you expect a computer can do for you

2) Computer (or internet) Self-Efficacy - “what individuals believe they can do with the skills they possess”; belief “in one’s own capabilities” (see for example, Eastin and LaRose. ” Internet Self-Efficacy and the Psychology of the Digital Divide.” Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, v.6, n.1, 2000.)

3) Computer Attitudes - interest and/or enjoyment in technology. For a validated measure (grades 6-8), see the Computer Attitude Questionnaure (CAQ), a 65-item Likert instrument for measuring middle-school students’ attitudes and computer anxiety. As a note, NSF is interested in “student engagement,” (see the recent “Report of the Academic Competitiveness Council” for the STEM education measures federal agencies will be prioritizing moving forward) which is connected with these specific Computer Inventory subscales.

5) Computer Anxiety - self explanatory, and a measure is included of this subscale in the CAQ described above.

6) Student Achievement - quite simply, students’ skill-based or knowledge-based performance. See the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) National Eduational Standards Technology (NETS) for what to date is being included in the developing set of national standards for technology education. See also the ACM’s K-12 Model Curriculum, available at the Computer Science Teacher’s Association (CSTA) website.

7) Computing Career Awareness and Interest - I have been unable to locate a middle school inventory to determine a student’s interest in or even awareness of computer-related careers, but a validated instrument for high school and college students is one developed by Drs. Elizabeth Creamer, Carol Burger and Peggy Meszaros (NSF-funded). Their “Career Decision-Making Survey” (grounded in theories of why women have historically chosen not to pursue careers in computing) looks at parental attitudes and students’ exposure to computers, among other things, to predict interest in an IT / computer-related career. The survey looks at students’ meaning-making during the decision-making process. Computer Career Interest is another measure that NSF and other federal agencies have made a high-priority.

If there are other valuable measures and instruments out there, pass them along.

For the last several weeks students have been building their own virtual worlds using Activeworlds proprietary software (activeworlds.com) hosted and programmed by Scicentr.org (www.scicentr.org). Scicentr’s virtual world outreach programming has for the last several years produced the best results with middle school students. The students in Real Place, Virtual Space are younger. Although they are *able* to learn virtual world building skills, they aren’t yet as engaged as older students with the virtual world as a medium for communication and instruction. Their excitement about the dialogic nature of the blog hints at what’s possible for their world (named WestV), but for now, they are still learning to build fences and signs. One student, e.h., will be completing a house during the last meeting today. Yesterday, he was interested enough in what he’s been doing to introduce a new student to the WestV world, and explain to him that all that was needed to complete his house was to reposition the roof, two angled panels he’d left waiting on the grass.

The graphic nature of the virtual world engaged e.h., the student who arguably created the most imaginative avatar (the headless man) . On the other hand, he literally talked his way out of posting a dialogue with a commentator on the blog, using a past lesson on internet safety: “I don’t trust this guy.” On the other hand, another student Victor, a fast typist and writer but a student difficult to engage with our previous assignments - he designed no avatar and did not complete an Internet collage - took to writing a response without too much cajoling. Victor was excited about writing, but not about the world building.

Victor is an avid game-player, and it was an event every afternoon to get him to switch gears, finish his game, and begin our work on other aspects of comptuer arts. He made an interesting comment about virtual worlds: there are no”secret places”. Lukas, the students’ virtual world instructor, descibes that many of these young students found the virtual world “lonely”. In the virtual world, exactly what you do is exactly what happens. There are no surprises, and *some* younger students find it much more exciting to play games. Victor is one of them. But e.h. is not.

Computer technologies engage different students in different ways, and we must let this be “ok” as we consider what computer literacy means. Every job has the perfect tool, and you don’t throw away your hammer because you just bought a great saw. Students will approach and engage with computing based on who they are, what they like, and how they like to learn. Within the context of the current standards movement and the emphasis on subjects’ ever-increasing “content”, hopefully computing will not become itself, just another standard content. Hopefully, we can continue to find the ways and means of allowing student exploration of multiple arts and literacies that computers and new media afford.

Answer to question A.
Your question A does not make sense to me about the the Virtual world or some other game, that is why my answer is yes, I played that game before. The Virtual world is not a game but it is like same thing that can help stundents have a good time to play.

Answer to question B.
I think these games help students learn because when they work so hard at school they can have like break time to play, then they can pick Virtual world to play.

How I would make the virtual world more interesting is instead of just looking at things why can’t the virtual world have most of the things that the real world has, coudn’t the virtual world have money, shops, banks, books and lots of games. I think there should be lots and lots of different places to go. I think there should be lots of secret places to go. That’s probably all I would change about the virtual world.

Yesterday, students wrote their first blog entries to Real Place, Virtual Space. The ‘virtual worlds’ students mention refer to their own private virtual world provided to them through Scicentr.org, an outreach program through the Cornell Theory Center. Scicentr (www.scicentr.org) uses virtual world technology to disseminate Cornell scientific research and teach students across the STEM disciplines. My students have had so far two meetings ‘in-world’. A Cornell Computer Science Ph.D. student, Lukas, has been teaching students how to navigate and build in their private world. The most distinctive thing about their introduction to the technology is their desire to move very quickly. We had decided that the first class would be spent learning how to navigate: how to walk, how to fly, how to change views, etc. We anticipated that students’ introductions to actual ‘building’ would be reserved for subsequent meetings. Within the first ten minutes, students were clamoring to build - and build they did. They started with a chess set, in imitation of a set already designed in another world. (Scicentr hosts nearly 100 worlds in an educational universe named CTCUni.) By the next meeting, students started the process of developing a neighborhood. Each student has built a fence around a space that will ultimately hold a house of their own design. (A house is built by moving individual panels around in the space and designing and ‘texturing’ a cube.)

I had hoped that the innovation and excitement provided by the virtual worlds would encourage students to write about it. Although they have enjoyed seeing their avatars and collages online, it was a limited attraction. And getting them to write about their experiences building in their virtual world was still a chore. HOWEVER, my hope was not to get them to enjoy writing, necessarily, but to encourage their computer arts skills. Watching them as they typed their paragraphs into Microsoft Word, I learned how they are incorporating now everyday technologies into their development as writers. The 4th grade student who struggled to write three sentences expertly navigated spellcheck using right-click shortcuts. Another ESL student did the same with a focus on checking her sentence structure with the grammar check. Elementary spelling and grammar mistakes were erased with a mouse-click. As a writing teacher, I cringe; as a computer arts educator, I’m wowed.

Last week I was having fun with the virtual world on the computer. It is a fun time. It is a cool game. I love to find things and then put it on my world and get more stuff on it.

That is great for someone who has no homework or learns so hard at school and wants to have free time. I like to play this game. It is kind of a good game. It is so fun to me and for any one.

I want everything that I own in the virtual world to be red and black. I want my house to be a mansion. I want there to be a soccer filed for my back yard. I already made a fence.
It’s not very difficult.

Hello my name is V.L. I am 10 years old and in 4th grade.This is my opinon about the virtual world.

I am building a fence around a huge dome for my house to stay in. I have also built a HUGE Dilbert statue outside my house. I want to build a sign saying that the dome, house, fence and the Dilbert statue is all my property. I also want my houses to be 3 stories high with a chess board and lots of soccer signs and paintings around my house. I will build any additional stuff that I find interesting.

The only thing I like about the virtual world is that you can build tons of objects that are interesting. I like looking and learning different things in the virtual world. What I don’t like about the virtual world is lots of times it can get boring running around looking and learning things.

I asked the students at our next meeting: What is the Internet? I first provided them with a handout - clip art icons included - that went through some primary functions of the Internet. Younger students think about the Internet in terms of what they can DO with it, or what they can find there. So, simply put - almost embarassingly so - I defined the Internet for these nine and ten year olds as “People talking…A place to read and learn…A way to write and share your ideas…A place to play.” The icons were particularly helpful to bring the ESL students in the group along with us. To start the project, I asked them what the Internet was, and most discussion centered on games and entertainment, although some students started talking about the Internet as a way to find real estate. After discussion, I gave students a stack of reclyced PC Magazines and asked them to collage the question, What is the Internet. Here are their collages.

For our second meeting, students were introduced to the concept of internet safety. Here is the handout from our meeting:

Internet Safety

The Internet is a very PUBLIC PLACE. It is like the mall, or a parade, or the airport. People are moving in and out, and you are always bumping into someone you don’t know!

A few simple rules will help you be safe while on the Internet. These rules will help you be safe anywhere!

1. Never give out your real name. Keep this a secret. Make up a new name that you will use whenever you are on the Internet. Keep the names of your parents and family a secret too.

2. Never give out your address or where you go to school. Keep information about where you live PRIVATE.

3. Think about yourself on the Internet as a kind of everyday superhero. Hide your true identity! Always use an AVATAR to represent yourself on the Internet. An avatar is a picture or drawing that is unique to your personality but doesn’t look like you. When playing video or online games, the game gives you a character to play. This is an example of an ‘avatar:

4. Do not talk to strangers – even email or chat! - unless your teacher, parent or guardian has introduced you to them.

5. Do not open SPAM. You never know who sends you spam, so it could hurt your computer – and you!

Try this Internet Safety Game and see how well you understand these rules! http://www.att.com/Common/images/safety/game.html

Avatar Design

Connected to the idea that effective internet safety is comparable to having a ’secret identity’, we worked on creating an avatar - a graphical representation of your self - for this blog. We used the program free to PCs called Microsoft Paint.

Painting a Digital Image Using “Microsoft Paint”

Open up the program called “Microsoft Paint”. Do you know how to find a program on your computer? If not, try this:

How to find a program on your computer:

1. Click ‘Start’ one time. ‘Start’ can be found in the lower left hand side of your screen.

2. Click ‘Search’ one time. ‘Search’ is the picture of the magnifying glass.

3. Click on ‘search all files and folders’

4. Type in your search word: “paint”. What results come up? Paint is a program with a name that ends in “.exe”. Can you find any search results with the file name that ends in “.exe”?

Once you are in Microsoft Paint, open the digital image file you will be using as your avatar. To do this:

1. Move your mouse to “File” and click once

2. Drag your mouse to “Open” and click once

3. “Browse” through the files on your computer to find the “Desktop” Do you know how to Browse and locate files on your computer?

4. Find your picture and open it using the program Microsoft Paint

In Paint, you will see a “Toolbar.” What is a “toolbar”? The toolbar has different ‘tools’ you can use to paint your picture. What are your favorite tools? Are there any tools you don’t understand how to use, or what they do?

After talking about Internet safety and avatars, students opened pictures of themselves taken the previous week and ‘painted’ them as one way of designing their own avatar. Here are a few from the class:

With the introduction of internet safety, we took one step closer toward this blog, in addition to increased competency in basic concepts and understanding as outlined bythe International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) National Education Technology Standards (NETS). These basic concepts include keyboarding skills and mouse control, the ability to solve computer-related problems, and windows and some transmedia navigation. Students searched for a program, opened a file using a selected program (including browsing for the desired file), explored and manipulated a graphics program toolbox, and saved a file to the desktop.