Internet Research for TechQuest Project

What I Learned
Performing research for my TechQuest Project was frustrating.  I spent way too much time trying to find scholarly articles relating absenteeism to reduced academic achievement/student performance.  I did this thinking that I had to justify the premise of my project to  the CEP-812 instructors and the academic community in general.  What I found is that there is a general lack of research in this area.  Most of the research is anecdotal and dates back to the 1980’s and 1990’s.  I also spent too much time looking through research proposing solutions to attendance issues.  After spending several hours spinning my wheels searching Google Scholar and MSU’s educational databases, I finally realized that while I would like to see attendance improved, that is not really the goal of my project and that improving attendance is largely beyond my control as a classroom teacher.  The goal of my project is to make resources available to absent students and students in general.  Therefore, I shifted the focus of my research to finding tools for making classroom content available to students.  This proved more fruitful.  In the “Tips and Tricks” forums in MSU’s EdTech courses I had read about “Jing” (a free screencasting resource).  Google searches on “Jing” and “screencasting” yielded results.  From there, I moved into exploring other tools for capturing and posting content. 

Before discussing the results of my research, I would like to offer a side note on search engines and databases.  Straight Google searches on absenteeism yielded the lowest quality hits - generally blog entries or unsubstantiated comments on organizational websites.  Google Scholar was fairly helpful for locating information but it had the significant disadvantage of requiring subscriptions to access full articles. Being a MSU student gave me access to MSU Library search engines and subscriptions.  Therefore, I could actually retrieve full articles, not just abstracts, for the better quality hits I was getting.  This is something I will share with my students as we perform classroom research.  I should better inform myself as to what subscriptions the district has and make sure that they are easily accessible to students from school and home.


Results of My Research - Absenteeism and Student Achievement
Research into absenteeism and student achievement/performance was, for the most part, fruitless.  Rather than post a bunch of low quality, outdated references, I will provide a few sites that offer a snapshot of the current state of the problem.

The mission of the National Dropout Prevention Center is “to increase high school graduation rates through research and evidence-based solutions”.  The NDPC recognizes 15 broad based strategies for increasing graduation rates.  These strategies are presented in a 9 minute video. The site offers research and model programs and is useful for districts looking to reduce chronic absenteeism due to truancy. The downside is that the NDPC doesn’t address ways of helping absent students recover which is the goal of my TechQuest.

This Scholastic survey and a search on “absent students” on the National Education Association’s homepage reveals the typical methods teachers use to help absent students catch up.  A quick scan of teacher responses shows that methods have not changed with the times and that technological solutions are the exception rather than the rule. I believe that this largely because
1) many teachers are not technologically literate and
2) that technologically literate teachers may be concerned about widening the digital divide.  Chronically absent students often have limited access to technology; which is one of the reasons they may be disaffected enough to be truant.  In any event, most teachers either set aside worksheets in folders for the missing student or have another student copy down the assignments for the day.  The assignments are sent home with a sibling, friend, or parent or set aside until the absent student returns.  Technological solutions are usually limited to posting a calendar of assignments online or maintaining a class website that outlines class activities without providing actual content.


Results of My Research - Technologies for Creating Content
The rest of my research has been dedicated to finding technologies that allow teachers to capture content for students, whether absent or present, as my underlying assumption is that all students benefit from multiple exposures to content and alternative delivery methods.  A second assumption (one that is harder to rationalize) of my TechQuest is that students have access to technology while absent or when they return to school.  It is worth noting that the technologies described here can be viewed both as a way of delivering content to absent students and as a way for absent students to deliver content to the teacher.

My research into technologies was two pronged: finding technologies that cover the range of content teachers might want to create and finding tools that are freeware, open source, and cross platform to make content more accessible to educators and students.

documents
Office suites include basic word processing, spreadsheet, and presentation software.  Several freeware choices include: Open Office, Google Docs, and Zoho but often lack the high end features of commercial applications like Microsoft Office.  Office suites allow saving documents in PDF format; which prevents documents from being altered by the recipient and overcomes translation issues between different computing platforms.  PDF readers are necessary for reading the files but also offer ways to annotate the document being viewed.  The best overall summary of PDF tools that I found was in Wikipedia.  For my TechQuest project, I will be using the iWork suite and Preview applications that came with my district provided MacBook and using PDF files as appropriate.

video
Video can be used in any number of ways to capture teacher or student presentations or demonstrations.  Educators will be especially interested in “20+ Ways to Use Flip Cameras in the Classroom” and “Forty-Three Interesting Ways to Use Your Pocket Video Camera in the Classroom”. There are a wide variety of options for capturing video, from built-in cameras, to inexpensive Flip cameras, to high end video cameras.  Technical manuals come with cameras or can be downloaded online from camera manufacturer sites.  Searching YouTube and TeacherTube yields lots of tutorials on video hardware, shooting techniques, and editing options.  Video content can be posted to YouTube, TeacherTube, embedded in websites and online learning systems, or e-mailed to students.  I don’t foresee creating video content during the implementation phase of my TechQuest as I currently have limited access to video technology.  I will revisit this issue when writing my personal tech plan.

screen capture/screencasting
Screencasting is used to record what is occurring on a computer monitor.  WebResourcesDepot’s “10 Free Screen Recording Softwares for Creating Attractive Screencasts” offers screencasting applications for the Mac, PC, and Linux operating systems.  It is worth reading the followup posts by users of the various applications to determine which system is right for you.  Jing is the only option listed for both Mac and PC operating systems.  For my TechQuest, I plan on using the free version of Jing.  It is limited to 5 minute recordings so I will need to plan the lecture portions of my instruction differently or record a separate series of vignettes on key points.

podcasting
Podcasting can be used to post audio content as well as images in a format suitable for MP3 players.  TopTenReviews summarizes the features and costs of the most popular commercial and freeware podcasting applications.  For my TechQuest project, I will be experimenting with Audacity coupled with Lame.  My MacBook has a built in microphone and I own a headset with a built in microphone for experimenting with scripted recordings. My classroom is equipped with a sound system which should allow me to capture classroom content live with appropriate computer cabling.  A commercial product, GarageBand, came with my district issued laptop and will be explored as time permits.

text to speech conversion
Speech conversion is useful for students who benefit from having content read to them. This is an area that currently lacks applications that are cross platform, free, or flexible enough to accommodate a variety of document types.  You can get a free demonstration of this technology at iSpeech but continued use is fee based.  Additional resources and information on this evolving technology are available at: thefreecountry.com and Wikipedia.  I consider this technology beyond the scope of my TechQuest but will continue to monitor the technology as it develops.

resources specific to my situation
I am including links to these resources because they affect the content that I create for my TechQuest although they will likely be of little use to the general reader.  My classroom recently received a AVerVision CP355 document camera and an eno PolyVision whiteboard which includes Easiteach software.

Final Comment
I had an “aha” moment while writing up my research.  Essentially what I have been doing is describing how to put together content for an online course; which could be viewed as educating a perpetually absent student.  This connection reinforces the value of the work being done by my Special Interest Group (SIG) on Online Learning.