Anyone who knows us knows LEARN NC is all about the sharing. We get requests regularly from people interested in buying our content or licensing our resources and our answer is the same… no. We won’t sell it but you can have it if you give us credit and don’t sell it, rather share what you make, too. Open source, Creative Commons, free, sharable… these are our core principles and these words are heard daily in our office.

The question is, does it make sense to share content openly, or is this trend toward open content thwarting innovation, disrespecting intellectual property and robbing us of our ability to earn a living in the long run?

In this excerpt from his upcoming book, Jason Lanier takes on intellectual sharing and digital collectivism. Strongly stated stuff, but it makes you think (or in my case, rethink) about things you have accepted (if you are like me, a priori, perhaps) as truth.

Long term trends and effect aside, how does this relate to the work of LEARN NC? I think that those of us working to meet the needs of the public school teachers and students have to share. We are working for the state, supported by public resources, and serving a constituency that is under-resourced and hardly equipped to pay. Like others in the public education arena, we are expected to play nice with others and share our toys and we actually walk the walk. Besides, once we begin to try to restrict access to those who have paid, we create a market where there isn’t one, and fair use cedes to for-profit. (takes me back to one of my very first posts in this blog almost two years ago, Fair Use: use it or lose it!)

So what do you think?

This webinar sponsored by the Appalachian Regional Comprehensive Center at Edvantia was held on December 14, 2009. Deborah Ward of Ward and Associates presented during the webinar. She is a “nationally recognized proposal writing consultant for education and nonprofit clients.” Below are highlights from her presentation. Many of the points are common sense but probably bear repeating.

• Start with an idea that closely aligns with what the funder wants to fund.
• Think about what you hope to accomplish. What is the scope and depth of the project?
• Is the project innovative? Make sure that the idea you have hasn’t been funded before. The grantor will be looking for something new and different.
• Does the project use best practices? You will need the most up-to-date information that you can get.
• It is easier to find funders with a concept in mind.
• Read the Request for Proposal very carefully, using a highlighter so that you don’t miss any important facts. What to look for:
  • Purpose of the grant funding
  • Eligibility requirements
  • Deadline
  • Proposal section instructions (critical piece)
  • Page limit, fonts, and margins
• Funders will toss out a proposal without looking at it if it doesn’t follow the instructions and use the correct font and margins and goes over the page limit.
• Your organization may serve as a partner with another organization. A memorandum of understanding is needed.
• Buzzwords and acronyms
  • Spell out the words for the acronyms
  • Define words if needed; don’t make assumptions (for instance, “at risk” might mean something else than what you want it to mean.)

Proposal Selection Instructions

Use the proposal section instructions with the scoring criteria if it is included in the Request for Proposal.
Common proposal sections:

1. Needs statement/problem statement
   1. Support with data, surveys, teacher input, etc.
   2. Do more than identify research: explain what you want to do.
2. Goals and Objectives
   1. You need to be realistic. The project should be doable within the grant period.
   2. Goals and objectives should be measurable.
3. Methodology
   1. Describe the what, where, when, and who for the project.
   2. If you are including professional development, be sure to describe it. Make sure it is current.
   3. Identify who will be doing the project and what the follow-up will be.
4. Personnel and staff
   1. Who is responsible for carrying out the project and their responsibilities and why they are the right staff to do this.
5. Evaluation
   1. Will you use an internal or external evaluator? Check the budget to see if there is money included to hire an evaluator.
   2. What evaluation tools will you use? Go back and look at your goals and objectives.
   3. Ask an evaluator to write this section of the proposal. They can better articulate the evaluation tools they will be using.
   4. Colleges and universities have internal evaluators. Also, contact prior grantees and ask them who they used.
   5. The American Evaluation Association website, http://www.eval.org, has a “Find an evaluator” section.
6. Budget
   1. What are the allowable costs?
   2. Make sure the numbers are real.
   3. Create a budget narrative and show calculations. Look for a budget narrative sample through an internet search to see how this is done.
   4. Spell out how much money is needed and why. Include every single line item and discuss this in the narrative.
   5. Don’t make numbers up.
   6. Recheck the addition!
   7. The funding is for the project only, not operational costs.
   8. If including technology in the budget, make sure to justify it in the narrative rather than creating a wish list. Explain why you are selecting specific technology to use in the project.
7. Appendix
   1. Can you include an appendix in the proposal?
   2. Do not put material in the appendix that should be in the narrative.
   3. Don’t overload this area. Most reviewers will only spend a few minutes looking at it.

More things to think about

• Sustainability — Think how you will sustain parts of the project after the funding period. Consider revenue generating options. Expand professional development.
• Partial vs. full funding — Negotiate if necessary. Be clear about what is going to be funded. A revised budget may be needed. A revision to the proposal may also be needed. Ask the funder for a good length of time to work out what it means to your project to have partial funding.
• Scoring before submission — Give the proposal draft to others, including the scoring criteria to identify possible weaknesses in the proposal.
• Look a funded proposals — Get at least one copy of a funded proposal to look at for content, scope and formatting. Look at prior grantees and ask to see how their projects were funded.

Writing a better proposal

• Use clear and precise language
• Make sure that the deadlines and budget information match throughout the proposal.
• Give a draft to a grant writing professional or have them write it. Be clear about their role in the process.
• Use the Request for Proposal guidance and scoring criteria and use the points as a guide also.

Ever since I came to work with online courses and teachers with classroom access to the internet, I have imagined that there would be a natural push to integrate free, open, high-quality digital content. As the National Science Digital Library and Teachers’ Domain came online, I thought for sure it would happen soon. That’s one reason why I was willing to invest in creating the North Carolina History Digital Textbook which can serve the classroom teacher as a replacement or supplement to the print text. I expected that this work, which integrates digitized content from universities, libraries, museums and historic sites, would be proof of concept, and we’d have insightful education leaders across North Carolina lining up to develop digital texts for environmental science and geometry, for starters.

Natural push to integrate? Not so much. But why? Seems logical that teachers and faculty developers would integrate the cool applets on Shodor’s Interactivate in their online, hybrid or face-to-face classes, but somehow we’re not making the connections between learners and high-quality digital content.

Sounds like a job for…. the Media Specialist! I know, you are already charged with class novel sets, checking out textbooks, replacing projector lamps, and troubleshooting everything that plugs in, but as the central curriculum resource in the school, who better to integrate quality digital content-area resources? And, where better for teachers and students to encounter these resources than the online public access catalog?

Thanks to Gerry Solomon, Media Mage of North Carolina, for alerting me to a study at Florida State University to explore ways of bringing digital content to school libraries. Digital Libraries to School Libraries (DL2SL): A Strategy for Lasting K-12 Open Content Implementation will explore how school libraries can successfully integrate digital library “open content” in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM materials) into their collections and services.

Clearly, the availability of free, open digital content is not enough. We need to make connections for teachers, align and describe the resources, and provide a central location, one they already turn to for quality, vetted content, for accessing these items. I still wonder at the disconnect between classroom instruction and quality online content, so I will be following this study closely.

Now that I have your attention…

Lesley shared an article from the Chronicle of Higher Education that really makes you think. We know that putting computers in classrooms doesn’t always make for a better learning experience, but what about taking them out? What are the advantages of “teaching naked”?

Jeff Young’s July 20th article entitled When Computers Leave Classrooms, So Does Boredom tells of a dean who is so unimpressed with the poor use of technology in instruction that he removed all computers from classrooms to encourage faculty to think about how they spend that classroom time between the bells. If your next lesson is to be presented as a lecture with [dare I say it] a PowerPoint presentation, is why take up precious face-to-face class time to deliver it? Technology allows for the publication and pre-class consumption of that lecture using podcasts, video, and screencasting. Class time can them be used for more engaging learning experiences including group discussions, hands-on activities and other more collaborative learning opportunities.

I would never think to encourage the removal of technology from a classroom and that is not, really, the point. It is not about shunning the use of technology in teaching, it is about effective technology use in teaching. To quote an excellent related blog entry from academhack,

This is not a story about a luddite professor, but rather about a professor who has developed an effective way to use technology in education. In fact what Jose has done, is allowed technology to thoroughly change the way education happens, rather than just treat it as a supplemental, incremental change.

In David A. Sousa’s article Brain-Friendly Learning for Teachers in the free online June 2009 edition of Educational Leadership, he reviews what we know about how we learn and asserts that we may just want to consider this important information when we craft professional development courses for teachers. Imagine that. Simple exposure, a.k.a. “seat-time,” is not enough to enhance teacher effectiveness. They actually have to LEARN something!

Of course this is not news to us, but you wouldn’t know it, really, from looking at how professional development is created. Too often we plan or procure professional opportunities for teachers without consideration for adult learning theories, let alone brain research. The article makes a few important recommendations and explains why, neurologically, each should be considered if a professional development activity is to make a positive impact. You must read the article to understand why, but here are a few brain-friendly findings:

• Motivation is key, and teachers, like other adults, are usually motivated to learn things to build their skills. Activities that connect directly to job-related goals are more meaningful.
• Effective feedback — timely, specific and positive feedback — contributes to motivation.
• A positive learning situation, one in which the teacher is engaged and has ownership, is more likely to stimulate the part of the brain that allows for attention and retention of the skills or knowledge presented.
• Topics must be presented over enough time and in enough depth to allow for thorough understanding. Social and collaborative opportunities around the topic can help with implementation.

From what we’ve observed, it seems that the impact of professional development, the learning and application of learning, is often not even evaluated. If an evaluation is done, it is usually a post-workshop survey that focuses on the event rather than its impact, and the result may be that the workshop serving the best box lunch is most highly rated! While effective evaluation is more resource intensive, it needs to happen. Otherwise, how will we know we are making the best use of our professional development dollars?

The American Association of School Librarians (AASL) has identified 25 websites deemed “Best for Teaching and Learning.”
AASL provides a description of each of these free, user-friendly web-based resources, teaching tips for using them in the classroom, and alignment of each to Standards for 21st Century Learners. The Top 25 include tools and resources in:

• Organizing and Managing
• Content Collaboration
• Curriculum Sharing
• Media Sharing
• Virtual Environments
• Social Networking and Communication

The Top 25 Web sites for Teaching and Learning were named so because they foster the qualities of innovation, creativity, active participation and collaboration. The Web sites honored include: Animoto; Classroom 2.0; Curriki; Diigo; Edublogs; Facebook; Good Reads; Google Reader; Mindmeister; Ning; Our Story; Partnership for 21st Century Skills; Polleverywhere; Primary Access; RezED; Second Life; Simply Box; Skype; SOS for Information Literacy; Teacher Tube; Twitter; VoiceThread; Wikispaces; Wordle; and Zoho.

Happened upon the January 2 issue of Science magazine** today and thought there was a great deal of interesting content there, especially in light of our interest in the use of online resources, the development of game-based learning, and the improvement of teaching in the STEM disciplines.

The Table of Contents from this issue provides easy access to the articles. Of particular interest is an article by Merrilea J. Mayo about the use of video games in STEM education, something she’s been in discussion with various researchers in North Carolina to get developed. There is also an article that discusses the potential and reality of teachers’ use of digital assets from the National Science Digital Library.

If you are interested in media other than print, start with the video introduction to this special issue, or the podcast of an interview with Chris Dede on immersive interfaces for engagement and learning.

**note** You may need to access this while on campus or use NC LIVE to gain access to this subscription-based resource.

If you are going to publish a digital textbook, the first thing you ought to ask is whether anybody will be able to read it. This seems sort of obvious, but it’s too often left out of discussions about online textbooks and “e-textbooks.” Most e-book versions of college textbooks are just scans of printed pages stuck into a weak knockoff of a web browser. At the other end of the spectrum, professors slap content into “course management systems” without any thought at all to design (and, to be fair, course management systems don’t always make good design particularly easy). Rarely are the content and its presentation designed from the ground up for the medium of delivery — and when they are, the result is too often a mass of hyperlinks and interactive tools that “take advantage of the medium” but don’t actually aid reading or further comprehension. As a result, these means of delivering content to students are usually a step backwards from a well-designed print textbook. That’s a shame, because I think there’s tremendous potential for online textbooks — if they’re designed thoughtfully.

In working on North Carolina Digital History I’ve put a lot of thought and work into making the content as readable as possible — ensuring not only that people will be able to find the material they’re looking for, but also that they’ll be able to read it comfortably and effectively once they’ve found it. I won’t say I’ve entirely succeeded; the current page design is one step in a process of iterative improvement, but I think we’re making considerable progress. It is, in any case, a thoughtful design, and it’s that thought process I want to talk about here. Read the rest of this entry »

I attended a presentation yesterday, one of the UNC Scholary Communications Working Group brown-bag lunch series, about e-textbook adoption by professors and students. Bob Henshaw from IT and John Jones from Student Stores studied a dozen classes in which e-textbooks were offered as an option alongside traditional textbooks. At UNC, professors choose not only the textbooks for their classes but whether the e-book version is an acceptable substitute; if they permit the e-version, students can choose the version they want. (We’re not talking about open textbooks or web-based textbooks; these are all produced by textbook publishers.) Few students (less than 10 percent) chose them, and some who did actually went back to the store and bought a print copy. Here are several reasons: Read the rest of this entry »

The Quick and the Ed has a good post today about proposed limitations to Florida’s Virtual Public School. The author makes a direct reference to Disrupting Class.