February 28, 2007

The Philosopher's Stone of Software

In my last post I reviewed some of the free software that Google offers and discussed how one could use it in the classroom. This time, I'd like to talk about another free Google product, but it's one that has a "darker" side to it, at least in terms of its educational applications. I'm referring to Google's Language Tools. There are four tools; three of them are useful but innocuous. The "Translate" feature is my subject here.

Translate gives you a choice of twenty-five language pairs (English/Spanish, French/German, etc.). After choosing your pair, you enter the URL of a website, and Google will translate it from one language to another. (To see TeachingTech in Spanish, for example, click here.) You could also copy text from a Word document or some other source and paste it in for translation. The result in many cases is far from perfect. Too often, it sounds like Sacha Baron Cohen in Borat--strings of three or four words make sense but full sentences are convoluted and unclear. So Google's Translate is the philosopher's stone of language translation--that legendary substance that could transform any material into gold. Never mind that the result isn't twenty-four carat; the quality of the translation will only improve over time.

As you'd expect, the accuracy of the translation is related to the degree of complexity of the source text. Beginning level English-to-Spanish, for example, comes through reasonably well. A Spanish-to-English translation of an article from the technology section of a Venezuelan newspaper is clumsy and fractured. To some degree however, this is true of language translations done by anyone with less than the highest level of fluency in the source and target languages.

For teachers, and especially for language teachers, Google's Translate raises some interesting questions. For example, if a teacher of first-year French asked students to translate a paragraph from English to French, what grade would he give to the paragraph generated by Translate? Probably not an A, but probably not an F either. I showed two paragraphs from this blog to a Spanish teacher at my school. She said that, although she could understand it, it wasn't well written and contained a number of errors. But that's probably what she'd say about my Spanish too. (I've been studying Spanish since moving to Venezuela in 2004.)

There's no point in trying to prevent students from using Translate; if it's available on the web, they'll find it sooner or later. So teachers need to develop strategies to live with it, or better yet, to use it as a tool to teach languages more effectively.

Here's a hypothetical homework assignment that language teachers give regularly: Write a paragraph describing what you did over the weekend. The student could write the paragraph in English and then run it through Translate to get a version in Spanish, French, Russian, Chinese, Italian, Portuguese, German, Korean, or Japanese. Unquestionably this would be a case of academic dishonesty. And unquestionably it would be trivial for the student to accomplish and difficult for the teacher to detect.

But would it be dishonest for a student to use Translate to get to a starting point, a basic translation, and then clean up the grammar and vocabulary himself? Is it much different than asking a tutor or another student for help? My guess is that language teachers wouldn't all agree either way. Now suppose the teacher gave the original English version plus the Google translation and asked the students to correct the errors. Is that a reasonable assignment?

One day, perhaps in the foreseeable future, Google's Translate will be able to pass the Turing test, and it will be impossible to tell if the translation was done by man or machine. In the meantime, teachers should be aware of what Translate can do and adjust their teaching strategies to accommodate or better yet, use it to their advantage. No technology is inherently bad. Translate has a potential dark side, but with creativity, we teachers can use it as another tool in our technology toolkit.

Next: Worth More Than a Thousand Words

February 20, 2007

Using Your iPod Backwards

The most common use for an iPod is, of course, to play music. However, there's another great classroom application that, in effect, uses it backwards. Hidden inside the iPod is all of the circuitry necessary to make CD-quality recordings. The only item you need to make it work is a microphone. Unfortunately, Apple hasn't provided a standard microphone input jack, so you'll have to buy a device that does it all for you. You have several choices: Griffin's iTalk Pro Voice Recorder, Belkin's TuneTalk Stereo, and XtremeMac's MicroMemo Digital Voice Recorder. Each sells for under $50 from Amazon.com. Each has advantages and disadvantages. Each lets you record high-fidelity audio (16-bit at 44kHz) using either a built-in microphone or by plugging in external microphones. One common disadvantage is their limited compatibility. All three work with the fifth-generation iPod videos, and the Griffin is also compatible with the 2GB iPod Nano. If you have something else, you're out of luck. I've used the TuneTalk with excellent results, but everything I describe below would work as well with the other two models.

So why would you need a $50 microphone attached to a $300 iPod when you can use use the built-in microphone that's found in many laptops for free? As in many situations, size matters. In this case smaller is better. The iPod/microphone combination is compact enough to fit in a pocket. You can pull it out for an interview or to record a concert. Here's one an example of how I've used it. I was recently traveling for several days in a remote area of Venezuela. I wanted to make a podcast of the trip, so I recorded one of the crew on our boat singing and playing as we traveled upriver. Then I caught the sounds of the night insects before we went to bed. The next day I carried it along as we schlepped through the jungle and gave a running commentary of the sights and sounds along the way. Not exactly NPR, but with a bit of editing I had a serviceable record of the trip. (You can listen to it on my podcast. Search Pojman Podcasts on iTunes and download "A Trip to Amazonas.")

It's amazing that even when the folks at Apple include a hidden feature, they design it with their usual elegance and ease of use. The audio recording feature of the iPod is no exception. You can start, stop, pause, save, and delete your recordings with the iPod click-wheel. When you connect the iPod to your computer, iTunes automatically copies the recordings to your music library and creates a playlist for you. From there you can open them in your preferred sound-editing software. I use SoundStudio, but Audacity is also good (and free). Don't expect quite the same quality that you'd get from a professional digital recorder, however. In really quiet moments I can hear the hard disk in the iPod starting and stopping, but generally, the quality is excellent. Anyway, unless you're teaching an audio recording class, the iPod will be more than adequate.

There are many educational uses for this type of setup. Many schools are now buying iPods to load audio and video for use in the classroom or for students to access outside of school, and you've probably got quite a few students in your classes who have their own iPods. Buy a couple of these devices and you've got a mini-recording studio. Students can create podcasts while out on school field trips. They can record student musical selections. I've had students interview new members of the faculty for our school's podcast. Oral history projects become easy.

Of course, there's nothing here that requires an iPod. One could accomplish these types of recordings with any number of other hand-held recorders. However, the analog (tape) models require that the recording be converted to digital before they can be edited and uploaded. That adds complexity and makes the process messier. Most hand-held voice memo recorders have a lower sound quality than what the iPod is capable of. That's not always a problem, but it's certainly not an asset either. Anyway, I usually carry my iPod when I travel, with one small additional plug-in device I've got a high-quality recorder too.

Remember it's not the technology per se that's important, it's how easily it helps you achieve your educational objective. So if using another device works for you, use that rather than waiting for the iPod microphone. The point is to turn your students loose on a recording project and see what they can come up with.

Next: The Philosopher's Stone of Software

February 13, 2007

How Suite It Is

Educators know that technology is one of the most expensive parts of the school's budget. History teachers need new books and art teachers need art supplies; but using technology requires computers, servers, broadband connections, and software to list just some of the expensive components. Although the cost of the equipment has gone down per computer over the years, the overall costs can go up as schools adopt more sophisticated installations.

However, this post is not about saving money, although it will save you money. It's about using some of the best software out there which just happens to be free. I'm referring to the suite of software that Google offers. One could argue that there are better programs than each one of these, but there is no collection that is so well integrated. These programs are great for students for a variety of reasons I'll discuss below, and they have enough horsepower for the experienced user as well.

First, get a Google account. There's no charge. Now you've got access to Google's suite of programs. Although I haven't used them all with my students, I've found many of them to be quite useful. Here's a rundown on my favorites:

  1. Blogger. I've already written about blogging in the classroom here. Blogger is one of the easiest-to-learn blogging systems out there. It's powerful but not cluttered with unnecessary features. It has been rated as one of the three or four best programs for blogging.
  2. Gmail. If you want to use a web-based email program, Gmail is tops. You get nearly three gigabytes of storage, the ability to use POP access, forwarding, an industrial-strength spam filter, and Google's search engine to find anything in your account. The Gmail philosophy is the same as my sister's: "Don't throw anything away because you'll never know when you might need it." With this much storage, you don't need to. Gmail is still in beta, so you need to be "invited" to get an account. Once you've got one, you can invite fifty friends. I've set up each of my students with a Gmail account. Then I created a group for each class. I exported the group and imported it to each student's account. Now we have each other's IDs and can use Gmail even more easily.
  3. Google Talk. This program is tucked neatly into Gmail. Click on a contact and invite him to join. You can text or voice chat. My students contact me via Google Chat to ask about assignments and what we've done in class.
  4. Picasa. If you're a professional photo editor, you probably use Adobe Photoshop. If you're a serious amateur, then maybe it's Photoshop Elements. But if you just want to download, organize, edit, and print; try Picasa. My guess is that Picasa does 90% of what any of us, including the pros, would need to do. Unfortunately, there's no Mac OS version, but that's the only disadvantage. The interface is so intuitive that I had my grade 7 students using it within about ten minutes.
  5. Picasa Web Albums. Flickr and a number of other services allow you to store photos just as easily as Web Albums. What I like about this service is how nicely it integrates with Picasa and Blogger. My students create an album of their own photos, scans, and graphics that they've taken from the web. Then, when they need them for a project, they can edit them in Picasa, put them in their blogs, or download them for some other use. Students save the URLs of the photos as captions so that they're available for citations.
  6. Docs and Spreadsheets. These two web-based applications are the equivalent of Microsoft Word and Excel albeit with fewer options. As with Picasa, 90% of what most of us use is there plus some features that don't exist in Word and Excel. Each program can save files in the Microsoft counterparts for easy exchanging with the rest of the world. Both programs work great in the classroom because students don't get over-involved with all of the options and features that they don't need. The feature that particularly lends itself to the classroom is the ability that Docs and Spreadsheets have for collaboration. You can create a word processing document, for example, and then allow others to see it online and even edit it at the same time. Each person sees the changes that the other makes in near-real time. It's great for collaborative projects. You can also review all of the modifications that were made to a document.
  7. Page Creator. This is web development made simple. The web-based Page Creator is not quite a responsive as computer-based applications like Contribute or Dreamweaver, but most students don't work that quickly, and they don't need all of the features present in Dreamweaver anyway and Contribute is not available for free. This is another application that is perfect for the classroom. Students get a collection of templates that allows them to create a website that suits their tastes and needs. They can be up and running in no time.
  8. Google Earth. I'm afraid to admit how much time I've spent cruising the Grand Canyon and checking out the Pyramids. Not to mention my hometown. Google Earth is a computer-based application, but it connects to the Internet to get updates. There are entire websites devoted to some great and some wacky application. One example of the latter: You can zoom in on any of the hundreds of airplanes that happened to be caught when the Google Earth camera zipped by. Google Earth offers great possibilities in the classroom for geography and history.
  9. Google SketchUp. I haven't actually used this computer-based one myself, but I know from talking with a fellow teacher that he finds it a great application to use in his classes.

There are several other applications in the suite, but you get the idea. The common thread through all of these programs is that they are powerful, easy-to-use, and free. Each application is free of advertisements with the exception of Gmail which does have unobtrusive text ads running down the right side of some screens. Also, the programs have tutorials and/or useful help screens. When you read it, you're not overwhelmed with tons of options and superfluous choices.

The help even has an occasional sense of humor and personality. Here's an example from the Page Creator help. "If any aspect of using Google Page Creator isn't completely obvious, that's our fault, and we'd love to hear about it. Your comments will help us make these features clearer to all future users." When was the last time you read anything like that in a product that you just paid $100+ for? Bill Gates take note.

Aside from my teaching, I've found these applications to be robust enough for much of what I do outside of the classroom. As a teacher, I find them essential in my classes. Most purchased computer applications have an "everything but the kitchen sink" design built into them. More (features) becomes less (functionality). In contrast, the Google suite is built around the philosophy I learned at Boy Scout camp: Pack everything you need and nothing that you don't need.

Next: Using Your iPod Backwards

February 06, 2007

To Blog, or Not to Blog

The statistics on blogs are impressive. Technorati, the blog-tracking website, reports that they track more than 66 million blogs. There are 175,000 new blogs created every day, and 1.6 million posts are added to blogs daily. These numbers indicate that there is something to blogging that appeals to many people in a way that other forms of written communication do not. Here's what I think it is: Blogging lets you publish your ideas to the world (at least the world with Internet access) quickly, easily, and for free. One needs very little technical training to use blogging software. And once you have a computer and Internet connection, there's no additional cost. You can get on with the business of writing and let the technology take care of itself.

As educators, we can learn a lesson in technology from this. In K-12 technology education the emphasis shouldn't be about learning to use software and hardware (what used to be called computer literacy), it should be about learning how to use the software and hardware get something done. Technology as a tool, not as an end in itself.

The real essence of good education is not in the details of the individual courses and subjects that students take. For example, most of us (myself included) have little need for trigonometry in our daily lives, but I believe it is an important subject for students to study nonetheless. Why? Because by learning trigonometry, the history of World War II, physics, and all of the other subjects that a school offers, our students learn the "meta-skills" that are the core of a good education. Among these I'd include understanding the relationship of man to his environment, how the physical world works, how to organize and analyze information, and how to express oneself in writing.

This is where blogs come in. Any teacher who has student writing as part of the curriculum should consider blogging as an essential activity in the course. Of course there are other ways that students can write. Word processing is one example, but there are several drawbacks to word-processing that blogging overcomes.

First, most blogging software has a limited but powerful set of tools for formatting text. The key word here is "limited." Too often, students get bollixed up in all of the features of today's word-processing programs. (Consider the myriad options in MS Word in the Format/Paragraph menu as one example.) This makes it too easy for students to practice "work avoidance." They don't get on with the actual writing (the content of the assignment) because they are deciding on fonts, point sizes, and text colors. Fewer options mean that students can actually focus on their writing with fewer technological distractions.

A second advantage is that the act of publishing the blog post--making it available to other readers--raises the stakes. Students have a greater incentive to produce good work with proper spelling, punctuation, and all of the other characteristics of good writing because they know that someone else besides the teacher can and will read it.

Third, a word processing document is large, empty page--an invitation to writer's block. In comparison, a blog entry screen, like the one I'm using to write this blog, is a much smaller window. It holds about thirteen lines of text. Much less intimidating. A student can more easily write a paragraph, preview it, publish it, revise it. Other readers; e.g., students or the teacher, can read it immediately. They can post comments to which the original writer can then respond.

Blogging helps in other ways as well. It eliminates the problem of students' forgetting what the homework assignment is and not turning in work because it was lost or left at home. In my classes, I post the day's class notes to my blog including what the homework assignment or project specifications are. (You can see examples the blog for my grade 10 technology class here.)

Students can read the assignment during the class, after school, and at home from my blog. For most writing assignment I have my students post their writing to their blogs. I can read them, comment on them, and offer suggestions anywhere I have Internet access. (I don't put grades on the posts for obvious reasons, however.) In the event that the assignment requires a paper document, students can copy from the blog and paste to MS Word.

There are many blogging systems. You can read details on the web or from a number of excellent books such as dispatches from blogistan by Suzanne Stefanac. In the meantime, I'd recommend Google's Blogger. It's free, easy to use, has no advertisements, and has many advanced features that even powerusers will appreciate.

There is much more that I could say both in terms of specifics and general philosophy about blogging, but it won't make sense to you unless you've done some blogging with your students. So, get a free Blogger account (five minutes). Set up each student with a blog (15-20 minutes in class including time to make a trial post). And give blogging a try. I think you'll be surprised and impressed with how quickly you and your students take to blogging.

Next: How Suite It Is