www.aritzhaupt.com

I just finished NECC 2009. This was the 30-year anniversary of the conference. I have decided that NECC is my favorite conference to attend in the world of Ed Tech. I have been attending NECC since 2006. The reasons I like NECC the most are the following: 1) they always bring in the big name keynote speakers (this year we had Malcolm Gladwell first and Erin Gruwell last), 2) the sessions are mixed and not only focused on research, 3) the people that attend are all focused on the mission of meaningfully integrating technology in education, 4) the best exhibitors always attend, and 5) they always select great cities. If you have not attended NECC before, be sure to attend in Denver in 2010.

Since I finally had a little time to read something I wanted to, I decided to finish the third Eragon book. The book itself was a good read. It was well-written, had a good plot, and further explained the details of the epic battle. However, I am a little disappointed. It was my understanding (naive) that there were only going to be three books in the series. The third book did not even bring closure to one of the “bad guys” in the story, which means that another three books will likely be published before the story concludes. While I enjoy reading this story, I am upset that I will now have to wait several years before this story comes to an end. Waiting this long is just like waiting for the Harry Potter stories. Not happy!

I found out today that I lost a friend and colleague. Dr. Shauna Schullo was my supervisor at the Center for 21st Century Teaching Excellence (C21TE), a mentor early in my doctoral experience, and an overall great person. After a two year battle with cancer, her life was taken on May 7, 2009. Dr. Schullo spoke to one of my classes earlier this year. All of my students said that she was an excellent speaker and wanted to learn more about her. Shauna, you were such a positive influence on all of us. Thank you for being such a wonderful person. We will greatly miss you.

So this post is rather late, but it came to my attention that one of my papers was in the list of the most viewed articles in EdITLib  for January 2009. Here is a link to the news release by AACE: http://blogs.aace.org/editlib/2009/01/27/editlibs-top-10-viewed-abstracts-articles-january-2009/. This is the conference proceeding that won the outstanding paper award at the 2008 SITE conference. My colleagues Kara Dawson and Cathy Cavanaugh were the primary authors. Here is the paper citation and link:

Cavanaugh, C., Dawson, K. & Ritzhaupt, A. (2008). Conditions, Processes and Consequences of 1:1 Computing in K-12 Classrooms: The Impact on Teaching Practices and Student Achievement. In K. McFerrin et al. (Eds.), Proceedings of Society for Information Technology and Teacher Education International Conference 2008 (pp. 1956-1963). Chesapeake, VA: AACE.

Last week, I had the privilege to visit one of the schools (Cape Fear Middle School) involved with the gaming research I am conducting here at UNCW. We were able to get the local media to visit the school as well. They put together a news story about the game intervention and the research program. Here is a link to the news article and video: http://www.wect.com/global/story.asp?s=10091886. This is exciting because it is drawing some attention to the product, DimensionM, and is also raising awareness about gaming in education.

Recently, we hosted a teacher cadets program at UNCW. This program brings high school students interested in becoming teachers to campus to learn about the field. I was asked to do a short workshop on games in education and was interviewed by the local news channel. Here is the link to the article and video clip: http://news14.com/Default.aspx?ArID=605339. The product that was demonstrated was DimensionM which they did not mention in the video.

I just received my teaching evaluations for my first academic semester at UNCW. I am delighted to say that the students felt I did a good job teaching my first semester. This makes me extremely happy as I was very concerned that teaching in a new environment would be devastating for my teaching evaluations. Not to mention I became deathly ill for part of last semester. Anyway, according to my students, I did pretty well for my first term. A big thank you to my students for making the teaching effective. After all, it takes two to tango!

I recently came into contact with a software program called Wordle. This software basically does content analysis of key terms that emerge in a written prose. The more frequently words occur, the larger they appear on the word diagrams generated by Wordle. The software randomly generates colors and alignments of the terms on the diagram as well. For example, I took one of my journal articles titled the “effects of time-compressed audio and verbal redundancy on learner performance and satisfaction” and plugged it into Wordle. A thumbnail of the resulting word illustration is shown below. You can click on it to see a larger picture.

As you can see, the softare summarizes the key terms in a visual and spatial format that allows an observer to make meaning from the diagram. This is fun and interesting software that certainly has a place in summarizing the vast quantities of text published on a daily basis. Enjoy!

ISTE and many other professional associations have applauded both houses of US congress for slating $1 billion for educational technology funding this upcoming year. Here is the news link. While I feel this is a great way to spend federal stimulus dollars, I have to question whether $1 billion is enough money to have a national impact on school technology integration when Florida alone slated $1.25 billion last year for the technology infrastructure of classrooms. We have schools that have inadequate Internet connections, computers with barely 256 MB of RAM, and teachers lacking the professional development to effectively integrate technology into their instructional practice. If we are to invest in a stimulus package to have an effect on our future, I think more money is necessary to equip our schools for the 21st century!

I made it to Florida yesterday. I will be here during the holidays. I have plenty of work to keep me occupied, but will also be spending some time with friends and family. Look forward to seeing you!!!