Documents available here are intended to demonstrate range of interest and ability and are neither exhaustive nor even necessarily 'the best' work I have produced: Abiding interests in service and clinical practice as well as a desire to emphasize Dewey's virtues of collaboration and adaptability mediated the choices.
Articles
Steady Work: Education, Instructional Technology, and Change (PDF)
This paper was written to focus and theoretically ground my concern and hope for a more realistic development of instructional technology (re)connected to its integral place with people.
Educational Partnerships and the Problem of Settings (PDF)
This is something of a vision statement, a direction for teacher education if you will. Given the increasing emphasis on K-16 partnerships by state and federal agencies as well as standards organizations such as NCATE it appears timely enough but I confess that sometimes I write a paper simply to clarify a problem with little thought to its timeliness to say nothing of eventual suitability for publication. Occasionally the idea develops sufficiently to be worth sharing and this article is a case in point.
Review of Robert Serpell's commentary, "Interface between sociocultural and psychological aspects of cognition" (PDF)
This review was part of series of synopses and reviews written by multiple authors in 1995 at the behest of Michael Cole, Director of the Laboratory of Comparative Human Cognition.
Hype!: The Expanding of Self, Fantasy and Control on the Web (PDF)
Another paper, a draft really, in the 'written for clarification, not necessarily publication' category. The leverage of electronic networks makes it difficult to completely suppress another's voice, even a voice that becomes 'unwelcome.' This paper discusses key variables potentially governing community evaluation of voices, difficulties in sharing that evaluation and/or blocking a given voice with some implications for the schooling of children.
Service and Administration
The Educator (HTML)
Originally linked to the Teacher Education web site, I was editor for three years and found the newsletter a useful tool for communicating with constituents including students, alumni, administrators, legislators and K-12 partners; e.g., Vol.4 No.2 (PDF). As Chair of the Lindsey Wilson College Education Division I also wrote and maintained the Division web site which included links to updated program files and critical student support documents such as the Student Handbook and Student Teacher Handbook. Note: I left Lindsey Wilson College in 2006 so the links here are to my own archives.
State of the Division Report (PDF)
A report provided to the President of the college as well as the Academic Dean and Provost. These data are an integral part of the Education Division's continuous assessment process in addition to maintaining program compliance and audit readiness aligned with federal, state and accreditor benchmarks.
Research and Program Development
Developing an Online Course: A Student Centered Approach (PDF)
A good example of collaborative research. The problem was how to simultaneously assess need and develop the framework for a college online course. A blend of action research and design experiment facilitated visualization, process and articulation of the first in what promises to be a series of inquiries.
Trader: Learning to Work on the Floor (PDF)
This was one of my first ethnographic studies, conducted in the early days of graduate school, but it continues to please me even after all this time. I've done better work since but rarely in such unfamiliar and challenging territory. The file available here is the version I provided to my hosts at the study site, edited to improve readability and assure informant confidentiality.
Software
Wildfire (ZIP)
This is a small, well executed epidemic simulator. Examples from mild flu to the "Satan Bug" to AIDS are included but the user can change parameters to see what happens in other scenarios. Includes interactive graphics and a description of a game students can play to make stronger real-world connections to the concept of transmittable disease. Developed and released to educators by the author; originally written for Windows 3.1, runs with no difficulty on Windows 95/98/ME and on Windows XP if compatibility mode is set to Windows 95/98.*
Lunar Phases (Java/HTML)
This is a very nice, platform independent lunar phase calculator. Supplies a surprising amount of detail including phase images, upcoming phase dates, apogee/perigee, etc. in a compact format and small file size (requires Java enabled on your machine). Click here to download the zip archive file. If you are looking for a more general resource to inspire budding astronomers, the Hubble Site is a good option.
The OpenCD (HTML)
No longer actively under development this project has branched into a number of useful Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) outlets for Windows and Linux. OpenOffice is a FOSS standout as are OpenDisc and EduBuntu. For quality (and free) video files try a search at the Open Video Project.
*There is a growing catalog of productivity software, interactive games, puzzles and simulations available online. Many of the older titles are machine/OS specific applications such as the Wildfire program above but interactive, cross-platform multimedia developed using authoring tools from companies such as Macromedia (now owned by Adobe) are increasingly available; these may require a separate player (free to the user) on the host system. The better math and science titles I've found are usually written in the Java programming language; these applets will run on any machine that has the necessary runtime environment installed (also free). [more...]
Virtually from the beginning of the microcomputer explosion in the mid '70's I felt that the promise of computers in education ultimately had less to do with direct teaching than it had to do with learning environment: Creating, facilitating and recording student progress within interactive spaces that students could explore and manipulate, particularly in areas difficult to physically reproduce in the classroom. Even to this day a great deal of educational software is surprisingly limited in this regard, possibly because the initial null model was "computer-as-instructor" and software developers have yet to completely shake that fundamentally mistaken notion (cf. Windward, R., 1997). The first software project I undertook was in 1978 on a Commodore PET 2000 with programming assistance from a more knowledgeable colleague. It was an instrumental learning simulator featuring a virtual rodent and allowed multiple maze learning trials to be run in a single class period; rodent 'intelligence' could be adjusted and maze trial data series investigated using a built-in t-test. Alas the program, as well as a couple others we developed, would only run on Commodore machines using Commodore BASIC neither of which are available any longer. Given time constraints and rusty programming skills I am more of a collector these days but when I find well executed software freely available to educators I will occasionally feature and/or make the title(s) available here.
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