Greetings from the Netherlands!  Sometime ago I promised to write a post about technology uses I’ve seen here in Europe.  Of course, I have yet to travel all over Europe but I can witness what I’ve seen so far in the Netherlands.

One of the first things I noticed within my first week of living here was how checks are obsolete.  Banks don’t cash them.  People can’t write them.  When you purchase something from a store, you either pay with your debit card, your credit card, or with cash.  

So what does one do when one receives one’s state tax refund in check form?  Send it back to the States!   That’s what I have to do!  Because I’m living abroad I could not e-file my taxes and for that reason, I received my state tax refund by paper check in the mail all the way from Raleigh, NC.  

I’ve also noticed in restaurants how most of the time (even in small villages) the server will take your order on an electronic notepad.  It’s something like a PDA and as soon as the order is placed at the table and entered on the notepad it is electronically communicated to the kitchen.  Of course, if it doesn’t work, they always have pen and paper handy.  

Parking police have similar devices.  They patrol the streets looking for parking licenses (or temporary parking tickets) and offenders who have none.  They enter the license plate number of the vehicle and if that person does not have a valid parking license, they print out a ticket from their handheld device.  

There is a movement underway to convert all medical records to digital files but it is a very controversial idea.  Many feel that digital records would never be safe and those with sensitive medial histories (i.e. someone with HIV) might be at risk for unnecessary exposure.  

Mobile telephones are more advanced here than in the U.S.  There are so many to choose from here, particularly smartphones.  Perhaps that’s one reason why the iPhone has really taken off here as much as in the States.   

If I think of anymore uses of interesting technology here in the Netherlands, I will post an update.

Greetings all!  Again, it has been a while but I do have some news:  I have a job in the Netherlands at long last!  I was recently hired at TomTom, Europe’s leader in navigational devices.  I am a customer service representative and am in training.  I have learned so much in just a week and still have so much to learn, not just about how to do my job but also how to troubleshoot TomTom devices.

What inspired this post is more about the skills that I will be using in this job that I am assumed to already have upon employment.  I see and hear about a lot of things that should encourage those teaching technology in schools.  Those skills you’re teaching will be used by your students in 21st century jobs.

Here are some basic skills/knowledge that every CSR at TomTom is expected to have upon employment (even though these were not all specifically asked about in interviews):

• Email–I must know how to compose and respond to emails.  I must know how to download and attach documents to emails.  In fact our main form of communication with customers outside phone calls will be by email.
• Netiquette–I must know how to appropriately communicate with customers in email.  Proper grammar and spelling are musts.  There will be no “text message lingo” here!
• Basic Computer Knowledge–Sometimes I will have to help customers with downloading and installing files from the Internet, plugging in devices, etc.
• Antivirus/Firewalls/Proxies–Sometimes I may have to help a customer disable security software to download files.
• Search Techniques–As a CSR, I have a huge database of support information at my fingertips.  I will have to know how to do keyword searches to bring up the correct information to help a customer troubleshoot issues.
• Problem Solving–One of the biggest parts of my job will be using problem solving techniques to troubleshoot issues.  This requires thinking on a multitude of levels and using the webs of information I have access to to find the correct solution.
• Keyboarding–While I see some CSRs who sort of hunt and peck with their keyboarding, proper knowledge of typing is helpful when you’re dealing with customers.  As a CSR, you are expected to make a certain amount of customer contacts a day which means you’re working against the clock.  Of course, you don’t want to keep your customers on the phone for really long amounts of time either.  Fast keyboarding skills would help since there is a lot of typing involved.

I have seen my trainers use different skills but of course training is a job just like any other.  Here are some of the tools I’ve seen my trainers (former CSRs) use:

• Multimedia Software–I’m not sure if the PowerPoints used in their presentations were made by them or by the company but the trainers do need to know how to run PowerPoints and present with them.
• Data Projector–The trainers used a data projector hooked to a laptop for the presentations.
• SMART Board–They have used an interactive white board to make illustrations and to flip through their PowerPoints.  Part of the training uses an emulator for a TomTom device so the SMART board came in handy for presenting how to use the emulator.  They would just tap the board like a customer would tap on the screen of their TomTom.

I’m sure I’ve just touched the tip of the iceberg with this post.  I just wanted to share what technology I’m seeing in what some would consider a low-end job.  (Just to be clear:  I do not consider it to be so!  In fact, I’m quite grateful for this opportunity in the current job market and for the ability to learn so much.)  So, for those students in public schools who may not go to university and who take CSR as their career, they will still be expected to have a working knowledge of the things I’ve listed here.  So, those of you in the trenches, keep up the good work knowing that what you’re teaching will help your students at some time in their future.

I have had a lot of time on my hands lately so I’ve been doing quite a bit of reading. My preference is fiction and fantasy novels in particularly of late. Terry Brooks is one of my favorite fantasy authors. I know he’s a bit soft for the die hard sci-fi/fantasy readers but I like his style. I have always been a sucker for a good story and that’s what Mr. Brooks does: tell GOOD stories. Most of his books take place in the Four Lands, an post-apocolyptic planet Earth that is now inhabited by all sorts of creatures. His books are clean and, yes, they do have magic but as with the Lord of the Rings series, good conquers evil although it is sometimes at great cost. I just started reading The Voyage of the Jerle Shannara trilogy. For those who might care, I am reading his books according to his suggested reading order (which I think is the order he wrote them in) for first time readers of his works. He has a great website and seems to stay in touch with his fans.

I like to think of myself as having a creative mind. I’ve been playing around with the idea of writing my own novel for years. I’ve just had so many ideas and never enough time to sit down and commit them to paper (or computer). I don’t really know if I have what it takes to write a novel or even the necessary commitment to see it through. When I ran into this free novel-writing software a few months back, it sparked my interest in writing again. Over the last few days I dug back through my Diigo bookmarks and found the link. The software is called yWriter and it’s a free download (donations are accepted and encouraged, of course). It’s a light program and I’m running it on Vista with no problems (except I can’t seem to get the dictionary installed yet but will hopefully have an answer to that one soon).

What yWriter does is help you organize thoughts: characters, locations, items, scenes, etc. and provides a word processor to type it up in. Files are exportable to any other type of word processing program if you really want more tools to work with (like Word for example). There is a word counter and a storyboard so you can keep up with multiple character viewpoints.

So far, I have been pretty pleased with the program. Sure, I could type up something in Word but yWriter keeps up with which characters are in which scenes, allows me to easily drag and drop scenes into different chapters, and keeps a daily log of my work.

I’ve never taught writing but I think English and language arts teachers should give it a look. It’s a great tool for beginning writers as well.

Greetings from the Netherlands!

It has been some time since I thought about my blog much less visited it and I am truly gobsmacked at the amount of dots on my cluster map. (Gobsmacked–one of my favorite terms from a guilty pleasure of mine, the British soap “Eastenders.” It means astounded, amazed–you get the picture.) I can’t believe that so many people would read my little blog. A blog I had practically abandoned.

Well, for those who might be interested, I will give an update on my life. Sorry, I don’t have a lot to say about technology in education at the moment since I’m not really in the field and my life has been so full of other kinds of experiences. Sorry to disappoint if you were expecting techie stuff.

I left you at the end of the school year with my explanation for leaving. June was a very busy month of packing, weeding through my belongings to get rid of a lot of things, having yard sales, and showing my house in an attempt to sell it. Oh, and I also sold my Honda (ack!) and spent the rest of my time in the States driving my mother’s Toyota Corolla.

With the help of my very good friends and my sister, I was able to move out in early July with my 2 cats, 2 oversized and near bursting suitcases, a rolling carry-on (also stuffed), and an equally stuffed laptop shoulder bag with my 17″ HP. I left 15 boxes in my living room that were shipped to Europe in September. In those boxes were my most precious belongings that I could not or would not sell or give away.

I moved in with my parents and sister. I became a full-time caregiver for my mother and wore many hats in the household as I tried to meet all sorts of needs. My father and sister worked full-time outside the home so there were a lot of things that needed doing. Those months with my family were some of THE most trying of my life but I learned a lot about myself and my family. I was able to care for my mother during the most difficult part of her home stay. By the time I left, my father and sister were able to take over her care along with the help of an aid who came daily to be with my mother.

I moved to the Netherlands on September 17, 2008 and life has been one big adventure ever since. About the flight itself, I will only say that if you live in a city with a direct flight to Amsterdam, you should sincerely thank God. There is no direct flight to Amsterdam from any airport in North Carolina so I had two legs with a rolling carry-on, a laptop bag and a cat carrier (one of my cats had to fly with me in the plane since the first flight was on a small airplane and bags are checked all the way through, only one cat could fly in cargo) to contend with. We all arrived at our destination relatively unscathed but somewhat exhausted.

Since my arrival, I have had a lot to get used to. Shopping every couple of days because food here is a lot fresher, learning Dutch (although thankfully many people here speak English), living without cable/Internet/phone in my home (because until I got my residence permit I couldn’t open a bank account which meant no other kinds of accounts either), walking a lot more, and using public transportation (the strip system was kind of tricky at first–umm…OK, let me clarify: the most common way to travel on public transport is to buy a “strippenkart”, a long ticket with “strips” or places for the conductor to put a stamp indicating what time you entered the tram/bus, date, and what zone of the city you boarded.) As the holidays approached I have become increasingly homesick for friends and family. While I have made friends here, I still miss the familiar faces of those I know and love. This was my first Thanksgiving away from my family ever and I was very depressed about it.

On the home front though, my mom’s health is progressively getting better. Her care is a lot less demanding as she heals which I am glad for. It was very hard to leave her, knowing what she required on a daily basis but my father and sister have really done well from what I understand.

My current status is that I have my residence permit and am currently looking for a job. I am renting my house to tenants with an option to buy it which I hope they do at the end of the contract. It is cold here compared to the balmy temps of coastal North Carolina and I’ve seen more snow in the last week than I’ve seen in the last 15 years in NC. It does seem to melt before sunrise but it’s pretty to watch when it falls.

I will try to write a little more often. My next post will be about the technology I’ve seen in use here so far.

I had such an increase in traffic over the last few days that I decided to cruise my stats and found some neat features in WordPress in the process.

I had to dig around to find the stats because it had been a while since I’d bothered to look. I logged in to my blog and then on the ribbon at the very top, I clicked on “My Account” and selected “Global Dashboard.” Then I clicked on “Blog Stats” and voilà! (Of course, a glance at “My Dashboard” shows me that I can also access my “Blog Stats” from there too. LOL)

Blog stats showed me a number of interesting things:

1. A nice little flash line graph that shows my traffic flow over a period of days, weeks, or months. It’s nice to see spikes!
2. Referrers–”People clicked links from these pages to get to your blog.”
3. Search Engine Terms–”These are terms people used to find your blog.”
4. Blog Stats–Summary of total views, my busiest day, views today, and totals of posts, comments, categories, tags, and how much spam my blog has been protected from.
5. Top Posts & Pages–”These posts on your blog got the most traffic.”
6. Clicks–”Your visitors clicked these links on your blog.”
7. Incoming Links–Shows what other web pages have directly linked to my blog.

This is handy information for evaluating your own blog. Sometimes I wonder whether leaving certain pages up on my blog is worthwhile, well, now I can see that directly by looking at my top posts and pages or by looking at the clicks. It’s also interesting to see how people go about getting to my blog, what search terms they enter, etc. Such a neat feature!

I mentioned the fact that I could see what search engine terms people use to find my blog to a friend and he said, “There goes privacy!” I had to laugh because I understand the concern. I know he visited my blog today but I still don’t know exactly how HE got there. His stats are shuffled in along with others who viewed my blog today. Even though I can see how people get to my blog, I still don’t know their identity. The fact is that readers are still anonymous unless they choose to leave a comment and put their name in.

Tags: blog, stats, WordPress

Ok, I’ve seen Flock mentioned here and there in my Google Reader so I decided to give it a try. I am blown away! Flock brings some of the best Web 2.0 tools to your fingertips in one browser. Download, install, and then log in to the Web 2.0 apps which are friends with Flock, click on the “Remember Account” button and BINGO! With one click I’m in my Gmail account, another click I have my blog editor open so I can post something new, one more click and I’m posting to my del.icio.us account. What kept me from hopping over to Flock all this time????

Flock is based on Mozilla’s Firefox and has its own add-ons but some Firefox add-ons are also compatible. I was thrilled to find out that Fireshot works as well as my favorite little status bar calculator.

The browser integrates with Twitter, WordPress, Blogger, Gmail, and del.icio.us just to name a few apps. Digg and Facebook are also popular offerings. Since I’ve been delving into Diigo, I added its toolbar and away we go.

The “My World” tab reminds me of iGoogle. It has widgets and helps you organize your feeds, keep up with your friends’ activity, and post media etc. to your blog. I have to play with this one some more.  (Update:  I did play with it some more after posting last night and it isn’t nearly as versatile as iGoogle but still a neat feature.)

I see so many possibilities here and I’ve only played with it a little tonight. Can you tell I’m already in love?

Update:  Ok, some things that I would love to see added to Flock:

1. Integrate My Space and Diigo into the Flock toolbar.  Can’t we all just get along?
2. Make the “My World” page like iGoogle.  That would be too cool.
3. More add-ons specifically for Flock.  We are warned on the extensions page that while some Firefox add-ons will work with Flock, they may slow the browser down.  So it would be nice to have add-ons that are definitely compatible.

Ok, those are just a few thoughts but I really love Flock as it is. 

Tags: Flock, Web2.0, browser

Ok, the cat is out of the bag.  I am leaving.  So for once, I will blog about something pretty personal:  where I’ve been and why I’m leaving. This post is actually prompted by an email inquiry I received today from someone who had seen the job posting and wanted to know what I do exactly.  One of the last lines of the email asked why I was leaving.  It was a good question and gave me pause to reflect.

Before I actually give my reasons for leaving, I will describe what my role has been as an instructional technology facilitator at MCMS.  (To read what the job description is according to the IMPACT model, click here.)  I have tried to follow the IMPACT model as closely as possible but recognize that there was a lot of room for improvement.  I had hoped to be in this job for many years.  I saw so many possibilities.  I still do.

Where I’ve Been:

• I was a French teacher at ECHS for 10 and a half years.  During those 10 and a half years I fell in love with technology and troubleshooting.  I watched the Internet change our whole world and I found that I loved teaching others how to use technology.  When I received a phone call 3 years ago this coming July to interview for a technology facilitator position, I jumped at the opportunity because this was my dream job.  When I was accepted, I was elated.
• My first year was a whirlwind.  I had so much to learn, not necessarily about how to integrate technology into the classroom but how to troubleshoot and manage all these computers at our school.  Without a technology assistant, technology facilitators have to do quite a bit of troubleshooting.  This school had been without a technology facilitator for three years so they were starved for someone in my position to point them in the right direction.  I loved my job.  I tried to focus my attention on training the staff so I did a technology camp for teachers that first summer.
• I was much more comfortable during my second year.  I was ready to really lay some groundwork with the staff on technology integration.  I was introduced to the world of Web 2.0 and have been hooked ever since.  I created my own personal learning network which has helped me learn so much using iGoogle and Google Reader.  Some of favorite Web 2.0 tools are iGoogle, Google Reader, Google Docs, Google Calendar, Skype, Second Life, del.icio.us (although Diigo is quickly eclipsing my love of del.icio.us), Picasa, and Flickr.  I use many others but these have been invaluable to me.  I wanted to focus my attention from the teachers just a little to equipping students so I taught a technology camp for students during that summer.
• This third year has been a little different.  I have been in the classrooms much more, co-teaching with teachers.  I was also selected to help be a core trainer for NCWise which our county was converting to this year.  I think a lot more teachers are using technology this year than they have in my previous two years here and I am glad to say that they are putting more and more of that technology in the students’ hands.  I finish this third year happy to say the hardware is in place (3 wireless labs, two desktop labs, data projectors in almost every classroom, 2 interactive slates per team, 2 wireless presenter mice per team, 1 document camera per team, 3 digital video cameras for the school, and two student response systems for the school).  Ok, we’re not completely at my dream classroom but we’re on our way.  I don’t pretend to take credit for all the good changes I’ve seen in our school these 3 years.  We have many shining technology teaching stars, a tech savvy media coordinator, a supportive tech support team, and a fireball principal who understands the important role that technology plays in the future of education.  I was fortunate to get to ride this wave with such great folks.  I know this school will go far after I leave.

Why I’m Leaving:

• My mother became very ill and was admitted to the hospital on February 14.  Unfortunately she is still in rehabilitative care but is making progress.  I plan on spending my summer and fall before leaving for the Netherlands taking care of her and helping my family.  Leaving this job will make me more available to my family.
• I visited friends in Amsterdam, Netherlands over Christmas break and my thoughts began drifting to my old dream of living in Europe.  An apartment became available not too far from the city center and I just can’t let this opportunity slip away without grabbing the bull by the horns.  So, I’m going for my dream of living in Europe.  Of course, that means I am now looking for a job in Amsterdam.  Does anyone know if they need technology facilitatators/coordinators there? 

So the plan is to move to the Netherlands once my mom is back on her feet.  I will be keeping this blog however and it is my sincere hope that I can continue to work in technology education even if I am in a different country.

Needless to say, I will miss my colleagues and friends that I have had here in Carteret County.  It’s not easy to say good bye to 13 and a half years of one’s life but these have been good years, learning years.  I’m sure I will have much more to reflect on in the next few months so stay posted!

I am blown away.  Danny Maas has been posting comment after comment on my blog and now I want to give him props on TILT! 

I went through some of his screencasts today and I have learned a few things.  Most importantly, I have been inspired and I’m sure my teachers will be too.  What a great blog with so many how-tos, ideas, and resources.  Thank you for sharing with us all, Danny!

http://tilttv.blogspot.com/

(To view the slide show on Slideshare so you can see it full screen [the words are hard to read at such a small size and the Slideshare icon was not working for me in Firefox], click here.)

I like to subscribe to blogs that are outside the education world, especially if they present ideas that are fresh. This slideshow comes from David Armano at the Logic + Emotion blog. I not only enjoy his outlook but the graphics are a breath of fresh air as well.

After viewing the slideshow, I have to wonder why schools haven’t hopped on the Web 2.0 wave with their websites like the business world is beginning to do. While David’s slideshow targets the business community, his insights can certainly be applied to this generation of students as well.

I look at our own school’s website and it is pretty static. I introduced a school blog but it is separate from the school’s site. I really have a vision of our school’s website doing so much more. In my vision, I will refer to students, parents, and teachers (basically the entire community who would use the site as “stakeholders.” My vision:

• It is a blog so stakeholders can comment on anything and everything on the site.
• It has useful widgets that the stakeholders can choose and customize like an iGoogle page.
• It has surveys and survey results right on the page.
• Content is driven not only by the school but also by its stakeholders.
• Students and teachers could have their own pages like Facebook or Myspace. (Of course, they would have to be some safety measures built in there too.)

Ok, maybe that’s not so revolutionary but I think it’s a start. We need to adapt to the changing world we’re in. I too often hear that students don’t really use our school’s website and I just have to think that perhaps it’s because it is so static. The information is mostly unidirectional: SCHOOL ===> STAKEHOLDERS. I would rather it be multi directional. I’m going to be thinking about this…

Can we fathom the reality of the Katrina disaster? » Moving at the Speed of Creativity

Scrolling through my Google Reader today, I was captivated by this post by Wesley Fryer.  He tells of an encounter he had with a Katrina survivor and the harrowing events she experienced.

What struck me the most were these comments:

Listening to this woman tell her story, I was further convicted of the importance of recording and archiving the stories and experiences of others in our communities and in our homes. It was impossible to listen to her tale and not be moved. Too often in school, I think we focus too much on facts and dates, and fail to connect personally with a context. Listening to the lived experiences of others who have survived harrowing circumstances can be an impactful learning opportunity.

A search this evening on YouTube for “hurricane katrina” yields over 9000 videos, and I will readily admit I have NOT taken the time to watch many of these. Of the videos I have seen, however, none communicate the desperation and all-out battle for survival which the woman on our train shared in her story Sunday night. I have an abiding sense that much of “the story” of the Katrina disaster remains untold and undocumented, at least for those of us who would be students of this recent history.

So here are some ideas I have right off the bat that could be put to use (especially in those days after EOGs when teachers struggle to keep students engaged).

• Have students find someone to interview in their community, someone with a story to tell and interview the person
• Have students document the interview by taking photos of the person telling the story, shooting digital video, or record the audio digitally
• Take not only the words the person says but these digital captures and mash them up in a project that tells the story visually and aurally

For these types of projects to have the most impact, they need to be shared and not just in the form of a presentation in the classroom but online through teacher blogs or the school blogs.  Ok, ideas for mashing:

• Create a PowerPoint and insert video or audio clips of the interviewee; save them as web pages, upload to the web; link to blogs
• Create a PhotoStory using still images and audio files; upload finished projects and link to blogs
• Create podcasts of the interviews (there are many tools out there for this) and link to blogs
• Create a VoiceThread project with the movie footage or still shots; share the links of the finished projects on blogs
• Publish digital video to Google video and create a PowerPoint slideshow to accompany it with thoughts or comments; publish in Zentation where the video and the slideshow are presented side by side; link to blogs

There are probably a million ways to do this but these are some thoughts that struck me right off the bat.