Interview with Bruce Umpstead on Apple's announcement to extend iTunes U to K-12 Public Education and Michigan's Pioneer Role in the Effort
Announcer: Welcome to Inside Michigan Education, a weekly show featuring interviews with community leaders, school administrators, school business officials, and individuals who are passionate about the future of Michigan Education. Now, here is your host for Inside Michigan Education, Rob Huisingh.
Rob Huisingh: Welcome to Inside Michigan Education. This week we are joined in the Foxbright Podcast Studio by Bruce Umpstead. Bruce Umpstead is the Director of Educational Technology and Data Coordination for the Michigan Department of Education. And he is here today to talk to us about an exciting announcement which was made yesterday by Apple at the National Educational Computing Conference in San Antonio, Texas. Welcome Bruce, it's a pleasure to have you on our show.
Bruce Umpstead: Thank you Rob; thanks for having me back.
Rob Huisingh: Bruce, tell me a little bit about yourself and what your role is at the Michigan Department of Education.
Bruce Umpstead: Well, I am the Director of the Office of Educational Technology and Data Coordination. In 2006 the Board of Education passed the State a Tech Planner Educational Technology plan for the State of Michigan and in that it called for the formation of the office and the hiring of the position of Director of Educational Technology. So In 2007, January, I joined the Department as the first Educational Technology Director and we have formed the office and we have been busy ever since.
Our job is a mixture of overseeing the Educational Technology grants that we have from the Federal Government, and then coordinating, collaborating with the different educational technology organizations in the state like the Michigan Association for Computer Users in Learning, that's MACUL, and we have other regional education Media Centers or MC. We have the Michigan Virtual University, we have our several libraries, library organizations and media specialist organizations that we work with. And then on the data side we are working with the Center for Educational Performance and Information to coordinate the internal dialogue and communication and work between the Michigan Department of Education and CEPI.
So it's a very dynamic job, a lot to do, and we have about four or five people on staff plus a couple of consultants that are really trying to move Michigan forward in terms of using Educational Technology in the classroom.
Rob Huisingh: It sounds like a big job.
Bruce Umpstead: I enjoy it. It gets me up everyday; it gets me excited and there is plenty to talk about and plenty to do.
Rob Huisingh: Alright. So why don't you tell us -- what is it that Apple announced yesterday at the National Education Computing Conference?
Bruce Umpstead: Well, they announced the project they have been working on for several years now, which is taking the iTunes U capacity of their iTunes U site from Higher Ed or colleges and universities down to the K-12 or public school, secondary and elementary school levels. Michigan was invited to be part of that last year around October and November and we gladly raised our hands and said, yes, we would like to be part of the pilot that looks at trying to use this technology and we will talk about it in the future of how to help students and teachers get access to rich media content that's relevant to what they are studying in the classroom today.
We are one of eight states that announced our pilot sites yesterday. Our site is called MILearning and you can find that when you log on iTunes U or iTunes. You just type into the little search bar up at the top, right hand corner, MILearning, and it pops all the resources that we have been able to pull together in the course of six months, and there is about 100 of them, 150 education related, free rich media assets that teachers and parents and student can have access to that make education more relevant to where the students are today.
Rob Huisingh: So who was involved in the process and how did they come about?
Bruce Umpstead: Well, we actually got a call from the Legislature asking, if we would be interested in participating, which is always interesting when the Michigan Legislature calls and asks us what we are doing. We said, sure, we would love to be part of that. So we worked with the State Education Technology Directors Association - which is the organization I belong to - to be part of the pilot group, and about 20 states were invited. 14 states participate in the kick-off event at Apple headquarters in California and we were one of those states.
Looking at the fast turnaround on this we have thought, it would be better if we look to one of our outside organizations to partner with to get the Michigan pilot site off the ground for iTunes U. So we chose MACUL. MACUL is the international society for technology and education. It's the affiliate in our state, it's very well-regarded, and it does an excellent job serving teachers. When we thought teachers, it would be the place to start when we look for content creation and the rich media assets they are already using in the classroom.
So sure enough, we partnered with MACUL, they brought on Judy Paxton as a part-time Coordinator and we got our fund on this project. We are one of the eight states that did announce our pilot project and we met the goal of over 100 pieces of content in iTunes U related to Michigan Education. And I give a lot of that credit to Judy's work but also MACUL's effort to bring people together, get them to collaborate and really touch a broad spectrum of content providers, whether they are social studies teacher or science teacher. We have Inside Michigan Education as one of the providers. We have Michigan Virtual University as one of the providers. So MACUL really used their ability to collaborate to bring together a variety of sources to hit the goal of having 100 or 150 pieces of content up by June 30th when we announced this.
Rob Huisingh: Bruce, who wins in this effort, and why?
Bruce Umpstead: Well ultimately, we have got a lot of those questions because wanted to know, well, why exactly we are part of iTunes U? iTunes is blocked by most school districts. They put it in their web filter and block it and there are several reasons why. Some of the content on iTunes can be questionable at times. Also, the videos and the music can clog a school district's Internet connection with non relevant content. So the question is why are you going to engage. What we are really trying to do is engage the student in learning as a lifelong learner or a 24-hour learner versus just the time they spend when they show up at class at 8 o'clock in the morning and leave it by 3.
We are really trying to show them that there are learning resources available to them on a rich and wide variety and trying to engage them in learning outside of the norm. So we think iTunes U with the buzz that it has in the entertainment industry - that kind of buzz could really be used in education. So our primary focus is getting those resources in the hands of students. We also think it's important for parents to start to see that the iPods they are buying their children, the computers that they are buying their children aren't just for gaming, they aren't just for entertainment, but they are actually serious learning tools.
So we think that if we can provide a resource where they can say, well this is iTunes, and this is iTunes U, and this is Michigan content that is relative to what the students are studying today, that they can really get a sense that technology has to be a critical element to their children's education. When the parents start asking for the technology, the districts start to listen, and then the districts start to make the investment. They start to open up their firewall and let iTunes U in. I mean, we really think that it benefits parents and students but teachers too.
Teachers are very creative. They spend a lot of time of their lessons. They are doing a lot of things that involve rich media, and this is just an opportunity for them to put a podcasts and video podcasts and other elements of their class, and really show off what they do.
If you look at what iTunes U have been able to do for MIT and Stanford, the University of Michigan and other universities, they have really been able to boost the brand of these universities. There are professors of physics at some of these are that are now international rock stars, I mean literally, rock stars. The people are downloading their lectures on physics, as fast as they are downloading the latest Coldplay album. That is really exciting when you think about it.
Rob Huisingh: It is exciting, isn't it?
Bruce Umpstead: It is exciting. What really caught my eye is I had downloaded some PBS video shorts from KQED and San Francisco, and one of them that I actually watched twice myself was on nanotechnology because I really didn't understand it, but what really sold me is when my eight-year-old daughter was fiddling around with my iPod Touch came across that one and she watched it and talked to me about the technology, the nanotechnology that's really going to change and shape our world in the next several decades. It's - the light went on for me. If we can get students excited and interested in learning about science and technology, mathematics at an early age, then we really to make that investment.
So for a small dollar investment, the Michigan Department of Education is really pushing different ways of getting rich media and in the hands of students and if they find it on iTunes U, we are better for it.
Rob Huisingh: Is it free?
Bruce Umpstead: It is free. We had some push back because Apple's business model is based on a proprietary technology called the iPod and so when you hear iTunes U or iTunes, everybody thinks well that's just the software you use to put your music on your iPod. That's not the case. You can download just like in a Microsoft browser, just like Firefox and I don't know if you notice, but Mozilla Firefox 3.0 had eight million downloads in the first week that it's available.
Well, iTunes U is just like that. It's a free syndication engine that can look up software anywhere in the world and look up videos and look up podcasts and music anywhere in the world. It doesn't sit at Apple. So the tool is really a powerful engine for syndicating content and so that's one reason why we signed up and we were assured and we know it's the case that you can download iTunes and the software and put it on your Mac or your PC and have access to the content, the free content that's up there under iTunes U, anywhere, anytime, for free.
So all content is free, the software is free. It is based on a proprietary technology and I know that Apple is looking and exploring ways to open up their syndication for other things like your BlackBerry and like Microsoft Zune and some other things, but that will take some time. I think the more we work providing free software and providing the demand, the more we'll push both Apple and our school districts to open up and start accepting this as a new medium for communicating.
Rob Huisingh: Now Bruce, you and I had this brief conversation actually before we were on the air and it was having to do with my BlackBerry and I love my BlackBerry and this is not an endorsement in any way, but I enjoy it, but it's not as seamless, the process of having it obtain the podcasting information.
Bruce Umpstead: Right, and that's really given Apple a real powerful edge on the mobile device market and I think that you'll see Apple especially with their foray into phones with the iPhone and the anticipated announcement of the iPhone 2.0, which is coming out, really drive and change the way we look at our mobile devices. With the iPhone you have more than just a phone and more than just a utility device that helps you get your calendar and everything. It really brings the Internet to you. On the other hand it doesn't do some things that are as elegant as say the BlackBerry or the Samsung or some of other devices that are more meant for business purposes.
But as they put pressure on those industries to converge, I think we'll start to see better products and better collaboration. Apple often is taken down for struggling with partnering, and struggling with collaboration, but that's what so beautiful about iTunes U. We're in the room with 14 state agencies, giving Apple feedback on what they're going to have to do with iTunes U to actually get it to work at the K12 level and they listened. It was really a beautiful event, we're talking about cloud tagging, which means that one district could come in and say, we're going to use this piece of content for this and another district or a state education agency says, no we're going to use it for this, and they listened. So they are really not that cloud tagging for these content, pieces of content available yet, but they're listening and they're building that in and they're really working at it.
So I think we're going to help Apple's business model become more of a collaboration and I think you're seeing that. They've opened up the iPhone to third party programmers. I think we're going to see that with iTunes U pretty quickly and so the seamlessness that isn't there between iTunes U and your BlackBerry we anticipate in the next couple of years to actually, to go away, so that you can see this it will be seamless. It won't be depended on an iPod to take it with you. Right now it's not depended on the platform you're running on your PC. So we feel comfortable that, that is going to just transcend the whole business model and really allow people to be focused on getting the content, what content they need to actually be entertained or educated or successful in their career.
Rob Huisingh: Now at this point, help me to understand this. I'm not sure that I fully grasp it. If I wanted to search for content, specific to education, I would go to iTunes and I would search on iTunes for that information. Now I happen to use like so many other people, Google, when I do my searching. Will Google find this content if it's up in iTunes, do they have a way of seeing it?
Bruce Umpstead: Yes and no, or no and yes. Google can get to your website which has all of your podcasts, and that would be one way. So if I knew to look for Inside Michigan Education I could type in Inside Michigan Education and probably find your website would come up number one. If I typed in Michigan Education, chances are, your content is not going to be at the top of the list; I'll have to search through several thousand, maybe tens of thousands or hundred thousand tags, links looking for it. Yours would be then dependent on how many people downloaded your podcast, not the relevance to me, but podcast to you. That's one of the challenges that all search engines, keyword search engines are struggling with it. I just read an article on Semantic Search and that really holds a lot of potential.
Rob Huisingh: That is very interesting.
Bruce Umpstead: On the iTunes side what's really nice is to have it syndicated, which means available to be distributed around the world. You are putting the keywords in, in the descriptors which allow people to be more specific when they type in Michigan Education or MILearning. It will not only be organized because its part of our site but it'll also be tagged. So by using the search engine within iTunes, it becomes easier to find your content.
So what we're saying is iTunes U is the place to go find free, relative, relevant content for education in Michigan. So it will make it easier and actually I've been very impressed with the search capacity inside iTunes and the organization of it. It will bring it up and it will put it in the different types of categories. We're able to bin it, give you your own logo, that's what really exciting me, you're going to have a brand in iTunes U. Like we talk in the Michigan state achieves and they were having trouble breaking in to iTunes U and they have all this rich media and honestly you can syndicate voice or MP3, like this podcast, you can do video, MP4. Those are both international standards, they're not Apple standards. So you can get that content and put it on your BlackBerry it's just not as seamless as you would like. Then you can also syndicate PDFs, so anything that you want to syndicate. So books on PDF can actually be syndicated. So it's a really powerful tool and we're really excited about it and it doesn't replace Google, it just makes it a little easier when you're looking for the right type of content to go to iTunes.
Rob Huisingh: Now Bruce I share just a very brief personal story, is that, my daughter the other day -- she is out of school now, but earlier, she asked if I would help her with her homework and it happened to be math. So I started helping her with her homework and I was quite certain that I was doing everything correctly and she was looking at me saying dad this isn't the way that we're being taught. As it turns out she went in the next day and she had half of them wrong and it was terribly embarrassing. I said well, what could I have done, it would have been nice if I could have gone online and pulled up, how are they teaching this specific aspect of math and to be able to actually see that on content and then be able to learn from it so I could teach appropriately.
Bruce Umpstead: Right, and we're actually going to be offering stipends to teachers to develop content like that, lessons in digital forms, so whether it's an audio podcast or video podcast, and put them up on iTunes U, MILearning. We're really excited about that going around Michigan and recruiting teachers to put some of their lessons in a digital format, so you the parent can actually come in and see. Now I've seen a demonstration of a math lesson in a video podcast. There is a math teacher in Michigan that uses a software called Camtasia. It's a product developed by TechSmith, which is located in Okemos, Michigan. It captures whatever you do on your PC. They haven't come out with an Apple version yet, but what the teacher does as he turns on this Camtasia, this recording software and then asks the student -- so is recording audio too, asks the student to demonstrate what they just discussed, what's two plus three. Then the student will write out the mechanics of that operation and the teacher will help the student correct whether or not they reached five.
But I just use a very simple addition example, but it gets more complicated so they can actually record whether a students gets it right or gets it wrong, capture that on their PC and then share that and post it and so what we're trying to do is get that teacher to post their work on iTunes U, so not only is it available to his students or off of his website, and again that's already out on the web, already reached by Google. But what we're hoping is that he will point it, point iTunes U to that content. In other words, just give us the description of what it is and the location, so that when people type in 'MILearning' there is rich set of math examples. Now probably not at the age that you're looking for, but overtime we're hoping to build -- and that's what's great, eight states are going to be doing this at the K-12 level.
So like in Florida, they took and worked with the University of South Florida to develop age appropriate books on tape, audio books, of the classics, so Peter Rabbit and such. They paid professional readers to read this and they already had it on their website and it was all organized by a great level, reading comprehensional level it's great, it's already out there.
Rob Huisingh: Nice.
Bruce Umpstead: But now it's part of iTunes U. So when you learn how to use iTunes to search for educational content, you can get to it through classics, you can get through audio books, you can get through University of South Florida, anyway that you learned that University of South Florida put that content up there, it's available and it's available to all of us for free. So if you want your child to listen to that classics being read to them at their age appropriateness of this content, it's already out there, it's already free and it's already syndicated for our students. So we don't have to do it again.
Rob Huisingh: Yeah, it's a very exciting time, isn't it?
Bruce Umpstead: Yeah, and that's really the essence of why we're participating. So what we're focusing on is Michigan history, because that's something rich, that we can provide, that no other state can provide. We are looking for teacher-developed content and we're looking for programs like this that will spread the news about what's going on in education. So we're really excited about where this is going and we have our organic structure to how the content will go up. We've got a couple of course that we're sponsoring, like a physics course or a biology course is being taught. Strictly using iPods, so we can actually demonstrate. Students can learn using new technology versus having to have the textbook in their hand, but they can actually use the same tool they're getting their entertainment from, they can use for learning. That's a really powerful model that we want to example and demonstrate.
Rob Huisingh: Well Bruce, we could probably go on for hours but I think we'll call a wrap here. I wanted to thank you for being on the show, you've been a wealth of knowledge and this is very exciting news.
Bruce Umpstead: Rob, thank you for having me.
Rob Huisingh: If you would like to visit MILearning, simply go to iTunes and search from MILearning. If you would like to see about getting your content onto MILearning, please contact Judy Paxton of MACUL, she can be reached by email at jpaxton@macul.org.
Do you have a story about something interesting that concerns Michigan education? If you do, we invite you to send us your thoughts. You can find us online at www.insidemieducation.com. Until next week, this is Rob Huisingh with Inside Michigan Education.
Announcer: This has been the Inside Michigan Education Podcast; comments are welcome through our website at www.insidemieducation.com, or by email to feedback@insidemieducation.com. We hope you have enjoyed the show.