WIKIS,PODCASTS AND BLOGS...OH MY!!!!

Glogster

2010-03-11T13:17:00.001-08:00

Guess We are not in Kansas anymore

2010-03-01T17:55:00.001-08:00

March may come in like a lion, but February went out like a cyclone. Last 3 days of school? Two days at ICE, learning all kinds of things and meeting people. Still digesting and will be reviewing later in a future post. Friday, we attended a really engaging performance of Comedy of Errors Short Shakespeare @ Navy Pier that totally engaged the kids. This followed by a lunch meeting discussing the modification of our exchange program for MS students. which will involve some research and investigating.

NAIS just ended, and some great thoughts are flying on the Independent Schools list serv. I have yet to read some of the online materials that have been posted from this as well as ICE. Finished DRIVE which has led me to take a look at Alfie Kohn's Punished by Rewards, which is considerably more difficult to read but more applicable to the topic of education.

I may be a life-long learner, but I have got to learn to pace myself! Times like this I wonder if our students feel the same. I am so excited about it all and cannot get it all in. What about when you are involved in all this merely because you have to be, not because you enjoy it?

A Whole New Problem

2010-02-21T17:37:00.000-08:00

I have been working with a friend to put together a technology project for our 8th grade class. My school has single gender classes and we are working on a humanities topic for the boys. We are lucky enough to live in a large city with wonderful theater. The boys will go to Steppenwolf Theater this week to view their production of A Separate Peace and will be also completing a novel study of the same book. We decided to use this opportunity to introduce the idea of contributing to wikis . They have used wikis in the past, but primarily as a web page/textbook type resource for tech class in the 6th grade.

The challenge that we wanted the boys to accomplish was to talk/write about their experience with the book, focusing primarily on critical analysis and deeper thinking. We determined to create a lit circle based concept with 3 teams of 5 boys each. Each team would distribute the 5 roles and be responsible for covering a total of 4 chapters each. Those roles are partially based on the traditional roles of Harvey Daniels and partially modified to accomplish some tech goals of visual literacy . I realized in trying to determine some of the roles that a great likelihood existed that some of the boys ( maybe most, for all I know) will go to the Internet ( Wikipedia, Bookrags, Sparksnotes and the like) for a quick and easy overview of the book,its characters, themes, and even test questions before they even open a page of the book. In their perfect world, they would be able to respond without actually reading the novel itself. They are well aware that with a little bit of their time and very little effort, it is possible to get an overview of all that content that is usually covered in writing assignments and class discussions. These possibilities present a good argument for trying to teach more contemporary books that do not have so much material available on the web to "borrow" or read in lieu of a book. However, these possibilities also provide an opportunity for the instructors to create and demand more inventive ways of being held accountable for reading material and providing interpretation.

I am looking forward to having a discussion tomorrow about how to accomplish the goals mentioned above. I am going to assign one role as a Graphic Interpreter and hold that student accountable for finding an image to capture an idea or theme from the chapter, making sure to cite the artist who created it as well as the source. I am going to use this opportunity to talk about Creative Commons and copyright protections. Instead of the role of summarizer and theme, I have decided to try to create a set of more "essential" type questions that will require using real life examples or discussions of ideas such as heroism, healthy competition, war, and lies. Each student will need to respond to the events of the chapter as one of the characters in the book who are responding to what they see they narrator do or hear him say.

I am hoping this will be an excellent adventure- or at least, an excellent exercise in trying to get the students to think for themselves.

Funding summer?

2010-02-17T16:36:00.000-08:00

Well, every year we find out about title funds being available for one thing or the other through our relationship with CPS. The last 2 years I have travelled to the November Learning Conference in Boston. In my opinion, this is a great conference that has it right. In addition to a variety of international experts, social networking is key. What I love is that it is not so much electronic, but face to face. Lunch served in a banquet hall to tables of 8, parties in the evening, outings into town or to a concert. Real live human interaction that encourages conversations about learning more than technology,engaging versus teaching. All of it, good stuff.

This year, we are hoping to send a couple of other faculty members, but the school's push to have people get master degrees is really working against us in many ways. Many teachers are too busy with classes, papers and projects in addition to ( sometimes at the expense of) their regular classroom preparations. This same thinking extends into thinking about the summer. Either people are taking classes or burnt out from trying to teach, go to school, and for some, teach after school classes for extra income. Others have to pick up summer employment to help pay the bills, while others just want to enjoy the break.

This year, I am hoping to attend something, but just can't decide what it will be. ISTE is too big for me; I attended the San Antonio conference 2 years ago.The sea of humanity overwhelmed me. I am interested in some offerings through Pearson on literacy and 21st century skills that are being offered in Maine and North Carolina, a 1:1 conference in Memphis in July ( Am I nuts?), a Gray Stager conference in New Hampshire, or a Brain Conference in Groton Massachusetts on the campus of a boarding school. Half of these qualify for title funds, the other half would come from my professional development money. Which one to attend?

That decision awaits another day. As for tonight, going to take a listen to Steve Hargadon's interview with Dan Pink about his new book, Drive. I just finished reading it this weekend, and like A Whole New Mind, it has me thinking. That's a good thing. I am interested to hear how he applies it to education. I think the idea of learning for intrinsic purposes or for the joy of the journey is something that escapes a lot of students these days, particularly as they get more and more pressured by parents. Hope more light is shed on it all for me tonight!

Let's see if I can deliver!

2010-02-16T08:54:00.000-08:00

I am going to try to present myself with a Lenten challenge. I have always contended that it is harder to do something more than to give something up, so here is my opportunity to try. I have been trying to do MORE exercising, but that is easy to write off with " I have not time" or "I am too tired" or "I'm just too busy." Well, since I work in front of my computer most of the day, I will either have to stick to my guns on this or get far more creative with my excuses. Either way, I will need to be thinking on another track.

I am on the Independent School Network list serv which is attempting to gather educational blogger sites. I am going to take the leap and see if I can follow through. I can't imagine anyone else wanted to read what I have, but I had originally started this blog as a way to reflect on things I have learned since beginning the 2.o journey. that journey AND that learning continue.

Currently, I am only teach Grade 6, mostly about Internet Literacy. We call the class Tech, but my personal preference would be Digital Literacy. The students have spent time on validating sources, investigating sites, learning about back links, various algorithms of search engines, the wonderful tools provided by Google Search that the kids didn't even know existed, and just general ideas about being more efficient with their use of technology and how to find things.

Our present project is a follow up to our study of the features of Google search. We are engaged in an Olympic Scavenger Hunt of sorts on our Olympics wikipage . The students have recorded their answers on a Google doc that they have shared with me. After class, I make comments and corrections on their documents so we can get practice with collaboration and drafts. The students seem to be pretty engaged and are getting a feel for the idea of keywords and search shortcuts. Our next step will be to create a Voicethread on the Olympics using not just our vocal skills, but learning how to find appropriate images and give credit to the creators. In addition, we will be creating medal pictographs using Excel and also create a medal spreadsheet with Google. i suspect , however, that Google spreadsheets won't provide us with the option to insert images, but I will find that out later today!

Thinking about Choices

2009-08-10T08:17:00.000-07:00

...to blog more frequently, BUT so much going on. I spent a good part of early summer determining whether to return to the classroom as a humanities teacher or to continue as a MS tech integrationist. When I sat down and wrote my pros and cons, as well as engaged in conversations with trusted colleagues, I have decided to continue on my "excellent adventure" with technology.

The one thing I have realized about my current job is that I have had so many more conversations and thoughts about pedagogy rather than technology , which is really what it is all about. Lately, I have found great irony in the term 21st century tools as it is something to happen in the future. Not only is the future now, but, as I heard on a Ken Burns documentary,

" Today is the future of yesterday." We are 9 years into the 21st century. Did we refer to 20th century tools? And, as educators, is it about tools or is it about LEARNING?

I have determined that, for me, the focus should be on the students , their learning, their literacies,their learning styles and their lifestyles. When we empahsize tools, teachers get nervous, especially if they are new tools that they don't understand or are not part of our day to day life. In that regard, I have to agree with Prensky's concept of "digital immigrants and digital natives." The learning process needs to be a partnership of sharing information - content ideas by the educator and technology skills/possibilities by the student. or a combination of both. In effect, education is really all about social networking. At least, that is how I have been going about mine.

Photo from authorsden.com

A Comic Adventure

2009-05-06T11:39:00.000-07:00

I have been spending some time playng around with comic Life as a vehicle for the sixth grade to review or highlight one particular story of The Children's Homer. It has been rather interesting to adjust our PC thinking to a tool that was originally created for a Mac, but we are making some progress. This particular group of kids have been good sports about trying out new things, and this experience is certainly challenging. We are learning a lot through our mistakes and finding that we wish Comic Life had some features that it currently does not. The students are thinking of clever images they would like to morph to create a particular scene, but it seems a bit complicated for us right now.
So far, I am pleased with the amount of information we have managed to integrate into this study:
1. Obviously, the use of Comic Life software, but also the ability to envision a scene and think visually.
2. How to effectively search for a photo by trying a variety of descriptions.We saw the same pictures of Brad Pitt every time someone searched for Achilles, but we got a much larger variety when we search "Ancient Greek warriors."
3.Focusing on the main idea - the comic form is mostly visual and cannot be bogged down by too much text. Choosing pictures that best convey your meaning and use of minimal, but effective, verbiage is a challenge to some.
4.Learning about copyright . We created a 'photo-ography' to give credit to the creators of the images selected. We adapted the MLA format for this introductory exercise, knowing we can build on the MLA format for images later.
5. As part of our image search, the students became familiar with the sites of Flickr as well as the features of Google books.
6. Students who chose to create their own images needed to learn to operate the scanner as well as edit and save their photos. Students who wanted to use png. images also needed to use Microsoft Photo Draw to learn how to save as a .JPEG
7. Students learned the importance of extension for images as well as the importance of determining the credibility of websites using skills they had developed earlier in the year.
8. We were also able to talk about bibliographies as a whole and what plagiarism is. When we give a research project, the students need to understand we don't expect them to know all about it already. We expect them to analyze, review, and synthesize material so that it makes sense to them. They just need to state their sources.
9. Punctuation review was also a bonus as we spoke about the different types of punctuation with long and short works.
10. The students learned the value of creating a plan - figuring out your story, obtaining your images while concurrently saving bibliographic information about them, choosing the appropriate template to accommodate their photos by examining whether the layout is portrait or landscape, as well as adding the "accessories" of color and font style at the end, rather than focusing on them at the beginning.
All in all, I am happy for the experience and what we have learned from it. Due to the amount of ink used in creating the 3-4 page comics, we realize that a teacher needs to sign off on the quality of the work before printing begins. We also gave a minimum and maximum range of frames to keep the project manageable. We talked about different styles for different formats. Since Comic Life is a visual tool, you need to make it "eye-friendly' and visually interesting so that the reader is engaged by the variety of visuals and text without being overwhelmed.
I look forward to using it again in the future and hope it will create some enthusiasm among our faculty.

Podcasts

2009-03-22T09:29:00.000-07:00

There is a certain irony to the title of my blog, created in a workshop almost two years ago, and the fact that I am just now really starting to learn ab out podcasting. I suppose one reason was that I tend to do best if I focus on one task at a time. That time was spent primarily on wikis, blogging, and learning more about what is out there in technology via conferences,seminars, and developing a PLN.
One thing lead to another and yesterday I participated via elluminate in a webinar hosted by Classroom 2.0, a wonderful social networking group created by Steve Hargadon. This particular webinar's guest was Kevin Honeycutt, a teacher I had heard about in the past and had the opportunity to hear speak at ICE this past month.( he also has an interesting site called Art Snacks that is well worth investigating.) There was an active conversation and such positive energy shared all around. Many tips were given and sites shared. Listening and watching was like being bombarded by CNN or MSNBC news. hence, the beauty of the archive which not only provides a link to the audio, but one for the backchannel chatting as well as an interesting tool called sharetab which provides visual links to the sites discussed or recommended during the conversations.
I participated in a classroom 2.0 workshop this fall in Chicago for 2 days . I cannot believe the caliber of people I was able to meet and learn from there. It is no surprise that many integration specialists have blogs with titles referencing life long learning, as things are always changing , being introduced, and even disappearing from the face of the earth.
I have decided to post this review on the blog so that I will have one stop shopping for the plethora of information that was provided during the 1 1/2 hour discussion. I missed part of it, but the beauty of the archive is that now, not only do I have access to the whole conversation, but I can share it with OTHERS.

Wordle & the Speeches

2009-01-19T13:57:00.000-08:00

Here is a wordle I created using the text of Obama's Lincoln Memorial speech.

Of course, he is not president yet and I haven't figured out how to put the actual picture of the wordle on the page so it can be read, but it is interesting to compare the frequency of his words with those of some of the inaugural addresses of the past.

I hope to create a similiar wordle with the inaugural address to use for class discussion, as well as compare that speech with this one.

A Brand New Day

2009-01-19T11:56:00.000-08:00

I thought I would title this post after a song that is currently online which was recorded earlier this year by some members of our student body and written by one of our parents, Ira Antelis. Our school community has been Commemorating MLK Jr. with a school wide celebration called Justice Day which incorporates a study of the ideas of justice and diversity in conjunction with the arts. We will celebrate Justice Day on Friday, 3 days the history-making day when Barack Obama is inaugurated as the 44th president of our country. There is so much excitement, not just because he is from our town of Chicago, but because he represents so much to so many people. Our students have a lot of energy and curiosity about what the future holds.
Like many schools, the majority of us will be watching the inauguration live. ( I am not too worried about those who will miss the live presentation because I am sure it will be shown over many times, not only during the course of the day, but throughout the year.) To me, the challenge is to make sure the students don't just see this as time to get out of class, but time to think about what their world will be as a result of this man's leadership. I have been following a number of fellow blogger's who have generously posted links and ideas, as well as some who are attending the actual ceremony and plan to utilize twitter, you tube, facebook,etc. This is truly a 21st century learning explosion! I am excited to see the various technologies we will hear about and read about over these next weeks, as we begin a real 21st century presidency.

Anyhow, I am also posting the wiki we have created for the middle school's examination of the events. The centerpiece is really a study of different perspectives around both our country and the world as to how they tell the story and where they place their hopes. I am also hoping to get some responses about the hopes and dreams of the students themselves on an edublog I am experimenting with.

Thoughts While Driving

2009-01-19T11:33:00.000-08:00

While I am very excited about the prospects of new leadership in our country, I was struck this week with the impossible task this same leadership has in front of them. Driving out to meet some friends for dinner on a Thursday night, I took a quick route through a residential neighborhood,noticing a number of for sale signs.
As a drove past a number of new developments on commercial streets, I noticed empty storefronts, still with bare concrete walls because there are no tenants to customize them for. As I passed a strip mall shopping area on a busy street, I noticed that on either side of me were closed business with lights out...one,a Circuit City and the other a Bennigan's Restaurant. At the mall, every store had prices slashed to 70% off. Might seem a great bargain to some, but we need to read between the lines.

Working with technology, I guess I have become more and more visual. The images along my drive really struck a chord with me. The effects of some very bad decisions, on the part of consumers, banks , and our federal government are coming home to roost. The darkness of those storefronts made me think about the workers. These people are not making tons of money to begin with. Where does one even go too find a job if they are unemployed now? School will stay open, so in that regard I am lucky, but what will happen to our families? How will this affect the kids?
Even the restaurant we visited was only about 1/3 filled. The wait staff were working hard, but their income is certainly not the same as it was on a Thursday night in more prosperous times.
So, as I look forward to the new administration, I keep prayers for them in my heart.Their task is daunting; there is no clear cut solution.There is no pie in the sky that will change things tomorrow.The road will be long, hard, and difficult.People will be looking for someone to blame for what is happening and will be hoping for a quick solution.Patience will take on a whole new meaning.

Vocabulary

2009-01-11T12:06:00.000-08:00

There has been quite a bit going on with my Google Reader and talk about Vocabulary. The emphasis seems to be on the visual, which is a much higher level thinking skill that recall. I like the way that Langwiches put a couple of posts all together on her blog. It seems that Mr. Robinson, who must currently be teaching in China, has taken some old school ideas about drawing pictures to illustrate meaning and kicked them up a notch by adding a visual component. I like this idea and was intrigued when the emphasis on a variety of visuals was presented by Jamie McKenzie, Garr Reynolds, and Daniel Pink. I think this is a good time to note about the power of Visual Thesaurus, by Thinkmap, which is a very reasonably priced product to purchase for a school. A school subscription also allows for at home usage by the students as well as in house. you may be familiar with the product if you use i Google as it provides the user with an option to have it appear on their home page. Without a subscription, you only get to try out about 2 definitions.
I really like this product because of what it has to offer. Pronunciation, color coded parts of speech, multiple definitions, and grouping based on denotation as well as connotation. You can also look for images which explain the word.
I had wanted my picture today to be from spell with Flickr, and I finally did!! I guess you have to get the HTML code from the spell site , copy and paste into Blogger using the edit html tab in the editing box. Phew!

Is Lurking a Bad Thing?

2009-01-09T10:15:00.000-08:00

I have been checking my Twitter account and always find the stuff that Will Richardson puts up to be fascinating. today, he talks about "Why Blogging is Hard" and I think he hits the nose on the head. it is about risk, risking failure or disagreement, or not being good enough. I have a hard time keeping up with blogging because i am not always sure I have something worth saying. i started out using the blog more as a journal, and have made it a personal mission to try to stick with it. I am just not certain that I have anything interesting to say.

I have listened to a learned from a lot of people in the last year. THEY are experts; I am not. I seem to lurk on twitter and lurk at webinars. Ironic that my interest in Web 2.0 has been primarily 1.0 on my part. So, I need to share, I guess. Build up confidence.

Maybe that is how a lot of our students feel too. As new learners, it has a far greater social consequence for them in their world. It is all about how they want to be perceived, which is often far from what they really are.

So, if nothing else, I am learning not just tech, but about taking risks and being willing to "put it out there." The other great lesson is about empathy, especially with my students, who feel this same way about new content, processing, and presenting.

Photo from Flickr Creative Commons

Kicking off 2009 @ school

2009-01-05T17:04:00.001-08:00

Today we had a presentation by Nichole Pinkard at school. As the director of Innovation at the U of C and recipient of a $1.6 million grant from the MacArthur Foundations, she has been really making some changes in the way kids do things. Our hope was that her presentation would get people thinking about teaching the kids where they are and implementing more technology in the classroom.

The important idea to me right now is that people understand that there is actually more to technology than just computers. Actually, I sometimes think that 1:1 could be isolating. Of course, that is just my opinion today, could change. The main idea is that, given the current state of the economy and the amount of technological hardware our kids have at home, we should be thinking outside the box a bit. Flip cameras are technology that can be used to have 4 kids collaborate on one computer to make a film. Mp3 players, especially those with video capabilities, allow the students to be consumers of information on a different scale. Start thinking about MP3 files as homework assignments and take advantage of that downtime they have between travelling from one destination to another.

About the picture?

This is from the blog of Eric Langhorst in Liberty, Missouri as he prepares his students to pilot a Zune project for Microsoft called the Speaking of History project . Podcasting and the use of MP3 players are an important part of his 8th grade social studies class.

A New Year , same old plan?

2009-01-02T16:48:00.000-08:00

Well, I have had an adventurous year to say the least, meeting lots of people and learning some much at a variety of conferences. I attended Larry Fletcher's speech about boys and writing in Wilmette, attended an ICE COLD conference in Lisle, ICE in St. Charles , 2 archdiocesan conferences, one featuring Alan November,NECC in San Antonio where I also met the head of ICE, Ginger, and the head of Chicago chapter of ICE, Hattie. I had an exciting and stimulating trip to BLC in Boston that rocked my world in many ways, including my epal class as well as meeting and seeing so many tech "rock stars." I have a treasured picture of my and my gal groupies with Alan on my desk at school. I also attended 2 classes in Wheeling at the NSLS center on gaming. Come fall, I was really fortunate to be invited to attend the Urban Education Institute at Carter Woodson Middle School that also made a great impression on me. Again, movers and shakers! The following weekend, I spent in a Classroom 2.0 regional meeting Steve Hargadon and others coordinated by Lucy Gray. Lots of learning.

Since ICE COLD, I have been following some blog and learning so much at times I thought my head would explode. I also started to Twitter, but I hang around the edges and pick up information more than contributing, which is probably not a good thing. Nevertheless, I have picked up tons and actually viewed photos of the fire in California from someone's window and the New Year as it is celebrated on the beaches of Thailand. How cool is that?

So, 2009 is the year for me to build up my confidence and really start to get seriously into it. I have prepared a couple of power points following the suggestions in Presentation Zen and noting the warnings in Death by Powerpoint slide share as well as YOU TUBE which I will try out on Monday. My first project of the year is going to be to try to think more visually and take to heart the idea that a picture makes a greater impression than a bunch of text. In addition, I will try to follow my own guidelines that presentation software is just an " accessory' to the real star of the show which should be your story or speech.

My photo for today? A great photo that appeared in the Chicago Sun-Times as the story of the sale of the Obama Senate seat broke. My favorite part? NOT DOCTORED AT ALL!!! What are the odds of such a perfect shot!

Will I blog every day? I doubt it, but I hope that I learn something everyday.

Today goal to me is to investigate istockphoto.com upon the recommendation of a friend. It is a fee that requires no royalties, but you need to purchase the art you want. There is some fabulous stuff out there. I also have looked into Spell by Flickr...so clever as well as the creative commons section of flickr.

I think I am off to a good start. I have blogged 50% of the days of this year. How small will THAT percentage get?

Typealyzed?

2008-12-14T13:43:00.000-08:00

This was kind of a wacky happenstance as I was investigating a blog I heard about through Wordle on Diigo. The guy is a tech person in Texas and found the Typealyzer which will analyse your blog and tell what type of personality is the author. Apparently, I am a mechanic:

"The independent and problem-solving type. They are especially attuned to the demands of the moment are masters of responding to challenges that arise spontaneously. They generally prefer to think things out for themselves and often avoid inter-personal conflicts. The Mechanics enjoy working together with other independent and highly skilled people and often like seek fun and action both in their work and personal life. They enjoy adventure and risk such as in driving race cars or working as policemen and firefighters. "

Maybe this is true on a number of levels. The adventure and the risk I have chosen is to leave my real field of expertise, Middle School Language Arts and Social Studies, and jump into the challenge of trying to encourage my fellow teachers to take a leap of faith to utilize more tech in their classrooms. I am looking forward to returning in January (Ok, that sounds REALLY weird as I am not on break yet for Christmas) and introduce the idea of 21st century skills as being our real challenge. Critical Thinking, synthesis, analysing, creating, collaborating and storytelling are REALLY the things we need to work on. I am hoping that we can help create the connection of engagement by utilizing at least some technology. Once we use it, I know that there will be some enthusiasm on the faculty 's part.

So, maybe I am a mechanic, but right now I feel like I am trying to instigate some action that will ultimately result in setting a new path. This may , in fact, result in conflicts, but I hope note. Seth Rodin would call me a "heretic". That's my real goal.

Secret Life

2008-11-04T11:20:00.000-08:00

I am pretty excited about a wiki I have created for the 8th grade girls to compliment their study of Sue Monk Kidd's Secret Life Of Bees. It is really a variation on the literature circle concept with 2 teams of 10 alternating chapter coverage of the 14 chapters. Over the course of their study of the book, each student will take on 7 different roles and post to the wiki. I am hopeful that , in addition to creating their own work, they will be creating discussion regarding the observations by their peers as well.

I am looking forward to the whole expereince with the students writing with purpose for a large audience. Should be exciting!

Mr new badge - Free Poverty

2008-11-04T11:09:00.001-08:00

I read about this as part of a feed from Free Technology for Teachers. Lots of fun, and it gets substantially harder and quicker. Points are awarded in cups of water . a maximum of 10 cups per correct answer based on the proximaity of your marker to the actual location.
Great fun.
click on the link within the badge to play

You ain't got a thing if you ain't got that NING

2008-10-29T09:35:00.001-07:00

We are experimenting today with a new tool that can introduce some web 2.o technology to our faculty. It is an exciting experiment.
More to come, as I am experimenting with the various tools it provides.

Google-icious?

2008-08-05T10:20:00.000-07:00

I am slowly acknowledging the fact that school is soon to begin and all the wondrous information I have been privy to over this summer of learning needs to be tried and applied. today, I am experimenting just a tad more with my Google account. This reminded me that I had not entered any notes from my two experiences with training for Google; one with Lucy Grey in Lisle this winter and one with Brian Mull of November Learning at the BLC. So, as good a time as any to look over past notes and review.

This past May, Goggle introduced a special section of tools especially for teachers. This suite of activities is in addition to all the things that are available with a regular Google account-Google docs, Google earth, blogger, Google reader, Google maps,Google sketch up, etc. Lucy Grey will be hosting a Google educator workshop in Chicago that has yet to be announced.
My initial curiosity about Google was the concept of being able to use Google docs as both an alternative for those students with non-Office based computers in addition to experimenting with it as a collaborative tool for student work. In order to use Google as such, it would be necessary for each student to open a Goggle account, which potentially could be an issue with parents. Lucy suggests that student accounts for projects be generic, a one name fits all kind of thing perhaps by group .
Google spreadsheets, which I have not had the nerve to attempt, apparently also has a survey feature that can be used. ( I have also heard a lot about survey monkey, a tool to create online surveys. I could see the students having a lot of fun with this, especially with an election year.

I created a Google reader section on my Google page as a result of this particular presentation. Google Reader serves as a news aggregator and I have many of my favorite blogs that I follow listed usder it. The RSS portion of Google Reader notifies me any time one of my pages has had additional information added to it.
It has also allowed me to see that some of the bloggers I used to follow have way too much time on their hands or not too much of a life. ) Hopefully, I won't turn into one of those people, but I must add that there is SO much to write about, I imagine it will be tough.

The Global Refrigerator

2008-07-23T13:06:00.000-07:00

I have been thinking a bit about the visual nature of learning and teaching and can't help but think about the artwork and homework I would post on the refrigerator when my kids brought home work they were proud of. In a lot of ways, the posting of our students work on Flicker or wikis or screencast works the same way. The students are motivated not only to perform for their own sake, but to share their work.
This is a continuation of my reflection of the cell phone photos for math. Eric Marcos had a great demonstration of the enthusiasm created in his students through the use of screencasting.
By using tablet pcs, a microphone and a moodle, this 6th grade class has created a website.I was so impressed with the live presentation presented by 2 students at the conference. This is really is a follow up on Darren K.'s theory of teaching like med school. When the students solve their equations on the screen, they are actually teaching it. In addition to being available for view on computers, they can also import some of the audio to an Ipod. His students have also created Mathtrain Tv ( link on the site). I haven't looked yet, but I believe they have also posted some things on You Tube, Teacher Tube, and google video. In addition to their videos, they close captioned them as a community service project to help special needs students.
The students create pseudonyms which, Marcos relates, they really enjoyed. This also provides a safety feature as well. A teacher who presented something similar at the e-pals session also has her students creat screen names for anonymity. In her case, it began the year with a Nativie American naming assignment that culminated with their first e-pal correspondence as they described why the chose their N.A. screen name and provided no other personal information.
There are some wonderful examples of students' work at the site.
The way I see it, it is an old idea with a new tool. So, it really isn't about the technology. It IS about the pedagogy.

New Pedagogies

2008-07-23T09:34:00.000-07:00

I have been overwhelmed with the information I still need to process and the great amount of contacts/networking that is avaialbe to me and my little brain as a result of the BLC conference. While I have opened a blog there, I don't know if it pays to have more than one so, for the time being, this will have to be it.
I was blown away by the enthusiasm and creativity of Darren Kuropatwa While I have bookmarked a number of articles about cell phones and education, this was the first time I saw it in action. I might add, I was impressed. Participants were asked to take photos with their cell, send it to an address at Flickrand then shared them right away.
Kuropatwa says he adapted the idea of how things are taught at medical school to his H.s. math class. In med school, you watch it - do it- then teach it. Using these principles, he enables his students to be the teachers and amke their thinking ransparent. This is similar to a presentation that I will talk about in another post using screencasting in a 6th grade math class in Calfiornia.In both instances, not only do kids feel there is value to what they know, but they work on writing in a content area with great care as their work will be published and seen. He refered to the work of Liz Kolb as a good place to begin.
I have a lot of notes from this session that I had hoped to blog, but maybe it is TMI. In a nutshell, students took pictures of mathematic concepts with phone. Saved These on Flickr and need to tag with class name and mark the photos with hotspots that explain why something is a good visualization of the concepts. The students then used Google docs to collaboratively create a rubric for their assessments. In addition to being evaluatied by their peers, his class has connected with mentors who communicate with his class online. The students were not only finding math in the world around them, but were also creating visual study tools that they felt helped them apply the concepts and remember.
I loved his concern not with the tools, but with the pedagogy that allows us to reach the students at theire level . He teaches them to do what experts do and allows the opportunity to create lieflong learners.
Interstingly, the last part of his assignment is always a reflection which gives the students an opprtunity to evaluate what they have learned, but again in a variety of formats that speak to them. He shared some podcasts and also refered to videos also created by the students.
i was fortunate to be able to see this presentation. I had made as a goal to try to take advantage of hearing what people are doing in other countries and this was such a great follow up, for me at least, after Ewan McIntosh.

How the game works

2008-07-21T12:24:00.001-07:00

My first inkling about what was to come at the BLC08 conference was introduced to me when I heard Ewan McIntosh of Scotland present " Not all Native Wit: From Creativity to Ingenuity." It is easiest to learn by doing things that are intuitive to you. for me, it was reading, writing and talking. For the 90% of today's 15-25 year olds who have visited a social network , it is something else. If My space were a country, it would be the 3rd largest in the world! Our job is to get to students at their level and present the opportunity to learn and create in a system that is easiest for them.

I particularly related to the 3 steps of learning that McIntosh referred to:

Saturation - immerse yourself in everything

Incubation - let it settle with no deadlines or stress ( and I have a LOT to do after this conference)

Illumination - the "a-ha!" that you can then share with a larger audience

These steps relate to both teacher and student. The idea is this - tech is the tool and creativity is the pinball. We need to focus on the pinball . We don't need to teach technology as much as teach subject matter and learning USING it. Today's youth culture is a culture of participation. Our students have lots of identities online: secret spaces, group spaces, publishing, performing, participating, watching,etc. We need to create a new awareness and allow them to create new groups. ( A random fact to support the social nature of our world? 426,000 cell phones thrown away every day!)

This session was introduced using Promethean clickers in response to the question " How would students today describe school?" The most popular answer among the audience of teachers and administrators? BORING!! McIntosh suggests that our challenge is to make learning REMARKABLE!!!

His closing quote came from one of the founding fathers of our country, Ben Franklin:

"There are three types of people, those who are immovable, those who are movable and those who move."

THAT is how the game should be played.

An energizing experience

2008-07-21T10:31:00.001-07:00

View my page on BLC Conference

I just returned from an incredibly enriching experience at the Building Learning Communities 2008 meeting out in Newton, Massachusetts. This was a 5 day ( if you include 2 days of pre-sessions that are avaiable) conference with a focus on networking, meeting teachers from around the world, and talking about our passion, teaching. The general idea that most people seemed to be signed on to is that we need to change the world of education so that it matches the world our students live in now. What is really mind-boggling is whether we are preparing them for the world they will live in and what will THAT look like?
Now that I am back home in my routine, I hope to use this blog to help review my notes and digest and share some of the many things that really got me thinking.
I think I have references this idea before that has been presented by Alan November ( and I am sure others too, but he is my favorite:) As teachers with technology our challenge is not to automate things that we already do by using computers, but to infomate and use technology as the tool it was created to be that can open brand new worlds and possibilities to both our students and ourselves.

If at first you don't succed...

2008-07-03T08:23:00.001-07:00

View my page on NECC 2008

That's right...2 1/2 months later I am writing another entry. My summer project will be to blog at least once a week, even though it is only really for myself. I have just returned from the NECC in San Antonio, Texas. My goodness! Too much information to be honest and far too many choices. I have yet to really sit down and reflect on it all. I have a tech meeting on July 9 that I hope I will be able to share my info with,especially regarding things to have in place or start to promote at the beginning of the school year.

Initial thoughts...

slates versus smartboards

interactive, interactive,interactive

let people know what is available to them

professional development is not just key, it is crucial

we are far from our true potential, if we were students, I would not even agree that we are putting out average effort.

hands on is the best way to go

teachers are the worst students...they talk, check e-mail during presentations and text message ...activities I am guessing would not be appreciated in their own classrooms.

if our students spend 6.5 hours a day on electronic devises from cell phone to Ipods to gaming to social networking to televisions to computers, are we really attempting to reach the in the best way?

Lots of food for thought.

Wordle

2008-06-24T15:00:00.000-07:00

I just read about this site called Wordle. I think it is really cool, except for the catch.\

Wordle is a toy for generating “word clouds” from text that you provide. The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text. You can tweak your clouds with different fonts, layouts, and color schemes. The images you create with Wordle are yours to use however you like. You can print them out, or save them to the Wordle gallery to share with your friends.
I had trouble accessing the wordle I made and wanted to share. I had copied the text of the Five goals of the Sacred Heart and created one. Interesting to see the words that really stand out.
I think this has some very cool potential for the classroom. I am guessing kids would LOVE it. Go to the website and check it out.

This is exciting because i figured out how to capture a moodle. This one is based on the address of my blog

Wordle

2008-06-24T14:35:00.000-07:00

This is cool. Here is an example of a Wordle a kind of word cloud you can create with any kind of text. I used the 5 goals of the Sacred Heart to create this one, but you may not be able to access it. The idea is that you can create an intersting piece of art using a series of words, perhaps even a section of text, and it appears as a tag cloud. Rather cool!

a GRAY Day

2008-04-15T07:31:00.000-07:00

At my seminar in Lisle, I was able to attend a seminar about Google presented by Lucy Gray of the Center for Urban School Improvement. The presentation was informative and almost overwhelming with the amount of options presented to Google users. Microsoft probably better watch out. The philosophy at Google is that things should be available to everyone, not just those who pay. Many comments and ideas com from the Google Teacher Academy Blog

The value of networking

2008-04-14T13:20:00.000-07:00

Well, I have waited an entire month to blog again. So much for persistence. My husband continually refers to me as a procrastinator. I need to remember not to tell him about the blog because it will support his opinion. Lord knows, that is NOT what marriage is about;)
I ventured out to the wilds of the southwest suburbs over the weekend to attend the ICE conference for the DuPage county branch of Illinois Computing Educators. The weather continued to be grey,wet and blustery, so why not? The group was small, but the 3 sessions were interesting. I was impressed by the amount of catholic school teachers there as well. Nadine Norris, who led a seminar I attended through the archdiocese, is the current president of this chapter and had some good speakers. I was particularly pleased to be able to attend consecutive sessions 1 and 2 on Google and its plethora of options for educators that was presented by Lucy Gray. Mind boggling and extremely informative. So much to learn and a great teacher.
I also attended a session on wikis held by a teacher who is admittedly not tech savvy, yet she has created quite a wikispace area for her social studies classes out in LaGrange, even going so far as to archive the material. I learned some interesting stuff such as how to add documents and photos to a wiki as well as the idea of creating a blog of sorts right on a wiki space for your students. She even has her study guides and rubrics attached to the wikis so that it is actually a bit more energy efficient, at least in terms of the amount of xeroxing the school no longer needs to do. Some teachers in the session questioned trusting the students to be sincere or to avoid the temptation to change information or adjust/alter the work of others. While those concerns are valid, it is not the type of thinking that is going to allow us to give the students ownership for the knowledge and the ability to create content for their peers.
In addition, her entire school has elected to use wikispaces versus a web page for the school.I find that to be an interesting concept as well.
I also found it interesting to find out about how she manages space members, assigning each student their student password number as a password. another interesting point is that their school has banned YouTube from the students at school. This is an idea that I would support at my own school as well.

Why Web 2.0 is critical

2008-03-17T10:43:00.000-07:00

The following are notes from a presentation by Steve Hargadon from Discovery Educators Network. He has also created a wiki that discusses this topic.
The topic started with this thought. Currently only 10% of web users contribute to Wikipedia. As the web continues to grow, the amount of contributors will continue to climb. already we have way more content that we know what to do with. Some reasons why?
1. New Publishing Revolution

2. Tidal Wave of Information

3. Everything is participative i.e. book reviews on Amazon

4. A society of Pro ( producer) sumers ( consumers)

5. The Age of Collaborator - probably unparalleled for looking at a topic. ( Wikipedia)

6. Explosion in Innovations -How Breakthroughs Happen ( published by his brother) talks about how we now utilize regularly the ability to transfer information from one area to another

7. World Gets Even Flatter & Faster - i.e. Skype, Twitter, Open Professional Development

8. Social Learning Moves to Center Stage - study groups versus lecture hall. Oftentimes the learning occurs in the hallways after class, during discussions, versus actually IN the classroom.
now we have open courseware and apprenticeship models that are moving towards becoming the primary model. The idea of student as expert is growing.

9. The Long Tail - this term was developed by Chris Anderson and he discusses it in his book which carries the subtitle "Why the Future of Business is doing Less with More" We currently have access to resources we couldn't access in the past. Information from experts is readily available,we can watch videotaped surgeries

10. Social Networking is Opening up the Party. Love his analogies. blogging is like walking on stilts, a wiki is like juggling, and My Space is like the bedroom wall without the parent supervision piece. As of February, 2008, at any given time, 300,000 people are on My Space, 375,000 new clients sign up daily, and their 300,000,000 subscribers qualify them to be the 3rd largest country in the world.

Mr. Hargadon has created a school 2.0 wiki that list a plethora of sites, podcasts,etc. with information about the classrooms of the future.
The second part of his presentation agree pretty much with a lot of the idea that Jamie McKenzie also proposes regarding the fact that, regardless of the technologies of the future, these "digital natives" still need to be trained in real thinking skills. His wiki lists the 6 things that You can do as a teacher to help.

The bombshell, in his words, ? Web 2.o is the future of teaching.

Investigating Joan of Arc

2008-03-16T11:48:00.000-07:00

The last portion of the workshop was an experiment in authentic learning for those of us attending the seminar. The example was to build a case for or against Joan, moving from thoughts to sentences by making 10 suppositions about her based on what we know. Then , support these suppositions with an investigation into some primary sources regarding joan of Arc.
Demonstrating the power of exact wording in the title to facilitate finding things using google as the search engine, we porceed to search " Joan of Arc's letters" and Letter to the English." We 'harvestied information from these sources to explain with a note any earlier suppostions that we could support. the next step/ To Google : St. Joan of Arc's Trials" and examine "The Trial of Nullification" to read the testimony of some of Joan's friends.
to finalize the assignment, we looked for images of Joan of arc, remembering that there might be a number of ways we could search. ( i.e. Jeanne D'Arc, St. Joan of Arc,etc.)
This experience lead to a discussion of the 5 standards of Authentic Instruction proposed by newmann and Wehlage. Shopuld an assignment meet all 5 standard:
1. Rooted in issues, challengs, or decisions people face in the world
2. It requires higher level thinking skills such as analysis and synthesis.
3. They are genuine problems in the world of virtual reality, virtual truth,etc. ( i.e. WorldJobSites.com, Job-Hunt.org
4. The aretof wrestling with these challenges is purposeful. They can see pay off in future for skills acquired and work well done.
5. It is meaningful, worthy and generative in the sense of promting knowledge.
(Examples for Social Studies and Language Arts from his From Now On Education Journal.)
Therein lies the challenge to teachers. To not feel compelled to keep up with technology, but to realize that technology will define the world of our students far differently than it defines out present. We have an obligation to be aware of the tools, pros and cons, so that we can teach our students to THINK well and use it WISELY. Our job is, ultimately, to prepare our students for life, not for tests, by debating, wondering and asking.

McKenzie revisited - Engaged

2008-03-16T10:58:00.000-07:00

The next topic discussed at the seminar was Engaging students. irionically, I have been engaged in some student projects myslef in the last week, and only now have the time to revisit my notes. The biggest problem lately- the reflection process. I am a notetaker, but I need the time to 'ponder and gather' my thoughts in order to get the most out of my experience.

The first article refered to us involved The Wired Classroom about the difference between a tech room and actually engaging the students. it reminds me of Alan November's idea about innovating rather than automating with computers.

I have to agree with Mr. mckenzie about the power of images, particularly as thinking prompts. If you check his webiste, he alsways has photos and a special section for cartoons. He discussed the value of a good image collection and bad databae ( i.e. San Francisco Museum of Art0 and a site with a better data base that expands the possibilities with searching ( I.e. Corbus collection) Two other image sites that were recommended? the National Portrait gallery at the Smithstonian and a collection of global cultural sites, The Great Mirror, collected by a geography professor from Oklahoma.
I t is important to get students to think critically about images and get them to challenge themselves to interpret what they see. One recommended way is to use this idea of puzzle as presented in the Virtual Bead Loom, a beginners software, which allows students to weave and wonder through the pattern in order to replicate the Native American design presented to them.Beading, weaving, and puzzling serve as metaphors for the student to see the ability of the mind to accept a challenge and examine things carefully to come to a final conclusion or resoultion.

While this seems random here, in addition to talking about the power of images in the classroom, Mckenzie referred to a study done in 2006 that talks about the power and affect of the media on young children, calling them Generation M.

Jamie McKenzie-Make Mystery a daily event versus routine

2008-03-10T11:23:00.000-07:00

I was glad I decided, although at the last minute, to attend an all day Jamie McKenzie seminar. It is a nice complement to Alan November's thought about kids and understanding the grammar of the internet. McKenzie , like November in his "Thinking Zach to Think" seminar, places emphasis on technology as a tool that is used to encourage the students to THINK CRITICALLY, a skill which i often think is sorely lacking.
McKenzie's workshop was intimate, with about 25 teachers in attendance, all with laptop computers for a hands on involvement with the class. We began with an inspiration image that talked about vertical, or logical, thinking and extending it to lateral, or critical and complex, thinking. He emphasizes synthesis, and the utilization of programs , such as the 6 Traits, as synthesis tools. He suggest that teachers propose mysteries that don't necessarily have a clear answer rather than puzzles which has pieces that fit neatly together for a defined purpose. The emphasis should be on: composition,comprehension/inquiry and communication.
As an example of some of the ways we can ask students to " infer-question-picture-recall-0synthesize -flex- were demonstrated with the use of some of the Dove's Campaign for Real Beauty videos discussing society's images of women. Great example of some tools that help you to think critically about images, a recurring theme in McKenzie's presentation.

Facebook- a preventative measure?

2008-03-02T08:21:00.000-08:00

Jean heard a speaker at ICE who told an unbelievable tale about students creating Facebook pages under some of the teachers' names. Their purpose? To damage the teachers' reputations.
anyhow, she strongly recommended that all teacher register a Facebook page in their own name, purely for the purpose of preventing others from being able to use it.So, I have a Facebook as well as a My Space page. I doubt I will EVER use them, but my children think i opened the account to spy on them. As if...!

And Twitter and Ning and Skype and...

2008-03-02T07:23:00.000-08:00

Having just returned from a heavily tech centered week, I am feeling both overwhelmed, scared and excited with all that I have learned. Of course, what I really learned is all that I don't know. It boggles my mind what is available out there. I am SO aware that our students know so much more than we do in terms of technology. Most importantly, I worry that too many teachers, in an underpaid and overworked vocation, either can't or won't read the writing on the wall that is a call to change the way we do things.
As a result of earlier experiences, I have read both The World is Flat and A Whole New Mind and had a major epiphany. my first recommendation to anyone who either doubts life is/will be that different or those who need to validate suspicions that the world is changing quickly, should read these books and then just dive in!
This is the first blog in my own plan to "dive in". At the ICE conference, Vicki Davis challenged participants to list 3 things that they wanted to try. I know that i have heard from two other people that this challenged changed the way they did things. i am ready to try to take that challenge too.
There are so many things to check out, I hope to record my thought,observations and ideas here so that i can involve the reflective process in all this learning. I am SO much a digital immigrant in this digital world.