Monthly Archive

Wow, I left my room at 7:45 this morning… I’m just returning at 6:45, 11 hours in the convention center going from workshop to lecture to panel to model classroom to exhibits and around again.  There isn’t even time to eat!  One woman next to me this afternoon had only had a banana she bought for $1.50!  I refused to purchase a $9 sandwich – so I’m waiting for food to arrive magically at my door!  Room service will give me time to catch up as I eat right here!

At a panel session on Educating Students on Online Safety, I was given a fantastic website for a resource.  It is worth your time – I mean it – to take a look around this site from California Region 4.  You can use all the content… video, powerpoint, posters, etc.  You will find workshops, cyberbulling incident forms and steps on what to do with an incident, legal info under the administrator resources, materials to use in a PTA style presentation, acceptable use policies, and more.

A presenter from another source (not CTAP4) said that life on the web mirrors real life, the most vulnerable students on the web are also the most vulnerable off the web.  The tools, in her opinion, are not the problem. She said we need to begin by teaching students to make smart informed choices, know the audience, and work on critical thinking.

I know that I espouse that technology gets a bad rap for a lot of other problems, but I’m not sure I agree with this presenter.  These particular tools open up a wide range of opportunities for bad stuff, anonymous bad stuff, than regular life does.  In my opinion, this is a time where the tools are a big piece of the puzzle to be put under the microscope.  Sure, we do need to talk to the kids etc., but we can’t expect that to be the end of it.  We must provide a safe environment for them too.

What do you think?

I’m at NECC and they are to announce the new NETS for Teachers on Monday.  But the book store was open and I bought the booklet on it.  Ready?

1. Facilitate and Inspire Student Learning and Creativity
   • teachers use their knowledge of subject matter, teaching and learning, and technology to facilitate experiences that advance student learning, creativity, and innovation in both face to face and virtual environments.
2. Design and Develop Digital-Age Learning Experiences and Assessments
   • teachers design, develop, and evaluate authentic learning experiences and assessments incorporating contemporary tools and resources to maximize content learning in context and to develop the knowledge, skills, and attitudes identified in the NETS S.
3. Model Digital-Age Work and Learning
   • teachers exhibit knowledge, skills, and work processes representative of an innovative professional in a global and digital society.
4. Promote and Model Digital Citizenship and Responsibility
   • teachers understand local and global societal issues and responsibilities in an evolving digital culture and exhibit legal and ethical behavior in their professional practices.
5. Engage in Professional Growth and Leadership
   • teachers continuously improve their professional practice, model lifelong learning, and exhibit leadership in their school and professional community by promoting and demonstrating the effective use of digital tools and resources.

The booklet talks about “Education must change”  “Educators must lead”   “Teachers transform learning environments”  ‘Emerging Learning Landscape (vs. traditional environment)”.

So, what do you think?  Me, I’m inspired by it – but absolutely challenged by the amount of work it will take to get to this point.  But we keep talk talk talking about how education has to change.  Here’s our chance to step up and do it. 

I’m tired already! 

Today’s Question:  How am I today, right now?

Overwhelmed.  I am drowning in stacks of paperwork with a zillion (yes… zillion) ideas bouncing around my brain.  Which would be fine if I could devote myself one hundred percent to just that… but there are 3 kids to entertain now that school is out, all star baseball tournaments, all start flag football tournaments, swimming lessons, a husband that is on the road for business, and I’m heading to NECC in a few days.  And I know that my life is not unusual.  I’m not any more busy or overwhelmed than you are.  We’re all trying to move at light speed.  Impossible.

Does anyone else find the NECC offerings overwhelming?  And the website a disaster?  Wading through the spaghetti on that site to find out what is offered when, the stupid “planner” (it produces a list of stuff… not even in any way that is better organized than my own handwritten notes!), and I can’t see a map anywhere of where the lectures are.  Oh sure, the exhibitors are listed… but I would like to map out where to go to hear about podcasting.  Such a huge disappointment of a website, a major lack of data organization for such a high tech event.

So, I have turned off all TVs, computers, etc. for the kids (it’s imagination time!).  Guess I should do the same for myself.  Those zillion ideas will still be there when I tune back in to the internet later!  Hope you do the same.

This is a nice little site, Dumpr.net, where you can change a picture into another form and copy the code.

These are my pictures made into a sketch and a Rubic’s cube.

My browser kept crashing so I took the chance and downloaded the new Firefox.  Seems to work OK (for the last couple of hours anyway).

When I went to check out my blog, I noticed that I now need to install Adobe Flash to see video etc.  Fine… after a couple of false starts I got it downloaded.

Go back to the blog and my shark tank widget is 3 times the size it used to be!  Sure, it’s really cool, but blocking text in the posts.  I try a couple of things, but really don’t have time to mess with this stupid thing – are widgets really worth all this aggravation?  I threw it down to the bottom of the page… my daughter likes it.  Can’t guarantee that it will stay there though.

Widget Wars… I’m not kidding.

This comes from http://www.digitalchalkie.com/

Paul Reid writes “This public service campaign video was filmed at the CoSN (Consortium for School Networking) annual conference. The wisdom with which educational leaders like Alan November, Greg Whitby, and Stephen Heppell explicate the urgency of giving teachers the tools to connect with 21C learning and their students is poignant in this video. The massive task of making schooling relevant for today’s learners is communicated with precision. These international educators recognise the need to shift our thinking at all levels by being innovative, thinking creatively and developing 21st century pedagogies that will inspire this generation of learners.”

Today’s Question:  What do I want to take from today?

I wouldn’t mind taking the $53 million dollar winning lottery ticket from Powerball… but I would have to buy a ticket first.  That’s out.  Maybe next time around.

So, what about today do I want to have stand out in my memory?  It was the first day out of school for my kids.  They slept in, we all went swimming at a friend’s house, saw Kung Fu Panda (great movie, by the way, for all ages… I surprisingly enjoyed it), and had ice cream at the homemade ice cream stand that serves up gigantic scoops.  The sun was shining, it was not too hot, the kids were happy – it was a good day.  I stepped away from the computer and my homework, my research, and my endless search for unique ways to integrate technology into the classroom.

I recharged.  That’s what I want to take from today – the knowledge that stepping away from all the outside responsibilities in order to give my kids a day full of junk food, movies, and friends is a good thing to do now and then.  Probably more “now” as they are only this age today.

When was the last time you recharged yourself?  And how do you go about it?

Get the Quikmaps widget and many other great free widgets at Widgetbox!

This is a nice site (Quikmaps at Google), you can put the markers where you want to, draw on the map, add text… imagine this on an interactive whiteboard with your students.  Go ahead, click and move the map around right now!  I’m sure you can think of many ways to utilize it!  Have fun!

 This is cool.  I generated my own newspaper clipping at Fodey, saved it to a Flickr account, then brought it to my blog!  It needs some tweaking (the URL is too long and you can’t see it all), but the general idea is there to spark creativity for other things.  You can make your own clippings and just save the picture to use in digital storytelling, etc.  Students could have fun with this one.

What did I find notable this week?  I’m still reading Alan November’s book Empowering Students With Technology and my inner geek is enjoying it.  In Chapter One, November outlines a story about a student who researches a paper and gets caught up my some mis-information on the internet that becomes the basis for his writing.  The lightbulb went on over my head as I realized that I watch my teenager do this too!

Do your students do this?  Your kids?  My goodness, here we are with the world of information at our fingertips but do we really teach how to determine the authenticity of the data?  How to make a decision about the authority, the source, the basis of that data?  This was not a problem when research meant opening up the Encycolopedia Britannica and copying the text.  It’s a whole new world out there and that world is full of hacks posting all sorts of goofball stuff.  We MUST teach our children how to wade through that stuff and how to make decisions on what to keep and toss.

I would love to put together a lesson, a webquest, a something (I don’t know yet) that includes these important skills.  Included would be November’s “Anatomy of a Web Address”, search engines, etc.  Things that bring critical thinking, problem solving, and decision making to researching on the internet (NETS anyone?).

What are YOU doing with students and their web researching?

Time to try out another new widget.  On the left sidebar you will notice my aquarium tank to take a shark break – move the cursor over the tank and the fish will follow.  It’s simple but absolutely mesmerizing (yes, I am easily entertained, sigh).  I’m sure my kids would love a screensaver sized one – the pixel size can be changed, but I don’t want to take up more space on the blog… too distracting.  Not sure how long I will keep this one, but it’s neat to try out.  It’s from Widgetbox.

The Boston Globe website has a nice section called The Big Picture which has various collections of News Stories in Photographs.  The photos are professional and vivid and move beyond the headline of a story to encompass the human element within the story.  I would love to bring this resource into a classroom environment for students to delve deeper into news.  How differently do you think they would interpret a story depending on whether they read it, see it on video, or see it in photographs?  An interesting exercise to do… break up the class into groups to study the same news story only presented through different presentations.  I’m fascinated to see what each group would come up with in their interpretations.

Are you attending NECC in San Antonio?
( polls)

Today’s Question:  What continues to be a challenge for me?

Rubistar.  How’s that for an answer?

We are using Rubistar to create rubrics for an assignment and I am challenged by this particular web tool.  I don’t seem to be able to format the rubric the way I would like.  Instead, I end up having to change the way my data is put into the form.  Personally, I would rather have the tool be flexible enough to deal with the data I have to enter… here I am the one having to be flexible and changing my data to fit the form.  It’s not an approach I like.

It should be noted that I am not an educator so rubrics are fairly new to me and I could certainly be missing some of the tricks to format in Rubistar.  However, am I challenged?  Yes.  In a good way?  I don’t think so.  If I were doing this exercise for my own use, rather than a class homework project, I would have moved on to another tool already.

So, what does that say about me?  Am I too quick to give up on this resource and ready to hop on to the next thing?  Is this what our students do when faced with a slight rise in their frustration level?  Give up and move to something else?  Interesting - we certainly are an “instant gratification nation”.  I’m not sure I like this aspect of myself if I am giving in too quickly.  On the other hand, if I have recognized the tool as being not totally applicable for my needs and want to look for one that is better suited – that’s good.  How can I tell the difference and how can I bring that knowledge to students?

How do we teach students to find the right tools?  How do we get them to not give up too quickly if something is frustrating them?  This all goes back somehow to self-learning, I know it.

Four great videos that are Public Service Announcments on YouTube.  I find them to be powerful in a quick and engaging format to show to students.  See what you think.  Does anyone have other safety related links that could be shared?

Think before you post

Bulletin Board

Cyberbulling – Talent Show

Internet Safety PSA

Yesterday I found a cool widget to embed into a post in the blog. It was a small box that rotated through some quotes with a picture of the author. It worked fine yesterday. Overnight, however, the widget gremlins (nasty little things) went to work. When I checked the blog this morning, the widget box wasn’t loading. I went to manage the post, previewed it and it looked fine. Tried again, no luck and it was causing the blog to take forever to load. My only guess is that whatever source the data is being pulled from is slow this morning. I don’t want that dragging down the blog so I deleted the post. Moral of the story? Careful what outside influences you allow into your blog as you can end up with unexpected results.

If you need some help in the Edublog environment, The Edublogger has a lot of useful information.  I linked to the page that gives you info on the blog – click upper left on Front Page to get to most recent posts.

Ahhh, it should have been simple.  All I wanted to do yesterday was to add a text box somewhere on my blog page to put up a quote.  Easy, I’ll just take a minute to do this and then get dinner ready for the kids.  Logically, I go to Design and Widgets… there it is, the text box.  Add it to my sidebar.  Great.  Click on edit… hey… it disappeared.  OK, I must have hit the wrong button (mind you, there is only one) I’ll try again.  I do.  It’s gone.

Now follows a great time-wasting round of “should I double click” – “does it go in footnotes” – “did I pick a theme that doesn’t support it” – “where is the help for this” – “there isn’t any help for this”.  Throughout the afternoon and evening I return to my computer and try a new approach.  Nothing works.  I give up and go to bed.

Fresh new morning, same old battle.  It comes down to this (and I found it by accident), add your widget to your sidebar/footbar whatever – then SAVE THE CHANGE!  This now allows the edit function to work and not just abscond with the widget.

Just for spite, I added TWO text boxes with quotes to the bottom of the blog.  Ha!  Take that Widget World.  I have a feeling that this is just the beginning of the war however.

Turning the Pages is from the British Library and allows you to view original Great Books, turn the pages and magnify the details.  Take a look at “The Original Alice” written and illustrated by Lewis Carroll or Jane Austen’s work about the History of England written in her own hand.

Neatorama is the Neat Side of the Web.  There are many blogs full of random information, but this one captures my attention and I always find something new and interesting.  The site is easy to read and navigate, is updated regularly, and the posts have links to further information.

TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design. It started out (in 1984) as a conference bringing together people from those three worlds. Since then its scope has become ever broader.  The annual conference now brings together the world’s most fascinating thinkers and doers, who are challenged to give the talk of their lives (in 18 minutes).  This site makes the best talks and performances from TED available to the public, for free. More than 200 talks from the archive are now available, with more added each week. These videos are released under a Creative Commons license, so they can be freely shared and reposted.

Visuwords™ online graphical dictionary — Look up words to find their meanings and associations with other words and concepts. Produce diagrams reminiscent of a neural net. Learn how words associate.

Today’s Question:  What do I want to conquer?

Well, that’s a big question to start off the day.  As a new Technology Integration Specialist I am working on a learning curve as I fit my business experience in technology into the education sector.  But, I do find it exciting and look forward to the challenge!

My action list for conquest:

• Maneuvering around this blog and all the options available
• Electronic Portfolio implementation
• NETS for students and effective mapping standards to our curriculum
• Keeping up with 2 graduate level courses over the summer of 2008

A list of goals that will definitely keep me busy!  What do YOU want to conquer?

Well, I have finally gone and done it… started a graduate school program.  With the option of distance learning and completing the coursework online, it’s the perfect fit.  The classroom environment is certainly different online, but the students are enthusiastic and bring a wealth of knowledge to the class.  I am looking forward to interacting and hearing what others think and what they are doing in their own schools.

This is my first assignment for class 6008 – a blog.  I am excited about working with all these new tools (OK, some are new to me) and bringing them back to students.  I am a brand-new Technology Integration Specialist at a private school for grades K-8 in New England.  My background is in the business world where I was a PC/IT Specialist and Network Technician.  Now it’s off to the education sector (where I have always wanted to be)!  I am interested in how technology is being used in other schools, success stories, pitfalls to watch out for, innovative and creative ways of using technology, etc.

Off and running…