Sunday, December 14, 2008

Typealyzed?

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.

Tuesday, November 4, 2008

Secret Life




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

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

Wednesday, October 29, 2008

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

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.

Tuesday, August 5, 2008

Google-icious?




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.

Wednesday, July 23, 2008

The Global Refrigerator



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

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.

Monday, July 21, 2008

How the game works





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



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.

Thursday, July 3, 2008

If at first you don't succed...


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.


Tuesday, June 24, 2008

Wordle


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

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!

Tuesday, April 15, 2008

a GRAY Day

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

Monday, April 14, 2008

The value of networking

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.

Monday, March 17, 2008

Why Web 2.0 is critical

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.

Sunday, March 16, 2008

Investigating Joan of Arc

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

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.

Monday, March 10, 2008

Jamie McKenzie-Make Mystery a daily event versus routine

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.

Sunday, March 2, 2008

Facebook- a preventative measure?

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...

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.