Title
Going Beyond Essays: New Kids, New Media, and New Literacies
Alternate Title
Presenter
Jason Ohler, President’s Professor, Educational Technology, University of Alaska/jasonohler.com
Running Thoughts
He is talking about creativity and the blank sheet software idea. He is talking about the need to be creative in the same media that we consume.
Digital Art Oral Written - the four areas students need today in literacy.
He said we need to teach students how to make the stuff before we can teach them to analyze the stuff. This is how we do it with text, why not with audio and video?
He pointed out that 80% of the work of a project that is published is in the polishing, only 20% in the content. In school we should accept that rough draft is good enough, and if they are interested students will polish it themselves.
Reflection
I like what he said. We need to teach new literacy. We need to teach how to make the stuff that we teach the meaning of. A student who has made a movie will understand how meaning is developed better. I loved the idea that everything can be fine if it only gets to rough draft. Interesting ideas.
Showing posts with label MACUL. Show all posts
Showing posts with label MACUL. Show all posts
Friday, March 20, 2009
Thursday, March 19, 2009
MACUL 5 - Cell Phones
Title
Toys to Tools: Connecting Students’ Cell Phones to Learning
Alternate Title
Use the Technology Kids Have
Presenter
Liz Kolb, Adjunct Assistant Professor, Madonna University
Running Thoughts
wifiiti.com is really cool. Send a text message and it shows up on the screen.
To get her contact information text KOLB to 50500.
ChaCha call 1-800-2chacha or TEXT to CHACHA.
drop.io allows you to record messages.
Second mention today of polleverywhere.com.
Photos can go to flickr of course or drop.io as well.
Look at earfl.com sometime.
There are some tools for sending lots of text messages like textmarks.com.
dial2do.com does speach to text. It also allows you to listen to web pages and translation.
Collaborative novels at textnovel.com.
Reflections
I could use the photo places for scaling activities in physics. I could also require a year long 10 photos of physics phenomenons wherever you are. What I loved about this session was the noise. I was tired when I walked in and so were many people you could see it on their faces. Yet as soon as she told us to start exploring and using these text features there was all this positive noise. It was uplifting, like when you class is really humming with good work.
Toys to Tools: Connecting Students’ Cell Phones to Learning
Alternate Title
Use the Technology Kids Have
Presenter
Liz Kolb, Adjunct Assistant Professor, Madonna University
Running Thoughts
wifiiti.com is really cool. Send a text message and it shows up on the screen.
To get her contact information text KOLB to 50500.
ChaCha call 1-800-2chacha or TEXT to CHACHA.
drop.io allows you to record messages.
Second mention today of polleverywhere.com.
Photos can go to flickr of course or drop.io as well.
Look at earfl.com sometime.
There are some tools for sending lots of text messages like textmarks.com.
dial2do.com does speach to text. It also allows you to listen to web pages and translation.
Collaborative novels at textnovel.com.
Reflections
I could use the photo places for scaling activities in physics. I could also require a year long 10 photos of physics phenomenons wherever you are. What I loved about this session was the noise. I was tired when I walked in and so were many people you could see it on their faces. Yet as soon as she told us to start exploring and using these text features there was all this positive noise. It was uplifting, like when you class is really humming with good work.
MACUL 4 - pH
Title
MACUL Science Grant: pH and Probes
Alternate Title
Teacher Works Hard to Find Money to Make Learning Interactive
Presenter
Helene Barton, Teacher, Detroit Public Schools
Handouts
Two labs on an 8.5x11, and a bookmark sized online review activity.
Running Thoughts
She has a great story about writing three grants to over the four years to get pH probes and handheld data gathering devices. She obviously cares deeply about here students and had a great story about just how she got all her equipment and why it was important to have the equipment.
Great Idea: when testing antacids she has the students bring in what they or their families think are the best. She talked about how the random selection of antacids caused unexpected results, especially when measuring pH by indicator and the tablets have color. She then pointed out how good it was that we teachers model dealing with unexpected results. Awesome: she puts herself in situations where you will have to model good behavior.
Reflection
Using technology is still more interesting to kids than not.
MACUL Science Grant: pH and Probes
Alternate Title
Teacher Works Hard to Find Money to Make Learning Interactive
Presenter
Helene Barton, Teacher, Detroit Public Schools
Handouts
Two labs on an 8.5x11, and a bookmark sized online review activity.
Running Thoughts
She has a great story about writing three grants to over the four years to get pH probes and handheld data gathering devices. She obviously cares deeply about here students and had a great story about just how she got all her equipment and why it was important to have the equipment.
Great Idea: when testing antacids she has the students bring in what they or their families think are the best. She talked about how the random selection of antacids caused unexpected results, especially when measuring pH by indicator and the tablets have color. She then pointed out how good it was that we teachers model dealing with unexpected results. Awesome: she puts herself in situations where you will have to model good behavior.
Reflection
Using technology is still more interesting to kids than not.
MACUL - Booths
Two companies piqued my interest while touring the exhibit hall. I am not a huge fan of blocking software but reality requires it. We need to improve ours to be more granular, so that kids can easily move between different levels of filtering depending on their responsibility.
One is Cymphonix. They have a 2 year old mac client with LDAP. It is an inline box that does packet shaping. Very similar to DeepNines. He was non committal about pricing.
The other one was cipafilter.com. This works as a proxy server with locked down browsers. The difference between this and our current squid proxy is that filtering settings are based on LDAP groups. We could just move kids in and out of groups in workgroup manager to change their filtering status.
One is Cymphonix. They have a 2 year old mac client with LDAP. It is an inline box that does packet shaping. Very similar to DeepNines. He was non committal about pricing.
The other one was cipafilter.com. This works as a proxy server with locked down browsers. The difference between this and our current squid proxy is that filtering settings are based on LDAP groups. We could just move kids in and out of groups in workgroup manager to change their filtering status.
MACUL 3 - Apps for Administrators
Title
Apps for Administrators: Tools to Support SIP... and More!
Alternate Title
A Principal Who Likes How He Gets His Job Done
Presenter
Douglas Bush, Principal, and Kristi Bush, District Media Specialist, Shepherd
Running Thoughts
First union bashing joke at minute 19.
Using Google Docs to create documents, excellent idea. I wonder how I could get my principal to do more with that or Zimbra Docs?
Their school has ZAP - Zeros Aren't Permitted. Instead of allowing zeros on homework they have to come in after school and do the work. Not sure how I feel about this.
Left Early
Apps for Administrators: Tools to Support SIP... and More!
Alternate Title
A Principal Who Likes How He Gets His Job Done
Presenter
Douglas Bush, Principal, and Kristi Bush, District Media Specialist, Shepherd
Running Thoughts
First union bashing joke at minute 19.
Using Google Docs to create documents, excellent idea. I wonder how I could get my principal to do more with that or Zimbra Docs?
Their school has ZAP - Zeros Aren't Permitted. Instead of allowing zeros on homework they have to come in after school and do the work. Not sure how I feel about this.
Left Early
MACUL 2 - Professional Development Using Moodle
Title
Using Moodle to Deliver Quality Professional Development
Alternate Title
The Tech Tips and Treats Moodle Course Is Really Sweet
Handouts
http://deliveringpd-moodle.wikispaces.com
Running Thoughts
These presenters expected those here to have internet. Since it is not working, that stinks for them. It also stinks for us.
They have 12 hours of required choice PD. They deliver this through Moodle.
Offer stipends for teachers who lead the courses for PD. Interesting idea. They have synchronous courses, which is the strength of moodle. I wonder if this would be an interesting way to practice asynchronous training.
They use their own moodle server.
The board has a moodle course for distribution of board minutes and forum discussions among board members. I wonder if this can help us with some of our communication issues.
Reflection
There were some solid reminders about moving teachers into the online education world. However I did not think they were doing anything that we were not doing with our more informal tech training websites.
Using Moodle to Deliver Quality Professional Development
Alternate Title
The Tech Tips and Treats Moodle Course Is Really Sweet
Handouts
http://deliveringpd-moodle.wikispaces.com
Running Thoughts
These presenters expected those here to have internet. Since it is not working, that stinks for them. It also stinks for us.
They have 12 hours of required choice PD. They deliver this through Moodle.
Offer stipends for teachers who lead the courses for PD. Interesting idea. They have synchronous courses, which is the strength of moodle. I wonder if this would be an interesting way to practice asynchronous training.
They use their own moodle server.
The board has a moodle course for distribution of board minutes and forum discussions among board members. I wonder if this can help us with some of our communication issues.
Reflection
There were some solid reminders about moving teachers into the online education world. However I did not think they were doing anything that we were not doing with our more informal tech training websites.
MACUL 1 - Digital Learning
Title
Student as Contributor: The Digital Learning Farm
Alternate Title
Make Your Kids Own Their Learning
Presenter
Alan November, Senior Partner, November Learning
Running Thoughts
Alan thinks outside the box.
Without citing a source drops the believable bomb that schools in China filter less than schools in America. Take that facebook blockers.
He challenged us to get rid of closed note and book tests. I really like that, but it really changes what questions you can ask.
A good open book question: Which of the following is less true?
Just made the argument for unblocking YouTube.
Teachers should ask students to find 10 assignments that help them learn an objective. Students become curriculum researchers. Never answer student questions in class. But to do this you do need to teach great searching skills. Teach them to create a custom search engine.
Teachers need to shift control of the learning to the students.
How does the work that students do help others? Homework only helps themselves. The real power of the web is in building community, something that we believe is our key skill. The students can start, "transforming the world for Jesus Christ," right now.
Ended with a billboard.
Reflection
I love Alan. His latest book might even be worth a buy. He challenges us to think about the world in new ways, and that is always a wonderful challenge. I think his vision for education fits so well with ours, but it will be hard to get everyone there because of the control issues at every level. He presents an image of kids doing meaningful work as part of their educational process to change the world.
Student as Contributor: The Digital Learning Farm
Alternate Title
Make Your Kids Own Their Learning
Presenter
Alan November, Senior Partner, November Learning
Running Thoughts
Alan thinks outside the box.
Without citing a source drops the believable bomb that schools in China filter less than schools in America. Take that facebook blockers.
He challenged us to get rid of closed note and book tests. I really like that, but it really changes what questions you can ask.
A good open book question: Which of the following is less true?
Just made the argument for unblocking YouTube.
Teachers should ask students to find 10 assignments that help them learn an objective. Students become curriculum researchers. Never answer student questions in class. But to do this you do need to teach great searching skills. Teach them to create a custom search engine.
Teachers need to shift control of the learning to the students.
How does the work that students do help others? Homework only helps themselves. The real power of the web is in building community, something that we believe is our key skill. The students can start, "transforming the world for Jesus Christ," right now.
Ended with a billboard.
Reflection
I love Alan. His latest book might even be worth a buy. He challenges us to think about the world in new ways, and that is always a wonderful challenge. I think his vision for education fits so well with ours, but it will be hard to get everyone there because of the control issues at every level. He presents an image of kids doing meaningful work as part of their educational process to change the world.
Thursday, March 15, 2007
Make a Mark
Peter Reynolds of fablevision.com did a great job of telling us why we need to tell our stories in our learning community. He read his story, The Dot. It was a great story. It makes me ask the question how do I empower my students to make their mark? He also gave me a great new term called blank page software. This is software that opens to a blank page and asks learners to create, to fill in the spaces. In reflecting on this I know my favorite piece of software that is a blank page. LoggerPro opens to a blank table and a blank graph. You fill it with your data and analyze it.
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