On your iPhone, iTouch, iPad…

Force quitting an app is really easy,

1. hold down the power button (the one on the top)
2. push the home button (instead of powering off)

Funny. Simple. HUGE.

I saw a two-year old kid (in diapers, in a stroller), using an iPod Touch today. Not just looking at it, but browsing menus and interacting. This is a revolution, guys.

Seth Godin.

It is a revolution. What itouchs are doing for education, PRE K – 12 is staggering. I’d love to have you watch my 4 1/2 year old playing (learning) on her itouch. Podcasts by Sesame Street (and 30 other great creators), Games about letters, colors, words, counting for a buck. The vocabulary is amazing when amazing is what you put in front of them.

The same extraordinary learning happens with high school kids. If you can, get your student an itouch, load it up with apps – the educational kind – along with a couple “fun apps.” If you don’t have a student in your house, buy it for the kid you mentor.

This is a game changer.

My kids play Oregon Trail on their iTouch, they time shift everything, and watch Sesame Street Podcasts when ever, where ever. Where I was the Sesame Street / MTV generation, they are the iTouch generation. The learning that goes on in their hand, is what Sesame Street promised for the TV. This is personalized, individualized, mobile education, it is what Sesame Street promised for the masses drilled down for when ever, where ever learning.

The apps combined with the podcasts make for great learning. Gaming for letters, colors, sequencing, sight words etc. Everything a preK teacher would boast about in the classroom, minus the social / physical interaction. Those can’t and shouldn’t be replaced with technology. (a whole other blog post)…

Encourage learning using the iTouch, I can’t wait to see what the kids write about in 30 years.

At work, we’ve measured some powerful growth using Teach Me Toddler with students. In the backyard it kept a young learner engaged while the other kids were running around, jumping on the trampoline and swinging. He’s an active kid, so I was surprised to see him so engaged.

It speaks volumes to the educational benefit of having the tool in their hands, sized small, go anywhere (even camping). I’m not advocating any replacement of the outside run around, play with friends, learn from physical interactions. Just adding the iTouch as a tool to practice skills, during the downtime kids naturally need. If you fill your device with educational “games” and PBS podcasts, that is what they watch/play. If you fill the device with mindless games…it becomes another game boy – mind sucking device.

So, purchase wisely, this is the Sesame Street of their childhood.

Adding the iPad to the mix, or an iTouch in every student’s hand is going to revolutionize the way class is taught.  Here’s what is on my test iPad, we’ll be messing with this next fall, measuring academic impact the best we can, asking students for feedback, and seeing if it changes spending habits.

Here are the “apps” as of now.

• link to Classzone
• link to Podcasts (those instructional videos)
• PI83
• Moodle

Any others?

I’m beginning to believe that if all people had some background experience with publishing to the web, maybe at a basic level using something like google sites, or publishing articles in a cms, them maybe the other part of communicating to a larger group would become easier.

So, is that the new standard instead of office??

Do you think college recruiters are any different? Employers? It feels like part of our job as educators is to create opportunities for students to share their greatness in a way that helps them get the next job / college acceptance / fellowship.

High Tech High is one portfolio I’ve run across this morning.

Won’t it be great to send the students to the next “great place” with a portfolio in thier pockets?

At about 3rd grade, students make the shift from Learning to Read –> Reading to Learn. I’m wondering when students make the shift from Learning Academic Technology –> Technology Skills supporting Academic Learning.

Kids (and some parents) speak to how technological the students are today, how the digital natives set the time on the dvd player, set up the computer, are online and understand computers so well. The kids are the ones who set the ring tones on parents phones. Most parents / educators will agree… Kids are good with technology.

AND many of our students struggle with our ACADEMIC technology demands.

I’m going to offer that we define Educational Technology as a bit different than Facebook, Gaming, and what happens in the homes of our students.

Educational technology is sometimes converting documents between the Office version that the students have at home, with the other version that exists at school. Educational technology is about how to create together in a group, with everyone on different versions/brands of software, with different levels of access. Educational technology is about how to evaluate information, and validity of sources. (The frightening reality is MOST of our students think that GOOGLE is a valid source.) Educational Technology is about using Technology to Learn, a bit like the shift from Learning to Read –> Reading to Learn that happens in about 3rd grade.

Students who are comfortable online at home, come to school and act as if they can (without help) use Technology to Learn…I’m going to suggest that they aren’t always ready and still need a little energy spent on Learning to Use Technology….This doesn’t mean they need the same help as adults, actually quite the contrary, they need a very different type of experience.

Here is a really great tutorial that shows you how to copy text and use Automate to process it into an MP3 file. WOW, it is fast. The voice is really pretty good, Alex (the automated man) even breathes.

Right now we are using it to create audio files of things that students read in class (without the expensive software), putting the files on an iTouch for the student to use, and soon we should have some measurement metrics of success. Our first target set of students are those transitioning out of the ELL program and into regular coursework. Thinking social studies, science and English…areas with lots of reading and academic English for the students to learn will be job(s) one.  I suspect the hardest part is going to be scaling it to match the needs of the whole building.

Take a look at the Automator, really great idea!

Direct Link to sign up on Apple’s Website.

We are planning on sharing our Mathematics / Science data, Early Childhood successes and the latest work with ELL students!

Apparently I’m way behind, as I have been using Notes (the app that comes pre-installed) on my iPhone for a while. Evernote puts my notes in the cloud, allows access from a browser, and my Evernote iPad app does the same things as my iPhone (plus a couple more) app. Write the note and sync it with the cloud when you have network access, great for iTouchs / iPads, nice for iPhones!

I shared this and Dragon Dictation with someone at work and we went crazy with ideas around kids who have trouble writing! Have the student dictate the beginning of the paragraph into Dragon, copy it to Evernote, sync up with the cloud, do the final markup on a computer, print and the paragraph is done! I can see this working for a lot of material, both school and work.

I can see using this to take notes in meetings, class, organize the grocery / Costco list. You need to pay for the sharing feature, which isn’t much.

Looking for a cloud based solution for students as I hope we move towards a 1-1 solution with iPads in the near future. What are people using, or thinking? I’ve heard Google Apps is going HTML5 this spring, hoping that is a solution for some. The nice piece about Evernote, it just turns on, you don’t have to wait for the pages to load and connect to the server and syncing the documents later has a LOT of appeal.

I don’t write about games, I don’t even play games often enough to acknowledge that I do it.

Until now. Angry Birds is a blast. Part physics, part geometry, part geeky fun. Different birds are better at destroying different material (glass, wood, concrete) that protect the pigs who have stolen eggs from the Angry Birds’ nests. The angle of elevation determines where your bird is going to land. So really, I am earning 2 credits.

A great study in reward learning. Go play it if you know you have self restraint (*note that you have been warned and I am therefore, in no uncertain terms, responsible for any addiction formed to this game*). Otherwise, go read the discussion boards dispensing advice regarding level advancement. All this for a buck. Nice programming!

Create a shortcut on your screen of the link to your Delicious account. How to: In Safari, click on the “+” sign, choose “Add to Home Screen” option and name the button. It looks like every other application on your screen, but it is really a link to your bookmarks.

While reading something at Mashable, I ran into an article about Internet trends that had two different links. One to the PDF, the other to a link that loaded into Good Reader – the 99 cent document storage system application that I reviewed a couple days ago. I was able to click on the second link, it loaded the file into my Good Reader application, and now I can read the PDF whenever, where ever!!

Adding a number of things to Delicious has been great, now I can easily access these resources from my mobile devices. This is probably a thought that others have had, it was just my 2 minutes of rock star action today. If you want to see what I’m reading, go for it!

I can see using eClicker for quick and easy formative assessment. Keeping records of student responses was an area that we weren’t successful in testing. Maybe it is a limitation, maybe user error.

For the money it is a great resource for teachers. We look forward to further testing and application. This would be great in a Higher Ed tool, no need to purchase a device, just use the phone/laptop they bring to class.

Good reader opens files off line for you to read. I’ve connected my mobile me account, google apps, and ep apps, so that I can download and read things when I don’t have wifi. I have also downloaded my o’reilly books.

The files stay in a cloud, so i can get to them from multiple devices.
Access is off line, helping me when I travel, and with battery life.
This would be good for students as well, getting pdf’s from teachers…reading on the bus,

Written using the word press app for my iPad, with the internal keyboard.

Good Reader Web Site

Fantastic! AND there is a bit of work to do to ready them for the classroom.

Found a great resource today that started me thinking about how to share what we are doing, and how we are getting such great student achievement results. So, in an effort to make our success replicable, we’ve started documenting specific projects online, instead of just internally. If you have ANY questions, please contact me directly. We are just thrilled with the fruits of our labor, and most of all the success of the students!

We don’t have to wait for the textbook companies figure it out, instead we can use the content that people generate and share.

I like what has been created on Khan’s web site, really appreciate the time and energy that has been put into publishing these helpful tools – for both students & teachers.

Revolutions are like that. They invent and destroy and they only go one way. It’s like watching a confused person in a revolving door for the first time. They push backwards, try to slow it down, fight the rotation… and then they embrace the process and just walk and it works. ~Seth Godin

Isn’t it at least better to be out there, than just watching?

NOT rocket science. YET the results are out of this world.

Another teacher, another group of students. This time a little better statistical measure of the data. Students increased test scores by AT LEAST one standard deviation IF they watched instructional videos during the chapter of study.

Our biology teachers are recording labs with flip cams, sewing teacher recording steps of a project with the flip, math teachers do screen captures and flip (constructions), language teachers recording verb stuff on the screen, sign language with the flip.

It is amazing. It is simple, and I wish more students would use it. (AND more teachers would create material) The academic difference it makes is nothing short of remarkable.

• collects feedback
• creates a sign up sheet
• brainstorms ideas
• collects homework answers
• gets input on the latest process/building change

You don’t have to wait until your organization officially adopts Google Apps, you can use your own Google account to do the job.

In these rapidly changing times, sometimes just creating a way for people to submit ideas, give feedback, or measure response feeds our web 2.0 need. These don’t have to be created by outside organizations, they can be done by the people within your group today. Thoughtfully, yet without 5 meetings to plan the plan.

Classrooms are the same way, kids like to be asked, and listened to. This doesn’t always have to happen in class it can happen outside of class – offer up time for everyone to think about it, or offer up ideas quietly. Although, sometimes the thoughtfully written feedback is the most powerful.

Comes in really handy should I lose one of them along the way. It reminds me to take a moment, talk to the kids about what to do if we get separated and have them practice their full name (and as they get older, other details that will help them in the event we get separated). They have their picture taken so often, they have no idea what I’m doing, and yet it takes me just a moment to prepare for something I hope I never have to deal with – losing my kid in a sea of people.

Lots of people have cameras on their phone, not everyone uses it to send pictures, and in this instance, I’d only be sending the picture in a moment of crisis. Doesn’t cost me anything, yet helps out tons. I was always told, prepare for crisis – then you’ll never have to be in crisis. So, here’s to preparing.

The place where my kids go to preschool has a Facebook group as well. The other day it reminded me that the deadline for ordering scholastic books was coming up, so online I went to order a couple really great books for my kids. Pretty sure I wouldn’t have done that with the flyer that I’d already recycled.

What are you doing with Facebook groups? Bringing people together? Adding value to a service you provide? It isn’t just for the kids anymore.

Yet, they have the same technology need right now.  Imagine how hard it is to get 35 kids around a sewing machine, and show them how to tread a bobbin. Imagine doing biology lab demonstration with small pieces to a group of 35 students.

Enter the Flip video camera. Both teachers are using the Flip to record the demonstration they would normally give in class, submit it to our podcast server and then show it during class, on a big screen (or smartboard). They are able to stop, rewind, point out (on a large screen for all to see) discuss, answer questions without being tied to a little bobbin….that 27 kids can’t see anyways.

We take it a step further. Publish to the podcast server.

The enriched biology students watch the video at home, discuss things before the lab, and then get to work. The sewing students have a set of iTouches in class, when they get stuck with a step, grab an iTouch, watch the process – listen to the directions – correct their process and move forward. Stopping to ask the teacher questions that can’t be answered via video. Allowing the teacher to help kids who are really behind & struggling. Everyone is calmer and happier, because everyone is learning! (without having to wait)…

Try it sometime, video the demonstration, share it online if you have that ability. Or, use ours, they are out there for everyone!

calendar

I suppose this works better when the information comes to the device in your pocket. I know all the phones text, and I wonder how many of them would (or do) calendar if we asked them.

It is great to see people adopt this strategy, even if people then write the events down in a paper thing that goes into the backpack. It will sure make it easier for the crack-berry generation get a sense of what is happening with those teenagers (who hardly speak out loud anymore). It also speaks to my need for every kid to have a digital device that is small enough to fit in a bag..think netbook, iTouch, iPad. I can’t wait for us to be connected to the information so the learning can be about what to do with it, not recite it back to me.

I know we are close, it just isn’t there.

Yet.

Given 30 minutes and a video camera, – create a one minute public service announcement regarding the dangers of smoking, doing homework, joining the science club, advertisement for the book you’ve been reading in class. No editing, just multiple shot opportunities. Editing can be the death of video, make it just one easy shot without the edits. Students make more video and are forced to be more creative on the fly without the aid of advanced computer skills.

We used to do this all the time, before video went digital. The editing process is great, it is also a big time vacuum. Force the kids to live without delete, it is a good exercise for everyone. They’ll think you are retro. Which today, apparently is cool.

I firmly believe that the iPad will do the same revolutionary change to textbooks and books in general. Imagine how great it will be to go into iTunes U, download your book and have up to date text . audio . video . interactive assessments on your device within minutes. The price of the textbook goes down as the publishers no longer have to print, rather use dashcode to create apps out of the already online content. If there are textbook publishers out there, contact me, I’m more than willing to be the beta site for this to happen at the high school level.

Lots of people are writing about what is missing from the device. I don’t think that really matters, things will change, Apple will add features. We’ll figure out why they left off a feature, and LOVE that they did. Yes, I’ve had some of the Apple kool-aide. But really, who doesn’t think they change the way we …

The revolution has started, I’m ready to participate.

We are doing it. Seems like everyone else on the block has, or is making the move.

Starting with students, and the optional document usage and storage for staff. I do believe this is a game changer, field leveler for kids. If everyone has access to the same software from whatever web connected computer – isn’t that better than 5 different versions of different word processing software?

I do think that to make it work you need to start with staff, using things that they already do professionally.

Meeting notes – have a couple people taking notes at those dept meetings, then make them viewable by the whole staff, great place to teach how / when to Insert – Comment

Agendas – why shouldn’t everyone have the ability to add to the agenda before the meeting starts?

Shared Docs – helps people start controlling who sees what, and who can edit

The great thing about Google Apps, you can use it, without waiting for your district to get the cloud set up. Make the change for your students, now, share the success and get the change for everyone later!

We are a 95% PC district, and the podcast producer doesn’t care. We can submit audio / video files to the server from a web page. Combine this with Jing, a $15 screen capture software and teachers can teach anywhere / anytime.

Many districts use the OSX server to manage accounts and such, so all they would have to do is turn on the Podcast Producer service!

Right now, we are creating 5 minute (or less) videos that show people how to do things in Moodle, graph a parabola, answer questions about an assignment, listen to the paragraph spoken in French. There is a great correlation between watching video and success in class, so we are doing it as much as possible!

http://podcast.edenpr.org/

Now, think about having the ability to record what you are writing / doing on a smartboard. Watch and Listen to the teacher complete the square, diagram a sentence, read and explain the french sentence in English. This is the BIG MONEY app. Now as the teacher, am anywhere I need to be to help the kids at anytime of the day or night. When I’m off at a meeting, the sub now plays the snippets of me. I’ll say that again, now when I’m off LEARNING how to be a better teacher, the sub plays the snippets of me. This doesn’t replace me, it doesn’t hold their attention everyday, nor is a one directional lecture always the best, but it is better than the English major trying to teach graphing a parabola.

I’ve tried different apps, and keep coming back to Jing. Go, pick a screen capture tool, start creating short instructional videos for your kids, then share them on say…Moodle. Watch what happens when you run out of time doing homework problems, and they start saying, just Jing it. “Not everyone needs you to go over this problem, so could you Jing it for me?”

Next up: Podcast Server from Apple. Once you have one teacher who makes 200 videos for her class, and this idea catches on like wildfire, you need something more than just Moodle. I’ll explain more in the next post.

If you have a name like Jennifer Nelson, you can just hide in the multitude of jnelson’s out in the world. Or, you can try to become a little unique and answer to Jenn Nelson, only to find that other of us have adopted that same strategy. Maybe I’ll get pinned with someone else’s success instead of their drinking binge.

Talking to kids about what they post and what they don’t, is kind of like talking to them about driving. You don’t really know what happens when they leave your sight, until someone in the community sees them in your unique car. Maybe being Googled is something like that, having someone else see your child in your car out in the world.  I did call a friend recently when her son posted something a little too, wrong, (for age 9) on Facebook.  Yes, she’s doing all the right things with him on Facebook, she controls who his friends are, watches what he posts, manages his privacy levels etc. Exposing him at this age to the environment that he’ll grow up in, is a good idea. Having him delete a silly post is also wise.

At this age, his silly post is: I Hate School.

Much better than the binge drinking picture, hopefully he’ll learn the lesson before it can haunt him into job interviews.

Projector / Internet /Interactive Whiteboard in the Classroom

I’d add to this an interactive whiteboard, but bare minimum you need a way to project and create a visual classroom. This idea / requirement isn’t new so I’m not going to spend much time talking about it.

Moodle

If you have a way to collect and organize the electronic information for your students, everyone is better off. Moodle creates that extra layer of classroom tooling that makes it better than a web site. From a systemic perspective, you have a really great way of sharing materials between teachers. It spread like wildfire in my school, because the early adopters could give others what they’d created. Better than some of the social networking / web 2.0 tools out there as we can package and share between classrooms and schools. I like the idea of Ning, but it really isn’t the complete classroom tool that Moodle is for everyone.

Over the next couple days I’ll add to the list and probably talk more about the power of each tool (IWB, Moodle, Google Apps, itouch, Podcast Server, Screen Capture Software). Let me know what you think, and what 6 are on your list.

I think you’ll love this web site, for the organizing you need to do with groups. I’d love to say anytime is good, but the reality is, it isn’t always as good as we’d like it to be.

Next job, is to get decent art work, and a better description, although I’m afraid that might need snow leopard server to get completed. Oh well….at least it is there for others to use!

We use a variety of cases, depending on the need.

This camera case works really well for less than 10 devices. The fancy case above works great for 16, also allows the teacher to know, at a glance how many devices are still being used by students.

We’ve not run into a high end number of “how many itouchs can I sync at once?” Has more to do with the speed at which they sync.

When I was 30, I remember scraping together $500 to purchase a 500CC Honda. Talked to the woman who owned it, I think I found it in the newspaper, was all set to go pick it up (and have her drive it back to my house) and something broke in my house. So, the $500 dollars went to a furnace or something silly. Probably for the better, as I had no friends with bikes, so no one to teach me how to ride, or even ride safe.

Here I am a bit older, into the next decade, and I finally get to test drive a bike (Yamaha 400 for those keeping track) and almost crash into the curb on my first ride around the block. Ok, the crash would have been at 8 mph, yet scary enough for me to think starting off with a bike I have to shift isn’t maybe too wise.

Here enters craigslist and a scooter! So, a decade after the Honda 500, is a Roketa 150. Perfect. I’ve practiced in the neighborhood, heading to Lunds to get milk (notice the cool storage thing on the back?) and now to work! I’m having a blast. I’m certainly not as cool as I might have been at 30, on a bike that took all my money (leaving none for the helmet, insurance, and cool jacket). Yet today, I’m thrilled to be the scooter geek!

Last night I watched kids cleaning the highway in Waconia, thinking their bright vests were pretty cool looking, I wonder where I sign up to clean so I can get one too.

Students can see and hear the teacher writing on a smartboard, going over something they did in class, enabling the student to hear it again. I’ve had students in my office that were struggling math students all the way through the program to Calculus students who raved about how nice it was to see it more than once. Given how class time is finite, this blows the doors off the clock and gives the students 24/7 access to the bits they need.

Here we are creating videos to support teachers as they use Moodle, Jing etc to be there in the middle of the evening when they are posting that next assignment or creating the next quiz for their students.

There is specifically a picture of a little boy, asking to feel the President’s head, to see if his hair feels the same as his. The impact of that photo is a little overwhelming. The future is now, the ability for kids to see someone who looks like them, doing the work of leading. Now that has to have some sort of help, support, impact on student achievement, having someone to look at that is the President, who is telling them to study, work hard, follow his example.

“my future’s so bright, I have to wear shades…” a little Huey Lewis in action

• MyMoodle Page
  This is the second time in just as many days that this has popped up on my radar. Looks like something I should start to pay some attention to…
• Exabis e-Portfolio Block
  Seems like a natural next step
• Google Apps for Hybrid course collaboration

and finds the things they do more important than the meeting
is to say the least, a bit of a challenge for anyone
a friday afternoon in may made it even more challenging

at least we created this…or i should say, some created this cool wall…

i can’t wait to use this with teachers, students, process, etc
seems to be a great application for brainstorming from different locations, even same room, just different minds…felt a little like presenting to those that twitter,

if you are interested in getting together to talk and SHARE courses, strategies, professional development, this isn’t going to be a come and take but rather a come and share meeting with like minded moodlers!

Date: May 20th 1:00 CST

MCTM starts tomorrow morning, Sarah, Mark and I are presenting a little piece about how Jing, Smartboards and iTouches are increasing student achievement. Science and Math are the 2 areas we are seeing students really take off in today. Creating Jing’s for professional development, software and sharing of information (short presentations) are other places we are currently exploring.

If you are in Duluth, looking for something fun to do, stop on down. We all just might learn a thing or two together.

The Whuffie Factor: The 5 Keys for Maxing Social Capital and Winning with Online Communities (Tara Hunt) from Steffan Antonas on Vimeo.

It doesn’t take much, and the improvement happens.

We are doing something I don’t see as that hard, yet it is really changing the experience for kids, making the learning more accessible.

Things you need:

•  interactive whiteboard (we use Smartboards)
• a screen capture program (we use Jing)
• a microphone
• a short topic / skill to teach
• a way to publish (Moodle)

We put these things together and create short (3 – 5 minute) examples, explanations of concepts. Completing the square in Algebra II, chemistry problems, writing a good intro paragraph, the kids think they are watching the whole lecture, but really it is just a highlight reel.

I use Jing to create answers to questions that occur in my online class, when a teacher asks me how to do something specific on a computer, to show how to import kids into the clicker software, etc.

More than thrilled with the ease, the speed at which teachers adopt and bend it to fit their need. I just wish I had more time to get out and share it with people.  I do see this as a way to bridge the achievement gap. If you do it, let me know, I’d love to share videos. We are posting on iTunes (slowly), search EPHS.

The classroom really changes, technology makes the impact on student achievement we thought it should when we started this venture

Conference Description

School districts that are blocking You Tube are missing Obama’s information, being published ONLY on You Tube. There seems to be more and more information that is published on you tube only. Yes, I realize the crap that is shared, yet can’t we move past it and see the good instead?

I’ve been touting a lot of Jing lately for Math & Science (to start with).  I see it really as one of the quickest ways to provide a safety net to kids 24/7.  Another great application is when a teacher is absent from the classroom.  What a great way to write sub notes, put the Jing video clips in a Smart Notebook file, and ta da! The teacher is “in” the classroom while at a professional development workshop!

• connecting what the kids are reading with a word cloud
• what people are writing about online,
• what the textbook section is about…
• what other vocab is included that might be a challenge for students…
• priming
• review
• word cloud their paper as the cover sheet

I read this article about Colin Powell

and created this:

Someone asked me what I thought of this Facebook service. So, watch the video.

Honestly, it isn’t big enough (today) that it will be of much help to most kids. If a classroom wants to use it to support learning, then it might be cool for those kids, but at this point, it hasn’t hit that tipping point.

Now I realize that kids are more than just hyper-connected.

Yet, sometimes it feels like we make them out to be more than they really are…kids with tools that we didn’t have growing up.  They stay / get connected to people in different ways than we did at that age, not confined by geography but by having their tools charged. ( How many times have they told you their cell phone wasn’t charged as an excuse for not being able to connect with you? )

Yes, their world at 17 is different than mine at 17. I was showing a kid the wiring /server closet this morning, and he called it the command center of the school. I guess I won’t share with the principal that he doesn’t view the principal’s office as the command center. When I was 17, the wiring / server closet would have been where we went if the Russians bombed the school. Now it is where we retreat, to review the video, when something bad happens. Worlds change.

I was at a college today, walking back from lunch, found it hard to pass up this sign. Really? 2008 and we have a room where we do word processing? A room?

And upstairs was a conference about eLearning, ironic.

It was quite a treat to listen to him talk for an hour, and then again at a break out session.

He talked about…user generated content, filtering, organization, distribution, commentary and ratings.

What a great way of breaking down web 2.0 into what it means in terms of…education, life, the future, people, and culture.

His kids commented that 1/2 don’t like school, but all like learning.  What could we do with that as we move forward?  If we had the mindset that kids LIKE to learn, how could that change the way we look at our classrooms, education system, and lives?

How would 21st Century Learners react if they were able to complete assessments, participate in class discussions, get notes from the class they missed this morning, view the video shared in class – all at home 24/7. Blending online learning with traditional courses changes our roles as teachers. How do teachers adjust their courses and how quickly can a system integrate this change? Eden Prairie High School, a large suburban high school, implemented Moodle, an Open Source online learning environment, at the beginning of the 2007-2008 school year. See how it has impacted classroom instruction, professional development, class time, support, and the student experience.

Changing practice, offering the option of attending a staff meeting online! I thought what a great idea!

Wouldn’t it be great to be able to be at your desk, stream in the content, respond with your comments in a forum, take a short poll to weigh in on a question, and did I mention, from your desk? Or deck depending on your level of geekness? As with kids having the opportunity to take online classes (and for the most part, they stick to coming to the buildings) , it amazes me how many people enjoy being in the room, the physical room of a meeting. Maybe it takes more than an offer to start changing practice, maybe it takes people getting online a couple of times to do something such as this, maybe it is May, and as teachers we are tired and ready to be done, just like our kids.

What is rewarding is the number of people after the fact who are coming online to add comments and reviewing the links to things we shared at the meeting!

What an exciting use of simple free technology! Connecting with the composer of the piece this choir has been working on, Stephen Bachicha.  They shared a video conference call, performing for him, having him change the cords as he’s listening.  Asking him what he was thinking as he was creating, what the creation process is like..etc.

The choir conductor did a great job of prepping the kids, they had a great conversation about the music that kept the kids popping and engaged.

I’m sure this will go down as one of those remembered days in class.

I got sucked into yet another interesting twitter application today, while trying to get some work done.  Interesting to see how the connections reveal themselves. Not sure if it shows the different versions of self that I twitter as, maybe I’m the one who can see them more fully as I know more about a couple people after reading their tweets that you might.

Twitter apps can suck more time from your life than youtube. Not a bad thing, just a shiny thing.

One definition of Ubiquitous Computing might be those cases where the computer disappears. Cell phones are anything but invisible, yet I will argue that OpenMoko, an open source cellphone project, has the potential to substantially further the advancement of Ubiquitous Computing.

http://en.oreilly.com/et2008/public/schedule/detail/3330

Isn’t that at least a little 21st Century?

Watch, Learn about Twitter.
It is worth your time.

I’m not entirely sure this is ready for prime time. At least what I’m seeing today. Maybe it is, but when I’m in a presentation with a bunch of hackers, and they are talking about all the things they’d like it to do, but doesn’t. Maybe the regular user would be ok with it just out of the block.

Looks like legos on steroids.

What do you want to be really, really good at?
Begin Better is better.
The 4Hour workweek
Neurogenesis Elisabeth Gould
Brain death by dull cubicle
Difference between world-class and average?

Expertise is not what they know, its what they do

mirror neurons allow us to run simulations of another person’s brain
see it
watch people in action
the monkey who made the brain sound when he saw someone else eat
our brain is doing a simulation of what they are doing as we watch
IF we’ve already done it..

mental chatter…isn’t really helping
babies walking…don’t have the inner game of chatter
“doing with images makes symbols” alan kay video
that code smells bad

the brains crap filter
man is not a rational animal, he is a rationalizing animal
A mind of its own
Mind hacks

43 folders
what is it that I’m trying to kick ass at
attention offsets
we can’t lose the ability for intense concentration…putting in the hours

Super funny conference presentation.
Application to education HUGE.

interesting community building tool

Ganz – Webkinz 5+ M subscribers
100K simultatious users
8-12 demographic and moms..
WAS a toy company, now becoming a social site…how do they shift the business model so quickly?

Club Penquin
Habbo Hotel
1 B page hits a month.

Project Darkstar
available under GPLv2

http://en.oreilly.com/et2008/public/schedule/detail/1617

gamelayers.com
pmog.com

Umami
Choices that open the pipe
Make friends
Mock apple pie

Xeodesign.com
http://en.oreilly.com/et2008/public/schedule/detail/1589

Think about that for a while.

If you don’t know who he is…read about him for a moment.

Made me laugh, maybe it is one of the things we could apply to education. Thinking of creativity and creating meaning out of seemingly unrelated objects…Have students creating the comics, and the captions, trading spots is the simple knock off…More on this after it bakes a little…

I’ve been reading A Whole New Mind this week, chunks at a time, then seeing what else that I run into that feed the learning…brain seems to be a new theme for my thoughts. If, as Pink speaks of, we are moving into an age of the right brain ruling our future, it begs us to look at how we are shaping the right brains of our students and children.

Projects that help create meaning out of seemingly unrelated objects / concepts. I wonder what that would look like, and how we’d be integrating them into school.

It all becomes an on demand world.

WikiMindMap is worth a couple minutes of exploration!

Meeting times will be both a.m. and p.m. Morning meetings = 8:30 – 11:30 and afternoon meetings 12-3 p.m. Carrie will set new schedule and publicize.

We reviewed the 5Cs: Common Goal/Common Good, Collaboration/Cohesiveness, Conduct, Core Competencies and Courage (Change Agents). Individually we identified areas in which we believe we have challenges and/or opportunities to grow. We then thought about professional development – as individuals and as a group.

Meetings start with “Think Tank” – this time may be 15 minutes or 45 minutes – whatever time we need. The purpose of this time is to talk about what is going well, best practices, and hot spots.
Meetings will have a time to do pure individual research. While we will share our gifts and areas of expertise with each other, there is a need for individual time to investigate and differentiation

Goals:

Website — need to clean up all of our documents, sites, etc.

Define roles of CoF coaches:

Professional development: Continue to think about individual and collective professional development needs.
Coaches: Attend TIES TO DO: Determine which coaches need subs and allocation of subs.
Visioning Committee: Attend a national conference
Interesting idea: split the group to get information from more than one conference

TO DO: Send to visioning coaches the possible national conferences – make decision asap

Site Plans: More info to come. District Steering Committee will meet soon. Template to come.

Goal: Evaluation at district and sites – more info to come.

Summer ’07 – for next agenda

THANK YOU to Kim and Ryan for their great work on presenting Google Earth and all of the new features!

USB Key – a vhs video tape is to dvd as floppy disk is to ….a usb key

Campus - Mike & Alex showed us how to email our parents using the group email button

Text Messaging – what the kids do all day

This is what we are making sure EVERY teacher knows about before the new year.

Visual Thesaurus
I’ve found a number of good ideas beyond giving context of a word using the diagrams, I thought the idea of Learning Idioms in ESL was a good mind opener for me.

Flickr

Flickr has amazing images. Make sure you are checking the creative commons copyright before pilfering them for your class presentations…Geotagging is a whole other topic I’ll cover another day.

Shift Happens

Which leads me to a Global MindShift, starting to read more about it, or better yet, listen to it, thinking about how I act on it.

If we start sharing what we are creating, for students to use as resource, as other teachers to use in the classroom, as home school parents for their kids, we aren’t ignoring that we still believe in the human nature of education, people aren’t going to stop going to EPHS because they can read about coursework online. We are still humans, and thrive on the connection we get with learning. People will start coming here to share in the collaborative nature of our education.

Being open, doesn’t drive people away, it attracts the right people.

It saddens me to find out that we need to create a movement to SAVE recess. What parent / teacher doesn’t know that kids are better served by having time to be outside? Breaking up the day with exercise is a critical part of being, doing hard work, and developing into a reasonable adult. As an adult movement plays a significant role in our ability to be creative and to do make the best possible decisions.

Thankfully there are parents who are trying to convince schools ( and leaving if they aren’t successful ) that recess is critical. I think about my childhood and the amount of unstructured, unsupervised time I had, then how that helped me navigate the world later. Today kids are hardly ever alone, and rarely play outside without structure and supervision. GET THEM OUTSIDE, often.

And we wonder why there is a growing issue with obesity in our culture? Why kids aren’t getting along with others? Why crime starts at an earlier age? Ok, I can’t blame all the ills of our world on it, but I’m about ready.

Schools banning iPods after students caught cheating
Some schools are banning MP3 players like iPods after students were caught using them to sneak information into class tests. Either by hiding formulas as lyric text or recording information and playing it back during the test, it can be hard for educators to spot the tiny telltale earphone.

So, you make the news if you ban things. Maybe we’d make the news (as Duke did) if you do things proactively instead.

The music players proved to be invaluable for some courses, including music, engineering and sociology classes, said Tim Dodd, executive director of The Center for Academic Integrity at Duke. At Duke, incidents of cheating have declined over the past 10 years, largely because the community expects its students to have academic integrity, he said.

I’m not sure if it is as easy as just expecting student to have academic integrity, I suspect a few teaching methods might help along the way. St Olaf College has all students sign an oath at the end of each exam stating that they did not witness any cheating. Not a bad plan, and, btw, when I dropped my checkbook (with cash) in the parking lot on campus, it was returned to me, all cash included. Evidence that maybe, if we curb cheating, the feeling of doing good will extend beyond cheating to doing the right thing outside the classroom.

Portable Apps are allowing some great work, along with Open Office. If you aren’t being a hippy and using it, start. You will find some really great features that might just make you smile.

Second Life & Town Garden Development

A Paris residents’ association is using the virtual world of Second Life to get the town hall to press on with plans to redevelop a central area of the city.

Stumbled across this, and am feeling after just a couple minutes this might be my new search engine, for academic searches, maybe not product searches…more on that later.

Visual Searching, gathers the information, allows you to search within the search by mouse overlays.

Go look.