Her: Hello! The teachers are wearing them now! When the teachers start wearing them, they aren’t cool any more.
HA!
We had this conversation last Spring and I was thinking about it the other day. Do students think about some technologies the same way they think of their “outdated”footwear? Once the teachers start using it, they move to something else….
I love the beautiful wallpaper made by digital artist Vlad Gerasimov. In fact, I love it so much I added one of this works as my blog header (see above), and have plastered his work on my blackberry, my laptop and and my new desktop computer! I especially love the “Alice in Wonderland” wallpaper that he has created.
His work is whimsical, and suffused with emotion.
You can get free wallpaper on the site, or pay a small subscription fee and become a member for life! Vlad Studio makes me happy!
We have had a few District Wide PD days this week where the High School Science and Social Studies teachers came in for training on wikis, podcasting, digital storytelling, advanced searches, screencasting and Smart Board. This was an excellent day and a great opportunity for teachers to sit down and experiment with some of technologies they are able to use with their students. Exciting!
On the second day, we had the teachers from our 1:1 notebook school in to do training on advanced searching with Ebsco and E-Library, wikis and digital stories. And I want to talk about my two favorite parts of the day.
Favorite Part of the Day #1:
During the digital storytelling session, I gave the teachers 6 pictures and they were to create their own original story from the pictures. Everybody had the same photos, but what was amazing was the different story lines that emerged from those 6 pictures. We played some of the stories at the end. We had a great time! Teacher PD needs to be engaging, hands-on, and fun in order for it to be effective.
Favorite Part of the Day #2:
After the sessions were over, a teacher showed me an excellent webquest that she developed. She told me it was fairly easy to do because she had previously taught that unit and was familiar with the content. That got me to thinking….when teachers are very familiar with the content, the tech learning curve is not so steep. What a great tip she has given me for helping other teachers who express anxiety over integrating technology into their lessons.
This is true for students and technology as well. A month ago, I brought down some students to do screencasting. They had just received their laptop a month before. We were working on mental math strategies that they were not comfortable with on two brand-new programs. So, I had set them up to fail before we even began……new format [screencasting] to showcase their work, two new programs to build the work [Smart recorder and Moviemaker] and a new strategy in Math……not a good idea!
I guess what I learned from my PD sessions is that in order to learn, people need to be engaged…it needs to be fun….Also, in order to learn, people need to build on what they know. You have to have some familiar ground when you start.
Thanks Cheryl. I had a great revelation from our webquest talk!
I stumbled on this site called DigHoles.com that I think is absolutely delightful. You can enter your location and the site will determine where you would end up if you started digging a hole through the center of the earth.
For example, if I dug a hole from my house:
I would end up …..
just below Australia, in the Indian Ocean!!
With the amount of snow shovelling I have done this winter, I could have made it to the Indian Ocean and back! [Insert bitter laugh here]
I couldn’t resist posting these pictures of the icicle tree in my front yard. We had a storm day today from the crazy freezing rain that pelted down all day yesterday and last night.
I read about a class recently where students were podcasting their literature circle meetings! What a great way for the teacher to listen to the conversation without actually being at the table.
When I did literature circles in my grade 8 Language Arts classes, the most difficult aspect was making sure that students were talking about their books when they met in their groups. However, podcasting their meetings would ensure that they were on task.
I have been working with a teacher at one of our schools with 1:1 laptop program and we were trying to come up with ways the students could use screencasts in Language Arts. Screencasting is all about showing, not just telling. This medium allows students to quickly produce a video of what they know.
So, I put my thinking cap on, and here are some ideas I came up with:
1) Students could brainstorm ideas during the pre-writing process using Smart notebook and record themselves explaining their thoughts as they write them down. This would give teachers insight into how students are organizing their thoughts and writing.
2) During a poetry unit, teachers could make quick screencasts of the structure of various poems and students could use them as a reference. For example, if you are teaching students how to write a haiku, you could explain, through the screencast, the poem’s structure and rhyme scheme.
3) Teachers could create screencasts to model reading comprehension strategies; the teacher could bring up a piece of text on the computer and record themselves reading and talking about the strategies they are using to understand the piece they are reading.
4) Teachers and students could screencasts on grammar rules and ways to punctuate. They could record themselves annotating sentences in a word document or in Smart Notebook.
5) Teachers could screencast themselves marking student writing. Students could watch the screencast in order to understand how they were evaluated and why. This type of evaluation would be very comprehensive, but would be somewhat time consuming.
Can anybody else think of ways teachers and students could use screencasting in Language Arts classes? I would love to hear from you!
I have never been one of those readers who savors every word and punctuation mark of books I read. Instead, I devour novels voraciously, gobble the ideas, and then reach for more. I attribute this type of reading to a Masters Degree in English Literature, where I was required to read an unrealistic amount of novels in a short amount of time. [Insert Apology to Ezra Pound Here].
I digress.
Lately I find myself slipping even further into that bleary-eyed, sloppy processing of the written word. I blame this, in part, on my Google Reader! I am reading, on average, 25 blogs per day. I skim and scan like the information vulture I am, for neat ideas to use in the classroom, new software to try, and various interesting things about the world (thanks Deputy Dog).
But I am here to tell you that sloppy reading can be dangerous!
Picture this. I am reading this blog post about Google Educator tools which immediately peeks my interest. So I click on the site where I discover that Google is promoting something called Google Lunar X Prize. My eyes skim over the first sentence or two….I process the following:
robotic rover
reality for your students
prize
stimulate interest in space and exploration
This looks sweet! Immediately, I copy the link and send it to the Technology teacher at one of our middle schools and note to him the nice prize. He has an interest in Mars Rover project with Lego that he does with his kids. I thought this would be perfect for him.
He sends me back a cute reply: “ after reading the “FINE PRINT” the only way we could pull this off is if NASA were teaching the Tech program and we had a launch tower by the shop door!”
So I immediately revisit the site….hehe….and read more carefully only to discover that the X Prize is for privately funded independent teams to send a robotic rover to the moon! The prize is 30 million dollars! Gee Mr. T, who says we can’t build a Rover and launch it in Oromocto! Sheesh! I do have to admit a touch of embarrassment.
So, in the light of all this, I have made a new “New Year’s Resolution”:
I am slowing down; I am becoming one with the blog post. I will make a concerted effort to abstain from devouring everything my greedy little eyes see.
I watched this video this morning on the Edutopia site and was amazed to see all the cool things students are doing with video simulations and gaming software.
I would love to have the money to purchase the Civilization software. Civilization is a strategy-based computer game that requires the player to build an empire that will survive.
Can you imagine how many kids would be rushing to school in the morning if they knew they were building their own civilization in their history class?? Want to read more about simulations and education? Mark Prensky, author of Game-Based Learning, writes and excellent article. Click here to read it.
I can sometimes get overwhelmed over all the new information and possibilities that are present on the Internet. That being said, if we can channel all this new information in a meaningful way, then the result will be education-altering. This blog will be a record of that conversation...
