On-line Solutions to Everday Challenges

Yesterday I attended the Michigan Virtual University Symposium: Online Solutions to Everyday Challenges and this* (the medium I am currently using) is one of the solutions to an everyday challenge. As I was sorting out the mess of notes and information on my desk this morning, I began to share some of my enthusiasm for the new tools with a colleague. He suggested that Airset might be a great tool for organizing all the our building School Improvement Process files, calendars and communications. I agree. So here we are. This post (which was originally written in the Blog feature of Airset) is a great tool for me to debrief the staff. It occurs to me as I write this, that had my laptop been charged, my notes would have gone there live. Next time. For now, I will add them line by line as time allows.

The keynote session was delivered by Yong Zhao, MSU professor and founder of the Center for Teaching and Technology as well as the US-China Center for Research on Educational Excellence. The main theme of his presentation was that we need to move from a dictatorship to a democracy. Traditionally, learning has been dictated; and technology allows us to move to become a democracy of learners with personalized learning environments and personalized learning goals.
Zhao quoted a line from the movie The Matrix : "never send a man to do a machine's job". How many machine jobs do we perform daily? This is a problem that must be solved by school leaders. Interactive technology raises "seat time" challenges as well as many other issues that are begging solutions of school leaders. Zhao maintains that our school systems have become impoverished single-species ecosystems that can be improved by a technologically diverse environment.

Zhao referenced widely publicized study that found that students who learned math via computer games did not fare better on standardized tests than students who learned the concepts in a traditional classroom. The tagline of the news item was that "computers do not increase test scores". Zhao interpreted this study quite differently and that was that computer applications were just as good as teaching math as the traditional method. The Confucius Institute at MSU utilizes Second Life, (a MMORPG ) which allows students to enter a virtual world where they can interact in Chinese.

One of the breakouts that I attended was Free Online Collaboration Tools. The presenters utilized one of the tools (Weebly) that they described as "brain dead" webpage creation to provide an on-line "handout" of the session. I strongly suggest you peruse the tools detailed below. Airset is the tool I am utilizing here that I can already tell will change my world. Buzzword is heralded as being even better than Google Docs for document collaboration. PageFlakes allows teachers to maintain a web presence and Chalksite is an on-line version Moodle or Blackboard.

You can access the on-line handout here:

onlinecollabtools.weebly.com

This year is our building's first experience with on-line courses, but I expect them to be very successful. One of the reasons is the personalization of the experience and the goals. Students will have access to the materials on their own terms in their own space and time. They will not be forced to fit into a schedule or seat and obligated to be engaged when they are sick or tired or maybe otherwise disinterested.

*This post was originally written for the Airset private blog and was adapted for this public post.

Bad Manners All Around

Last week a 17 year old Virginia high school student left a message at the home of a school adminstrator complaining that school was not cancelled on a day when 3 inches of snow had fallen. The wife of the school administrator phoned the student back and her response has been posted to You Tube. While I can understand the wife's frustration, when dealing with children, we teach more by example and her response is not the best. As to the smart-alec student, while utilizing the internet to "get back" at the administrators wife, he is leaving a digital footprint of his bad behavior that will follow him for eternity.

The XO Laptop, Give One Get One:

Previously I wrote about the OLPC XO Laptop program.

The Give One Get One program has been extended to December 31st. IA Physics teacher David Lyons and his wife Lynne decided it would be a great Christmas gift for their daughters and purchased and gave 3. One of the features that appealed most to Dave was the "mesh network" that would allow his daughters to interact with each other. Like all good physics teachers, Dave has already snagged one of his kids toys to utilize in class and even though Santa has not yet arrived to his home, he allowed students the opportunity to give it a go this morning. I am sure we will have much more to report very soon.

As I mentioned before, if you are in the holiday spirit of giving but don't see a personal use, you might consider give one, give one to IA. This would be a great tool to allow our own future inventors the opportunity to create applications for this project.

From November 12th to December 31st, 2007, your $399 donation will fund an XO laptop going to a needy child and you can receive one for yourself in the US or Canada. You can order online at laptopgiving.org

Or you may call to order: 1-877-70-LAPTOP (1-877-70-527867)

For general questions about Give One Get One, please email: service at laptopgiving.org

"Now You Change It"

Yes, get used to it. I had a conversation with a staff member the other day about the fact that the district is considering giving up on the costly Blackboard that our staff has finally embraced (after 5 years) and switching to the *free open-source Moodle. He was concerned that all the work put into BB thus far would be wasted. That is not the case at all. Think of it like a personal fitness routine. Just because you change programs or trainers does not mean the work you have done in the past has been wasted. On the contrary, it has gotten you to your level of fitness today.

It has not taken 5 years for the staff to learn BB. It has taken that long for them to buy into the concept of an on-line content management system. Now that they realize the benefits, I think they are ready to keep on moving forward.

The switch is still in the consideration stage (don't panic) but aside from the resistance of staff to have to "learn something new", I see a lot of value in the open-source applications. For one, they are constantly changing for the better.

Just this past year we introduced wiki's into the classroom and in a few short months, our kids are utilizing dozens of them. A great feature of Moodle is the integrated blog and wiki feature. Each course as well as each user automatically has access to their own blog. Everything in one place!

Below is an amazing new application that I happened upon today. More great tools to use every day. I will get an adventurous teacher to give this a go and report back. In the meantime, have a look for yourself and let me know what you think.

Give One, Get One (or give one, give one)

There is some great news out there for those of us excited about the famed $100 "One Laptop Per Child Program." For a limited time, these laptops are being offered for sale in the U.S. It is a "give one, get one" program. For $400 you can get one and one will be sent to a poor child in another part of the world. If you have the means and are in a spirit of "giving" this Thanksgiving, this would be a great gesture. If you have no use to "get one" the students here (at IA) could use them. Being totally open-source, having a few of these would give our students the opportunity to practice creating content. These are only available for a very limited time. Take a look below.

We can learn from the animals.

I was watching Animal Planet the other day and it occured to me that animals teach their young by simply modeling behavior. There are no lessons, dissertations, assignments. The young simply watch and model the behavior of the adults. The adults always model "appropriate" behavior.

Facebook Mom (eeewww)
I signed up for Facebook the other day. (I had to do it from home since it is blocked in the district.) Someone suggested it to me to be able to get in touch with alumni. My own kids were horrified. Many of my current as well as former students friended me. My being there reminds them to be careful what they post.

Below is an example of how easy it is to embed a PPT in your blog. If you are curious as to how I did this, come rattle my cage and I will show you. It took 3 seconds!

Today I was lucky enough to be invited to Mrs. Saxsma's class to read one of my favorite children's books. I chose to read Caps for Sale by Esphyr Slobodkina . I will never forget the day in second grade that Sister Cecilia Mary read that story to our class. She talked about making predictions based on what has already happened and asked us if when listening to the story we could use what we know to solve the peddler's problem. That was 45 years ago. Below are some photos of Mrs. Saxsma's class practicing the art of storytelling.

I have been at the MACUL Conference at Cobo the past two days and am posting this to demo how simple it is to use google docs to post to your blog.

March 1, 2007

Web 2.0

By mminer

I spent many hours in the past couple of weeks putting together a professional development presentation introducing web 2.0 technologies. The struggle for me is to try and filter down all that there is out there, as it is changing every day, into a neat little relevant package that will be immediately useful. It has to be sifted down so as not overwhelm you to the point of your eyes glazing over and your head exploding. So much to do, so little time. What I have decided is to start with the tools that will help you in your everyday life without focusing on things that may make you think you have to re-do your lessons- because that is where I think the resistance comes in. Many teachers are afraid that technology means that they have to throw out their old plans and create new ones. Not at all the case. Technology when used properly, should make what you are already doing better. One of the best tools available today is from Google. So I will be inviting each and every one of you to a Gmail account. Please accept this invitation. If you are brave you can venture out and explore the Google tools available to you on your own (kinda like reading ahead) otherwise they will be coming to you soon at an upcoming PD.