2/28/09 BASD Technology Conference

Dr. Morgan opens:
-today allows us for the opportunity to network.
My thoughts:....the original way...human interaction as opposed to digital social networking

Sue Kinney welcome:
-Steve & IT Dept. are so patient...referring to virus infection on network...thank you!



Hall Davidson - keynote speaker
"Thinking Bigger While the World Gets Smaller"
-multitasking at your desktop: gmail, twitter, chat, etc
-bringing the internet into you classroom

-phone a friend in exams: see if you can find this type of thing...sharing what you know and who you know

-getting information is more than just google: where did you find it AND HOW did you find it?

-microsoft...linked social networking through gaming (XBox)...connected people, then made avatars and even more people linked in

-gizmoz site (free to use your voice w/ preset avatars)

-Slide on "Global or National Social Networks in Schools"
My thoughts: i hope the IT dept. is hearing this

-use cell phones, etc. to dl programs that you need w/i education and use them in the classroom
MT: again how to integrate what kids have with their education

-start locally: check in on your class as you are absent or on a break somewhere
MT: use video streaming...can we hook up our dig. camera?....prob. need webcams.

-using Jing to capture video of yourself and transplant it into Google Earth, etc.
have your students record video and tag it to a specific place
MT: very cool use of Jing, excited I've used it before many times
Qik.com and Kyte.com (check them out)

-again Hall references Green Screening for writing
MT: good old Jason Ohler

-uses videos and has students elaborate to teach others: "Reading Angels", etc.

MT: macs and their uses in schools are now apparent....Photo Booth (with a mac), choose your backdrop, etc.
-with a webcam and you can do this using Adobe Premiere for the PC

horizionprojectNMC.org (check out)

-checkout USTream so that we can make our own tv channel

Using Digital Media to Develop Students' Respectful & Ethical Minds

Reflect on Julene Reed’s article and post a blog entry that presents an idea for using digital media as part of a project, activity or lesson in which you aim to develop students’ respectful and ethical minds.

Our school district participates in the No Place For Hate initiative by the Anti-Defamation League. Each year we present three major projects in order to meet the requirements and be given our NPFH status. I, along with other voluntary educators in our building, have taken on some difficult endeavors this year. For one of our projects, we host an assembly at the beginning of each month based around character development themes; kindness, compassion and empathy, tolerance and acceptance, etc. These assemblies have three purposes. First, they award students that exemplified the previous month's theme by giving them a leaf to add to our school's community tree. Second, they present the new topic for the month. To present this topic, one of my colleagues has spent hours creating moving and motivating videos. Below is an example of one from our theme on "Empathy and Compassion". As illustrated, these videos present images, sounds, and words in order to spark a conversation. After watching the video, our principal has a quick Q&A session with the student body. Then the assembly ends.

Teachers have found that the video is a perfect segway into a conversation of the month's theme. The older grade levels have rewatched the videos numerous times in order to dive into the history behind the images and events. And, the younger students seem to understand the underlying themes quite well.

In addition to the video, our NPFH team organizes classroom lessons revolving around these themes and passes them on to the teachers in the building. The team writes a monthly newsletter focusing on a specific diversity awareness topic. These newsletters are passed out to parents and discussed within the classrooms. The newsletters also spark conversations about bullying awareness and prevention.

These projects, lesson plans, and conversations positively impact our students' ethical and respectful minds. They present background knowldedge of other cultures, provide viewpoints different from the norm, and induce students to put themselves in others' shoes.

Glogster in the Classroom

http://mrschutt.glogster.com/Map-Skills/
(click this link for the full view of the glog)




How can you use Glogster in your classroom this school year to foster the development of the creating mind? Elaborate on the instructional purpose and the standards you will address.

In Howard Gardner’s book Five Minds for the Future, he suggests several guidelines in order to foster the development of the creating mind within the preadolescent child. By combining these guidelines with the use of Glogster, a free Web 2.0 tool, I can develop instructional tools and strategies to help my students understand several of the geography standards for third grade.

The three core geography standards that I will focus on are identifying geographic tools and their uses (Std. 7.1.3.A), identifying and locating places and regions (Std. 7.1.3.B), and identifying the physical characteristics of places and regions (Std. 7.2.3.A).

In order to develop the creative mind, Gardner poses that children need to “master literacies” while keeping open “…alternative possibilities and to foreground the option of unfettered exploration” (86). The instructional purpose of using Glogster is that can be tailored to my needs. In order to master the basic literacies of geography, I can use a glog just like the one I created. This glog provides a starting place for students. Rather than a linear path to learning, they can learn in the order that they choose. All the while, I can require students to think for themselves and apply their learning through writing prompts and assignment links to the Discovery Education website.

Gardner also suggests that educators enable students to focus on quality rather than quantity. More specifically, he proposes that significant time should be spent analyzing one problem in order to “develop multiple, diverse representations of the same entity” (87). The geographic standards I’ve chosen lend themselves directly to this statement. For example, I can create another glog that has links to various types of maps. After learning about topographic, political, landform and other maps, students can create an example of each of these maps for our school. Again, this is how Glogster can jumpstart the students’ creative mind.

However, Glogster does not simply have to be a starting point. It can also be process. By giving students their own Glogster account, I can have my students create their own glogs. The students might be required to find examples of these maps to post to their glogs. Or, the students might focus on just one of these types of maps and find several different examples to link to their glog. Then, the students could navigate their classmates’ glogs, learning information from each other.

These ideas lend themselves to one of Howard Gardner’s last guidelines for developing the creative mind. He advocates the need for students to make mistakes. Through the creation of their glogs, students will examine how to add videos, images, website links, and other content that will increase their basic and technological literacies. This will be a process in making mistakes and learning that there is not one specific way to solve a problem.

As I’ve used technology within the classroom, I’ve increasingly noticed a trend where students ask for help rather than attempting to solve their own problems. Web 2.0 technologies such as Glogster are prime examples of media platforms that have no straight forward answer. These tools encourage problem solving. So, through the use of Glogster I hope to continue to encourage my students to read, analyze, and think in order to expand their creativity and problem solving ability.

Developing the creating mind through VoiceThread

http://voicethread.com/#q

The website states, "A VoiceThread is a collaborative, multimedia slide show that holds images, documents, and videos and allows people to leave comments in 5 ways - using voice (with a mic or phone), text, audio file, or video (via a webcam). Share a VoiceThread with friends, students, and colleagues for them to record comments too."

VoiceThread is able to be manipulated for all users. The VoiceThread website has a huge amount of examples. However, a great example of how VoiceThread can be used to advance the Creating Mind within First Graders can be found here: http://digitalstories21.wikispaces.com/PETE+and+C+2009. Once you press play, make sure that you click on the arrow to the right so that you can observe all of the slides.

The third VoiceThread down highlights how teachers can easily use a digital video camera to take pictures of student work and quickly upload the content to the web. This allows for a fantastic conversation to evolve. It can also be viewed here: http://voicethread.com/share/332534/

Overall, the main reason I appreciate this software is that is allows static presentations to become dynamic. In addition to pictures, teachers can upload PowerPoint presentations to the software, and then all of a sudden the presentation is able to be commented on.

Nurturing Creativity

It takes creativity to be able to provide time to focus on creativity within the classroom. Let me explain. All educators feel the demands, pressures, stresses, and pulls from local, state, and national mandates. Amidst the AYP, PSSA, IEP, and wide range of other acronyms, lies classroom teachers struggling to "fit it all in". "How is it possible?", I often hear colleagues complain. Like always, where there is a will, there is a way. And technology is that way. Now, technology for technologies sake does not solve any problems. However, once you've identified the problem and have a need, technologies can easily answer the "how can I fit it all in" question. The reality is that so long as educators devise systems that enable, not discourage, students to read, think, write, and create, our students have the potential and ambition to soar on their own. It's our job to get out of the way and stop being the kink in the hose.

One website that opens doors up for creativity is www.wikispaces.com For writing, check out the tools here: http://cogdogroo.wikispaces.com/ and http://www.kolabora.com/news/2007/03/01/collaborative_writing_tools_and_technology.htm Finally, for some great student applications try this: http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/web_20_backpack_web_apps_for_students.php

PETE&C w/ DEN

...a day of technology at the Pennsylvania Educators Techology Expo & Conference (PETE&C) with Discovery Educators Network (DEN)

Below is a brief outline, or brain dump as I like to call it, of the information I experienced during the preconference event.




Jason Ohler Keynote Speaker - Introduction

Key Learnings:
1. Screasle = screen + easle
2. students need to be able to write what they can read
3. ...

Web 1.0 (few writers, lots of readers)
Web 2.0 (more readers and writers, but too much information)
Web 3.0 (read, write, paint, think)

VDT (visually differentiated text)

Jason's 9 Dig Lit action guidelines
1 - shift from text centricism
2 - value writing more than ever
3 - art the next R...(multimedia, photostory, etc. is the new art)
4 - Follow DAOW of literacy (DAOW of literacy...art, digital, dawo, oral, written)
5 - attitude is the aptitude
6 - practice private and social literacy
7 - develop literacy about digital tools
8 - fluency, not just literacy (don't be the techy..be the guide on the side to help others)
9 - harness both report and story...embrace story!
(you don't need a lot of money to do this..work with what you have b/c this is what you have and you don't need $...it forces you to focus on the story)

Green Screening example: (zoom in to see the girl standing in front of a picture she drew)



-use the talents they have (garage band songs...rock band...guitar hero songs they've made it up on their own....set those songs to credits that role after their stories end)
-again having the kids own their stories (just like writing research supports)


JASON DOES NOT STORYBOARD....a good way to make a boring story flow
-mapping vs. boarding (emotional flow vs flow of emotion)

Media Infused Presentations & the Disciplined and Synthesizing Minds

Howard Gardner presents four ways to achieve a disciplined mind. First, one must identify crucial content or processes to be learned within a specific discipline. Second, he suggests allowing a significant portion of time for learning the proposed content or process. Third, one should portray the content or process through several different approaches. Fourth and finally, Gardner tells us to set up “performances of understanding” that force students to apply the content or process they learned into new situations and problems.

Gardner also establishes a variety of methods for educators to help create synthesizing minds within their students. He proposes that the most likely way that students will become synthesizers is through interacting with adult synthesizers. Therefore, educators should aim to acquire this skill and model it to students whenever possible. In addition, mass media presentations, surfing the Web, and reading books are all likely help students’ synthesizing minds evolve.

Media infused projects help foster the development of both the disciplined and synthesizing minds. As mentioned, Gardner proposes teaching materials through a variety of ways. When considering the developing brain of an elementary school aged child, videos, pictures, songs, and other digital medias all accomplish this task. Images and videos help build students’ background knowledge. They also present new terms, ideas, and meanings through visual representations. Therefore, practical tools such as WebQuests, videos, and slideshows are all important in fostering the disciplined and synthesizing minds.

These tools allow students to store this information so that it can be recalled later in their educational careers. When information from prior knowledge is recalled, connections are formed between old knowledge and new knowledge. Thus, students create new schema, demonstrating another way that digital media helps to foster the synthesizing mind.

The use of Smart Boards and other technologies allows digital media to be broadcasted to classrooms in new ways. When teachers can interact with text on websites and model specific strategies for learning, synthesizing also occurs.

In addition, when students are able to interact with similar texts on their own to create projects that demonstrate their learning, both the disciplined and the synthesizing minds are enhanced. Projects like these are non-limiting. Rather than simply reading information and regurgitating it, students must conquer the facts and manipulate them in new ways. This requires students to use inferring and other higher order thinking skills.

Finally, one last practical way that educators can force students to build upon their disciplined and synthesizing minds is through the use of specific software programs. Drawing on Microsoft Paint or creating image, audio, and video stories through Microsoft PhotoStory or PowerPoint are but a “performances of understanding” that allow students to apply their knowledge to new situations.

An attempt to enrich the synthesizing mind through the use of technology...

During my first year in third grade, I often found myself at odds with the curriculum to be taught and the current means of teaching that information. Worksheets and readings out of old textbooks were how "things have always been done". I knew that my students needed to be energized with the content. After all, it was the 4th quarter and summer was on everyone's mind.

As I began to process the Social Studies unit on Pennsylvania that I needed to teach and my goals for the end of the year, I soon realized that a culminating year end project would force students to synthesize the information that had been learned throughout the year. And so, with the help of our school librarian, we created a webquest on Pennsylvania.

The purpose of this webquest was more than just to cover a unit from our Social Studies curriculum. It enabled students to synthesize various learnings throughout the year. Students used reading skills, oral speaking skills, technological skills, research skills, and numerous other skills...


On Winning $5,000 . . . Or Was It Actually Much More?

By Kyle Schutt, teacher, grade 3, Pine Forge

The end of the year can be a very busy time in any elementary school, and my 3rd grade class has been no exception. During the month of May, my 3rd graders utilized a Pennsylvania WebQuest developed by Rebecca Hart and myself with the purpose of generating student-created Photostory presentations about any number of Pennyslvania topics. A WebQuest requires analysis, synthesis, judgment, creativity, and problem-solving through the gathering of information from the World Wide Web. Ideally, a WebQuest should include an authentic experience.
In 3rd grade our authentic task was to attempt to win 5,000 pretend dollars by creating the best Photostory travel brochure related to various topics in PA! Photostory is a software program similar to PowerPoint, but easier for students to use. The students collected pictures and narrated them using the research they found.
In order for the 3rd graders to then demonstrate their skills, parents, grandparents, and friends were invited to the Pine Forge Library on June 6, 2008 at 2:00 PM. At that time, third graders gave their Photostory presentations about Pennsylvania. Along with sharing their Photostory travel brochures with friends and family, my 3rd graders also answered a few questions about their experience. Below are the four questions asked with a number of student responses:

1. What was your favorite part of the Pennsylvania Photostory project?
“My favorite part is when I got paired up with Nick, getting to know each other better, and recording. I liked recording because you would get so nervous and say the wrong thing or say something funny that you weren’t supposed to say.” –Tesia

”My favorite part of the PA Photo story was that we got to work with partners and we had fun but, as we had fun we learned.” –Summer
“My favorite part of the Pennsylvania Photo story project was when we got to record on the microphones.” -Haley

“My favorite part of the web quest was learning how to up load photos and finding the photos.” -Jennifer

2. If you could do the Photostory again, what would you change?
“Get a different topic.” -John

“If I could change the photostory, I would be a little more louder.” –Dylan

“I would change the pictures and the way I was speaking I sounded kind of weird.” -Trevor

“I would change the music.” -Eric

3. What was the most important thing that you learned from completing the PA Photostory Project?
“Taking your time and patience.” —Trevor

“The most important thing I learned is that economy isn’t just money, but it is also agriculture, farming, services, and more.” -Tesia

“I learned how to work as a team.” -Nick

“That you learn to work together.” -Shjon

“I learned about the plains. I also learned that I had to work hard.” -Eva

“I learned to take time and patients [sic.].” –Ethan

4. What other comments would you like to share about the webquest?
“ . . . we had a fun time every minute we were in the computer lab.” -Tesia

“I enjoyed the webquest, because I learned that the Delaware River is really big.” –Eva

“I had fun, and I LERNED [sic.] lot[s] of things about PA.” -Matthew

“It was very fun and I really think more kids should do this.” -Trevor