Edustange

Harping on Appropriate Technology

2009-06-06T11:14:00.005-05:00

I think I have visited this topic before. Everyone received an email at work regarding the shortage of space on the division's servers. One can only imagine how often that sort of message has to be sent out. Well, I am as big a culprit as any on staff and it would not surprise me to learn that I am worse than most. It is not much of a mystery where all the space went to. It is not our Office files or PDFs, it is the images and videos. I was a good boy and went through my home drive and ruthlessly purged. Inevitably, I discarded many good pictures.

So how many pictures do we need to keep I wonder? Digital cameras have made it too easy to record the minutia of the classroom. In a year the album grows into the hundreds of images and video clips. Generally I share them with the students at the end of the year, and then they languish on the hard drive for years. Unindexed and lacking annotation, they quickly decontextualize into a mass of random impressions.

They also have a tendency to clone. Working the purge from home using a remote connection, I found I did not have access to the school's global files (just the division office's, go figure). I think I copied the entire collection of images onto our global folder. I will have to delete those folders when I get to school. The yearbook committee copied some of those images for their purposes, and on it goes. I need to purge my wikistange and chalkboard spaces of the year's accumulated images too.

Technological improvements play into the problem as well. My first effort to use digital imagery to record events in the classroom was a simple Fuji camera with a 2.0x resolution. Virtually the Brownie Box of digital cameras, it might easily be the most sensible camera I acquired. Today I use the camera provided by the school. This is a Cannon with 8.0x resolution and serious upgrade in bells and whistles. I like to take short videos with it. The problem of course is the file sizes. I am not a professional photographer preparing studio portraits or a magazine layout. I am capturing the essence of the lived experience in my classroom. Why take an 8.0x picture that eventually needs to be formated for the web? So that I can crop it I suppose. When I take seventy-six pictures of a five hour field trip, I do not have the time to Photoshop each image (I miss access to that program by the way). Despite that explanation, I likely do not need an 8.0x picture to achieve my goal. I need to change the settings.

I also need to be more systematic about the expanding archives. Do the one hundred picture photoshoot, share the result with the class, save at most ten percent in a web friendly size. If I did that, then I would not have spent an hour hastily skimming through hundreds of thumbnails trying to decide which pictures were worth keeping. That reminds me, I need to review the music collection as well ....

wikistange on Twitter

2009-06-01T22:56:00.002-05:00

I have taken the plunge and created a Wikistange Twitter account We shall see how this new project develops over the next year. Like many of my projects, it runs ahead of the technology or application of technology available to my families. While many of my students now access the wikispace from their homes, it is essentially a school-based project because I cannot reasonably expect students to have the technology in our community. Twitter will be the same thing. However, I hope that by offering the service of information, there might be interest in following it. The content I envision will be very classroom specific. Right, I could establish a email group, but as Facebook and Twitter have already demonstrated, I can disseminate the information very quickly. Lets not get into why I don't have a class Facebook yet. I need to show some restraint I think.

Institutional Twitters

2009-06-01T20:27:00.007-05:00

I have been following my school division's new presence on Twitter. If I said that I had hoped there would be more tweets emanating from the site then I suppose that would be construed as a criticism of the person assigned to post. An institution does not have the freedom to post indiscriminately like one of my students who began using tweets to vent frustration and libel a classmate. Institutional tweets need to be more considered. I suppose an unrealistic part of me was hoping for something light-hearted.

The initiative is very proactive though. The Division maintains an elaborate web site but of course it is inherently passive. Twitter allows an organization to reach out and make people aware of its life and action. People have to be listening though.

I have my classroom Wikispace. It is a handy springboard for my student's access to the Internet and a partial filter or constraint on their use in school. My students have some free time each week to use the Internet independently. They would gravitate to every game and commercial site of interest given no constraints. I limit this impulse as much as I can by using the Wikispace to define usage. Unless they are engaged in a research project, which necessitates roaming links, then they confine themselves to the links I have provided. Their school email and personal wikispages are linked to the Wikispace. I am describing the primary purpose of Wikistange here. It has an additional feature.

Since its inception I have incorporated some additional class information on the wiki home page. I tried incorporating some classroom information. I chose my superfluous Google Calendar to post the days in the rotation and important upcoming events. I'm disappointed in it because it often fails to load perhaps because of my security settings. Some of my students have reacted to calendar information so I believe it generally reaches them. Perhaps it is a Firefox - Explorer issue. I just determined that the calendar is showing in Explorer. I digress. The calendar is a good tool, but like the information found on the Division's web site, it does not reach out actively.

It is June and the clock is winding down. I am considering the efficacy of establishing my own classroom Twitter account. It would provide the services of a classroom blog for my students and parents. There has been the occasional reference to students by name on the Division website, but that sort of information is generally not conveyed. I see the Tweets as something of a newsfeed for activities and upcoming events. I am curious to learn if this has been tried in other classrooms yet. I imagine it has. The idea cannot be fresh at this point. As usual I need to establish it independently of my personal communications. More on this idea later.

Documents to Go for the Blackberry

2009-05-23T20:45:00.004-05:00

I guess I never leave things alone. When I acquired the Blackberry I made the same resolution I did when I switched to my latest laptop; I would keep the applications to a minimum and not stress the hardware. I have been reasonably true to my resolve regarding the laptop. The rule was to settle for a single application. I made it through twelve months before breaking down and installing Firefox on my system. It creates a redundancy but it would take an act of God to remove Explorer from my system. That aside, I have successfully kept things simple.

I was not going to push the Blackberry to hard. Connecting to the Internet and my work Outlook account seemed reasonable. Then I noticed I could open PDF files on the Blackberry. That set me thinking about my old companion Documents to Go. I thought it might be nice to read Word Documents on my Blackberry. I am not sure if I want to go there though. Word processing with Documents to Go on my Tungsten T5 stressed the Palm hardware. I don't want to repeat that by spending hours on the Blackberry keyboard. I took a stab at installing a trial copy of Documents to Go on my Blackberry, but the message to the phone went awry. I'll fuss with it another time.

What am I doing here?

2009-05-10T23:38:00.009-05:00

I am not entirely happy with technology this weekend and I am am somewhat uncertain of my judgement. I'll blame it all on my years using a Palm Pilot as an organizer. You guessed it, I bought a Blackberry this weekend. I should be excited by this, but technology no longer excites me in quite the way it once did. A good deal of the time when I look at a tech tool I have acquired all I can think of is the cost of the item and the the almost planned obsolescence built into the design. It is a sweet toy though. At the root of my ambivalence is the nagging suspicion that it is not a tool I needed at this point in my life.

After almost three years my Razer betrayed me. The cell phone was sexy, but flawed to begin with. My eyes had trouble reading the elegant keypad if the ambient light was wrong. Otherwise it was a good tool for me. I discarded it because the the screen began blanking out in a random manner. When I got to the store, the siren call of the Blackberries was too strong for me. I should have had my wife with me I guess.

I'm a laptop user and never really very far from a computer at home or at work. It is questionable whether I need more mobile productivity. My old Tungsten still works after a fashion (irrevocably divorced from my Vista laptop), so I could hardly claim to need something portable. In an effort to kick-start my wife's interest in computers we purchased an Acer Aspire One. I admit I was curious about these Web Books. The screen is a little small for me, but it does a nice job I think. It is also less expensive than a Blackberry, and also more flexible. It is serving its function and my wife is becoming very comfortable with social networking. Laptops are personal so I never touch it except to help her learn something new. I prefer my HP Pavilion still, big as it seems compared to the Acer. All the technology surrounding me did not solve the problem of a broken cell phone.

I guess I picked the Blackberry because I was anticipating the future. With luck, this phone solution will last three years or more. I don't have much faith in that, but I can hope. It seemed to me that while I have did quite well with a simple phone three years ago, I have started to expect more from them now. I quickly began texting as an alternative to expensive calls. It was something of a courtesy to my impoverished children who discovered early on that texts reduced the cost of their phones considerably. I also began using the simple calendar and appointment software on my phone. In the last month or so I have begun to use Twitter. I suppose buying the Blackberry allowed me to recapture some of the functionality of my Palm Pilot while maintaining a slightly more streamlined profile in my pocket. Before I abandoned the Palm, there was this awkward period where I had two pieces of electronics in my pocket. Finally there is the internet connection I am buying. I am anticipating that in the next few years I will find I want (okay not need) more access. It is an expensive choice though.

So far I am not thrilled with the accompanying software. Flawed as it was, my Palm synchronized with my computer better on the first try. I have not accomplished that with the Blackberry yet. Even my old Razer had a better synchronizing program. I expected better from Blackberry for the price. My email is not set up yet. There is something wrong with the way they set up my account. This was partly my fault. I could not seem to remember my email password. Who remembers these things? I have had that email account for so long the password is historical. I have a solution for that sort of problem. I keep a little black book with the details of all the places I have joined, registration keys, etc. The young woman selling the Blackberry commented unkindly that lots of old people like me used notebooks. I smiled sweetly at her, and kept my reply sub vocal. I have to go back to store this week and straighten that out. I guess I can add the Blackberry to the list of topics for this blog. Its relevance to my teaching practice remains to be seen.

Twitter Pandemic

2009-04-28T19:01:00.003-05:00

Humour is so essential in my life. I am still learning the potential of Twitter. Inevitably most of what is said is going to be dross. Slowly I am finding networks to tap into though.

Tweets, Email and Feeds

2009-04-19T20:21:00.002-05:00

Until Twitter came along (or I found it) I relied on feeds and emails to keep track of updates. There are a number of ways to skin a cat. Right now I am exploring this avenue. The different methods of connecting have their strengths and weaknesses. Keeping up with the latest cartoon is not really an effective use of Twitter.

Open Source Learning

2009-04-11T19:15:00.005-05:00

Rice University professor Richard Baraniuk explains the vision behind Connexions, his open-source, online education system. It cuts out the textbook, allowing teachers to share and modify course materials freely, anywhere in the world. Richard Baraniuk is founder of Connexions, a free, open-source, global clearinghouse of course materials. People in some 200 countries tap into its vast store of texts on everything from engineering to ornithology to music, adapting the content as they see fit. (TED 2009)

No doubt my sudden interest in TED actually signals how woefully behind I am in the trends. Naturally I came to TED after my own twenty-year-old son pointed it out to me. It is reassuring to me know he does more with his computer than play games. He has six different gaming platforms, collecting and cherishing them in much the same way I cherish my library and my brother cherishes his guitars.

Baraniuk's talk is old. I wonder how successful the project has been. The idea of open source textbooks accessed on line, in PDF form or printed cheaply on demand caught my attention. I am a fan of open source. Wikipedia and its children are brilliant. I edit fiction with acquaintances on a wikispace. I suppose my enthusiasm for wikispaces explains my prference for introducing them to my young students instead of blogs. I offered designing a web page on the student wikispace as an alternative book report project. I errored there though. Two of my students are working on the same book. I forgot to encourage them to collaborate on a single page. Perhaps after Easter I can set that right. At present, they are only beginning to understand what collaboration is like. I have also failed to stress the principles of the creative commons that govern open source projects. Attributing information they use is important.

I have only looked at Connexions briefly. My first impression is that it will not contribute much to my elementary school classroom. I like the idea though. In the 1980's I was involved with piloting middle years social studies curriculum. Twenty-five years later I still see the now battered textbooks developed for those courses stacked in classrooms. At the time I was pleased that the Department of Education had made the effort to commission textbooks tailored to Saskatchewan curriculum. I understand the reasons why that effort ceased though. As Baraniuk reminds us in his talk, publishing presents a significant barrier for most people. He compares an open source generated textbook costing approximately $25.00 to a traditionally published work costing perhaps five times that figure.

The power and potential of Saskatchewan's Evergreen Curriculum is exciting to me. It has the potential to exploit open source principles. Indeed, it has begun to move in this direction in the way it handles learning resources. It just seems that so much more might be accomplished. Imagine open sourced activity guides where teachers could contribute, modify and refine the content and activities. Imagine the development of open source textbook modules that would support courses. All these sorts of things are happening in the quiet corners of the provinces classrooms. We tap the resources of the wikipedia without thought to creating our own sites. I could scream with frustration at times.

Tim Berners-Lee: The next Web of open, linked data

2009-04-08T23:19:00.002-05:00

No Comment

2009-04-07T19:05:00.006-05:00

Dean Shareski comments on Will Richardson's challenge that educators need to be more transparent about their own learning led me to Richardson's blog. Richardson encourages my own efforts when he says, "I want (demand?) the adults in my schools to be effective models for living in a transparent world. I want my kids to see them navigating these spaces effectively, sharing what they know, teaching others outside of their physical space, and contributing to the conversation." I mused in a blog January 2007 about the value of my presense on the web. It seemed rather pointless at the time. Since then I have not stressed the value of my presence very much. I make entries sporadically and count the little red dots on the Clustrmap hoping that some of them represent people who actually read my blog and did not simply move on quickly. The side bar is probably more interesting than the blog itself. It profiles my other activities: Twitter, Wikispaces, Podcasts, favorite links and resources. I like the dynamic ones like Twitter and Wikispaces that monitor my activities, or in the case of the Chalkboard, my activities with students. I mentioned my latest involvement with Twitter to a correspondent. He scoffed at the activity as pointless. No doubt it can be (easy to use it to vent or offer pointless updates), but as Dean's blog demonstrates, it can also be a convenient way to point people to learning opportunities and intelligent discourse. I'm currently fuming over the inane repetition of my Twitter updates. Anything I text to Twitter in the past two weeks is popping up again. Who knows if I will ever get to the bottom of that. But it doesn't matter if Twitter turns out to be of marginal value to me; it is all part of the journey isn't it?

Parenthetically, I finally twigged to the idea of inserting pictures into my blog and wikispaces by copying their locations instead of copying the picture and saving it in the new site. My students seem to be adding pictures to the wikispace at an exponential rate. My next lesson will introduce them to the procedure.

Appropriate Technology

2009-04-01T19:59:00.005-05:00

My palm Pilot betrayed me a while back. The Tungsten T5 works like a charm (almost) but Palm has not upgraded the software to make it compatible with Microsoft Vista. Gosh, how smart was that?

I have to locate an older computer or ditch a perfectly good piece of technology. My cell phone band-aides as a calendar, but I have been forced to back engineer my word processing technology until I solve the issue. There are some advantages to my solution. The sheets of folded paper and mechanical pencil are not as cumbersome as my Palm.

It is useful to have old skills. I was in the staff room making coffee this morning (someone has to do it) and a colleague was stressing over the misbehaving photocopier. She was trying to make overheads. She understands the new Promethean Boards we have in our classrooms, but she has invested a great deal of time in developing overheads over the years. We exchanged comments on changing technology and I revealed my age by mentioning the sophisticated Spirit Master and Gestetner handouts I created back in the 1980's. She was unfamiliar with the terms.

You really have to look at Aviary's April Fools Day Page about their new Crane product. It is a brilliant blog.

Criteria for citizenship

2009-03-26T20:37:00.002-05:00

Advances talents and strives for excellence,
Shares with others,
Becomes involved and shows responsibility,
Values and respects people of all ages,
Respects the environment,
Exercises personal rights,
Thinks of the disadvantaged,
Is goal oriented,
Honours the sacrifice of others,
Demonstrates a concern for others, and
Attends to community welfare.

The list above was generated for a Canadian Citizenship poster distributed to schools. For years I kept it posted in my classroom. I came across a copy in our school library. For years graduating students would ask me for a letter of recommendation. I would consult the list above and try to describe them in terms of their citizenship qualities. By and large I have been privileged to teach a civil group of people. There were few I could not find a majority of the exemplars for. Each year there were two or three who could demonstrate all of these qualities to one degree or another. Public education is all about citizenship. The struggles we have in the classroom are all about learning to be civil.

When do we act on what we know?

2009-03-26T08:08:00.002-05:00

In a rather pedestrian move I decided to delve into food chains a little deeper in my fifth grade science class. Sharks are interesting, so after a cursory survey of the ocean food chain we paused to focus. I pulled twenty-six books on sharks from the school library and randomly assigned students into seven groups of three. Each group dealt with a different species of shark. Parenthetically, always remember that your school library is limited. Insure that there are sufficient resources for your project before you begin. The students had a forty-minute period to search out the guide questions in their groups. They pooled their results.

Yesterday we followed that activity up with a trip to the computer lab. The students individually continued their research beginning at our class portal wikistange. I had found found an extensive amount of shark material at National Geographic Kids. The students liked that site very much, but a number of the assigned sharks were not represented. Without seeking help my frustrated ten and eleven year olds began searching. Most ended their search with wikipedia. The reading levels of the various articles were slightly challenging but surprisingly managable. The wikipedia articles were well organized and corresponded to my guide questions, but they were not as friendly as National Geographic Kids. Time ran out, or they might have found some better sites.

The time in the computer lab was well spent. The information flooded in and answers filled their pages. "Why can't we cut and paste?" asked one. Well that would hardly have helped them filter the information into a sensible and summative form. The pictures in the various books were nice. The videos of their particular sharks were better. I had introduced the research topic with a Unitedstreaming video they also liked.

I'm capitalizing on a lapse in attentiveness to the computer lab. I seem to be the only one booking free periods at the moment. I keep thinking this cannot continue for much longer. I imagine I have made my point. The school library cannot really compete with the computer lab. The cost would be prohibitive and pointless. There are only a limited number of topics where we have amassed as many titles as sharks. We have all known this for some time, yet we remain reluctant to invest adequately in the necessary technology to support learning. Special projects put lap tops into classrooms or schools, but we have not made the next step. Perhaps before I retire.

Twouble with Twitters

2009-03-23T21:43:00.000-05:00

Teachers have their own recurring nightmares

2009-03-18T07:37:00.001-05:00

Report Cards

2009-03-15T23:10:00.004-05:00

Report Card Comments

Some sample generic report card comments are given below. Remember, it is more helpful and informative for parents if you can provide specific rather than general comments whenever possible.

Here are words that are useful...
able, accurate, active, aggressive, ambitious, anxious, attentive, capable, cheerful, confident, cooperative, conscientious, courteous, dependable, determined, eager, energy, energetic, friendly, generous, happy, helpful, imaginative, industrious, initiative, interested, keen, neat, nervous, observant, orderly, pleasant, polite, prompt, quiet, receptive, reliant, resourceful, studious ... (Teacher's Network, 2009)

Time this week had to be set aside for preparing report cards. I can imagine the sympathetic groans. Technology and assessment reporting found each other a long time ago. In the early 1990's I created a merged spreadsheet grade book, data base and document with AppleWorks 3.0 on my beloved Apple //e. That lasted until I went over to the dark side. I never duplicated the effort with Microsoft Works. At any rate, the division I was working for moved over to standardized report cards. When I changed jobs about ten years ago the division I joined presented me with my first experience with electronic reporting.

As I write this, I am wracking my brain for the name of the software program. The old grey cells -- I used that program for five or six years and I can't remember the name. I might digress into the handicaps of that particular program, but what brought that process to my mind tonight was the comment feature. One of the limitations of the program was its handling of teacher comments. Rather than typing in comments, the program required a selection from a prestablished bank of comments. Each comment was numbered and you entered the reference number in the correct spot. You were also limited to three comments. New comments could be added to the program, but it had a default bank of about one hundred generic comments. The program was not popular.

I didn't mind the comment bank. It was not comprehensive. I did ask for a number of phrases to be added. In particular I was anxious to see comments that reflected the school and divisions goals for student progress. It was also important for the language of the comments to be congruent with established learning objectives in Sasktachewan. Other teachers added their comments and the list grew to a bewildering four pages. It was frustrating searching through the long list for the appropriate remark. I did not approve of some of the comments my colleagues contributed, but we had no established proceedure for reviewing the school's list. Having a list meant that there was the possibility of filtering out inappropriate or ill considered teacher comments.

My current division is exploring the best way to report. At the moment we are using an Excel document and I am back to entering my own comments. I can write more than three, which is a blessing. Be grateful that I don't lapse into a digression on the limitations of this format. I was struck by how easy it was to fall into platitudinous remarks about each student. I have twenty-six students and they are delightfully unique. The comments I make are not always so unique. It takes patience to say the right thing for each person. The best way to handle it is to set time aside over a few weeks.

Tonight I surfed the net a little and found a number of sites that offered generic lists of comments. I modified a few and added them to my reports. They spoke to positive things about a few of my students that I had not thought to pass on. I am not sorry that I no longer use the long list of prepared comments, but I think I do need a reminder from time to time.

National Film Board of Canada

2009-03-05T23:05:00.003-06:00

I was reminded recently that the National Film Board of Canada now provides streaming videos of from their archives. While many of the films are old, it remains a treasure trove of resources for teachers. I recommend educators explore the library. I asked a friend teaching in the Boston area if a similar service was available with films from the United States. He was not aware of anything. I will have to hunt around. I wonder what might be offered by Great Britain or Australia.

I'm such an unregenerated nationalist. What a wonderful institution the NFB has been. Many of the films in the archives are familiar from my own secondary education (I was in the US for my primary education). The NFB films are available to the public, but not to educational institutions. I understand this would cost my board. I had forgotten this until I tried to access some films at school. The student's became restless as I fussed with my computer. I do have a way around this while the division considers whether this is a resource worth adding as a subscription. I have embeded a number of videos into my Wikistange site. With this end-run around the block, I can share some media.

Professional Competencies for teacher-librarians

2009-03-03T22:37:00.004-06:00

The Association for Teacher-librarianship in Canada listed the following as professional competencies for teacher-librarians:

1.1 places a priority on staff relationships and leadership in the implementation of change.

1.2 provides leadership in collaborative program planning and teaching to ensure both physical and intellectual access to information and commitment to voluntary reading.

1.3 knows curriculum programs mandated by the province, district and school.

1.4 understands students and their social, emotional and intellectual needs.

1.5 has expert knowledge in evaluating learning resources in different formats and media, both on-site and remote, to support the instructional program.

1.6 develops and promotes the effective use of informational and imaginative resources in all formats through cooperative professional activities

1.7 provides appropriate information, resources or instruction to satisfy the needs ofindividuals and groups.

1.8 uses appropriate information technology to acquire, organize and disseminate information.

1.9 manages library programs, services and staff to support the stated goals of the school.

It also listed the following personal competencies for teacher-librarians in Canada:

2.1 is committed to program excellence.

2.2 seeks out new challenges and sees new opportunities both inside and outside the library

2.3 sees the big picture

2.4 looks for partnerships and alliances.

2.5 creates an environment of mutual respect and trust.

2.6 has effective communication skills.

2.7 works well with others on a team.

2.8 provides leadership.

2.9 plans, prioritizes and focuses on what is critical.

2.10 is committed to lifelong learning.

2.11 is flexible and positive in a time of continuing change.

I found the following in Bev Scheirer’s paper, The Changing Role of the Teacher-Librarian in the Twenty-first Century (March, 2000) University of Saskatchewan. She was citing the Association for the Teacher-librarianship in Canada, Canadian School Library Association (1998). Competencies for Teacher-librarians in the 21^st Century. Teacher Librarian, 26(2), 22-25. There is reference to technology in the list, but I am struck with how central communication and collaboration are to the role. This has been on my mind lately as I pause at the end of my first task in our school library.

Measuring progress at the wiki

2009-02-06T21:15:00.005-06:00

Being able to consult the statistics on my student space is handy. Just over the past six days I can see how many students have stopped in for a visit. There are twenty-seven students in the class so having only fourteen stop in to see the site, and find that only nine students made over sixty edits in the last week tells me that I am not reaching everyone with this project. Simple charts like these are not entirely reliable. If I scan the record of recent changes I find that six students did not bother to log on with their user names. They did their edits as "guests". These are things to bear in mind.

Today was a professional development day in our division. I was happy to see that five of my students logged on from home to play with their spaces. Only a few are moving forward with their understanding. I have theme pages now and three students have used their original page as a hub for additional pages. They are all gathering images of interest and a few are attending to formatting issues, but I have not yet succeeded with incorporating text and commentary in their spaces. It is all visual. I'm rather anxious to push forward with this.

It is on my mind because today's inservice focused on writing traits, specifically organization. When it came time to break away for planning, my mind naturally turned to the computers I have available in the classroom and the time I have in the computer lab. I booked into the lab for some extra periods next week. I also created some links on wikistange to WritingFix where my students can get assistance generating writing prompts. The Chalkboard wiki project continues, but I need to refocus the students on Microsoft Word and their personal writing. I have assessments for learning to attend to. Perhaps preparing for their writing assessment, a purely paper and pencil endeavor can still cross over to the creative explorations of the wikispaces.

Bringing it all together... oh so slowly

2009-01-22T19:26:00.005-06:00

United Streaming has been available to our classrooms for about three years now... perhaps it has been longer. Initially I think it failed to find its way into our classrooms because of delivery problems. I remember my first year using it I alternated between downloading videos to burn onto DVD so that they could be shown on the familiar VHS-VD/TV cart, and getting my class to huddle on the floor where they could see my small computer monitor. All that was somewhat unsatisfactory. All is sweetness and light now that I have a projector and sound system attached to my computer. There are a few shadows still. The configuration of our network does not allow students to view media independently on the classroom workstations. The generally satisfactory laptops assigned to classroom teachers don't handle a downloaded video well. Running the video off my hard drive results in significant pixilation. Managing a video stream seems to be fine. United Streaming came to my mind today because I found myself introducing it to a colleague. We have a professional development day next week and I think we will spend some time looking at the service. It really seems to me that this is long overdue.

Podcasting

2009-01-15T14:54:00.001-06:00

My school division is exploring podcasting as another method of linking educators and the learning community. I think having a Podcast linkage in our community is another interesting idea. Much praise to Dean Shareski for establishing this. Like some of the other linkages offered by Prairie South, this one might not become much more than a learning tool for staff and students. There are so many ways to link together, some fit better with the learning community than others. What is more important is that we all continue to grow and learn; that we keep pace with the dynamic changes in communication happening around and to us. Text messaging might be another fertile area for us to explore.

I have maintained a wikispace as a gateway for my students for a number of years. This Fall I added a second wikispace for students to explore and collaborate. Their response has been encouraging, enthusiastic, and slightly disorganized. After a month I began collaborative activities. We are studying Oceans right now and I plan to creat working groups to develop wiki pages for each major body of water. I also found a podcasting host because I wanted to understand how to use podcasting better and I thought a site might facilitate students including podcasts in their wikispaces. My students are just ten-year-olds and they are speeding ahead.

Light humour

2009-01-05T13:11:00.000-06:00

A fifth grader looked downcast, so her teacher asked. “What’s the problem Carol? I hope it’s not homework again.”“Well, uh, yes, it is,” replied Carol “I was stupid and made my homework paper into a paper airplane.”“Carol, you’re right, that wasn’t a very bright thing to do,” said the teacher, “but his once I’ll let your just unfold the paper and hand it in.”“Oh, but that won’t work,” said Carol, looking even sadder. “You see, the plane was hijacked

A fifth grader class was on an educational trip. As they rode along in the school bus, the teacher noticed that one boy was lying facedown in the aisle of the bus with his hands over his eyes. “Why are you lying in the aisle like that.”“Well,” said the boy, “if you don’t see anything, you don’t have to write anything.”

Substitute

2008-12-08T21:50:00.001-06:00

http://xkcd.com/

Wiki spaces for fifth graders

2008-12-04T15:46:00.000-06:00

Chalkboard, the wiki space I created for my class, has been going fairly well. I introduced it to my students on November 12th and they have largely maintained their interest and enthusiasm for the project. I have not made as much progress with web formatting as I would like. Some of the students are still dropping items into their pages in a sort of random manner. A few are more purposeful. I have to work on this. I remind myself that these are the same young people who will use a sheet of loose leaf upside down and seem determined to ignore the red-line margin as they compose. Organization eludes many at this point. We are talking about organizing our writing using the Writing Traits program. I plan to carry this theme over into their space pages.

This month I introduced them to the concept of collaborative space building. I created the Holiday Page on the Chalkboard space. Like my classroom, the page takes a multicultural approach to the winter season. I have borrowed ideas from other classroom projects and incorperated them into the page. I was hoping for a bit more enthusiasm from the students. Most are far more interested in their own spaces still. One of the nice features of wikispaces is that I can track my member's activity. I have a sense of who is making progress, or showing an interest in the medium of communication.

After the winter break we will start a new collaborative project, Oceans. My plan is to divide them into working groups and charge them with the task of creating one or more pages on a major water body. This will be far more content specific. At the same time I will continue to encourage them to turn their personal pages into something more thematic.

Wikispaces for fifth graders

2008-11-23T09:56:00.004-06:00

After a number of my students expressed curiosity about the mechanics of my wikistange space I finally decided to create a space where they could experiment with the software themselves. I did a search and I was unsurprised to learn that there are a great number of teachers using wiki spaces at the grade five level. Some use the space as I do, as a portal to the Internet and resource to support in-class instruction. Others are using it as a wiki space should be: collaborative creations. I set up the Chalkboard to introduce the class to that. I was amazed how quickly they grasped some of the simpler concepts. Within a half hour they were industriously embedding YouTube videos and adding pictures. There is no particular theme to most of their pages at this point, and certainly less purpose. Two students selected a theme though. I need to teach them more about formatting next. After they get comfortable, we can discuss content. We need to talk about wiki-ethics too. One or two students have grasped that they can make changes to their friends pages. That is the whole point of the wiki space, but they need to consider being respectful of the intentions of their friends pages. We will get into that later too. At any rate I am reassured that they can handle it. I look forward to seeing where it will go.