Give Credit

A simple change in terminology can make a big difference in student perception.

Cite your sources? Why??

Try "give credit."

Importance of Information Literacy

From the Teacher-Librarian Summit.

This was said to a class of 6th graders, "If each piece of information is a drop of water, when I was your age there was enough water to fill a wading pool. Now you have access to enough fill a swimming pool. By the time you are my age, there will be enough for a lake or ocean. It is important to understand how to find the right drop of information."

Hi all you techies and wanna be's. I am in the latter category as this is my first post to a real blog. Not a blog I had hoped I would post to, or planned to post to and didn't, but a real blog. I am just coming off my high from attendance at NCCE and am revelling in all the ideas that are swirling around in my wanna be a tech brain.



Perhaps the most helpful and interesting sessions I attended were Jennifer Gingerich's "Digital Kits for Differentiation and Engagement", presenter Asale Harris, "Making the 21st Century Classroom a Reality" and Karen Fasimpauer's, "Open Educational Resources".


Jennifer showed us how to make a digital toolkit using online resources. She magically weaves the resources into organized media folders. She showed us the best sites to get downloads to make a topic come alive with slids shows, sound, song, streaming video and images. (Photo Story, PowerPoint, IMovie, and Inspiration are some of the star players). Freeplaymusic.com gives you amazing background music, Findsounds.com aids in finding other cool sounds, and even You Tube for cool video clips to enhance any topic. For more information go to web.mac.com/jennifergingerich


Karen Fasimpauer took us a on tour through teaching and learning web tools. She taught how to share remix and learn and do it all without copyright issues. We explored Open licenses http://www.creativecommons.org Open tools like http://www.mediawiki.org, www.openoffice.org, audacity.sourceforge.net Open audio http://www.ccmixter.org, http://www.musopen.com, and Open photo, clip art and vidoe content www.flickr.com/creativecommons, http://www.openphoto.net. For more information visit www.k12opened.com


Asale Harris from Eduscape Learning showed how to use document cameras, interactive white boards or slates and student response tools to make learning interactive and fun.


And if that wasn't enough, I won a free 5 seat license for a year of Elluminate Live! Now all I need to do is learn how to use and give it away to a teacher....Any takers.

Be well and be a techy!
Karen SS

Looking for the Right Picture?

Google has some great new search features to narrow down the search... choose "more options" and then narrow down by color, type (clipart, line drawing, etc), size.

But the coolest new image search is http://image-swirl.googlelabs.com/ Here's an example search for "brain."



Joice

$250,000 Free Technology

CIM Technology Solutions will be giving away $250,000 worth of technology over the next year. Register on their website each month to enter the drawing for that month's giveaways. http://www.cimav.com/giveaways/

Joice

Librarians - Here's a wiki for you!

On Wednesday NCCE hosted a Teacher Librarian summit. This wiki is the product of that summit. http://NCCETeacherLibrarianSummit.ncce.wikispaces.net
I went to an overview session Friday. Basically, the wiki is designed to help Librarians, School Districts, and state offices of instruction in creation of library curriculum. We're lucky in Montana since such standards already exist, but the conversations were interesting. Colet from MT's OPI presented at the session and I think the summit as well. So collaborate away!

Joice

Google Chrome

Did you know that Google Chrome is a much faster browser than regular Google? For more fascinating facts from Patrick Crispin, go to netsquirrel.com. He will post his presentations this weekend.

Library of Congress

I'm sure glad I went to one of these sessions! Two presenters had many great teaching tips for using LOC primary sources--especially historic photos. go to loc.gov/teachers to get started.

comic life

we got here in time for the 5 pm (PST) workshops wed pm!! So I rushed up to the ComicLife workshop. A professor from Emporia State U in Kansas thought we might not know where that is, but I do! Two handsome grad students gave a presentation, then there was time for hands on--2 1/2 hours, in fact! More than we needed, but i have and will use their PPT on disc.

By 8 pm PST we were hungry, so a few of us walked down to the wharf--remember all those steps?? We ate at Ivar's, seafood since 1938! Char Henson's daughter, Meadow, walked us up Post Alley and showed us the gum wall (ask me sometime)

A full day!

Best thing I heard about.....

Probably the best thing was learning about edu.glogster.com. Sooooooo much better than creating posters the old fashion way. A multimedia poster!

Just make sure that you use the "edu" NOT the "www" :)

Easy Animation

I'm going to change my game. Instead taking tons of time to make a movie in class, some kids just don't get it or don't care, and so to differentiate instruction I'm going to use "xtranormal", which is an easy, online animation maker. It's really neat-o.

Power School questions

Can teachers add weekly podcasts by themselves or students onto Power School??

Tweets and the Ubiquitous Student - A study in application

So I am completely oblivious to the twitter community, so I decided to take in this session.

Using social Networking tools as a means to open the lines of communication in a classroom

Chris Haksell is the presenter a teacher from Biose State. Chris started out by talking about some of the tech tools that, like twitter, have a bit of a negative stigma.

Facebook
Can integrate Media

Incorporates social learning

Gets students communicating in a positive manner

Some teachers have gone too far

Youtube
Can be great tool - free database of potentially great videos.

The site provides a place for teachers and students to collaborate with other teachers and students.

However:
Videos can be Violent, provocative,

Where does this fit into the curriculum? - Has the curriculum caught up to the technology?

Example - Chemistry Curriculum - In the beginning, some bad things happened - poison, explosions, burns , etc. Through education, oversight, accountability, and learning, chemistry is still being taught today. Chris talked about how "We can create some change by introducing the validity of the tools we want to use in our classroom." That is, by using these tools in a positive and meaningful way, and teaching students to do so as well, we can integrate these educational tools in a positive way to improve our teaching.

Twitter:
A service - allows us to reach out to a lot of different places. Things can be input to and output from Twitter. The vehicle is SMS messaging. it can go to social networking tools, cell phones, and email. The SMS services limits messages to 140 characters. Twitter is a free service. This can be used as a form of microblogging, and can be used to share information, links, pictures, and short videos. Imagine using this a way to send messages from principals to teachers, or principals to students. They can send a video message to the entire staff. Teachers or students could receive this information on their cell phones, their email, or their Facebook page.

Parents only have to log on once and set up their accounts and never have to do this again. It makes mass communication easy. Teachers wouldn't have to set up the mail lists. They simply have to provide a set of instructions for parents to follow your posts if they choose.

Applications -

Imagine during a field-trip at the zoo. Tweeting to all your students via their cell phone, "The elephant is having a baby, everyone come to the elephants area."

Tweets can be used to communicate curricular needs in a timely manner.The audience can be students, parents, administrators or even members of the community at large. Twitter can be used as a way to increase the communication and connections to all of these audiences.

Tweets can be embedded in a blog, so if parents don't want to receive an email or a text message for absolutely every tweet you send out, they can go to your blog and read them. SMS messaging to mobile phones is by far the most popular.

Classroom Communication

• Quiz/Test Reminders
• Homework Clarifications
• Corrections to in class mix-ups
  
• Tutorial videos
• Mobile activities
• Communication from the Administration - school calendar, dress-up days, event information, activity information, evacuation information, systematic announcements, school closures
  

Twitter can also be used to communicate with teams, clubs, organizations.

• meeting reminders
• uniform changes
• wake-up calls on field trips
• field trip communication
• more

Twitter can also increase transparency for what we are doing as educators, coaches, administrators, etc. Also, if people are suspect about the communication, it is easy to be transparent about the discussions. Twitter accounts can be set-up for different classes, groups, etc. All in all, like facebook, myspace, and other social networking tools, twitter has a bad stigma and people could be wary of using it as a communication tool. Especially in the wake of numerous scandals involving inappropriate relationships between teachers and students. However, like facebook and myspace, if these tools can increase our ability to connect with students and improve their education by providing opportunities for students to collaborate and connect with others about meaningful topics, they should not be so quickly written off. All in all, this was another great session.

OMG, we won!

Jesse Franzen, Marla Unruh and I won a new $1400 Mobi at a presentation in the exhibitors hall. I get it from April 5 to April 23, Jesse gets it from April 25 to May 14th and Marla from then until the end of the year. I haven't won anything this exciting since I won at bingo when I was ten and got an Aunt Jemina tea cozy. Joyce Franzen will get to share, too, when she gets a job in the district.!

They are sending a rep to train us so if you want to join us, let me know.

Charlotte Henson at Bryant

A random walk through Cyberspace

This session was one done by one of the highlighted speakers, so I decided to check it out. Patrick Crispen took us on a tour of some of his favorite websites - some of which could be really powerful tools in your classroom, and mostly others have absolutely no use whatsoever except maybe to entertain the viewer. I missed the first part of this session, and he didn't get to all of his links, but all of the sites and a brief description will be posted on his website this weekend

www.netsquirrel.com

Here's a few i can remember:

xtra normal - This website creates cartoons from text. You can type in or copy and paste text into a script and have small cartoon characters act out the script. He suggested typing in the back and forth emails in a not-so-nice email conversation. There's something humorous and therapeutic about watching two cartoon squirrels act out the dialogue you just had with the parent who just doesn't seem to want to believe their child didn't deserve an A last quarter.

Wolfram Alpha - This is a really cool website. Basically an online version of an all knowing oracle. It's like an an answer search engine. Pretty Cool

Instant Chan! - Written explanation can't do this site justice. Click on the link, and then (with your volume turned on) click on one of the buttons. You just have to experience this one.

Dropbox - This is a really cool and useful site. This basicall ends the days of jump drives or emailing documents to yourself. This is a free service that allows you to save a file in a special folder on your computer, and the program will automatically save the file onto the web site, and any other computer where you have the dropbox program installed.

Know your Meme - I didn't know what a meme was before this. It's basically a phrase or a video or a challenge that has gone viral. This is a basically an encyclopedia of memes.

Cheezeburger - This is a database of funny pictures with captions and thought bubbles. I think this site allows you to create your own captions, but Patrick just showed us funny pictures.

Moodstream - This site allows you to set whatever your mood might happen to be at the time and it creates a musical screensaver-like photo array that compliments your mood. It chooses the impages from something called Getty Images.

good start to last day

The first session this morning was put on by our own Super Nerd (I say that with the highest regard), Jason Neiffer. The topic at hand was the idea of PAPERLESS CLASSROOMS; a novel idea, to say the least.

As I have the pleasure of working with Neiffer, I was aware of his experiments over the course of this year, but it was interesting hearing the details, successes, failures and so on.

A couple things I learned:

• PAPERLESS doesn't mean ZERO paper....just an attempt to reduce waste as much as possible
• Note taking is not dead in this paperless environment
• Kids might think idea is strange initially, but ill more than likely adapt and adjust
• While tech is great, there will always be a place for hard-copied material
• Neiffer REALLY, REALLY likes office supplies :-)

Very well done and interesting session. I truly like the idea of PAPERLESS and will work on transforming my classroom.

I did write down the link for Neiffer's notes, but I must have made a mistake, because it isn't working. I will get that in later. Check back!

Gizmos, Gadgets, and High Tech Toys

So there I was...sitting in Digital Storytelling. But then I caved...I knew the Gizmos class was going on at the same time. I dashed out and into this class--and nerded out to the dozens of useless tech toys out there. By the way, did you know the word "nerd" was coined from none other than Dr. Seuss? True...this book in fact:

Well, after his

acknowledgement of how he is often confused with Philippe Cousteau (check below for those similarities)...he had us turn on our cell phones to text us for about 40 prizes.

Can you tell which is which?

In fact, I just won some sort of drain contraption.

Ok so, pretty much every tool he showed us I would never purchase for the classroom...and not for myself...but it

did entertain me. Here are some of those useless gizmos:

So you know of Twitter...now have Twitter for your dog. Every time your dog barks-get an update.

Need an iPod Dock? Probably don't get this one:

Want to try to look cool while carring your iPod Touch? Then carrying it around like a weapon holster probably won't work:

Finally, do you lose your flash drive often? I guarantee you won't if you get it in the bowling ball style:

Over and out.

-Chelsie

So Many Sessions Promoting Google Apps

Great tools for students. I like how they allow learning to extend beyond the classroom. Especially interested in the power of RSS/Google Reader. Would love to see our district using these free resources!

Keeping Up with the Googlebots

Wow, so many cool things at this session. I really like the "Wonder Wheel" - great visual for students learning to create connections and branch out search titles. Complete a Google Search - choose more options, wonder wheel is towards the bottom of the options that appear on the left of the screen. Check it out!

Joice

Free and Open Source Tools For Secondary Math

After taking in all the wonders of the web that Tammy Worcester shared in her three sessions yesterday I decided to take in some content area tech stuff. This session is being put on by Jeff Allen, the Director of Educational Technology in the Olympic School District.

Jeff started out by introducing himself an telling us about his background and why he likes technology. He started out by saying,

"Of all of the things that we can control in the learning of students, the quality of the instruction that the kids receive has the greatest impact on the learning students. Technology is a tool that can serve as an amplifier for good instructional pedagogy." Jeff stated that these tools are "like an amplifier with a knob that goes up to 11," A nod to all of the Heavy Metal fans in the room.

Open Source vs. free - What's the difference? - Open source means that the computer code is open to be edited and updated by anyone. Free just means free.

Moodle - Using Moodle to open your classroom. This is something that HSD1 already has and a lot of people already use, so I'm not going to go into this too much.

Math Casts - Math 247 - This site is a site that is a database of "math casts" which are video captures of computer screens where teachers are solving example problems. Another Link he showed was a blog called Patty Papers who work a lot with math casts. A third site he showed up was called brightstorm.com This is another database of math casts that makes their money by selling ACT, SAT and AP prep student guides. But the math casts are free. A lot of these examples are free and have embed codes that can be added into moodle. Jeff then showed everyone how to use Jing to create their own podcasts. One of the attendees also said that a couple of different program that also work: screencast-o-matic and faststone.

Jeff also talked about having students make their own math casts and grading each other can be a powerful learning tool. The he talked about using voicethread.com another site that allows students to view a math cast and then create comments about the videos they are watching. This is basically a forum about a video. This site has a lot of potential for creating discourse about mathematics. A teacher could have students critique problem solving skills, look for errors, or create and peer-review the videos.

Flash Applets - Jeff show us the National Library of Virtual Manipulatives. He also showed us a website of simulations on the University of Colorado at Boulder Physics website. These Java applets are down-loadable and can be uploaded onto a moodle site.

We finished the session by looking at a Math Text using something the TEX filter. Apparently by inserting two dollar signs before and after a mathematical expression, you can make your expressions look like something that is created in the equation editor in Microsoft Word.

Example

"$$f(x)=3/(x^2)-12$$" will show up like this -


Then Jeff showed us Geogebra - This is an awesome free and open-source program that is as good or better than Geometer's sketchpad. Students can run this as a java file in their own computers, or can download the program for free and complete assignments on their own computer. I love this program.

The final thing Jeff showed us was something called fooplot. If you go to www.fooplot.com and then add a "/" and a function in the URL bar, plot the function in a web window.

Here's a list of the various links that Jeff showed us during the presentation.

All in all, it was a pretty good session. A lot of other people from the audience contributed to the session with various websites that parallel the sites Jeff showed the group.

MathCasts
Math 247 - Library of Math casts
Patty Papers - A blog about creating math casts
Bright Storm - More Mathcasts.

Virtual Manipulative Sites
National Library of Virtual Manipulatives - Great Site
PhET - CU Physics, Biology, Chemistry and Math Applets
Shodor Interactivate - Lessons with and without Java Applets
Thinkfinity - A great Site that has a ton of lessons with and without java applets
Illuminations weblinks - NCTM sponsored web-based lesson plans
MathTools - a search engine that searches all of the above websites and more. - I love this site.

Geogebra - This website has the free down-loadable Geogebra program and also a pretty good wiki of lesson plans and pre-made files that are great. There aren't very many however, but the ones that I've used are pretty good.


Is download-able a word?

Microsoft 2010

Computer Aps teachers rest assured MS 2010 has minimal changes and the new items will be nice improvements. The most obvious change will be the return of the File tab in place of the office button. Print preview and print will be combined. Cool embedding features, an animation painter, locking capabilities (like Acrobat) and Web 2.0 features on the "cloud" (similar to Google Docs). Oh and the ribbon can be customized!

Tammy Worcester is amazing!

Totally amazing array of web 2.0 applications from Tammy Worcester:

• Tammy's page -- it's full of more links and tips than we've listed here. I'm a subscriber.
  
• tinyURL! -- Ever want to share a link with students, have them type it in, but it's huge? In just a few clicks, you can take that big 'un and turn it into a tiny one.
• Google Forms -- it's part of Google Docs, which is amazing in itself. Ever want to make survey? This is the way to do it, or have students take an online quiz? you can do it with Google Forms, and it's pretty easy.
• Todays Meet -- want to create a chat that only lasts for a day or maybe a year, this is great.
• Vozme -- type anything you want into the box, and it will turn it into audio. You can then download it and do whatever you like with it. Want to copy and paste a student's paper in here and have them listen to it? No problem.
• imagination cubed -- online paint program, very simple, but effective.
• sketch odopod -- online art making. It records your every brush move and turns that into a movie, so you can watch the art being formed, just like PBS! The gallery of artists, better than I could ever do, is really cool just to watch!
• Jing -- do it, seriously. This is the the one tool I've vowed to take this one and use it. Use it as an amazing screen capture and annotation device, or use it to make annotated movie tutorials for your students. Super easy to boot.
• my avatar editor -- have students create a character or themselves in this easy to use, very wii like avatar editor. Save the picture as a .png and you can put your self onto any picture you like, and a speaking bubble, and you've got a whole new fun way to add yourself into a powerpoint.
• spelling city -- if you know a kid who takes spelling tests, this is really, really cool. I would have loved to have this one as a kid. Type in the words, it makes sentences, quizzes, games, and it's sweet.
• wordle -- type in a passage, and it will visually turn it into a word of art that show the main idea, very cool.
• fur.ly -- ever want to show a handful or a bunch of websites to a student all at once? This tool will take as many websites as you'd like to throw at a student, and turn it into one url. How cool is that?

Those are the sweet links, but you should be here to check out all the gadgets and gizmos. Plus, they're giving a bunch of them away! We'll see if any of us come back with loot.

Used Book Sale

Elliot Bay book sale = 60% of used books! Great ending to a great day!

Joice

Vodcasts

Great workshop with the basics of Vodcasting. The presenter, Jamie Yoos from Bellingham, WA uses vodcasts (video podcasts) to deliver instruction to students. He "flips" the day so their homework is to watch the lecture. The next day in class his students can then discuss the materials and ask more in-depth questions or experiment with hands-on projects. He uses Camtasia to create the software and teachertube.com for hosting but also suggested Jing as a free creation software.

Yoos doesn't really worry about student access to the internet because the school library and labs are open late, students also have access at the public library, via cell phones and ipods. He also noted a district in CO has created DVD's of their vodcasts. These steps essentially eliminate technology barriers.

As an AP and Honors teacher his students are no doubt highly motivated. However, Yoos also talked about using this technology for differentiation. For example, if a vodcast is made regarding a science lab, students who watch the vodcast at home can then start right away. Those who don't, can watch the vodcast in the classroom prior to starting the lab. This allows for a staggered start to the lab so the teacher can assist more students. Those who are most motivated have more time to complete hands-on tasks and take the lesson to a deeper level.

Another idea that I liked was vodcasting corrections of math assignments. Then the teacher plays the video at the beginning of class, students follow along checking individual work. Since the video is providing the step-by-step instruction the teacher can go through the class assisting students who are having difficulties. Those students who mastered the lesson and able to keep working with the video.

Yoos said it took about an hour to create a 15 minute vodcast (including the PowerPoint). The key is to remember you're human and perfection is fleeting.

Joice

My Day at NCCE

At this point, I am POOPED and ready for dinner. Been at it strong since 8 this morning and have learned some GREAT stuff. Here is a rundown:

• Tammy Worcester knows her technology! Check out www.tammyworcester.com for a list of some totally awesome, time-saving and FREE sites. My favs are as follows:

1. vocaroo.com
2. evernote.com
3. wheresmycellphone.com
4. kickyoutube.com (WAY,WAY cool)
5. bibme.org

Check out her site and click the HANDOUT tabs for more

• Phillip Cousteau was pretty interesting. He basically bragged about how sweet his life and job are (don't get me wrong, I like mine too) and railed about how we are killing the Earth (which I agree with). Good times!
• COPYRIGHT LAW......this was kinda confusing, but interesting. I, along with many of you, regularly "borrow" from the infinite resources out there. However, as I learned today, we can be liable for violations as teachers. If we are, it is our butts, not the schools...be careful! Visit www.edtech2020.com for details.
• The Library of Congress has some sweet stuff, primarily pictures, that would be great in American History classes. However, you could apply many of the resources to just about any topic. Go to www.loc.gov/teachers for more....
• LASTLY......Microsoft Office 2010 is on its way!!! From the looks of it (BETA version), it will be quite similar to 2007 for those of you familiar. A few updates include:

1. Embedding of video (PowerPoint primarily)
2. Even more user-friendly setup
3. Lots of web friendly additions

OK....I am hungry. Check back for more later!