Questionable Apple Behavior Regarding Original ACOT Research and Challenge Based Learning
This is a guest blog post by Sherman Nicodemus. This is my seventh post in a series this week on "Moving at the Speed of Creativity." If you have questions about this post I'll be glad to answer them via comments here.
I've been wrestling with a question for months now, and perhaps you can shed some light on the answer for me. Why did Apple remove the ACOT (Apple Classrooms of Tomorrow) research documents from its main website, if those "research results" were intended to help inform educational decision makers about the potential value of educational technologies through the dissemination of valid, reliable research results?
Apple Classrooms of Tomorrow (ACOT) research was conducted in the 1980s and 1990s, and was at the time the longest longitudinal study of classroom technology integration conducted by anyone. The research was funded by Apple, and Apple certainly stood to gain financially from research findings which pointed to the positive impact which appropriately utilized technologies could have on teaching and learning inside as well as outside the classroom. ACOT2 (Apple Classrooms of Tomorrow - Today) is a "next generation" research effort by Apple, which ostensibly seeks to carry on the successful research model and results of the original ACOT program which spanned ten years, from 1985 through 1995.
Here is what mystifies me: If ACOT2 is legitimate research which should be respected on a par with academic research published in journals not affiliated with commercial vendors, why are there not ANY linked references back to the original ACOT research on the ACOT2 website? Why does it appear Apple has removed/deleted all the original ACOT research reports from its corporate website? This seems very strange, and even fishy.
The published report, "Changing the Conversation About Teaching, Technology, & Learning ~ A Report on 10 Years of ACOT Research" was published at some point on http://images.apple.com/education/k12/leadership/acot/pdf/10yr.pdf and www.apple.com/education/k12/leadership/acot/pdf/10yr.pdf. Those links are now broken. The Internet Archive's Wayback Machine grabbed copies of the first PDF URL in 2006 and 2007, and the second in 2003 and 2005. Those dates do not necessarily reflect the only years during which this document was available online at those addresses, however. A Google search for the document title reveals it is still available as part of Marco Baeza's old student portfolio for his Internet Masters of Educational Technology degree from Sacramento State. It appears Baeza's archived copy was not authorized or sanctioned by Apple. I haven't spent hours looking for it, but other than Baeza's link and the Wayback Machine's copies, I can't locate this document online anywhere else. This seems REALLY strange.
A Google Scholar search for "Apple Classrooms of Tomorrow" yields over 20,000 results today. This reflects the authority and legitimacy with which ACOT research has been regarded by many. One of these websites includes archived copies of the periodic ACOT published research results. This is an example of ACOT Report #8. (PDF) Again I am mystified why Apple would remove these "research documents" from their own website.
The current Apple "Resource" page for Teachers & Professors does not include ANY references to original ACOT research, or links to any ACOT research materials. There IS a link to the "ACOT2 White Paper," but again no link to original ACOT research publications or findings.
I think many of the ideas expressed in the ACOT2 documents are superb and needed. We absolutely need to rethink formal education, classrooms, and learning environments. It troubles me, however, that Apple has apparently jettisoned its "past research" (ACOT 1) in the publication of this new and updated, ACOT 2 framework. Why would legitimate academic or scientific researchers do this? They wouldn't, which leads me to question the legitimacy and validity of both the original ACOT research as well as the ACOT2 research initiative.
The other thing which troubles me deeply about Apple's ACOT2 initiative is its "Challenge Based Learning" framework. Project-based learning and problem-based learning are pedagogical approaches which have a relatively long history, particularly when compared with the short history of educational technology. EduTopia's website portal for "Project Based Learning" includes a rich assortment of videos and other resources which clearly establish the academic history of PBL. In its ACOT2 initiative, rather than state something like, "Educational experts and researchers at Apple endorse and support project-based approaches to learning," the Apple Challenge-Based Learning website states:
To address the need to create new ways of engaging students to achieve, Apple worked with educators across the country to develop the concept of Challenge Based Learning. Challenge Based Learning applies what is known about the emerging learning styles of high school students and leverages the powerful new technologies that provide new opportunities to learn to provide an authentic learning process that challenges students to make a difference. Challenge Based Learning is an engaging multidisciplinary approach to teaching and learning that encourages students to leverage the technology they use in their daily lives to solve real-world problems. Challenge Based Learning is collaborative and hands-on, asking students to work with other students, their teachers, and experts in their communities and around the world to develop deeper knowledge of the subjects students are studying, accept and solve challenges, take action, share their experience, and enter into a global discussion about important issues.
Just as many of the ideas included in ACOT2 are great and ones with which I agree personally and professionally, many of the ideas embodied in "Challenge Based Learning" are on target. I think its disingenuous and unfortunate, however, for Apple to "lay claim" to the core concepts and principles of project-based learning as it has been developed for decades by numerous educators as well as researchers.
Perhaps it's silly of me to worry about questions like these, but integrity is very important and I find it lacking in both of these situations regarding Apple. Why did Apple take down all its original ACOT research from its website, and by a lack of hyperlinks dis-associate itself with the body of recognized educational technology research which was ACOT? Furthermore, why is Apple attempting to rename "project based learning" as "challenge based learning" and give itself corporate credit for coming up with this pedagogical approach, when it is patently obvious "they" are not the originators of the concept and method?
My only conclusion is that for Apple today in 2010, it's all about selling stuff-- Whether you're working for Apple Education or working in an Apple Store. It's not about a learning revolution. It's not about fundamentally changing education, it's about trying to simply shift educational decisionmaker attention to Apple products so that quarterly profits can go up yet again.
I can't fault Apple for being a corporation. They ARE a corporation. I always thought Apple stood for values which were far bigger and more important than "just" profits, however. I've even heard Apple leaders say as much in the past.
I guess when you get really big, some basic things can change.
I miss the old Apple, and the friends I thought I had who used to work for that old company.
Technorati Tags:
apple, change, edtech, leadership, learning, research, school, technology, acot, acot2, valid, reliable, study, report, scholar
PSAs to stop texting and driving
Texting and driving is a big problem with teens as well as adults. According to PEW's November 2009 report, "Teens and Distracted Driving:"
- One in three (34%) texting teens ages 16-17 say they have texted while driving. That translates into 26% of all American teens ages 16-17.
- 48% of all teens ages 12-17 say they have been in a car when the driver was texting.
- 40% say they have been in a car when the driver used a cell phone in a way that put themselves or others in danger.
These statistics should get our attention, but in many cases they don't. Different organizations are attempting to leverage the power of online video to stop this dangerous behavior. Public service announcements (PSAs) which show (in some cases) graphic depictions of violence are controversial and raise questions about the propriety of using shocking images to motivate people to change their unsafe behaviors.
photo credit: indyplanets
In August of 2009, MSNBC published the article, "Is PSA about texting while driving too graphic?" about a video originating out of Gwent, Wales. Some versions of the video have been pulled from YouTube for terms violations. This version, "PSA Texting while Driving U.K. Ad [HD]" is still available. WARNING: This video includes a graphic depiction of a multi-car accident in which several actors are killed.
The state of Utah has launched its "Zero Fatalities" campaign which includes the following fifteen minute video, also aimed at changing teen and other adult drivers' behavior with respect to texting while driving.
Oklahoma librarian Whitney Allen created the Ning project website, "Don't Text and Drive" to focus student attention on the issue of texting and driving. Students from Indiana, Washington, Michigan, and Oklahoma are currently participating, and more are invited to join.
In her K12Online09 presentation, "Digiteens: Digital Citizenship by Digital Teenagers," Georgia teacher and noted edublogger Vicki Davis (CoolCat Teacher) showcased several PSA videos created by her students, including one persuading others not to text and drive.
What do you think of PSAs like the Gwent, Wales, video which are graphic and disturbing? MADD (Mother's Against Drunk Driving) received criticism in the 1980s and 1990s, as I recall, for using graphic images at times to bring attention to the problems associated with mixing alcohol and driving. When you see videos or images like these, it is hard NOT to pay attention. Where do we draw the line when it comes to attention-getting PSAs, however? How is YouTube drawing that line? The stakes are high, so perhaps the line should be at least a bit beyond the range where we are "comfortable" watching a video. We SHOULD be disturbed by the violence and destruction which results from both drinking and driving and texting while driving, and be motivated to change our behavior if we have done these things in the past.
Technorati Tags:
video, youtube, text, texting, driving, violence, psa, gwent, wales, controversy, project
Great Project Based Learning Resources from the Buck Institute for Education and EduTopia
This past October when I participated in the 21st Century Learning conference in Hongzhou, China, I learned about the Buck Institute for Education. BIE has a fantastic website including a multitude of videos about project based learning, like this one titled, "Teachers Learn Through Modeling."
A few weeks ago I tweeted EduTopia staff and asked for their best recommended video on project based learning. They recommended, "Project Learning: An Overview." (9:46) The video description is:
Seymour Papert, a distinguished professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is among a growing group of scholars who support project learning. Read a short introductory article or watch a brief introductory video.
What are your favorite resources (including videos) which support PBL, in addition to BIE and EduTopia?
Technorati Tags:
change, leadership, learning, project, school, transformation, pbl, based, bie, edutopia
Interactive Digital Native Map and the What’s Your Issue Videography contest
PBS Frontline's digital_nation: life on the virtual frontier is a fantastic program as well as media-rich website filled with videos, articles, and information about our digital youth culture. The documentary premieres this week on February 2nd, but the website is already filled with outstanding resources. One of my favorites is project's Digital Native Map, an interactive site with a wealth of updated stats relating to youth and their digital lifestyles.
Clicking on a different part of the interactive body map displays related statistics, like these about the brain:
Searching online activates more brain regions than reading printed words.
On average, multitaskers spend 11 minutes on a project before switching to another, typically changing tasks within a project every three minutes.
It takes about 15 minutes to return with full attention to a serious mental task after you responded to an e-mail or instant message.
Video gaming in moderation can help develop improved pattern recognition, more systematic thinking and better executive skills.
Website articles are filled with links to references and additional materials. Browsing through the available videos, I found the following two particularly compelling.
Todd Oppenheimer, author of "The Flickering Mind," argues that computer classes should be treated like "shop class" in our schools. Work habits are KEY, and schools MUST help students acquire these skills. (1:06)
In Marc Prensky's interview montage titled "Education 2.0" by the digital_nation producers, he asserts students want to engage in interactive, hands-on collaborative projects which have a focus on changing their communities and changing our world. While I'm not a big fan of Prensky's digital native / immigrant dichotomy I do agree with his endorsement of project-based, engaged learning in this video. (4:31)
Thanks to a Facebook post this weekend by Marco Torres, I learned about "What's Your Issue:"
A Global Initiative and Competition for the next generation of leaders and social entrepreneurs - Seeking global thinkers 14 to 24... For 2010, we are looking for 3-minute videos with Issue & Solution format. Express your issue and propose an innovative solution-project. Winners presented to Obama administration, on Best Buy screens across the planet, and at VIP reception and Awards Ceremony hosted by Sony Pictures in Los Angeles
This sixty second YouTube spot summarizes the project and contest. If you have any of the "digital natives" Prensky is talking about in the previous video clip in your classroom or household, you might give them a heads-up on this contest. 
Technorati Tags:
digital, education, interactive, learning, map, nation, oppenheimer, pbs, students, technology, native, natives, frontline, digital_nation, prensky
Save the Date! PodStock 2010: July 16-17
It's coming and you won't want to miss it! The 2010 PodStock conference will be held July 16-17, 2010, at the Old Town Hotel in Wichita, Kansas. The 2009 PodStock conference was a GREAT event, made superb by the contributions of lots of creative educators from around the midwest of the USA and beyond. Mark you calendar now, and RSVP via the 2010 PodStock Facebook event page! If you have not already, also join the PodStock Ning.
Podstock is organized by the amazing folks at ESSDACK in Hutchinson, and is the brainchild of the creative Kevin Honeycutt, among many others.
Technorati Tags:
conference, creativity, education, kansas, learning, podstock, school, technology, podstock10, podstock2010, wichita
Global Awareness, Community Service and Classroom Project Ideas
It is very important we help students in our classrooms develop deeper, broader, authentic world views through the information we share and collaborative activities in which we engage together during and after class. It is also critical we help students develop values like respect, empathy, and compassion. Learning is most powerful when it is experiential and connected to the real world, and more opportunities than ever are available to help bring these types of learning experiences to your students. Here are several ideas for research resources and class projects you should consider this year.
Multicultural education is very important, but sometimes classroom activities are limited to just learning about holiday customs and foods in different countries. As we study other parts of the world, we should strive to PERSONALIZE and HUMANIZE learning by making direct connections with others in different contexts. Global Voices Online is one of my favorite websites to use when researching other countries to read individual blogger perspectives about and from those countries. Use the drop down menus at the top of the website to select a country, region, or topic of interest.
If you're looking to make a direct connection with teachers and students in another country, utilize one or more of the following free websites and learning communities to find a partner classroom: ePals, Teachers Connecting, the Center for Interactive Learning and Collaboration's Collaboration Center, the Global Education Collaborative, Global SchoolNet's Projects Registry, and Classroom 2.0. The K-12 Online Conference is a great place to make connections as well. These links are provided on my workshop wiki, "Connecting and Collaborating with International Teachers Worldwide."
Students benefit when they are guided to understand that learning does not have to be limited to a purely cognitive, isolated and disconnected experience. Service learning:
... is a method of teaching, learning and reflecting that combines academic classroom curriculum with meaningful service, frequently youth service, throughout the community. As a teaching methodology, it falls under the philosophy of experiential education. More specifically, it integrates meaningful community service with instruction and reflection to enrich the learning experience, teach civic responsibility, encourage lifelong civic engagement, and strengthen communities for the common good.
The National Service Learning Clearinghouse contains a wealth of resources you can use to start and support service learning initiatives in your classroom and school. If you're involved in a service learning project, consider empowering your students to become Storychasers. Storychasers can use digital and social media technologies to "tell the story" and "chase the story" of their service learning project, heightening awareness and realizing the project's objectives with powerful communications technologies.
While local community service and action is vital, it is also important to help students understand their decisions and actions can have a global impact. Kiva is an outstanding project to consider joining as an individual and as a classroom to make a real difference in the lives of others through fundraising and providing entrepreneurial loans. According to Kiva's about page:
We Let You Loan to Low Income Entrepreneurs: Kiva's mission is to connect people through lending for the sake of alleviating poverty. Kiva is the world's first person-to-person micro-lending website, empowering individuals to lend to unique entrepreneurs around the globe.
If you join Kiva and make a microloan, consider joining Karl Fisch's "Shift Happens" Team on Kiva. See Karl's December 2008 posts, "Give Until It Feels Good: Join Team Shift Happens on Kiva" and "Kiva Update and a Not-So-Modest Proposal." Students can help determine which country and what person to which they'd like to make a loan, and then track over time the progress of that person in reaching their entrepreneurial goals.
Once the person to whom you and your class have made a loan repays that amount, your "investment capital" is then freed for you to make another loan to someone else. This project can not only help students in your class make more personal learning connections to people in other countries, it can also help students learn about economics and how their actions can make a positive difference in the lives of others fighting poverty, by supporting entrepreneurs. The fact that your class can periodically log in to check up on the "progress" and status of Kiva entrepreneurs to whom you loan money can also add to the potential value and impact of this activity.
A final classroom project idea less focused on "changing the world" through service learning and activism, but none-the-less potentially exciting for students as they expand their geographic worldviews, is to create a classroom "travel bug" and set it loose amidst the world's geocaches. According to the English WikiPedia:
A Travel Bug is a registered trademark of Groundspeak, Inc. used to describe a dogtag used in Geocaching. It is moved from cache to cache, and its travels can be logged on the geocaching website (www.geocaching.com). Each travel bug tag is printed with a unique PIN, which is needed to post a log online. Some tags are fastened to an object, such as a plastic figurine, before they are put in a cache.
Travel bugs are tracked on the Groundspeak-owned website Geocaching.com, but there are a number of other tracking sites such as Geotag Tracker or Traveler Tags that log other trackable items.
After participating in Beth Goodwin's ACTEM 2009 workshop last week ("Geocaching In and Out of the Classroom") and hearing how much fun her own students have had creating geocaches in historical sites of interest around Wells, Maine, I realized that "travel bugs" would make a great classroom project as well. You can choose the "mission" or destination for your travel bug, and that can be directly related to your geographic studies in the classroom. Geocaching can be fun as well as educational, but the learning can be taken to another level through the creation and release of "trackable" items like "travel bugs."
We need to take global awareness seriously in our families, classrooms, and communities. Silvia Tolisano's K12Online07 presentation, "Travel through Space and Time," is a great professional development session which emphasizes the importance of global awareness and also provides more concrete suggestions for classroom projects that can enhance students' global literacy.
Technorati Tags:
activism, classroom, education, geocaching, global, learning, project, school, service, awareness, projects, travelbug, entrepreneur
In Praise of Outdoor School, Ed Holzberger, Classen SAS and Oklahoma City Public Schools
This past Wednesday, my 11 year old son and I were on a three mile hike in the Arbuckle Mountains of south-central Oklahoma, heading to "three falls" about a mile from from Camp Classen. I turned to him and said, "Wow, isn't this amazing? Just think, you could be sitting in school today, and here we are hiking in the woods... But wait a minute, you ARE in school! We laughed and continued on our hike to the falls with about 35 other classmates, parents and teachers.
Thanks to the hard work of many teachers and parents, 148 sixth graders from Classen School of Advanced Studies (a public magnet school) in Oklahoma City Public Schools spent a VERY memorable 4 days together in "outdoor school" this week learning about geology, meteorology, hydrology, fossil hunting, and much more in the best science classroom of all: The great outdoors! Here are a few highlights and reflections from our week of outdoor camp.
Water and rain played a big role in our week, but thankfully it did not impede any of our major activities. On our "three falls" hike, we had to ford or otherwise walk across streams (on rocks or logs) six different times. This was a novel experience for MANY of the students in our group, and probably some of the 28 adults who were sponsors and chaperones. It reminded me of backpacking on the west coast of New Zealand's South Island, where (in the summer of 1987) I spent many hours hiking up river valleys and crossing streams. No, the topography of the Arbuckles does not equal New Zealand-- but few things can beat the opportunity to experience the challenges and thrills of the great outdoors firsthand, wherever you may live! Many of Alexander's classmates at Classen may never get a chance to hike in New Zealand, but now they can all proudly say they've been hiking-- a LOT-- in Oklahoma's Arbuckle mountains!
Our activities were organized on a "matrix" schedule designed by Mr. Ed Holtzberger, who has been taking Oklahoma City Public School students to outdoor camps for several decades. I really can't praise "Mr. H" enough, along with all the other teachers from Classen SAS who made this week possible. While my son has had a variety of previous outdoor experiences thanks to his involvement in Boy Scouting as well as our own family camping trips, it was phenomenal for him to be able to experience "outdoor school" with his new Classen classmates and be exposed to so much contextually-rich, experiential learning in one of the most beautiful parts of our wonderful state. I wish every student could be so fortunate to have a "Mr. H" working MANY, MANY extra hours to provide an outdoor school experience for so many students and parents. It was a week I'm sure we'll never forget.
Our first scheduled activity was boating on the waterfront, in rowboats and canoes.
For the majority of boys in our cabin (14 in all) this was their first experience paddling or rowing on a lake. No one capsized, but we did have some high stress levels when a caterpillar dropped down onto the life preserver of one of our students! From his reaction, you'd have thought a crocodile had his leg in his jaws! Lots of memorable experiences were had by all, and many of the most memorable were not expected or predicted! When you get a group of students, teachers and parents together in an environment like this with a flexible schedule for learning, amazing things are bound to happen -- and of course, they did!
The archery range was definitely a favorite of many of our students this week. Again, many had never had an opportunity to shoot a bow and arrow previously. The archery range was always open for use during free time, and just required a parent to supervise and manage the range when students used it. I think our cabin group shot at the archery range at least 4 - 5 times this week, to include a final trip this morning after they finished packing and cleaning up our cabin.
A big highlight was learning about fossils and actually finding them. Most of the fossils we found were crinoids, estimated at 400 million years of age. It's pretty amazing to find something that old yourself in the dirt, hold it in your hand, and have permission to take it home (up to four per student) so you can show your family as well as examine them further.
Snakes and other creepy/crawly animals and insects are always a sure way to get the attention of young people, and Mr. Preston did a great job sharing his knowledge and collection of snakes with our kids. Some students were able to hold snakes. Usually each one would ask as they received the snake, "It won't bite, will it?" to which Mr. Preston would truthfully respond, "Now I didn't say that..." (No one got bit, however.)
Mr. Preston's presentation on "skins and skulls" was one of my personal favorites. This next photo is Alexander with Mr Preston, with Alexander holding a black bear skull (which has molars as well as carnivore teeth, since it's an omnivore) and Mr. Preston holding a wolf skull, which just has flesh-tearing and eating incisors since it's 100% predator.
In this next image, Mr. Preston compares a wolf skull (on the left) with a much smaller coyote skull (on the right.) What a difference!
Here are two of my favorite images from the week: This is Mr. Holzberger teaching the kids on the fossil hike about the age of our earth. This is an image of an amazing science teacher, teaching in what must be one of best science classrooms in the world for geology: the Arbuckle mountains!
In this activity, students took 1 step for every 100 million years of earth history, and Mr. Holtzberger had different parents stop and remain at different key times in geologic history. This was a great method for trying to help others visualize just how HUGE geologic time is, especially compared to our short, human history.
I really enjoyed leading some optional geocaching activities for campers and parents on both Wednesday and Thursday. These were the GPS units we used: Five Garmin eTrex units and my Garmin eTrex Legend.
Our groups found four of the five geocaches hidden by Camp Classen staff around the camp. They used small Pelican cases for their geocaches, and each was secured to the ground with a metal wire and stake to prevent it from "walking off" with a camper or an unsuspecting muggle.
One of the caches had not been properly closed by the previous finders, and the effects of water as well as bugs made a clear visual aide for making the point to our students: Be sure to securely close the geocache after you sign the find log!
I could recount more experiences and memories, but I'll close by again noting how VERY appreciative I am to Mr. H, Mrs. Carlton, and many, many others who made this week's outdoor school experience possible. Alexander and I are quite proud to now call ourselves Classen Comets, and we're likely to never forget this week's experiences in the Arbuckles with his Classen classmates in the Class of 2016!
Technorati Tags:
camp, learning, okcps, oklahoma, oklahomacity, school, outdoor, classen, classensas, sas, arbuckles, arbuckle, ymca
Podcast330: Get Out of Your FUNK, Cut the JIVE! Make Your Classroom Come Alive!!!
This podcast is a recorded presentation from the Podstock 2009 conference on May 1 in Wichita, Kansas, by some of the most innovative elementary teachers you could ever hope to meet. Linley Voboril, Tamara Padfield, and Kimberly Herron presented this session titled, Get Out of Your FUNK, Cut the JIVE! Make Your Classroom Come Alive!!! The official conference description for this session was: Get your students totally psyched about Social Studies by seamlessly integrating technology into your classroom. We have weaved Google apps, Voice Thread, iMovie, podcasting, and many other 2.0 tools into content to make learning seriously groovy! [end of description] Linley's bio on the conference website stated: I am a fifth grade teacher at a very progressive district in Inman, Kansas. Our fifth and sixth grade classrooms are the recipients of back-to-back Technology Rich Classroom grants for the past two years. As educators, we have worked hard to seamlessly weave technology into existing curriculum and develop new, exciting activities to accompany that. As a teacher of 17 years, ranging from kindergarten through 6th grade, including special education, I feel empowered by technology. The excitement to share and learn with other educators has impacted my instruction in numerous ways. I received my undergraduate degree from Kansas Wesleyan University and my Master's degree from Wichita State University. I have had the privilege of teaching 13 years in the McPherson school district and four years at Inman. [end] Kimberly noted in her conference bio: The utilization of project-based research, cooperative learning, computer software and web 2.0 tools. These tools enhance the educational experience of her students helping them achieve both academic and personal growth. [end] I thoughtlessly placed my recorder for this session right next to the projector fan, so there was a lot of background noise in this original recording. I attempted to use Apple's Soundtrack Pro to remove a lot of the background noise, but the results are just marginally better. Please accept my apologies for the uncharacteristically poor quality of this audio recording - but realize the IDEAS these teachers shared are fantastic!
Podcast330: Get Out of Your FUNK, Cut the JIVE! Make Your Classroom Come Alive!!! [58:10m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (1305)
Podcast330: Get Out of Your FUNK, Cut the JIVE! Make Your Classroom Come Alive!!! [58:10m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (1305)Show Notes:
- My text notes from this session
- Partial Ustream archive of this session
- Kimberly Herron’s MobileMe website: Herron’s Happenings (6th grade)
- Tamara Padfield’s MobileMe website: Padfield Publications (5th grade)
- Linley Voboril’s MobileMe website: Voboril Vibes (5th grade)
- Technology Rich Classroom Program (Kansas Department of Education) - A Ning website
- VoiceThread
- Mixbook
- Skitch
- Study on “Blood on the River” with VoiceThread
- Google SketchUp
- Podstock Ning
- Podstock Southwest Ning
Subscribe to "Moving at the Speed of Creativity" weekly podcasts!
Receive an email alert whenever a new Speed of Creativity podcast is published!
Interviews and subway videos from Hong Kong International Schools (Part 1)
Here's a collection of four, short video interviews from this past Wednesday with different school administrators in Hong Kong and from our journey on the MTR (Hong Kong's subway system) between schools.
In this 40 second clip, Deputy Head of College Peter Lasscock explains "rapid prototyping" and how the technology design lab at Discovery College utilizes it with students. This is the same technology Weta Workshop in New Zealand used to design weapons for the film trilogy "The Lord of the Rings."
In this 40 second clip, Paul White of the English Schools Foundation in Hong Kong uses a map of the MTR (Hong Kong subway system) to explain our journey across the city from Discovery College (in Discovery Bay) to Renaissance College. This involved a LOT of subway bus changes!
This 53 second clip shows us boarding one of the subways on our journey Wednesday.
In this 1.5 minute clip, Deputy Head of Renaissance College, Dylan Hughes, explains the instructional philosophy of the school's innovative "Red Door" program, or Creative Media Room. The project utilizes creative/digital arts experts from industry working directly with teachers and nominated groups of students to develop capacity to effectively utilize digital tools in project-based learning. The project's Ning website is invitation-only. The core services of The Red Door involve:
PLANNING
Work with teachers during the planning of units. Consider and select appropriate digital tools and resources. Plan and organize relevant resources, time frames, and skill workshops. Make and/or locate suitable resources for teachers and students.
IN CLASS SUPPORT
Work with small groups of students to develop core skills and knowledge about digital tools. Develop efficient and effective knowledge transfer practices using a train the trainer model.
PROFESSIONAL LEARNING
Provide ready made workshops for students, teaching staff, support staff and parents. Conduct software research and reviews for new software and hardware items. Share these findings with relevant curriculum leaders and coordinators. Promote sharing of online resources.
Technorati Tags:
@21chk, hongkong, integration, school, schools, technology, video
Classsroom 2.0: What Is Web 2.0’s Role in Schools?
These are my notes to the "Classsroom 2.0: What Is Web 2.0's Role in Schools?" at NECC 2009. This was a panel discussion. I captured the entire backchannel for this session as a PDF file. Thanks to Vicki Davis for setting up the backchannel in Chatzy!
Julie Lindsey: I covet the learning connections and networks which I make now as a result
Darren Draper: I use the Internet as an extension of my brain
Steve Hargadon
- is this a passing fad or a sea change? How big of a change is it?
David Jakes:
- it has potential to be a sea change, but if we just focus on tools it won't amount to much
- citing article "Have you considered the Internet as literacy, as a context for reading, writing and communication"
- those things are timeless and we understand as
- better to talk about a new context to read, write and communicate, rather than talking about "web 2.0 tools"
Chris Lehmann:
- the notion of a collaborative, participatory culture is definitely out of the box
- no one is going to give that up once they've realized/experienced it
Sylvia Martinez:
- first step is to define web 2.0
- dictionary would say: a very specific way webpages handle entry and access
- what we have done is expanded the definition
- that is dangerous because we've expanded the meaning, to the point now that it can be meaningless
Darren Draper:
- evidence pointing to the idea it's not a passing fad: this panel
- we have public and private, U.S. based and international
Steve Hargadon:
- audience, is it here to stay or passing fad?
Audience: "Here to stay"
Steve: "Cool."
MY THOUGHT: HOPEFULLY THAT IS NOT THE INTELLECTUAL DEPTH OF THE CONVERSATION WE ARE GOING TO HAVE HERE. (I.E. WEB 2.0 IS COOL. WITH THE PANEL HERE I KNOW THAT WILL NOT BE THE CASE, THIS IS GOING TO BE A GREAT CONVERSATION
Chris Lehmann:
- we need a defined pedagogical conversation about this
Jakes:
- should focus on the skills: writing and collaboration, not the tools
- the tools are going to come and go
Julie Lindsey:
- web 2.0 has changed how people change their strategies for instruction in the classroom
- allows you to communicate, collaborate and create at different levels
- is transforming what we can do in the classroom
Darren:
- web 2.0 focus can bring in sharing, collaboration, and digital citizenship which may not be on our state core curriculum standards yet
Jakes:
- we are having those conversations throughout our school community
- we focus on intersection of literacy and technology, and what that means
- I like to ask, "What does it mean to be well educated in the 21st century?"
- we have moved away from information fluency, information literacy
- what does it mean for instruction when we are focusing on what it means to be well educated today?
- what changes does that invite/require in curriculum and assessment?
Lemann:
- transformation is taking ideas from Dewey, Connectivism ideas from Siemans, is a new paradigm
- what do these things mean for how we teach and learn?
Darren:
- interesting that I learned about Michael Jackson's death via Twitter first
- our students are learning with these tools NOW whether we like it or not
- it makes sense to integrate and implement those technologies in the ways we teach
Sylvia:
- we have to fill the vacuum with appropriate ways to use these tools, or students will fill the void with inappropriate ways
- we need to point out the glib ways web 2.0 tools are sometimes "claimed" to be used (SMARTboards are not web 2.0 tools)
- ask "how is that student centered?" and "how does that empower the child?"
- web 2.0 can enable that renegotiation of the relationship between students and teachers
MY THOUGHT: AREN'T WE TIRED OF SAYING "IT'S NOT ABOUT THE TOOLS YET?!"
Vicki Davis:
- why do we need to have a Ning workshop to use Ning?
I AGREE WITH THAT. CELEBRATE OKLAHOMA VOICES IS A GOOD EXAMPLE OF USING TOOLS CONTEXTUALLY TO ACCOMPLISH A TASK.
Workshop on "here's how to use this tool" is less powerful than a workshop on "here is a core value of our school, and here is a way we can/are using tools to accomplish that" is better
Question
Jakes:
- what do you do when the walls around you become permeable
- this is a climate and culture issue
- how comfortable is the school letting students step outside those walls as they produce and publish content
- connections for schools begin locally
- learning community begins first, not just in a social way but also in an academic way
THIS REMINDS ME OF THE GORE-TEX CLASSROOM ANALOGY I DEVELOPED AWHILE BACK. GOOD METAPHOR.
Chris Lehmann:
- our kids need mentors. badly. We need to be and provide mentors for our kids
Sylvia:
- you can't convince others with words about the value of web 2.0 tools
- there is not a way to fight this in terms of trying to fight liability fears directly
- best way is to make these models of success as visible as possible
I ABSOLUTELY AGREE. AMPLIFYING SUCCESSES IS THE KEY. EXAMPLES ARE THE KEY.
Jakes:
- this is a school community issue
- this involves a group we don't talk with often: the kids
- recently asked adults at a panel about how many have recently had conversations with their kids about what they know, are doing, etc online
Lehmann:
- simple things we don't yet do: it's mind boggling every school in America doesn't have a listserv of all parents to send out the daily announcements
- we wrote a Moodle hack so parents could go to our website and find out the homework each day
- at EduCon conference we have students
- give students small reasons/steps to come into the school
- going from "I grew up in this community" to "my kids at school are talking to someone in Belize" is a huge leap
Sylvia:
- sometimes the horrible, legal AUP is the only thing we send home to parents
- messaging of technology has to be positive, constant, to the students
- if you are not bringing your students in as allies, you need to
- if kids are going home with the message you want to send, that will trump your AUP every time
Darren:
- asking what kind of efforts we are doing to try and teach our parents
THAT IS A GREAT QUESTION. SOMEONE SUGGESTED DOING SMALL, SHORT COFFEE CHATS FOR PARENTS AT SCHOOL VIA THE PTO/PTA.
Julie:
- we have a teaching parents Ning
- helping parents make informed decisions
Chris:
- At SLA we have a culture of laptops up / laptops down in class, we have talked about whether we need to do that at times in faculty meetings
- what do we want our kids to be able to do, and what tools can harness their ability to do those things?
Sylvia:
- to assume that kids don't already have a backchannel in their heads already is a mistake
- having kids communicate about what they are doing, and the classroom experience, is a way to harness some of those energies
- often kids are buzzing in their heads and much of formal education is going over their heads now
Very impassioned comments by a participant (name I don't know)
- point was: find tools LATER AFTER you set your goals
- disagree with the message "you have to use blogs, you have to use wikis"
Someone else: we are putting up walls now with laptop screens
Lehmann:
- we are focused on teaching communication skills, students are communicating with each other, organizations in our local community
- last year was "Change the World" project, last year was "Change Philadelphia" project, based on "think globally, act locally" mantra
Sylvia:
- this today is not a classroom, this is an experiment
Julie:
- I have seen this (backchanneling) work extremely well in classrooms, in conferences (for Flat Classroom conference), in different languages
Vicki:
- when you have a backchannel you need to have a moderator
THIS IS A COMMENT I MADE IN THE BACKCHANNEL:
I really push back on this idea that "we should never talk about the TOOLS." It is ok to talk about the tools at times. We start with an awareness level knowledge of tools, move to a personal use, then go to the instructional level of use, both taking other's ideas and inventing our own. It is a process. It is ok to talk about the tools. We shouldn't feel guilty talking about the tools, esp with people who are not familiar with them AT ALL.
Jakes quoting Lehmann: "What is the worst consequence of your best idea?"
Technorati Tags:
#necc09, collaboration, necc, necc09, technology, web2, schools
Best Practices for Encouraging Learning 24/7: Models that Work!
These are my notes from the NECC 2009 session "Best Practices for Encouraging Learning 24/7: Models that Work!" Official program description is:
Several distinguished educators will offer actual examples of 24/7 learning approaches to educational practice. Can these technology-based, best practices inform your classroom teaching?
Presenters are: Michael Searson, Kean University with Judith Beaver, Andrew Gardner, David Gibson, Kevin Jarrett and Elaine Wrenn. MY THOUGHTS AND REFLECTIONS ARE IN ALL CAPS. FOR MORE RELATED TO THIS SEE MY APRIL 2008 PODCAST, "Transformative Project Based Learning in a 1:1 Laptop Initiative: 10 Years of Lessons and Best Practices at Punahou School in Honolulu, Hawaii"
Comments from Judy Beaver, Punahou School in Honolulu, HI
Looking a lot at language acquisition and Marzano's strategies for our intensive summer PD
- using Garageband
- when the kids heard themselves, they raised the bar and challenged themselves to try again
- focusing on how to reach kids that are hard to reach
- using Kidspiration to record ideas/answers to questions
- using tech to capitalize on student's natural observational skills
- outside: what do they see, hear, smell, feel
- using cameras to capture what they experience, using those photos as prompts for later writing
Research shows providing audio books for students really helps
- students who were groaning at reading time, are now groaning when it is over
After school literacy is a part of our normal year programs
- not a sustainable program year after year
- these are kids whose reading level is not up to grade level
- Using "Read Naturally" and Lexia
Now have a Robotics program that has moved from an after school program to an elective
- the teacher reports he sees very different uses for robotics programs in the during-school versus after school
Also have an "Entrepreneurs in Residence" program
- last year 2 of the entrepreneurs in residence are film directors, and together they put together a school film festival
Student travel opportunities
- also have opportunities for faculty travel that have greatly impacted our learning in classrooms
- this summer is the first time we partnered with summer lab school to offer credit for student
- working with Earth University in LeFlore, Costa Rica
- focus on observations and developing research questions, and sharing those with the University
- outfitted students with iPod Touches, GPS units, photo here is a "practice hike" in Manoa
- doing a Google Earth project prior to their trip to Costa Rica
Next comments from David Gibson
What would happen if we didn't have a school anymore, we just had the web?
- would students work for several months in a collaborative project
- yes, thousands of kids do and have gotten involved with projects like this
Core units involve students and adults
- our goal is to reach high school students worldwide through the web, who are interested in having an experience collaborating together in global teams focusing on a single problem: solve global warming before you go to college
- many of them have very good ideas, many of which are globally scalable
- we use open ended problem solving, leverage advanced technologies, applying knowledge, designing and implementing climate change solutions
We organize activities into things that look like webquests and then organize those into tracks
- we are trying to get a key concept out of kids that they want to turn into a project and a business plan if possible
Students decide and take actions based on interests
- spread awareness: take action / design a solution
- schedules, collaborators, and products
- game and simulation-based online learning experiences
- work is evaluated by scientists and educators
this will be the largest data set on the supply side
- project was student initiated
- students can take it to the level of a global business plan
- projects being done by 14 year olds
We use a lot of games and design our own
- we have A CD coming out in July
- very interested in having more students, we have about 4000 now
- we'd like more adults aware to support student success
We have final products
- my background started in performance assessment
- critical feedback from the scientific community also at the end
Global challenge bridges informal and formal learning
- easy to implement with flexible units of study
- self-directed, open-ended, problem-based, guided inquiry
- interdisciplinary
- action-oriented, authentic, community engagement
4 ways to bring us in:
- curriculum enhancement
- elective courses
- independent studies
- productivity centered service learning
Have linked up to state and national standards
Comments on "Game Design and Social Networking: Learning Outside the Walls"
- Andrew Gardner
- works as 3rd - 5th grade technology integrator at the School at Columbia
Twitter: agardnahh
I had a university background in game design
content question: what interests students?
context: what do we provide to facilitate communication, collaboration and continued conversation away from school?
PLAY really interests students
- playing out their social situations
- so we wanted to give them something somewhat play-oriented
How are we going to let them connect outside of schools: with new media tools
Gamestar Mechanics
- Afterschool
- GLS conference: Games, Learning and Society, associated with Arizona State University
- Gamestar Mechanic is a web-based game that teaches you about game design, game design principles
- social network powered by ELGG
At my school we have our own social network we host on our own site, our own Flickr, our own YouTube, (based in Drupal)
- all walled-garden applications we run ourselves
GameStar Mechanic: Five core design elements you have to "fix"
- rules
- core mechanics
- components
- space
- goal
We are seduced by goals, we need to have some
When you are in Gamestar Mechanic, you become aware meta-cognitively of these complex, interconnected pieces
- this is a very authentic way for getting kids thinking with a "systems approach"
Gamestar Mechanic was in beta and went down, so we went to Plan B
- deconstructed the turn-based game: Ayiti: The Cost of Life
- we deconstructed the game and physically created an alternative
New Media Server: 100% open source
newmedia.theschool....
Social network
- academic context not social
- accountability
- documentation
- communication
Now comments from Westley Field
Skolaborate: global project
- 40 schools from around the world
- collaborating with a variety of tools, virtual worlds, meetings
- exploring how you can engage students in learning, change your practices
- creating global curriculum
showing map of our virtual world
anyone can contribute curriculum and content, we end up creating units together
in our virtual world we have rules and structure
- kids said they didn't want structure and rules
- so we created a "Lord of the Flies"
Kids will say they want structures from adults
future strategy: start looking at structures you have in place that are holding you back from the future you want
- need to get rid of those which are obstacles
Unexpected outcomes
- when kids are given freedom from their avatar: students are more disconnected from their Avatar
- less peer influence in the virtual world for students, they seem to share and follow their own ideas
Now comments from Kevin Jarrett
- media and journalism/newspaper club
- school struggled last year to use iWeb and publish a newspaper
- my thought was: why should kids be held back by technology
- I proposed to the education foundation that we use web 2.0 tools and
The T-Bird Times: The Northfield Middle School Newspaper / Multimedia Club!
- http://tbirdtimes.org
Kevin did an animoto on the way here, just showed it:
Find more videos like this on The T-Bird Times
Kids did an interview with Bob Webb, who knows the history of their school
Find more videos like this on The T-Bird Times
Did with a Flip camera, public version of "When September Ends" in the public domain, and Windows Moviemaker
My question is: When do our kids have chances/times to learn these things and do these things?
- they do NOT during the regular school day
- this is why after-school programs like this is so important
At end of they year, student used website Wix to create websites with a Flash-based drag and drop interface
Now entire class is producing animoto videos
Tools used by Columbia for open source walled garden apps:
- Elgg
- JetPhoto (For photo sharing)
- Drupal (for YouTube, also powers school website)
- Blogs (use mostly Blogger, don't use home grown blog much)
- also use iWeb for student blogging
- Google Docs also used
Technorati Tags:
education, school, technology, afterschool, innovation
Get Out of Your FUNK, Cut the JIVE! Make Your Classroom Come Alive!!!
These are my notes from the presentation "Get Out of Your FUNK, Cut the JIVE! Make Your Classroom Come Alive!!!" Presented by - Kim Herron, Tamara Padfield, Linley Voboril from Inman Elementary School: Inman, Kansas. This was shared at the PodStock 2009 conference in Wichita, Kansas, hosted by ESSDACK. MY THOUGHTS AND COMMENTS ARE IN ALL CAPS. I audio recorded this session for later podcasting, and live webcasted the session with Ustream Mobile. Here is the UStream archive:
Choose the right tool to get the job done
- we have used VoiceThread and Mixbook a lot more this year
Study on "Blood on the River" with VoiceThread
- teacher-created Voicethreads, recorded markers throughout, asking students to make predictions throughout the book or make a reflection on what we had just read
- collaborated with another classroom via our Polycom videoconference unit
Kids used free Mac program Skitch to create their icons/avatars in VoiceThread
Kimberly Herron's MobileMe website: Herron's Happenings (6th grade)
Tamara Padfield's MobileMe website: Padfield Publications (5th grade)
Linley Voboril's MobileMe website: Voboril Vibes (5th grade)
Seamless integration was a big goal for us when we went 1:1 in our classrooms
- engagement is the key
- hands on learning experiences like dissecting owl pellets have been big for us as well
Colonial Commercials project
- we used the green screen feature using PhotoBooth on our Macs for the first time
- with Leopard or newer you can do it
- got a big piece of green material
Had the "Granite Awards 2009" project this year
- gave kids rocks and they did many different kinds of tests
- big assembly, like a fashion show for rock re-enactment, with music, DVD created
End of year 6th grade project: Virtual Museum for 6th graders with Google SketchUp
- awareness of audience really led kids to realize they could not plagiarize, copy/paste others ideas
- easybib and bibme.com are great for formatting bibliographies
link is on my website to the Ancient Civilizations project
- Project directions included different roles for each group
Students were assigned into 8 groups of 5. Each group consisted of a/an Author - wrote an elementary level book on government and social classes using mixbook.
Geologist - created a hands on and online game about the daily life, resources, and landscape using Smarttech Notebook.
Cartographer - Created a map of civilization, located 3 architectural locations researched by architect in Google Earth, and created flight tour of locations inserting map pic and weblinks in Google Earth.
Archaeologists - Created a podcast in Garageband of 3 artifacts researched relating the artifacts with the civilizations culture and religions. Architect - Created a webpage using iWeb telling about the architectural structures and resources used to make them relating their importance in the culture and religions of the civilization.
Biomes Project
Letters to the President Project
- students asking for a law to stop people cutting down the rain forest trees
- story of a student who is normally not a fluent reader in front of the class, asking to record his letter on his own with his Macbook so it could be included in the teachers' keynote presentation, the student asked to do this, and his audio file was fantastic!
IT WOULD BE INTERESTING TO JUXTAPOSE A LETTER LIKE THIS WITH A DISCUSSION WITH STUDENTS IN BRAZIL, DISCUSSING DEVELOPMENT, HEATING AND COOKING IN VILLAGES WITHOUT ELECTRICITY, ETC.
Recognizing the importance of role models in the classroom
- started a community connections project
- contacted local leaders and
- started as a lunch once per month
- talking about "8 keys of success," part of the Quantum Learning Model, also Boys Town social skills
- Bently (our tech integrator who has been with us for 2 years) suggested doing this as a geo-caching activity, students went to see and visit each community mentor who talked with them and gave them something, quotation, information - was a great way to start the school year
Had a veteran note writing project
- Veterans were so touched by students taking time to contact them
- Christmas letters to Veterans
Now planning a "Got Canvas?" project on going green
- our platform is reusing canvas shopping bags
- our research has been very eye opening on usage of plastic bags
- key is reduce: not just about recycling
- we spent an hour picking up trash in our community
- 5th grade field trip yesterday was to the dump / landfill: with all this background knowledge the kids had was so eye opening, how much we waste
- McPherson Kansas produces 100 tons of trash per day! (200,000 pounds of trash, every single day!)
-- is that not just staggering?!
We are really excited to not only see what happens at the end of this year with this, but also what the 4th graders coming up next year as 5th graders will want to do
- if you can get kids involved in things like that, where they are passionate, you are going to change their lives
Technorati Tags:
#podstock09, podcasting, technology, inman, kansas, essdack, pbl, project, based, learning, elementary
Getting a Global Perspective – The Power of Collaborative Projects by Dyane Smokorowski
These are my notes from "Getting a Global Perspective - The Power of Collaborative Projects" by Dyane Smokorowski at the PodStock09 conference in Wichita, Kansas. Her wiki with links for this session is on: http://podstock.wik.is MY THOUGHTS ARE IN ALL CAPS. THIS IS VERY SIMILAR STRUCTURE WISE TO DR JUDY HARRIS' TELECOMPUTING PROJECTS FRAMEWORK WHICH I HEARD ABOUT IN THE LATE 1990S FOR THE FIRST TIME. IT'S AMAZING TO SEE HOW THESE PROJECTS ARE WORKING AND BEING IMPLEMENTED NOW WITH ALL THE WEB 2.0 TOOLS WE HAVE AVAILABLE!
Here are all Dyane's links on telecollaboration projects: http://podstock.wik.is/Links_on_Telecollaboration
Dyane's slideshare from today:
Most important thing: it needs to have a real world connection
- we use technology (should) because we can't do it otherwise
- I believe if you want to make a connection
7 kinds of classrooms
intercultural exchange
data collection projects
- great place to start
- not as overwhelming
- the collection of data is not the higher level thinking part: it is what you DO with the data!
- the global grocery project is one that has been around a long time, now a web search can get that
Tooth Tally Project (meant for 1st grader)
- kids tally tooth lost during the year
- great because there is not too much for the classroom teachers to manage individually
herebirdy project
- kindergarden project, data collection
- kids are learning to read graphs, how things are changing over the seasons
- teachers moving data over to the wiki each day, so the data was live
- teamed up with the Great Plains Nature Center here in Wichita
CIESE.org (The Center for Innovation in Engineering and Science Education) has lots of data collection projects
Now: Intercultural exchange
- Cultural Exchange Box is one of the most popular
- started by a teacher in Israel
- Friends and Flags is similar but on a hiatus
Digital photography is the key for intercultural exchange projects
- audio projects and tools: Skype, VoiceThread
be careful with seeds: Australia doesn't allow any seeds to be sent (including sunflower seeds)
Another example type: Travel Buddy Projects
- originated in Australia
- created to increase
- find travel buddies (stuffed animals)
- Community Helpers Around the World was our project, we got a grant to support this
-- 4 different elementary schools involved
-- had an elephant, tiger, others
-- buddies were to travel, we had 32 classrooms around the world on 6 different continents
Lots of travel buddies on trampolines all over the world!
Only requirements we had were: take the buddies and do the journaling
- with these guidelines, the magic happened
- example of a travel buddy learning Maori dancing with students in New Zealand
- another met a movie star in the Czech Republic!
Also did "There's No Place Like Home" projects with travel buddies
- took the Wizard of Oz theme
- what is great about YOUR state?
- we've all had death by PPT experiences with state projects
- this was a year long project involving all 4th grade students, with 32 other American classrooms, to discover what makes each American region unique
- same requirements: take photos, send some of this data
- most requested buddy was "wicked witch" - she went to see "Wicked" in New York on Broadway, went to a Hannah Montana concert, in Arizona was compared to the witch character they have in their Native American culture
- Toto went to Disneyland (I am a former Disney cast member)
- Tinman met the governor of Vermont
What do you do while the buddy is away?
- it is meant for discussion
- originally we just used email
- now we have skype, documents on wikis, animoto to make slideshows of the week
- now using Etherpad for synchronous projects
Now Interpersonal Project Examples
- you are an expert, I'm an expert, and we exchange info
- we did "Being Green" project with an Australian school, focus was "is our planet getting warmer," can we get our communities thinking about living more green
- kids were struggling just like scientists on whether global warming is happening
- everyone agrees
Other interpersonal project examples
- Movie in the Making
- Prince Caspian Project
-- become a collaborative project for teachers, sharing resource for teachers on lesson materials for those teaching about the novel
Next example type: Student Publishing Projects
- involve student creativity
- students publishing their own poetry, art, video, writing, etc
- Four Lines of Sight project for 2nd grade, 80 classrooms around the world joined us for this:
This global 2nd grade project had a simple question. If I gave each student the exact same 4 lines on a sheet of paper, what would they create? The students could rotate the lines in any direction and use any art medium to elaborate on the lines. Over 300 2nd grade students participated and added their work to our virtual art gallery.
You could see similarities between students in the same classroom, but many of the projects blew you away with their creativity
- our webserver was so full with images on the district but they made me take it down
- we chose images so language would not be a barrier for the students
Cyberdictionary has been around since 1997 (Fairy Tale / Folk Tale CyberDictionary)
Monster Exchange Project - it is:
Monster Exchange is designed to encourage the development of reading and writing skills while integrating Internet technology into the classroom curriculum. Classrooms from a variety of schools worldwide are paired together; the students in each classroom are split into groups, each of which designs an original picture of a monster. The students must then write a description of the monster. The partnered classes then exchange their descriptions via e-mail and the Internet. These students are then challenged to use reading comprehension skills to read the descriptions and translate them into a monster picture. The true challenge involves creating a redrawn picture as close to the original picture as possible without looking at the original and using only the written description of the monster.
SchoolTube has great opportunities for students to be collaborative, lots of GREAT content there now
- examples of projects by students who may not feel they are very strong in writing, in math, and other things, but they are able to use multimedia to teach concepts to other students
- SchoolTube contests!
Project I am planning to launch next year: The Adventures of Paperclip!
Are you ready to jump in and try one of these?
- if you are designing one of these, what do you need to think about?
- do your kids already study different cultures or geographic locations?
- would kids benefit from collecting data and sharing it with another class?
- are there any issues such as the environment or animal protection your students would be passionate about?
- do you have any museums, zoos, or other resources nearby that could partner with you?
- would they be interested in discussing a book or selecting the Caldecott winner with other classes?
Disney involved in helping kids learn about PSA writing (Public Service Annoucements)
- going on the Disney Radio Channel
- kids had to get excited about this!
you need to create a plan
- project milestone
- set up a project calendar: deadlines, beginnings and endings, etc
- more...
Step 3: find your partners
- places on Ning now have project collaboration
- Use Global SchoolNet listserv, generally has a good response
- use Twitter and Plurk
- reach out to your PLN!
- International Travel Buddy List Serve
Step 4: get resources
Step 5: Jump in and Watch the Magic Unfold
- remember chocolate always tastes good!
- had "Violet Crumble" from Australia, it is a Nestle product not sold in the US, amazing!
- kids become emotionally connected to what they are doing: they will research more, they will love it, and they will remember it
Dyane's blog: http://mrssmoke.onsugar.com
Kids who go on trips with their families on a vacation: they have to take their travel buddy, take photos, and blog about it!
- see the guest blog post, "Travel Buddy Projects Part II" for more on this approach
My only barrier is my imagination getting out of hand!
only budget issues come in with travel buddy projects
- we do have some teachers in the world who are not tech saavy: we've had some who didn't know how to do email attachments, others are really impressing us!
- give all the resources on your website, including the parent letters
- sometimes finding partners is a challenge
Getting started: Global Schoolnet registery of existing projects is great
- contacting local museums is good
- can also trade 1 elementary school to another within the district
- get a hold of tech nerdy people, may have an approved blog or wiki
- if you have all your ducks in a row, generally when you bring curriculum that is ready, tech people will work with you
Empowered Desktop this year is changing, will be adding wikis
- this is a Kansas-only web resources
- other teachers in other states can't use that tho
During school Dyane worked at Toontown at Disneyworld as a 1 semester internship, it was a GREAT experience, very intercultural / international
- inspired a project "Is it a Small World After All?" project that Dyane started
- had students from Arab and Western countries in Ning, all dialoging
May the Force Be With You!
Technorati Tags:
education, project, telecomputing, learning, collaboration
Episode 1 of the International Cooking Show
When I visited New Zealand at the end of February 2009 for the Learning@School conference, I met Mr W00dy and we came up with a rather creative project idea. It seems we both have young daughters who love cooking, and would like to share their cooking with others. Why not start an International Cooking Show, we thought?
Last night, my 8 year old recorded episode #1 of the ICS, demonstrating how to cook banana bread from a recipe she found online. I recorded this using my Sony GC1 Net Sharing Cam, and Sarah edited the final video (6 min, 56 sec) herself using iMovie '09. This was Sarah's first experience to use iMovie and she found it (of course) exceptionally easy to use. She created a song with "magic Garageband" and used it as background in her movie for the mixing sequences which she sped up. (Garageband includes royalty-free loops, so songs you create with the program can be shared legally online with others.)
Nice work Sarah! I uploaded the video to EduBlogs.tv for her. (For free) It's posted both on our family learning blog and on the International Cooking Show wiki.
Do you have budding chefs in your home or school who might be interested in contributing a video recipe to the ICS project? Feel free to join us, and invite others to do the same!
Technorati Tags:
banana, bread, cook, cooking, video, wiki, project, collaboration
The Thursday Folder and Worksheet Measured Learning
At the February 2009 Oklahoma Technology Association's conference, keynote speaker Will Richardson told a story about the worksheets his own students bring home from their public school each week which resonated with me. Will said he'd contemplated keeping all the papers for an entire school year in a big stack, and then photographing them to document the school-communicated learning they'd experienced all year. I then thought about doing the same thing, since our two oldest children (who are in elementary school) bring home a "Thursday folder" each week filled with the worksheets they've completed.
Last night, Alexander asked me to review his paperwork for the week and sign his folder. He was particularly proud of a very challenging social studies test which he'd aced, as well as a writing assignment he completed: A time-capsule letter to a future student at his school in 10 years. After reviewing all his papers and grades, we spread them all out on the floor of our living room. Several of these documents were multi-page, stapled together. This is a week's worth of worksheets from his school, sent home this week in the "Thursday folder."
Alexander and his sister DO attend a wonderful school, but in many ways it defines "a worksheet school." The students DO participate in wonderful musical programs, participate in memorable class-wide events like the re-enactment of the Oklahoma land run, and participate in living history museums. They also have time each day for recess, which is more than the Texas school we left three years ago provided for students in grades three and above. (That was due to high-stakes testing pressure - The school was "exemplary" but they still didn't have time to let 9 year olds have recess during the day.)
At our current Oklahoma elementary school, "learning evidence" from the week is communicated to parents almost exclusively via the "Thursday folder" and the worksheets it contains. Our school is very common in following this procedure in Oklahoma. This is what kids do in most schools today in 2009: worksheets. This is how most schools communicate with parents about the "learning" their children are allegedly doing in class each day: by sending home worksheets.
My problem with this situation? It's twofold. First, many of these worksheets are stupid, irrelevant, busy work. Second, worksheets tell me VERY LITTLE about the things my child understands, perceives, knows, and wonders about. Worksheets are almost useless to me as a parent interested in the learning activities and developmental progress of my child, compared to alternative forms of assessment. It's good to see how Alexander's writing skills are developing, including his handwriting. But it saddens me to see worksheets like this which he's spent HOURS in some cases completing.
There are SO many more valuable ways to spend heartbeats than completing word search puzzles. This is busy work, and I think assignments like this contribute very little, if at all, to meaningful learning experiences for my children inside and outside of school.
Included in the assortment of worksheets sent home this week in the Thursday folder were several pages about science and the unit on light they've been studying. I asked Alexander if he'd done any experiences during the unit on light. He said yes initially, but further questioning revealed HE had not done the experiments, he had watched the teacher demonstrate some things in front of the class. He had not formulated ANY hypotheses and tested them with experimentation and observation. How is my son supposed to learn the scientific method and become the engineer he aspires to be, if his school does not provide him with REGULAR opportunities to learn the scientific method by PRACTICING the scientific method? (David Thornburg's message from CoSN09 burns in my mind when I ask these questions.) The answer? Like many things (including writing with social media and learning about hyperlinked writing) it's up to us as parents to teach these things at home. What about other kids whose parents are not focused on these issues? Who is going to "turn these elementary age kids on" to science? If we really care about STEM, why are we not insisting on a hands-on approach to science in our schools which involves regular experimentation instead of endless note taking and worksheets?
Alexander recorded this short, 90 second video explaining about his Thursday folder and demonstrating what happens at the end of Thursday night after we've looked at the pile of worksheets: They get thrown into the trash can. (We did save his social studies test he was so proud of, however, and put it on the fridge.)
I dearly wish our school district was willing to embrace the constructive potential of social media to help students "show what they know" and more meaningfully document their journeys of learning with images, audio, and video than anyone can ever do with mere worksheets. After Alexander shared his "time capsule" letter with me last night, I asked him to quickly record it onto a short, three image VoiceThread for which he selected the photos. This took five minutes for us to do together, and I posted it to our family learning blog. His grandparents in Kansas were able to listen to him and watch this today, and told us on the phone they loved it. They hadn't realized he's planning to major in robotics at Kansas State in college! I hadn't either until I read his essay. Without this technological documentation of his learning, there is little chance his Kansas grandparents would have EVER seen, read, or heard this letter. Thanks to technology sharing tools like VoiceThread, however, they did and now you can too. This is extremely important and valuable stuff to Alexander and to our family. And, it's free to do.
We need to get digital tools into the hands of ALL our students in grades three and up as soon as possible, as well as our teachers. This morning I had a chance to briefly examine a $200 Lenovo S10 Netbook owned by James Deaton, and I marveled at the size, capabilities, and price point of this device.
Hat tip to Dawn Danker for taking the first photo in this series of me with the netbook.
When are my own children going to be able to use technologies like these IN SCHOOL here in Oklahoma? The clock is ticking. They're learning plenty about how to use technology tools here at home, but we have much more limited opportunities to digitally create, collaborate, and communicate compared to what could be accomplished during the school day.
I have my fingers crossed that our state's educational technology stimulus money will be used in an innovative way to empower students in a few more Oklahoma school districts (in addition to Crescent, Howe, and Lowery) to learn in 1 to 1 environments.
Meanwhile, we'll continue to watch the stream of worksheets come home each week in the Thursday folders.
Technorati Tags:
assessment, learning, edmond, oklahoma, school, science, stem, hypothesis, handson, thornburg, lenovo, s10, netbook, technology, voicethread, onetoone, 1to1, pbl, assess, measure, worksheet, folder, thursday
Free Online PD
Recent Comments
- Wesley Fryer on Email Updates
- Lisa Snitker on Email Updates
- Gary B. Roberts on Top 10 Education Apps for iPod Touch and iPhone
- Gary B. Roberts on Demonstrate iPhone / iPod Touch Applications with ScreenSplitr / DemoGod
- Barbara on Questionable Apple Behavior Regarding Original ACOT Research and Challenge Based Learning
- howarddavidp on What is a hackintosh?
- John Rudkin on Questionable Apple Behavior Regarding Original ACOT Research and Challenge Based Learning
- JB on Ripping Personally Owned DVDs for iPhone or iPod Viewing: Legal and Technical Perspectives
- Sherman Nicodemus on Jailbroken or not, Google Voice is available on your iPhone
- Brian Mull on Jailbroken or not, Google Voice is available on your iPhone
- aschmitz on Jailbroken or not, Google Voice is available on your iPhone
- Jailbroken or not, Google Voice is available on your iPhone « Moving at the Speed of Creativity on Tethered iPhone Internet Access with iPhoneModem (Jailbreak required)
- Jeff Windsor on Demonstrate iPhone / iPod Touch Applications with ScreenSplitr / DemoGod
- should we just ban laptops? « Mysteries and Meaning in Education on A professor who takes laptop banning too far
- Danny Rose on What is a hackintosh?
Google Reader Shares
Subscription Options
About
Categories
Archives
Calendar
Links
- bio
- digital footprint
- google profile
- homepage
- learning signs
- my web host is Siteground
- subscribe to comments
- testimony
