Catherine Armitage, another ClassenSAS parent, has created a list of items Mrs. Madron’s family needs on SignUpGenius. You can visit this link to sign up for items you would like to provide, and can drop them off at the ClassenSAS speech/debate room. If you need to ship them, contact Catherine by phone (405-626-7964) to figure out the best shipment address. You can also drop off or send a check, make it payable to ClassenSAS PTSA and write “Madron” in the subject line.

Technorati Tags: tornado, moore, classen, classensas, help, relief

Help My Son’s Debate Teacher Whose Home Was Destroyed by the Moore Tornado originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on May 22, 2013.

If you don’t have an iOS device like an iPad, iPhone or iPod Touch running the free iBooks app, you can still read and listen to the enhanced ePUB version of this book using the Chrome web browser on a laptop or desktop computer. Download and install the free Readium extension for Chrome, and it will let you enjoy the book in your browser. Many thanks to the contributors to the Readium project who made this possible! The following 8 minute, 43 second screencast demonstrates how you can use the Readium extension for Chrome, and also includes the audio for the entire “Our Favorite Books” enhanced eBook.

Kudos to Ms. Moore and her third graders for becoming eBook authors this year! Check out other student eBook examples and submit your own on ebooks.playingwithmedia.com.

Technorati Tags: create, oklahoma, playingwithmedia, share, ebook, okcps, oklahomacity, literacy

Read an Enhanced eBook in the Chrome Browser with Readium originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on May 21, 2013.

Jennie Wilmes, the K-3 librarian at Shedeck Elementary School in Yukon, Oklahoma, has been working with teachers this semester on a new “digital way” to help students learn proper procedures at school. Using some very talented student actors, Mrs. Wilmes created and published six short videos to her Library YouTube channel which showcase proper procedures for using the bathroom, walking in the hallway, attending the morning “sunrise” assembly, eating in the cafeteria, staying safe on the playground, and checking out books from the library. Mrs. Wilmes collected all six videos in a single YouTube playlist, so teachers at Shedeck (as well as parents and students, with assistance) can access these terrific videos. They range in duration from 37 seconds to 1 minute and 57 seconds each. Mrs. Wilmes recorded, edited and published these videos to YouTube using an iPad and the iPad app, iMovie. Gayla Pounds, the literacy coach at Shedeck, also assisted with the video recording. Check out these super videos featuring Shedeck students!

Technorati Tags: education, library, school, youtube, schools, procedures, media, specialist

Using Student Videos on YouTube to Demonstrate Proper School Procedures originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on May 21, 2013.

If your students create artwork for families in Moore, consider using a free app like AudioBoo to have students add voice narration to their drawings.* Simple expressions of concern, love and support can be very meaningful as well as beneficial. By sharing these with a hashtag on social media, you increase the chances people in Moore and elsewhere can see and be touched by the words and artistic creations of your students.

If your students are interested in helping the rescue and rebuilding efforts in Moore, Oklahoma, this article from NewsOK and this post have helpful suggestions. More resources for “narrated art” projects are also available.

  by  alexphotocamera 

Thanks to Michelle Kassorla (in Atlanta, Georgia) and Lisa Stevens (in Winterthur, Switzerland) for helping brainstorm the #moorehugs hashtag this morning on Twitter.

If you know of another hashtag being used to share messages of encouragement for people in Moore, Oklahoma, please share it as a comment.

* I am not affiliated or connected to AudioBoo in any way, I just love their platform and app for sharing narrated art.

Technorati Tags: audioboo, oklahoma, share, encouragement, pictures, narrated, art

Share Words and Pictures of Encouragement and Love with #moorehugs originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on May 21, 2013.

A few hours ago a devastating tornado hit Moore, Oklahoma, just south of Oklahoma City. Storms are ongoing, but we hope the worst is behind us. People are still trapped in buildings and in vehicles in Moore, the images of the devastation are very bad. Yesterday a tornado hit Edmond, Oklahoma, just north of where we live and very close to our previous house in Edmond. People were injured and at least one person was killed in yesterday’s tornados, but today (from the News 9 reports I’ve seen) it appears multiple people were killed in the Moore tornado. You can view the local live web feed of News9 in Oklahoma City if you’d like to follow updates.

Here are two credible ways you can make a cash donation to help the victims of the Oklahoma tornados this week. The first is to donate to the Oklahoma Food Bank. Text the word “food” (without quotation marks) to 32333 to donate $10. This offer was shared by Oklahoma News9 on their Twitter account. I made this donation a few minutes ago, and had to confirm the donation by texting “Yes” after the first message.

The second way to donate is to “Text REDCROSS to 90999 to give $10 to American Red Cross Disaster Relief.” This method is posted on the official redcross.org website. While that donation goes to Red Cross disaster relief generally and not specifically to Oklahoma, I’m sure much of that money WILL be used in upcoming weeks to help Oklahoma tornado victims.

If you know of verified/credible ways to make text message / SMS donations to help Oklahoma tornado victims, please share them with a link to the source website as a comment.

All 5 members of our family are safe in Oklahoma City. Please keep the Oklahoma families affected by these devastating storms in your thoughts and prayers.

Update 21 May 2013 from NewsOK: How To Help Tornado Victims

Update 21 May 2013 from the Yukon Public Schools Facebook page:

The Yukon High School StuCo and Leadership will be collecting water bottles, Gatorade, diapers, baby wipes, baby formula, work gloves, trash bags, individual wrapped snacks, hand sanitizer, hand towels, sunscreen, batteries, flashlights and money for the Oklahoma tornado victims. These items will be delivered to the Salvation Army for distribution.

Please bring items to the Yukon High School Rotunda by Wednesday 5/23/13 at 3:30pm. Questions? Email Darryl Andrews: darryl.andrews@yukonps.com

Technorati Tags: help, oklahoma, tornado, moore, charity, donate

Donate via SMS Now to Help Oklahoma Tornado Victims originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on May 20, 2013.

The problem with my WordPress blog feed being broken started, I think, when I migrated my website to a new web host. The process of migrating my 30+ WordPress sites to new web hosts is still NOT yet complete, but this problem has been a major sticking point I’ve spent 9+ hours vainly trying to figure out the past week or so, over the course of several days. The support team at WPengine, which is the web host I’m now using for speedofcreativity.org, let me know the problem I needed to fix was that somehow extra whitespace or “line breaks” were being inserted into my WordPress blog feed.

I tried disabling all my plugins and also changing my theme, but neither of those ideas worked to fix my feed. I finally fixed the problem by doing two things. First, I removed extra spaces in several of the php files of my WordPress installation, including feed-atom.php, feed-rdf.php, feed-rss.php, feed-rss2.php, and functions.php. I do NOT ‘know PHP’ as a coder, so this was a hit-and-miss exercise. I am sure a lot of the spaces I removed don’t actually matter for my web feed to properly work, but some of them did make a difference. The functions.php file is the longest one of this group, and I didn’t remove ALL the extra line breaks, but I did remove about ten of them. I tried testing my WordPress feed address each time I made a few changes, to see if I could isolate the specific file with the problem, but it never worked afterward.

The second thing I did which, together with the line break removals, ended up fixing my feed, was to use the wejnswpwhitespacefix.php file on wejn.org referenced by Steve Workman on his 2010 post about this issue. This fix requires uploading a new PHP file to your WordPress installation, and adding a line of code at the top of my index.php WordPress file.

I made all my PHP edits in the free text editing program for Mac, TextWranger. It’s a fantastic little program which I use at LEAST a few times per week. The GREP searching functions of it are outstanding and come in VERY handy when I need to find and replace text patterns in a file, including things like line breaks or paragraph breaks.

After I made those changes, I figured out I also needed to empty the cache of my local web browser to see the ‘latest’ updated version of my feed. Once I did that, wha-la! The feed was fixed. Per the helpful instructions of my WPengine support tech, I made these changes first on the “staging server” of my WPengine site.

Next, I used my WPengine site controls to copy my ‘fixed’ site from the staging area over to the live site. This took about a minute.

When I tested my web feed, it was working as it should! My Feedburner feed was also working again, since it had also been “broken.”

I’m REALLY thrilled to have this situation fixed. I strongly dislike situations like this when I spend an inordinate amount of time trying to fix a technical error, and it ends up taking HOURS to resolve it. If you run into something similar to this, hopefully the links and documentation I’ve provided here will help. I love using WordPress for many of my websites, but the need to fix your own problems like this is one of the challenges which comes with self-hosting.

I’ve had my dad report problems with my web feed in the past, and I don’t know if I’ve had this problem longer than a few weeks or not. In the course of my Google research on possible fixes for this problem, I learned that many RSS or feed readers (including Google Reader and Feedly) can actually ignore this feed syntax problem and still resolve/read the feed. Hopefully this is something I won’t have to mess with again. I think when I update WordPress, however, I may have to add that same line to my index.php file again if the updated one is overwritten.

Now, I’ll hopefully be able to post the podcast I recorded 2 weeks ago with Joe Dale! I’ve been waiting to get this silly feed issue resolved first.

Technorati Tags: feed, howto, wordpress, error, whitespace, line, break, fix

WordPress Feed Error with Whitespace or Extra Line Breaks Fixed originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on May 20, 2013.

This is a 14 minute video reflection by Wesley Fryer, who volunteered with Redeeming the Family on May 15, 2013, at the Cimarron Correctional Facility (prison) in Cushing, Oklahoma. Oklahoma currently has 17 prisons, and Cimarron is one of three which is privately operated. Corrections Corporation of America has owned and operated this prison commercially since 1997. Last week Redeeming the Family volunteers assisted 50 incarcerated dads to record video messages of love for their children, which will be mailed to their children before Father’s Day on Sunday, June 16th.

Sixty-six men had signed up to record video messages for their children on May 15, but because of security conditions at the prison not all those inmates were allowed to record their messages. Redeeming the Family will return to the Cimarron Correctional Facility again in the fall to record more messages which will be delivered prior to the Christmas holiday in December.

Technorati Tags: family, ministry, oklahoma, parent, prison, nonprofit, dad, redeeming, redeemingthefamily

Redeeming the Family: Blessing Children of Incarcerated Parents originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on May 18, 2013.

Ginger Gregory is the Gifted Resource Teacher at Lakeview Elementary School in Yukon, Oklahoma, and currently has 117 videos on her classroom YouTube channel. Ginger has used the six iPads in her classroom and her free, district-provided YouTube channel (since the Yukon school district participates in the Google Apps for Education program) to help her students develop oral communication skills, oral fluency, as well as digital literacy skills this semester. In the following six minute video, Mrs. Gregory and eight of her students explain what they have learned as a result of their assignments this year using iPad videos and YouTube.

It’s exciting to hear about these positive ways Lakeview students and teachers are not only meeting the new Common Core State Standards, which include requirements for students to both use and create information in multimedia formats, but also how students are having opportunities to discuss and practice the responsible use of digital media tools like YouTube. Mrs. Gregory is doing a great job finding ways to not only engage students through technology, but also prepare students to make good choices with technology tools. This “digital literacy” training and practice is more important than ever in our hyper-connected world. Way to go, Mrs. Gregory and Lakeview Elementary students!

While Yukon Schools also participates in the free “YouTube for Schools” filtering program which limits student access at school to only “approved” YouTube videos, it’s very important to prepare students to make good digital choices when they access the Internet OFF the school network. This happens regularly when students use cell phones with data plans or go online at home or other places where Internet content is not filtered.

As of April 30, 2013, teachers and staff in Yukon Public Schools had created 24 different YouTube channels. YPS has over 500 certified teachers, but most do not yet have YouTube channels. YPS teachers were first able to create district-administered YouTube channels a year ago, in the spring of 2012. Teachers like Mrs. Gregory who are exploring the use of YouTube for educational purposes are blazing an important trail as digital learning pioneers for other educators around our district, throughout Oklahoma, and around the world. If you’re interested in seeing other creative ways Yukon teachers are using YouTube to share student work and “flip their classrooms,” check out the channels of high school trigonometry teacher Jim Drummond (25 videos, math problem tutorials), 7th grade geography teacher Phillip Ward (42 videos, student “paper-slide video” reports about Africa), 6th grade social studies teacher Kayleen Browning (6 videos, student skits about ancient Rome), and professional development coordinator Adam Zodrow (7 videos: screencasts about Common Core, TLE and more).

If you’re interested in creating a free YouTube channel, check out these instructions on the YPS Instructional FAQs site. Many thanks to Jake Heister, who taught a wonderful professional development workshop earlier this semester at Canadian Valley Technology Center about instructional uses of YouTube, which Mrs. Gregory attended.

Developing Communication Skills With YouTube & iPad Videos originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on May 16, 2013.

Here are some of the notes I took from the STEM curriculum and activities Felicia and Stephanie have done / are doing at the University of Texas Elementary School.
- They’ve played math pentathlon games with students
- The Austin Children’s Museum has been a huge help and even provides interns to assist with some lessons
- They have an A-B schedule they call green & blue days, so Felicia sees her students every other day
- some of their projects extend over 14 class meetings
- They’ve done digital storytelling integration with language arts
- Texas will have new math standards in 2014
- They’ve signed up for the Tinker Software beta, which is commercial software similar to Scratch, does have curriculum
- Tinker can be combined with Lego WeDo kits
- In May they received 90 Chromebooks through a Google Grant
- First Lego League starts at age 9, Junior First Lego League starts at age 6
- their digital storytelling project involved an interview with an elderly person and identifying a problem they could help solve for them
- Lego Simple Machine kits are great
– can give kids problems to solve, can work in 45 min lesson
- Have used Scratch software for students to create projects linking to social/emotional learning objectives
- students created projects showing tenacity, empathy, etc.
- Scratch has also been used to integratel language arts classes and lessons
- using design thinking resources from the NoTosh Design Thinking School
- Ewan and Tom visited their school after/during SXSW this year
- Stephanie has a brainstorming wall with students listing and organizing questions by whether they are “Googleable” or “Non-Googleable”
- they focus on non-Googleable questions in class mostly
- have 33 Chromebooks for language arts, so 1:1 in that class
- 2:1 for math studetns
- have just had the Chromebooks 6 days, amazing to see how fast the students took to using them and collaborating
- Students recently created presentations on Haiku Deck on the iPads
- Students recently studying habitats, identified the real community problem of Austin not having a real zoo, students discovered the problem and that made a huge difference for their interest, engagement and motivation to extend their learning
- Using Little Bird Tales for digital storytelling, costs $1 to download each story however
– app is $3
- Engineering is Elementary kits have been wonderful to have and use this year too

I recommended they check out WeVideo, which Steve Dembo demonstrated in his Feb 2013 ICE conference preso on digital storytelling

Some notes from what Chris shared about IES Stem projects
- The kids really like the “Dear Mr Henshaw” lunchbox burglar alarm project
- Prosthetic Legs project is the one which has received the most local media attention (see videos in Chris’ YouTube channel for more)
- Currently working on a rockets project

- A VA doctor and also veterans with prosthetics come to school to help students understand the need and the project
- iPad cart is used for some media production like eBooks using Book Creator
- Scratch Club has been huge this year, Scratch (according to Chris) is the IDEAL unit and software program to use with STEM students because of the ways it integrates not only math and computational thinking, but also language arts

Chris’ main STEM lessons website recommendation (which he uses all the time) is eGFI: Engineering Go For It (resources for teachers)

After our meeting we discussed possibilities for changing the STEM schedule at IES, since more TIME is needed: STEM Teachers must seek kids more often to have deep instead of shallow learning

I mentioned Mustang (a nearby OKC-area district) is starting a STEM Program
- apparently it’s a grade 5-6 program

Closing thought: This was a great opportunity to learn together! Many thanks to Felicia, Stephanie, Chris and Adam – We’re sharing this with our other YPS STEM teachers and I hope you’ll share your own STEM resources as you find them too!

Technorati Tags: collaboration, curriculum, elementary, oklahoma, oklahomacity, stem, yukon, austin

Elementary STEM Idea Sharing (May 2013) originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on May 13, 2013.

This spring semester, 3rd grade students at Shedeck Elementary School in Yukon, Oklahoma, worked with their librarian, Jeannie Wilmes, to conduct “blended research” about different kinds of animals. Their research was “blended” because students used both library books as well as electronic resources like the PebbleGo website and database. Mrs. Wilmes worked with students twice a week for two weeks in this project, which culminated in students audio recording their research using the free iPad app AudioBoo. Students were then able to share their recordings with classmates and with parents online. In this five minute interview video, Mrs. Wilmes and some of the Shedeck third graders describe their project, what they enjoyed and some of their lessons learned.

Check out more of the students’ recordings on the AudioBoo channels for Mrs. Doran’s class, Mrs. Filyukova’s class, and Mrs. Forga’s class. It’s wonderful to see and hear the great work that Mrs. Wilmes is able to do with students as a full-time library media specialist. Way to go Shedeck students and educators!

Do you know about mudpuppies, which are sometimes called water dogs? If not, you better check out Cynthia’s report!

3rd Graders Research Animals with 4 iPads, AudioBoo and PebbleGo originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on May 8, 2013.

In his May 5, 2013 article in the San Francisco Chronicle, “FCC priority should be faster bandwidth,” Blair Levin contends the FCC should focus on increasing available Internet bandwidth in U.S. communities. He compares available access speeds and prices in United States cities to Japan, which is leaps and bounds faster and cheaper.

Levin is correct to argue the United States government needs to adopt policies to promote faster broadband access. The FCC and other government agencies also need to pay attention to continuing policies of draconian content filtering in many public schools, however, which sadly remain opaque or hidden to most community constituents besides students and teachers. While some school districts have adopted more balanced approaches to content filtering in the past several years, allowing teachers to bypass content filters and allowing greater student access to websites for interactive publishing, we still have a long way to go. The FCC and other government agencies could do a lot of good by promoting research and amplifying research that highlights these restrictive content filtering policies in some schools.

As educators and advocates for blended learning in our schools, we need to find ways in upcoming months to highlight the digital divide that continues between school and business Internet access in the United States. Many school districts and school leaders continue to resist the imperative to help learners of all ages become responsible publishers online. As more educators work to Map Media to the Common Core in the years ahead, hopefully these dynamics can constructively change without intervention from the federal government.

If you are an academic researcher or someone interested in research to promote improvement in schools, consider researching the need for balanced filtering in education.

Hat tip to Doug Levin for sharing this article link via Twitter.

More Than Bandwidth: FCC Should Address Content Filtering in Schools originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on May 6, 2013.

We need more teachers like Pam and school administrators like Shawn supporting the creative uses of interactive writing in the classroom! Check out and follow more innovative Oklahoma educators from my (now almost 200 strong) Twitter List of Oklahoma educators. Know someone who is not on that list and should be? Please tweet me!

If you’d like to learn how to create videos like this, sign up to attend one of the “steeply discounted” digital storytelling workshops offered by Storychasers in Oklahoma City in June!

Technorati Tags: kidblog, oklahoma, writing, piedmont

Encouraging 5th Grade Writing with Benny the Mastiff & KidBlog in Piedmont, Oklahoma originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on May 6, 2013.

• Chris Simon’s STEM curriculum site
• Amy Luffelhotz’ STEM class blog
• Independence Elementary School’s Scratch Club site
• January 2013 Yukon Review article about kids learning Scratch

Info on the Spring Break 2013 Scratch Camp Chris Simon and I led:

• On NewsOK.com
• In the Yukon Review
• Oklahoma Scratch Camp resources

I have more STEM and Scratch related resources on:

• Deepening our Learning Through Storytelling: creativity, STEM and stories
• Support STEM Skills with Scratch

  by  ScratchEdTeam 

STEM and Scratch Resources (May 2013) originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on May 6, 2013.

Technorati Tags: blog, security, wordpress

WordPress Security Tips (May 2013) originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on May 1, 2013.

First, visit YouTube.com and login with your Gmail / Google account. In the upper right corner of the screen click SETTINGS.

Under your email address click ADVANCED.

Under Channel Settings click CREATE CUSTOM URL:

Enter your desired YouTube channel ID. This will be part of your web address / URL for YouTube, and must be unique:’

You should see a confirmation message after your channel name is set.

You can now upload videos to your YouTube channel, just like you add file attachments to emails.

YouTube now allows ANY account to upload videos LONGER than fifteen minutes, not just accounts connected to Google Apps for Edu. Follow these steps to “verify” your YouTube account using your cell phone number.

Technorati Tags: youtube, channel, id, setup

Create YouTube Channel with Custom URL (April 2013) originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on April 29, 2013.

This evening felt like I was in a movie. As I drove down our street into our neighborhood I could see wispy storm clouds moving like the fingers of an angry witch, barely highlighted by the ambient light of the streetlights. I parked out front and brought my bags in, and before I could open our garage I heard the hail starting. I ran out and pulled in our van, and the hail started coming down heavier. I wondered if I should go out again and risk getting hit, but the hail wasn’t larger than marble size so I did. Running out to my car, my left pointer finger was struck by a large hailstone that really smarted. I pulled my car up to the garage entrance but saw I hadn’t pulled the van far enough to the side. I jumped out, backed out the van, and pulled in it in the garage as far over as I could. Then I ran out to get in my car, but the hail was intensifying and I held my breath hoping I would not be struck in the head by a large stone. I got in my car and pulled it into the garage as larger stones were falling and hitting loudly. I literally pulled both cars in the garage in the nick of time, if I’d started the process even 30 seconds later, I don’t think I would have been able to do it – the hail got VERY intense right as I drove our second car into the garage. I closed the garage door, and then recorded this 30 second audio clip of the hailstones hitting the metal garage door and the concrete outside. Praise God I was not struck in the head by a hailstone, and I got our cars in the garage to safety. Life’s exciting living in Oklahoma City!

My Hail Story originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on April 26, 2013.

• $500
• Has HDMI and VGA connections
• LED powered so bulb should last 10 years (yes that’s not a typo: TEN years!)
• Can run on electricity continually or about an hour on the internal battery
• Built-in speaker, but also has connection for external 1/8″ audio speakers

Biggest disadvantage at this point: These are not for sale individually online, apparently, you have to go through a retailer.

Having eyed the Pico Projector since 2008, a small projector like this sounds very appealing. Hopefully we’ll see projectors with even lower price points, and equivalent functions, showing up on Amazon and in Brookstone soon. Brookstone’s “Compact 85-Lumen Pocket Projector” is appealing but not as feature-packed and powerful as the CooLux LED DLP Projector.

Steve showed off the WiPad Pro using the projector today, which is a $400 ($300 with edu discount) RF wireless mirroring solution for the iPad. It does not require Bonjour networking to be turned on, which is a sticking point with some network admins. It’s pricey as iPad mirroring options go but good to know about. See the wonderful comparative table on Tony Vincent’s post, “Mirror iPad, iPhone, iPod to Your Screen for Free,” for more iPad mirroring options.

Follow the iPads for Learning Conference today in Olathe with the Twitter hashtag, #ipadsforlearning. It is presented by ESSDACK.

I’ll be presenting a 3 day iPad Media Camp this summer in both Oklahoma City (June 10-12) and Manhattan, Kansas (July 9-11). PDF flyers about iPad Media Camp are available, please share it with other educators you know who might be interested!

Technorati Tags: ipad, ipads, projector, led, dlp, coolux

The Portable $500 LED Projector I Want originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on April 26, 2013.

As a free audio service with free smartphone apps for both iPhone and Android, AudioBoo is an ideal platform to use on a student field trip to document experiences with both audio and images. This morning I accompanied my 3rd grade daughter’s class to the Oklahoma History Center in Oklahoma City, as a parent volunteer. In advance I created a 1 page flyer for other parents who might be interested in also using AudioBoo with their student group. (Also available as a PDF.)

The version I shared with parents already had the userID and password for the free AudioBoo account/channel I setup included.

Here is an “AudioBoo board” of eight photos and audio narrations our group created today at the History Center.

If a picture is worth a thousand words, a picture WITH accompanying audio narration is worth one thousand! Behold, the power of “narrated art / narrated photos!”

Chicago-area elementary art teacher Tricia Fuglestad used AudioBoo with her students on a recent field trip to the Chicago Museum of Art. She also live-tweeted their trip! Check out Tricia’s post about the experience, their AudioBoo channel and this AudioBoo board of their field trip experiences.

Also check out the awesome 69 second video Tricia created afterwards, “Musical Tutorial of AudioBoo.”

Musical Tutorial of AudioBoo from Tricia Fuglestad on Vimeo.

Field trips can rock, and so can mobile technology tools like AudioBoo! Our experiences today reinforce how important it is to REGULARLY challenge students to talk about their learning and even record/share their thoughts digitally. These are skills our students need to practice to develop, and many aren’t doing this enough now! Technology can be a powerful amplifier, and field trips with smartphone-wielding parent volunteers can provide ideal opportunities to use tools like AudioBoo to deepen as well as extend student learning.

Technorati Tags: audioboo, edtech, education, oklahoma, technology, field, trip, school, document, audio, share, learning, history, museum

Document Field Trip Learning with AudioBoo originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on April 25, 2013.

I added this screencast video to my YouTube playlist, “iPad Tutorials.” Access additional resources and tutorials on the “Radio Shows” page of Mapping Media to the Common Core.

The 15 minute audio interview with my wife I referenced in the screencast, “Urban Ministry in Oklahoma City” is embedded below and also available on my Christian blog, Eyes Right.

Technorati Tags: audio, podcast, podcasting, show, radioshow

Create an Online Radio Show with Spreaker DJ for iPad originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on April 25, 2013.

Learn How To Become a Digital Storyteller in June 2013!

Registration is now open for TWO special digital storytelling workshops in Oklahoma City offered by Storychasers. Both workshops will be held at the Canadian Valley Technology Center in Yukon. Registration is available via Eventbrite using the links below. The dates are:

1. Wednesday June 5 & Thursday June 6
2. Wednesday June 19 & Thursday June 20

Storychaser phase 1 workshops are 2 day opportunities to learn the basics of creating a digital story using a “Digital Backpack” of supplies. Participants learn how to use portable audio recorders, microphones, audio editing software (Audacity) and video software (PhotoStory3 or iMovie) to create short, 3 – 5 minute videos using audio and still images. Approximately half of the workshop time is dedicated to individual project work. Participants KEEP their digital backpack equipment following the workshop. Our workshops in June 2013 are steeply discounted, because we are transitioning to iPad-based workshops and liquidating our remaining inventory of digital backpack gear. The original cost of the equipment participants will use and keep following our workshop is $250, so this workshop cost is exceptionally low and a fantastic value. Purchase orders are accepted for payment, please select “SHOW OTHER PAYMENT OPTIONS” below the PayPal logo for more information.

Our current workshop agenda is available online, which provides an overview of activities.

Each day we start at 8:30 am, so please plan to arrive between 8 and 8:15 am to be ready for a prompt start. We end at 5 pm both days. Lunch is on your own and not provided, but we encourage participants  to eat together in groups if possible.

Read more details on the individual Eventbrite registration pages for June 5-6 and June 19-20. Participants can bring their own laptop or use a provided Windows desktop computer during the workshop. Since these workshop prices are STEEPLY discounted, we expect them to fill up quickly. Please register as soon as you can!

Register for June 5-6

Register for June 19-20

Technorati Tags: development, digital, okc, oklahoma, professional, storychasers, storytelling, workshop, summer

Steeply Discounted Digital Storytelling Workshops: June 5-6 & June 19-20 (Oklahoma City) originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on April 24, 2013.

This innovative, three day experience is designed specifically for K-12 and university-level faculty/instructors. In iPad Media Camp participants will learn how to use iPads to create a variety of media products and facilitate these projects with students. Projects can be modified for use in every grade level and content area, kindergarten through college-level. Each day will focus on different products and apps:

• Day 1: Narrated Art, Narrated Slideshows and Screencasts
• Day 2: Quick-edit Videography and Paper-slide Videos
• Day 3: eBooks and Interactive Writing

iPad Media Camp will be offered twice this summer:

• June 10-12 in Oklahoma City (hosted by The Casady School in northwest OKC)
• July 9-11 in Manhattan, Kansas (hosted by the College of Education at Kansas State University)

Substantially discounted “early bird” registration is available through May 11th (for Oklahoma City) and through June 9th (for Manhattan, Kansas). For those traveling to iPad Media Camp from out-of-town and out-of-state, nearby lodging suggestions for each week of camp are available.

Please download, forward via email, and/or print these flyers in PDF format with other teachers, administrators, and staff in your school who might be interested in this professional development opportunity:

• PDF flyer: June 10-12 Oklahoma City iPad Media Camp
• PDF flyer: July 9-11 Manhattan, Kansas, iPad Media Camp

Here are some of the reactions of teachers who participated in iPad Media Camp in summer 2012:

Dr. Fryer made the impossible happen for me. I was able to create movies and books! I’m an old dog and he made it fun and easy to learn new tricks. Great workshop and a great presenter.

If you are interested in coming up with innovative ways to engage your students in class with media they are truly interested in, you need to attend this camp. The things I’ve learned in this camp, and others taught by Wes, have made my class exciting for kids to attend and helped make them responsible media creators.

Go directly to Media Camp. Do not pass GO, do not collect $200! It was so worth my time. Even old dogs can learn new tricks! Thank you for all your hard work.

The curriculum from the June 2012 iPad Media Camp is available online. Curriculum is being revised for summer 2013, but will include many elements from last summer’s workshops.

Check out the two minute video trailer from iPad Media Camp 2012 to learn more!

iPad Media Camp: June & July 2013 in Oklahoma & Kansas originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on April 24, 2013.

• Main Presentation by Panelists (61 minutes, 39 seconds)
• Question and Answer Time (31 min, 29 sec)

Thanks to Together Oklahoma for sharing these links via Twitter.

Technorati Tags: funding, New Tag, oklahoma, finances, money

FOCU$ on Education Conference Archived Videos Online (April 2013) originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on April 23, 2013.

These are resources Wesley Fryer shared today with teachers in Saskatoon Public School Division over Skype on the topic, “Why Map Media to the Curriculum?” An audio recording of this session is also available. In his 50 minute presentation Wesley specifically focused on student-created media projects including eBooks and “narrated art.”

Why Map Media to the Curriculum? (April 2013) originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on April 23, 2013.

YouTube can be used in powerful, transformative ways to support classroom learning, especially when STUDENTS create content shared online. Today, as I helped one of our 7th grade geography teachers wrap up a paper-slide video project in which student-created videos were uploaded to his YouTube channel, we discovered that YouTube now permits “bulk modification” of videos in the Video Manager. This means teachers can now change the settings for 30 videos or more, all at once, so comment moderation is REQUIRED.

Comment moderation is turned OFF by default on all YouTube channels, even if your school district uses Google Apps for Education. When comment moderation is turned ON, the teacher / owner of the YouTube channel has the opportunity to APPROVE any comments which are left on videos in their YouTube channel before they show up publicly for others to view. I highly recommend teachers turn on comment moderation on YouTube videos, since (presently) it’s not possible to turn on comment moderation by default. The following steps are also available as a 2 page PDF file, linked from the “Quick Edit Video” page of Mapping Media to the Common Core.

Step 1: Open YouTube Video Manager

Step 2: Select videos to edit / change settings on

Step 3: Select ACTIONS – ADVANCED. Select COMMENTS.

Step 4: Click ALLOW ONLY APPROVED COMMENTS

Technorati Tags: howto, moderate, paperslide, playingwithmedia, tutorial, videos, youtube, comments

Bulk-Modify YouTube Videos to Turn ON Comment Moderation originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on April 22, 2013.

We are hearing more about BYOD (bring your own device) initiatives in many school districts these days, but what kinds of technology integration projects can teachers and students realistically do when some (but not all) students have smartphones and the teacher has one laptop? Today’s smartphone (or the smartphone of four years ago, which students may have inherited from parents or older siblings) can be remarkably powerful, but the BYOD environment can make technology integration even more challenging than a 1:1 situation when all students have the same technology equipment and software. Paper-Slide Videos are one practical type of technology integration project which can work well in a BYOD setting, and in this post I’d like to share some lessons learned from last week when I helped one of the 7th grade geography teachers in our district facilitate a three day paper-slide video project which ultimately culminated in 33 short videos (most less than 2 minutes long) being uploaded to his YouTube channel on Friday. To learn more about paper-slide videos as well as access the rubric and planning guide for this project which we co-created, please refer to the “Quick Edit Video” project page in Mapping Media to the Common Core. Paper-slide videos are BYOD projects your students CAN do with guidance and facilitation. I recommend you give this project idea a try after you review some of these lessons learned.

Phillip Ward (the 7th grade teacher) and I had many cards stacked against us for this project: It is testing time in Oklahoma, so no computer labs were available for checkout and use. The library was closed for testing 2 of the 3 days, so its computers weren’t available either. There are not any mobile laptop or iPad/iPod Touch carts available for any teacher to use in our 7/8 middle school building, so literally the only technology devices we had to use were his Macbook Air laptop, his desktop WindowsXP computer, and any mobile devices the students could bring to class. We designed this project to take 3 days, and serve as a culminating activity for the past several weeks when students have been studying Sub-Saharan Africa. These are some of the key lessons learned and takeaways which I had from this project.

SEVEN SLIDE RUBRIC

The most important tool Phillip and I created together during several meetings in the weeks preceding the paper-slide video project was the three page planning guide and rubric which students used all three days. This was based in-part on a rubric and guide Mary Frazier, a Technology Specialist in Buhler, Kansas, shared online a few years ago at the MACE Conference in Manhattan, Kansas.

I work as an “Innovative Instructional Coach for Common Core” in Yukon Public Schools, and it was very important to both Phillip and I that we built in higher-order thinking questions which would require the students to go beyond fact/recall in the project. On page 1 of the student document, we outlined expectations for each slide of the project. Slide 1 and slide 7 were straightforward: a title slide and bibliography / works cited slide. Slides 2 and 3 were fact slides to build background knowledge. Slide 4 is where the higher order thinking kicked in: Why is this topic important to study and understand? Slides 5 and 6 continued with open ended questions the students had to answer, which do NOT have answers which are readily Googleable.

Page 1 highlighted the key rules for a paper-slide video:

1. One Take
2. Non-stop Video
3. No Editing
4. Quick Publishing

DAILY EXIT TICKETS

Page 2 of the planning guide was the class exit ticket for day 1: Students were required to decide in their groups of 2 or 3 who would be responsible for each slide. Students started brainstorming topics and used provided print articles about their assigned subject (which were almost all different) to begin their research process.

Page 3 of the planning guide was used on days 2 and 3 to actually draw illustrations which would highlight the concepts being discussed. Students needed to at least have their own slides (the ones they were responsible for) sketched out and outlined by the end of day 2 as their class “exit ticket.”

This seven slide storyboard proved to work well for the three class periods students had to complete their projects from start to finish. It provided enough structure and guidance that students weren’t lost or unsure about what to do, but still provided room for student creativity in their projects.

PRINTED RESEARCH MATERIALS

Since not all students had a smartphone with access to the Internet, Phillip prepared packets of 1-2 articles per topic for the students to use for research in the project. This provided students with instructional materials they could read and use for their reports, and also sped up the research process since students didn’t have to find and vet sources themselves.

I wish we could have provided each student group with at least 2-3 printed articles, but it worked with each group having just 1 or 2.

OPEN ENDED QUESTIONS ARE KEY

Another key to the success of this project was the open ended questions list which Phillip and I brainstormed together. This is available as a shared Google Doc. We knew we were pushing students beyond “just the facts” (as Common Core State Standards require) when we heard comments like:

1. This answer isn’t in the article.
2. This is hard!
3. I don’t know.

This was, in fact, my favorite part of the entire project: Getting to have important conversations with students about historical events and current events. Many of these conversations showed how VERY important lessons and cognitive expectations like these are. SO many of our students have no idea that the United States is still at war in the Middle East today, using drone aircraft as well as military and covert forces to kill suspected terrorists on a weekly basis. Many students don’t understand and can’t explain the reasons why the United States chose to intervene militarily in Iraq and Afghanistan but hasn’t intervened militarily in Darfur and didn’t intervene in Rwanda to prevent or stop the genocide in 1994. These conversations reminded me a lot of why high school and college extemporaneous speaking is SUCH A wonderful and valuable event. Students have to understand and take ownership over their learning to a MUCH greater extent when they are required to speak about a topic and even just carry on an intelligent conversation with someone else about it. I wish we made more time in classes for discussions like these. The requirement to ask students to go “beyond the facts” and utilize higher order thinking skills to summarize, synthesize, evaluate and create is one of my favorite elements of Common Core State Standards.

POWER OF NON-LINGUISTIC REPRESENTATION

Many students were challenged by the requirement to draw illustrations which highlighted the ideas they were going to share for that slide in their project. Non-lingustic representation is one instructional strategy which Robert Marzano highlighted in his 2004 meta-analysis of educational research, “Classroom Instruction That Works.” It’s a key part of several of the media projects in Mapping Media to the Common Core digital literacy framework, including Narrated Art, 5 Photo Stories, and Visual Notetaking.

Phillip did a better job than I did during the actual project work “acting like Socrates” when students asked, “What can I draw for this?” Often his answer would be, “I don’t know, what do you think?” This encouraged students to stop acting like dependent learners waiting for guidance from the teacher for everything they did in class, to instead becoming more independent learners thinking for themselves and also collaborating with others.

BENEFIT OF GROUP WORK AND PRE-SELECTING GROUPS

Phillip wisely chose (for his situation) to pre-select and assign student groups. This sped up the process of students getting into groups, and also let him “stack the deck” in some cases making sure students with special needs were paired with other students who could assist them in helpful and appropriate ways. He also avoided grouping students who had historically demonstrated difficulty working with each other.

TIME MILESTONES

It was helpful to set some time milestones for students during day 2 and day 3 of the project. On day 3, we wrote the class “halftime” on the board and told students that by that time they needed to be starting their video recording. When we got to that halfway point in class, we announced it. This helped insure that ALL students started recording in time to complete their video by the end of class, and students didn’t waste too much time on some slides that they didn’t have time to create others. This models the idea I picked up for digital storytelling projects some time ago, “It’s never done, it’s just due.” Students had to go with what they had, and use their time as best they could to complete a final product.

MODELING THE PROCESS AND PRODUCT

Prior to the start of the three day project, Phillip and I had planned a project together using the rubric and planning guide on “China’s One Child Policy.”

Because of illnesses in both our families we weren’t able to co-create this project until the morning of day 2, but that proved ok. I created a sample project (“Egypt After Arab Spring”) on my own before we started, and we were able to show that to students on day 1 as we introduced paper-slide videos. Then on day 2, we showed students our collaborative paper-slide video and they were able to identify several ways it was better as a combined effort. The fact that both Phillip and I took some instructional risks by doing this project and showing students it was ok to use imperfect drawings seemed to raise their confidence in being able to successfully complete a similar project. It also gave us insight into what we were requiring and asking of the students, and helped us identify things we needed to emphasize in our facilitator roles during the project.

SIMPLE UPLOADING WITH IMAGE CAPTURE

One of the best things about a paper-slide video project is that it doesn’t require any technology in the classroom until the final day or phase, when students actually record their videos. I knew the project-turn in process would be important to plan and streamline as much as possible, so we asked each student group to bring an iPhone or iPod Touch with video which they could use to record on day 3. Only a few groups weren’t able to provide one, so I loaned my iPhone to some groups and others shared an iPhone. I brought USB cables for both the iPhone 30 pin connector and lightning connector, and used the free application “Image Capture” to copy the student videos onto Phillip’s district-provided Macbook Air laptop. As I copied each file into a folder for that class period on the laptop with Image Capture, I named the file with the class period, project title, and first names of students who created it. I then immediately uploaded each video to a YouTube channel I helped Phillip create earlier. As I uploaded videos, I used the Mac OS X feature of coloring files to mark uploaded files as “green.” This process worked well and was speedy.

ANDROID VIDEO SHARING WITH AIRDROID

One of our student groups had two Android phones, but no iPhone or iPod Touch. This provided an opportunity for me to test the functionality of the free Android application AirDroid, which I’d learned about earlier last week listening to the first Chromebook episode of GigaOm’s Commutist podcast. (Yes that’s COMMUTIST, not communist – be sure you’re not scanning this post too quickly!) Thanks so much to Chromebook/Android guru Kevin C. Tofel for sharing it!

AirDroid lets you use ANY web browser to download video files from an Android device to your computer, provided both your computer and the Android device are connected to the same wifi network with open ports for this sort of thing. Our district public wifi didn’t work, so I pulled out my Verizon hotspot and it worked great. Next week I’m going to talk with our tech director and network admin to see if it’s possible for ports to be opened on our public network so AirDroid can work on it.

If you know about or have used other solutions for transferring videos from an Android smartphone to a laptop besides Airdroid, please let me know with a comment or tweet.

FOCUS ON IMAGES NOT SLIDE TEXT

Another very positive aspect of this project, in my view, was the emphasis we put on students utilizing drawings / images with MINIMUM text on each slide. All too often we see PowerPoint abused in classrooms when students (and many teachers) fill slides with text. In the spirit of Garr Reynolds’ “Presentation Zen” book, Phillip and I did our part last week to try and shift students toward more visual literacy in their media presentations rather than an overuse of written text.

NOTE CARDS FOR SCRIPTS

It worked well for students to write scripts and notes for their paper-slide narration on notecards. Some used notebook paper and some wrote on their planning documents, but most used notecards.

RECORDING VIDEOS IN LANDSCAPE MODE

We asked students before they started recording their videos to hold their smartphones in landscape, rather than portrait mode. This would avoid “letterbox bars” to the left and right of their video, and make the videos full-screen when viewed on a projector. We also asked them to be sure their video mode rotated correctly, so they didn’t record their videos sideways. Despite our warnings, this generally happened at least once per class period. Thankfully, the Mac software program “TransformMovie” is available with a fully-functional, free trial. It can rotate and “fix” a video accidentally recorded sideways MUCH faster than other free programs I’ve used for this like MPEG Streamclip.

QR CODES AND LIST.LY

We did not ask students to create electronic or “clickable” bibliographies for this research project, but I definitely see good possibilities for this using the free web platform list.ly. For more details see my post last week, “Egypt After Arab Spring: A Paper Slide Video Example and List.ly Bibliography.” I also see great possibilities for using printed QR codes to not only help students connect their smartphones directly to research articles so they can follow links for more information, but also to provide scannable QR codes inside paper-slide videos which link to list.ly bibliographies.

CLOSING THOUGHTS

There were 4 student groups (out of about 37 total) who did not complete their paper-slide video recordings on Friday. Those students are going to finish up on Monday, and Phillip is going to ask all students to respond to some reflective essay questions about the project and what they learned. Feedback so far has been very positive, and Phillip plans to share all the student-created videos in class in upcoming weeks after state-mandated testing is finally over. Once he identifies several of the best videos, I’m going to write a post about this project and share it on the Yukon Public Schools’ Learning Showcase website. I’m also hopeful we can create a short video with student interviews as well as an interview with Phillip discussing the project elements as well as lessons learned.

The paper-slide video products Phillip’s 7th grade students created last week are not Steven Spielberg quality digital stories, but they DO reflect a considerable amount of thinking, learning, and collaboration on the part of students. This is a great and practical “Common Core aligned” media project. Hopefully this example can inspire other teachers at Yukon Middle School, as well as you, to consider a “Quick Edit Video” project like this in your own class.

Consider a paper-slide video for your next (or first) BYOD project with students!

Technorati Tags: classroom, edtech, paperslide, playingwithmedia, technology, video, byod

Paper Slide Video: Your Next (or First) BYOD Technology Integration Project originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on April 21, 2013.

I used these paper slides today to create a 5 minute, 20 second sample project based on our rubric and planning documents. This followed the four basic guidelines of Paper Slide Videos:

1. One Take
2. Non-stop Video
3. No Editing
4. Quick Publishing

I feel a disclaimer is needed because of the second grade quality of my drawings. Remember in a paper slide video project, it is more important to have drawings which are relevant non-linguistic representations of ideas rather then perfect pictures.

I’ve added a link to our project rubric and planning guide sheets (in PDF format) to the “Quick Edit Video” page of Mapping Media to the Common Core. Many thanks to Mary Frazier of Buhler, Kansas, whose excellent Paper Slide Video wiki as well as project planning page (PDF) was a major inspiration for this project.

Back in February at the ICE Conference, I saw Meg Wilson use List.ly to share a hotlist of eBook apps she recommends for the iPad. For this project, I wanted a fast and easy way to create a hotlist of the sources I used for research. I used List.ly and the provided bookmarklet to make a hotlist on an iPad of my project sources.

To create this hotlist, I first signed into List.ly with my Twitter ID. Students and others can alternatively create an account on the site not tied to a Twitter, Facebook, or Google Account. Students could also use a shared class account, although care should always be taken when using shared accounts since this permits ANYONE with the login credentials to anonymously delete or edit the work of others.

I installed the List.ly browser bookmarklet on my iPad and used it to add links to each site I used for research.

Last of all, I used the free iPad app “QR Code Beamer” to create a QR code which corresponds to my List.ly hotlist. I uploaded that image to Flickr and then printed it to include on my last slide.

In addition to planning out our rubric and planning guide for this Paper Slide Video project, we also spent quite a bit of time brainstorming open ended questions about different curricular topics students have already studied a little in class. Our hope is that students will be required to engage in a lot of higher order thinking, especially for slides 4-6 of the project, as they explain the importance and relevance of their topic as well as address open-ended questions. I’m looking forward to seeing the results!

Technorati Tags: paper, playingwithmedia, slide, video, videos

Egypt After Arab Spring: A Paper Slide Video Example and List.ly Bibliography originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on April 16, 2013.

This evening I recorded a twenty minute screencast, demonstrating how to use the FREE software programs Audacity, iTunes, The Levellator, and the websites AudioBoo and DropBox to create and publish a multi-track Internet radio show or podcast. Access more tools, tutorials, and resources about creating radio shows on the “Radio Show” page of Mapping Media to the Common Core. This video tutorial and others are included.

Also, see my October 2009 post, “How I create and publish podcasts” for additional details. My workflow for podcasting hasn’t changed much in the past few years. iPad apps like Bossjock Studio may change it at some point, however! If you’re interested in podcasting from an iPad, also see my March 2013 post and screencast, “Create an All-iPad Class Radio Show with AudioBoo, Bossjock, GoodReader, & SoundCloud.”

Technorati Tags: audacity, howto, itunes, playingwithmedia, radio, show, tutorial

Create a Multi-Track Radio Show (Podcast) with Audacity originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on April 16, 2013.

Show Notes:

1. AudioBoo Channel for Mapping Media to the Common Core Montana
2. Information about the class: Mapping Media to the Common Core Part 1
3. Radio Show page of Mapping Media to the Common Core
4. AudioBoo Classic app for iOS (free)
5. 20 minute video tutorial: Create a Multi-Track Radio Show (Podcast) with Audacity
6. iTunes software (free)
7. Audacity software (free)
8. SoundCloud (great for podcast hosting, but free accounts are limited)
9. DropBox (free)
10. The Levellator software (free)
11. Cyberduck (free)
12. PodPress Plugin for WordPress (free)
13. Fuel for Educational Change Agents Podcast channel
14. Follow Wesley on Twitter: @wfryer

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Podcast402: Montana Teachers Share “Why We Teach” originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on April 15, 2013.

In contrast [to print books], most screens, e-readers, smartphones and tablets interfere with intuitive navigation of a text and inhibit people from mapping the journey in their minds. A reader of digital text might scroll through a seamless stream of words, tap forward one page at a time or use the search function to immediately locate a particular phrase — but it is difficult to see any one passage in the context of the entire text. As an analogy, imagine if Google Maps allowed people to navigate street by individual street, as well as to teleport to any specific address, but prevented them from zooming out to see a neighborhood, state or country. Although e-readers like the Kindle and tablets like the iPad re-create pagination — sometimes complete with page numbers, headers and illustrations — the screen only displays a single virtual page: it is there and then it is gone. Instead of hiking the trail yourself, the trees, rocks and moss move past you in flashes with no trace of what came before and no way to see what lies ahead.

Read the entire article, it’s excellent: “Do e-readers inhibit reading comprehension?” by Ferris Jabr.

Mobile blogged on an iPhone with WordPress for iOS. (free)

Understanding Why eBooks “Feel Different” originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on April 15, 2013.

This is a wonderful definition of “transliteracy” from The Transliteracy Research Group:

Transliteracy is the ability to read, write and interact across a range of platforms, tools and media from signing and orality through handwriting, print, TV, radio and film, to digital social networks.

I’ve heard of and read about transliteracy a bit in the past, but I need to learn more about it since this is a paraphrase of my advocacy rationale for the digital literacy framework, “Mapping Media to the Common Core.”

I heard David Jakes discuss transliteracy back in March 2010 in his Palm Beach County Schools Technology Conference presentation, “Creating Immersive Learning Environments with Mixed Media.” More recently at the 2013 ICE Conference in Chicago, Carol Broos discussed transliteracy in her session, “Infusing the Arts in the Common Core.”

Thanks to a tweet yesterday from Joyce Valenza, I found this video of Sue Thomas‘ lecture on Transliteracy at Empire State College on March 15th. Check it out.

Transliteracy is the new “language arts” in our schools. We live in a “media-centric society” (as Roger Wagner, founder of HyperStudio, said years ago) and the implications of that statement are barely understood by many parents as well as educators today. Leaders in our schools and statehouses know technology is changing lots of things, but few understand LITERACY itself is changing. I heard David Warlick proclaim “Literacy Isn’t What It Used to Be” at NECC 2003 in Seattle, and that idea continues to resonate with me a decade later. Although I didn’t use that term, advocacy for transliteracy was a key part of the presentation “Why Play with Media?” I shared in Yarmouth, Maine, in March 2012. We need to play with media and TEACH multimedia communication because literacy is shifting to become “transliteracy.”

Just this past weekend we had a “transliteracy moment” in our family. Our middle daughter said two students had been kidnapped at her school, and my wife asked her where she heard that. She replied it was posted on Instagram by a friend. Did she verify if any other sources were reporting this headline? Was she critically thinking not only about the source of the information, but also the tools at her disposal (i.e. Google) to verify information? What is her responsibility as an Instagram user, and therefore an information PUBLISHER and disseminator, to verify the accuracy of information before she passes it along to others? These are very relevant, timely, and important conversations, and unfortunately in many school language arts classes students are still reading and discussing a paper-based version of “The Scarlet Letter” like it was 1981. It’s not 1981, or 1961, or 1850, the year Nathaniel Hawthorne published “The Scarlet Letter.”

  by  Dennis Vu Photography for Unleashed Media 

If you want to read, study and discuss “The Scarlet Letter” today, the good news is it’s available free via Project Gutenburg. That means as a teacher you can import it in ePUB format directly into the free SubText app on the iPad, and have “discussions in the book” with your students which include hyperlinks, images and embedded videos. Then your students can engage in “interactive writing” on your class blog (which serves as their “digital portfolio,”) can create “narrated art” about the concepts and ideas of the book, and can even construct their own eBooks with digital text, images, audio and video. THAT could potentially be a great transliteracy study. SubText is the eReading app we’re using in my Spring “Mapping Media to the Common Core Vol I” course in Montana.

Who will help “normalize” discussions about and work in transliteracy in your school or college? If not you, then who? As David Jakes wrote eloquently tonight, we need more intentional opportunities in our schools for “practices found on the edge” (like those of transliteracy educators) to influence and ultimately “win over” teachers in “the core.” Jakes wrote:

Would your school climate benefit from the creation of more disruptive edges? Would that promote a change in climate where the conditions for innovation became more favorable? What if educators were intentional and strategic about creating edges? How would this contribute to a climate, and ultimately, a culture of innovation? And, how would the practices found on the edge ultimately inform the core?

Share this idea with another teacher you know this week: Transliteracy is the New Language Arts.

Technorati Tags: literacy, writing, transliteracy, language, arts

Transliteracy is the New Language Arts originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on April 14, 2013.

  by  dok1 

Since I still receive a ton of press releases and requests to post content via email, a few years ago I also started to use SaneBox. SaneBox is an email “whitelisting” service which also attempts to categorize emails and sort things into folders. It allows you to “train” your inbox, which means giving instructions about how to handle messages from certain senders. Both POBox and SaneBox are services I pay a small yearly amount to use, and I like them both. They have not “solved” my email management challenges, but they definitely help.

The other strategy I’ve employed to try and manage messages from my blog is to use electronic contact forms. Contact Form 7 is a free, outstanding plug-in for WordPress that I’ve used for several years. I started using electronic contact forms on websites sometime in the late 1990s. Even though I have different forms for speaking inquiries, advertising, and other messages, I inevitably get spam on all the forms I have online.

Today I made several modifications to my blog advertising options and procedures, and created a submission form with more “required” text fields. I’m hoping this will reduce the number of inquiries I receive on that specific form which are outside my advertising terms. Here’s a recent example from last week:

The previous request is particularly dangerous, since a stranger is asking to put PHP code on my website for a year. This is something I haven’t seen before and would never do. Now that my advertising terms and request form has more required fields, hopefully it will cut down on submissions like these.

How are you navigating requests for advertising, press release posts, or guest blog posts? I think Tony Vincent and JoAnne Jacobs both have excellent pages and policies about this. See Tony’s disclosure on the bottom of his LearningInHand.com’s About page and JoAnne’s advertising page to see their terms and approaches. Richard Byrne, as far as I know, is doing the best job monetizing direct advertising on his blog of any teacher in the U.S. Check out his advertising information page too. Richard is running more ads than I would or will, but he’s also on another “plane” of blogging frequency than I am or most people probably will want to be.

Technorati Tags: ad, advertising, blog, email, filter, form, spam

Updates to Blog Advertising Options and Procedures originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on April 14, 2013.

Our school has about 800 students (200 per grade) and we are requiring all our freshmen to start a blog about their school experience, and maintain it over their 4 years here. Regardless of what program they choose to create their blog, they have to be organized in a manner that allows different populations to find and read them. And this system has to be robust enough to support 200 additional blogs each year, organized by homeroom and accessible to users with all sorts of ability levels (ranging from highly skilled to terrified, and who are universally too busy to go far out of their way to troubleshoot).

Myron Buck is the High School Information Communications Technology Facilitator at Hong Kong International School and the author of this paragraph.

Read his entire recent post, “The Heir Apparent…” (about Feedly and Google Reader) to get more context. Myron is @myroniusbuckus on Twitter and blogs on the Digital Bridge. I love the term “digital bridge” in the context of educational technology.

Hat tip to Jeff Utecht for sharing his post, “The Bright Side Of Google Reader Leaving Us,” which led me to Myron’s post.

  by  kjarrett 

Technorati Tags: blog, edtech, technology, blogging, playingwithmedia

What Support for Interactive Writing (Blogging) at High School Should Look Like originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on April 8, 2013.

I have started to create a digital badge credentialing process for the media products included in the digital literacy framework, “Mapping Media to the Common Core.” Digital badging is a way to provide credit and recognition for skills learners demonstrate in different contexts. In this case, I’m wanting to use a variety of digital badges to both recognize and encourage teachers to create digital media products both individually and with their students. The first six media products for which I created entry-level (bronze) digital badges today are Interactive Writing, Narrated Art, Radio Show, 5 Photo Story, Visual Notetaking and Narrated Slideshow / Screencast. Eventually I’m going to create “silver” and “gold” level badges for these media products, along with the other six products in the framework. I’m creating these badges so they can also be awarded by others, so if you’re a teacher, instructor or professor wanting to use them to encourage your own students to develop digital literacy skills you can.

At this point I’m thinking the “badge levels” will be:

• BRONZE: Individually creating and sharing a media project
• SILVER: Facilitating and sharing a STUDENT media project
• GOLD: Helping / coaching a colleague to successfully create a media project (earn a bronze badge)

There are certainly many other possibilities, but that’s what I’m thinking about for the initial phase of this. I’d love to hear your feedback and ideas. This is something I’ve been thinking about and planning for many months.

To receive one of these badges, a badge-issuing organization/authority must certify via evidence (a hyperlink in these cases) that the prospective awardee has successfully met the badge award criteria. Check out my personal profile on Credly to see some examples.

I created these digital badges using the free web tools available on Credly.com and the graphics I’d previously drawn (and remixed in one case) for Mapping Media to the Common Core. I’m thrilled Credly also offers BadgeOS, which is a free WordPress plugin. I’ve been waiting for that release since October last year at EduCause when I met Jonathan Finkelstein. Jonathan is a VERY smart guy and the founder of Credly. See my post for iThemes Education, “EDUCAUSE/ELI Badging Focus Group,” for more about what I learned then about digital badging. Also check out Class Badges, which is a different tool available (not from Jonathan/Credly) for digital badging with students.

By late June / ISTE 2013 I hope to have a Credly-powered digital badging process integrated into the “Mapping Media to the Common Core” digital literacy framework, most likely hosted on the media project sharing site I setup in 2011 for “Playing with Media: simple ideas for powerful sharing.” I also hope to integrate digital badging into the student Storychasers club website we’re using at Lakeview Elementary in Yukon Public Schools using BadgeOS.

Through this work I hope to help redefine digital literacy in practical ways in classrooms and communities around the world. I think digital badging holds great promise for initiatives like “Mapping Media to the Common Core,” which seeks to make the question “What Do You Want to CREATE Today?” a common refrain for learners across the K-20 spectrum.

Technorati Tags: digital, playingwithmedia, wordpress, badge, badging, credly

Credly-powered Digital Badges for Mapping Media to the Common Core originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on April 6, 2013.

Quite a few members of our church‘s youth group attended, along with parents, elders, and Sunday School teachers. Our community has experienced a series of teen suicides in the past year, and the ideas Rich shared are both timely and needed.

I did not have my laptop at the presentation tonight, so I used my iPhone to live-tweet it. Unfortunately I didn’t see a tweet from Crossings Church about the hashtag they’re using (#Cultivating) for this spring speaker series until after the event. I created a Storify to chronologically archive the tweets I shared from the event. Many thanks to Rich Van Pelt for sharing this information and these strategies to pro-actively address teen suicide, and thanks to Crossings Church for hosting this event for our community. Since these issues are relevant to a wide audience and not strictly theological / faith focused, I’m posting this here in addition to my Christian blog, Eyes Right.

Learn more about Rich and his ministry career serving kids in crisis in this four minute video from June 2012. His books and other support resources are available from Zondervan.

Hebrews 13:20-21

Now may the God of peace, who through the blood of the eternal covenant brought back from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great Shepherd of the sheep, equip you with everything good for doing his will, and may he work in us what is pleasing to him, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.

Technorati Tags: teen, suicide, rich, vanpelt, crossings, church

Lessons on Suicide Prevention from Rich Van Pelt originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on April 3, 2013.

We don’t share this with you at the start of the PD sequence because we don’t want to scare everyone

We call this “Learning to Cross the Street in a Digital World” because we don’t just send kids out to the street by themselves
- we talk about not filtering everything, it would be better if things were open and you can teach kids
- we’ve heard some opting out of responsibility for character development
- digital citizenship is the same: we need to teach digital citizenship just lil we do character development

ISTE Standards
- it is the right thing to do
- it is also required by the state

Research we use is from PEW Research Center
- some of this is for teens
- 2011: percentage of teens who turned to for advice after witnessing online cruelty
- most accounts have
- a billion active users as of December 2012

STUDY: “Teens, kindness and cruelty on social network sites” (Nov 2011)

Kids are on Instagram, parents are on Facebook
- I think kids are logging into Instagram instead of Facebook to get away from adults

Instagram is the same as Facebook, but with pictures

(DISCUSSION WITH SOME TEACHERS THINKING ONLY PEOPLE WHO YOU HAVE APPROVED TO FOLLOW YOU PROFILE CAN SEE YOUR PHOTOS ON INSTAGRAM)

Video: Is Social Media a Fad? by Erik Qualman

PEW Internet: Social Networking Full View (Feb 2013)
- 15% of online adults use Pinterest
- 13% of online adults use Instagram
- 6% of online adults use Tumbler
- 67% of online adults use Facebook
- 16% of online adults use Twitter
- 20% of online adults use LinkedIn as of August 2012

Who is most likely to post reviews online?
- people who are super happy or unhappy
- you need to be aware of how much the Internet will affect business

Twitter and social network site usage
- 78% of users are boys
- the lower your income level, the more likely it is your kids are on Facebook (maybe because of less home supervision)

Report: “The Demographics of Social Media Users — 2012” (Feb 2013, PEW Internet)

I believe there are big Internet and phone addictions with both kids and adults

Digital Etiquette
- politeness counts
- all caps = SCREAMING
- be careful with CC and reply all
- Avatars are people to
- Don’t stand for bullyING

Cyberbullying is a lot of what we are going to talk about today

Electronic Standards of Conduct
- is it appropriate to answer a call during a private conversation? Do you text when others are speaking to you?

Lots has changed, so we are wanting to encourage you to learn about these things
- you might not use all of these things, but you need to know about these things to talk to kids about these issues

Worst thing I can do to my teen today: “Ground her” from her phone

MY THOUGHT: I HEARD SHERRY TURKLE ON THE NPR TECHNOLOGY PODCAST THIS MORNING TALKING ABOUT THE POWERFUL PSYCHOLOGY OF CONTROL WHICH IS AT PLAY WITH OUR PHONES. THIS REMINDS ME OF THE SIGNS I’VE SEEN MORE IN CHECKOUT LINES

Idea from Pinterest eating out: Everyone put your phones in the middle of the table, and whoever picks up their phone first pays for dinner

When it is appropriate to ask permission before posting a message, photo or video of someone?

THIS IS A REAL IMPORTANT QUESTION THAT WE DON’T ASK ENOUGH.

How do you decide what is appropriate for a text or a post?

There are issues here when students are on field trip, even by parents.

We are supporting pro-active board policies on issues like this, rather than just being reactive

How do you decide what is appropriate for a text or a post?

To be literate, competent citizens, students must understand
- how the internet works
- how to access web resources
- how to evaluate web resources
- how to behave in a responsible manner in an online community

Kids do not behave responsibly and that is why we need to talk about these issues

MY THOUGHT: I THINK THERE ARE A LOT OF EXAMPLES OF KIDS ACTING RESPONSIBILITY, BUT WE TEND TO FOCUS MORE (OR EXCLUSIVELY) ON THE NEGATIVE EXEMPLARS INSTEAD OF THE POSITIVE. ONE OF THE BIG DANGERS IN SESSIONS,

Digital Literacy Examples
- Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus: zapatopi.net/treeoctopus
- Victorian Robots: www.bigredhair.com/robots
- All About Explorers: www.allaboutexplorers.com
- Dihydrogen Monoxide Research: www.dhmo.org (WikiPedia hoax page)

So now let’s see how to check for valid sources:
- showing and discussing MLK misinfo site from Stormfront (hate group)

Use www.easywhois.com

Archive.org is Internet Wayback Machine
- this is managed by the government

MY COMMENT: ACTUALLY I THINK THE INTERNET ARCHIVE IS INDEPENDENTLY OPERATED. SEE THIS FAQ.

DigitalAccess: Full Electronic Participation in Society
- 78% of teens now have a cell phone, almost half (47%) have smartphones. This translates into 37% of all teens have smartphones, up from 23% in 2011
- 23% of teens have a tablet computer, a level comparable to the general adult population
- 95% of teens use the internet
- 93% of teens have a computer or have access to one at home. Seven in ten (71%) of teens with home computer access say the laptop or desktop they use most often is one they share with other family members

We updated these statistics last week

85% of US adults use the Internet today
89% of US adults today have cell phones (Jan 2013)

Accessing Internet on cell phones versus home Interent

Accessibility: How do you address these issues for your students?
What does accessibility have to do with equity?
Is equity one of your grant goals?

DigitalLaw
- electronic responsibility for actions and deeds
- cyberbullying
- impersonating
- pirating music / movies
- cite sources properly

MY THOUGHTS AND COMMENTS: THERE ARE 2 GOOD CURRENT CASE STUDIES WHICH ADDRESS PLAGIARISM ISSUES, SEE:
- “Jonah Lehrer, Integrity and Quotation Fabrication: A Case Study in Writing Ethics” (21 Aug 2012)
- “Why the Jane Goodall Plagiarism Case Worries Me” (2 Apr 2013)

In Clinton, Oklahoma, they are working toward town-wide wifi for all students (they are 1:1 iPads for all students in grades 6-12)
- every student has a Gmail account

Recent case: “Two teens found guilty in Steubenville rape case” (17 March 2013)

“Oklahoma Mom Sues Over Twitter Picture of Unclothed Daughter” (7 Jan 2013)

Forever is a long, long time
- no one is really anonymous
- libel
- copyright violations
- school sanctions
- criminal prosecution

SnapChat is a new smartphone app which is contributing to more inappropriate photos / sexting incidents

article: “Web of Risks” from 2006 in Newsweek

article: “State builds case around MySpace account” (Sept 2008)

“5 teachers disciplined for Facebook postings” (Nov 2008)

MY THOUGHT: WHEN I SIT IN SESSIONS LIKE THIS (LIKE THIS 2012 OTA SESSION: “Face the Facebook: Implications and Consequences for Educators Using Social Media by Colin Webb“) I YEARN FOR EXAMPLES OF POSITIVE DIGITAL SOCIAL NETWORKING

Kids in our schools today are not getting this kind of information

MY COMMENT: OUR SCHOOLS ARE DOING SOME INTERNET SAFETY EDUCATION WITH STUDENTS AS A RESULT OF ERATE MANDATES, BUT I THINK THE FORM THAT TAKES VARIES WIDELY BY SCHOOL AND DISTRICT.

Ryan Patrick Halligan suicide story on cyberbullying

Showing video from www.deletecyberbullying.org

Girls are twice as likely than boys to be victims as well as perpetrators of cyberbullying
- 90% of teens who have seen social-media bullying say they have ignored it, 84% have seen others tell cyberbullies to stop

After 14 cyberbullying can become cyberstalking or sexual harassment
- cyberstalking is continual cyberbully, a form of mental assault, and is covered in Oklahoma anti-stalking laws

Impersonating is posting under another’s identity, emailing using another’s identity, hacking someone’s phone or Facebook

Recent case in an Oklahoma school: A male student’s sister got his phone and posted “I’m gay and I’m coming out” when that was not true
- she did it as a joke, but it had devastating consequences

MTV show “Catfish”
- someone gets together people

Manti Tao case

“Judge hears case of teen punished for Web parody” (2006)
- student taken out of AP classes, put in alt-ed, and missed graduation

“Myspace sites draw penalty”
- Jenks PS

If kids come to you and report cyberbullying, you are required to report it to your administrator just like cases of child abuse for DPS
- the law changed in 2011 in Oklahoma
- question from the group: Do we have this in our staff handbooks? How do we communicate this to staff?

text messaging bullying is the most common form

What schools can do
- ensure cyberbullying is covered by school’s Internet usage policy
- more…

Schools should take action if
- there is a threat that a rational person would take seriously
- disrupts the normal operation of school
- students use websites inappropriately at school
- students encourage others to misuse websites at school
- there is any negative impact on faculty, staff or students

MY THOUGHT: ANOTHER CASE STUDY TO CONSIDER IS THE RECENT ARTICLE IN NEWSOK.COM ABOUT A UCO STUDENT POSTING ABOUT A CLASSMATE, WHO WAS THREATENED BY HER DEPARTMENT CHAIR AT UCO WITH EXPULSION FROM THE UNIVERSITY. I WOULD LIKE TO HAVE THAT CASE CLARIFIED WHETHER THE BLOG WHERE THIS WAS POSTED WAS THE STUDENTS’ OWN BLOG, OR A CLASS BLOG. ARTICLE:

Subject to criminal prosecution:
- threats of violence
- coercion
- harassment/stalking
- more….

Music/Movie Privacy
- global piracy causes 12.5 billion in economic losses every year

MY THOUGHT ON THIS: SEASON 3 OF GAME OF THRONES PREMIER BROKE ALL MOVIE PIRACY/BIT TORRENT RECORDS LAST WEEK

Cite Sources Properly
- Turnitin.com (check for plagiarism)

MY THOUGHT: IT OCCURS TO ME IT WOULD BE GREAT AND IMPORTANT TO AMPLIFY THE POSTIVIVE EXPERIENCES SOME OF OUR YPS TEACHERS (AND OTHER OKLAHOMA TEACHERS MORE GENERALLY) HAVE HAD AS A RESULT OF DIGITAL SOCIAL NENTWORKING, SIMILAR TO WHAT ALAN LEVINE HAS DONE WITH HIS TRUE STORIES OF OPENNESS PROJECT. THEN WE CAN CHALLENGE PRESENTERS WHO ARE SHARING SESSIONS LIKE THIS ON ‘THE DANGERS OF THE INTERNET’ AND ‘BAD CHOICES PEOPLE MAKE WHICH ARE AMPLIFIED BY SOCIAL MEDIA’ TO SHARE THAT PROJECT AND AT LEAST ONE VIDEO FROM IT, TO ATTEMPT AT LEAST A SMALL COUNTER-BALANCE TO THE TAKEAWAY WHICH CAN HAPPEN AT SESSIONS LIKE THIS, WHICH GOES SOMETHING LIKE “THE INTERNET IS A REALLY DANGEROUS PLACE, I DON’T WANT TO PARTICIPATE IN INTERACTIONS ONLINE”

Online Ratings
- Ratemyteachers.com/school
- Pickaprof.com (now myedu)
- Amazon etc Product Ratings
- Yelp/Urbanspoon Restaurant Ratings
- Angie’s List Business Ratings

Facebook requires you be 13 to sign up

Showed news report video of GPS photos sharing where photos of kids are

Smartphone pictures pose privacy risks

“Isn’t that terrifying”

MY THOUGHT ON THIS: I’D LIKE TO KNOW IF THERE HAS BEEN A CASE IN THE US OF A STUDENT BEING KIDNAPPED AS A RESULT OF JUST ONLINE SHARED PHOTOS WITH GPS COORDINATES. GOOD ARTICLE FROM COMMON SENSE MEDIA ON THIS: “Is It Safe to Post Photos of Your Kids?”

Manti Te’o case: Girlfriend Hoax

RSS = repetitive stress syndrome

Keep passwords on your device

Secure your wifi at home
- people can hack into your personal information via that open network

All resources from this presentation are available in Moodle on: k20cloud.net

MY THOUGHT: WHY KEEP THESE RESOURCES ON A PASSWORD-PROTECTED, WALLED-GARDEN SITE? THIS WAS A GREAT PRESENTATION AND THESE RESOURCES ARE GREAT, WE NEED TO ADVOCATE FOR THE BENEFITS OF SHARING ON THE OPEN WEB… EVEN WITH THE OU K-20 CENTER!

Closing thought: Death of a child
- you never think it will happen to you until it does
- if I’d had more information, maybe I’d make a better decision

ILI Conference will be November, date HAS been set!

MY CLOSING THOUGHT: MANY THANKS TO JENNIFER FOR SHARING THIS SESSION. I ALWAYS EMERGE FROM SESSIONS ON THIS TOPIC WITH LOTS TO THINK ABOUT. I RECOMMEND ALSO CHECKING OUT MY November 2009 PRESO NOTES, “Google Profiles, Online Reputation Management, and Digital Footprints.” OTHER POSTS TO CHECK OUT INCLUDE:
- “Beyond the Fear Factor with Internet Safety” (May 2008)
- “Internet Safety Issues with Joel Gabel of Google” (May 2008)
- “Internet Crimes with Larry Boggess of OSBI” (May 2008)
- “Internet Safety Issues: What can librarians do?” (May 2008)
- “Nancy Willard on CyberSafety Issues: Notes from Safe and Healthy Schools 2008 Oklahoma” (Nov 2008)
- “Cyberbullying and Cyberthreats: Responding to the Challenge by Nancy Willard” (Nov 2008)
- “Digital Citizenship in Libraries: Constructively Leveraging the Power of the Social Web” (Nov 2009)

Technorati Tags: digital, ethics, internet, k20, safety, school, isafety, ou, ouk20

Digital Citizenship: Learning to Cross the Street in a Digital World originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on April 3, 2013.

InfiniteWP ROCKS.

If you’re an educator, sign up for the FREE iThemes Education Program, which includes a free membership to WebDesign.com and all their weekly webinars. If you can’t catch a webinar live you can generally view an archived recording later. WebDesign.com is a fantastic way to learn WordPress and acquire the skills you need to teach your students WordPress, even if you’re not “officially” a web design teacher/instructor.

After installing InfiniteWP to a directory on your server, you’ll need to install the free IWP Client Plugin on each of your WordPress sites. After copying the activation key info into your IWP installation, you’ll be ready to centrally manage WordPress updates… and potentially even more if you puchase add-ons.

* Full disclosure: I was a paid content blogger for iThemes (who operates WebDesign.com) last fall. More background is available on my Social Media Consulting page.

  by  thomashubbard 

Technorati Tags: design, wordpress, maintain, websites, webdesign

Update and Manage Multiple WordPress Sites with InfiniteWP originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on April 1, 2013.

A “standard ePUB version” of this eBook has been available from my PlayingWithMedia website and on the Barnes & Noble eBookstore for Nook since July of 2011, but I’ve additionally published the eBook on Google Play now because I want it to be available for students / teachers / professors using the SubText for iPad application.* If you’re not familiar with SubText yet, you need to be. It’s the first eBook / eReader application I’ve seen and used which permits students in particular classes to have discussions WITHIN an eText. We’re using SubText as our primary eReader application in my spring 2013 course, “Mapping Media to the Common Core: Part 1” offered through through Western Montana CSPD and the University of Montana. I absolutely LOVE the opportunity SubText provides to have contextual discussions “within an eBook.”

Check out the “Why SubText” page of the SubText website, subtitled, “Welcome to 21st century classroom reading” for more details about why this free app is so AMAZING for eReading.

I created a six minute narrated slideshow a few weeks ago using the EduCreations app on my iPad titled, “Introduction To Subtext For iPad,” for the 36 Montana students enrolled in the Mapping Media to Common Core course this semester.

Have you seen, encountered or used other eReader apps or platforms which permit this kind of “class discussion within an eBook?”

* “Playing with Media: simple ideas for powerful sharing” is also available on Amazon.com for Kindle. That version is in .mobi format for the Kindle, however, and is not a “standard ePUB.” It has it’s own ISBN number since it’s in a different format.

Technorati Tags: ebook, ereader, subtext, ereading

Playing with Media eBook Available on Google Play: For SubText Users! originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on April 1, 2013.

I agree the idea that the Common Core movement is a “UN black helicopter / world government agenda” is silly. That argument is unfortunately a “straw man” for issues and problems with Common Core and much of what passes for “Education Reform” proposals in our state and others, however.

There are many outstanding ideas in the Common Core State Standards which can certainly help us improve the quality of both learning opportunities as well as educational outcomes in Oklahoma. The issue which is NOT being talked about enough and many people are blind to, however, is the role corporate testing companies have played and continue to play in the CCSS and in “education reform” proposals generally.

Common Core in its current form now is a push to redirect millions of taxpayer education dollars into the coffers of educational testing companies. This testing effort isn’t about “research based methods” to improve student learning, it’s about a race to help corporations take our money instead of truly working to help improve learning and schools for Oklahoma students and teachers. Much of “School reform” today is being “driven” by a group who mistakenly believe the only way to effectively improve public education is through more high stakes testing, through fear, and with punitive “sticks” for both students and teachers. This is the wrong road and we have been on it too long in Oklahoma and the US generally.

Here are few articles I’d recommend, along with authors who are uncovering important issues related to “education reform” as it is manifested through Common Core, the Charter School Movement, A-F report cards, etc. As Oklahomans we need to be aware and savvy to these issues so we can help influence our state leaders to play constructive, rather than destructive roles, in improving public education. I’m prefacing these links with the “big ideas” we SHOULD be discussing and debating with regard to Oklahoma public education, instead of talking about “the UN and black helicopters” and Common Core.

1- Common Core Testing is Setup to Continue Educational Policies Designed to Brand All Public Schools and Public Educators as FAILURES
http://dianeravitch.net/2013/03/25/should-the-common-core-standards-have-been-field-tested/

2- Corporate Reformers (and many on their ‘bandwagon’) are primarily seeking profits, not ways to sincerely help schools, students and teachers
http://www.salon.com/2013/03/11/getting_rich_off_of_schoolchildren/

3- The “Jeb Bush model” of educational reform championed by many current Oklahoma political and education leaders (“the Florida model”) is the WRONG blueprint for improving public education in our state:
http://deutsch29.wordpress.com/2013/03/15/tom-vander-ark-and-the-business-of-education/

I will be writing more on these issues in the weeks and months to come. We need to develop a non-partisan constituency in Oklahoma which will change our educational policy trajectory for the long term. We cannot allow our state educational policy and state education dollars to primarily serve the profit interests of testing corporations and other interest groups who are trying to destroy public education rather than improve it in our state.

Technorati Tags: oklahoma, common, core, ccss, politics

Speaking Out Against Common Core High Stakes Testing & Corporate Driven Education Reform originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on April 1, 2013.

Show Notes:

1. Club Penguin
2. A Tour of Club Penguin (February 2013) – 23 minute screencast by Rachel
3. Voice Record Pro ($2 – for podcast recording, editing & uploading)
4. DropBox (free – for copying bumper audio links)
5. GoodReader ($5 – for downloading show bumpers & opening in Voice Record Pro)
6. iTransfer (free – for uploading final podcast via ftp to web host)
7. WordPress for iOS (free – for posting)
8. WordPress (free – content management system)
9. iRig Microphone ($60)
10. Fuel for Educational Change Agents Podcast channel
11. Follow Wesley on Twitter: @wfryer

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Podcast401: Why Club Penguin Is Awesome originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on March 31, 2013.

The August 2005 New York Times article, “New Tools: Blogs, Podcasts and Virtual Classrooms,” featured information about Maine elementary teacher Bob Sprankle and the “Room 208 Podcast” created by his 2nd and 3rd graders. That article, which I first learned about thanks to an online radio show / podcast by David Warlick (now offline), inspired my own work the past eight years with online radio shows both professionally and with students in different classroom contexts.

Now it’s 2013, and iPads are among the most powerful and useful technology tools in many classrooms as well as homes. Today I recorded a fifteen minute screencast tutorial, demonstrating how to create an “all-iPad” class radio show. By “all-iPad” I mean a digital radio show which can be ENTIRELY recorded, edited, and published with an iPad. To do this, students and I used AudioBoo (the “classic edition” iPhone app running on iPads,) Bossjock, GoodReader, & SoundCloud with a self-hosted WordPress site. There are definitely many other ways to create and share classroom radio shows, but this is the best way I’ve found (so far) to create an iPad-only radio show with multiple spots / parts.

You may have noticed I’ve used the phrase “classroom radio show” instead of podcast in this post. That’s not an accident. One of the recommendations I’m including in my forthcoming eBook series, “Mapping Media to the Common Core,” is that we “change our vocabulary” with other teachers when it comes to educational technologies in the classroom. Instead of “blogs” we should talk about “interactive writing.” Instead of “podcasts” we can talk about “classroom radio shows.” We need to avoid terms which sound overly-geekish and like jargon, and instead use phrases which other teachers (even “non-techy” teachers) can recognize, understand, and embrace. This will be the focus of my poster session at ISTE 2013 in San Antonio, “Changing Our Vocabulary as Technology Integration Coaches.” I hope to see you there, and even MORE importantly I hope you’ll be creating more classroom radio shows with your own students in the weeks ahead!

Check out some of the radio shows I’ve been helping 4th and 5th grade students at Lakeview Elementary School in Yukon, Oklahoma, create this semester, as part of their after-school “Storychasers Club.” More are coming!

Special thanks to Joe Dale and Michelle Cordy (UK and Canadian-based educators, respectively) for helping me identify prospective apps to use for iPad-only radio shows and the workflows these apps make possible!

Technorati Tags: classroom, common, commoncore, core, digital, edtech, literacy, podcast, podcasting, radio, student, technology, show

Create an All-iPad Class Radio Show with AudioBoo, Bossjock, GoodReader, & SoundCloud originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on March 30, 2013.

Thanks for reporting this issue. iCloud robots.txt prohibits all search engines to get data, and Google always respects what’s written in robots.txt. Unfortunately this means, that you are not able to subscribe to publicly shared iCloud calendar.

We reached out to Apple to highlight this issue, and their decision is to leave robots.txt the way it is now.

That post was dated 15 November 2011, and it does NOT appear Apple’s position on this has changed. The result of this, for the person I was helping to aggregate shared calendars, is that she has to use Apple’s Calendar program on her laptop to combine calendars. With it she can “subscribe” (as read-only calendars) to both Apple iCloud Calendars as well as shared Google Calendars. This can be done with a Google Calendar without “publicly” sharing the address, instead you can use the “private” calendar address available at the bottom of calendar settings.

Get the read-only address for an Apple Calendar to share by clicking the “radio signal” icon to the right of your calendar & choose to send an email. Send it to the person you want to share your calendar with (along with the “private addresses” of any Google Calendars you want to share) and then they can import the calendar into their Apple Calendar app by choosing FILE – IMPORT.

Technorati Tags: apple, calendar, google, share

Sharing Apple iCloud Calendars and Google Calendars originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on March 30, 2013.

Matt Patterson also included a short video interview with me, which he shot with his iPhone “Storychaser” style. This was inspiring, to see that professional journalists are using iOS devices just like our student Storychasers are at Lakeview Elementary this year to conduct video interviews. I just wish the thumbnail of my video didn’t look so goofy! Unfortuanately NewsOK isn’t permitting this video to be embedded on other sites. Since the thumbnail looks pretty silly, however, perhaps it’s a good thing embedding is prohibited…..

If you didn’t already, please read the lengthier article about Scratch Camp which ran in the Yukon Review last Saturday, “Students spend spring break learning a ‘new language.’”

The Code.org video “What most schools don’t teach” now has over 10 million views on YouTube. When’s the next Scratch Camp in your community? If one’s not planned, what are you waiting for?! Your curriculum has already been planned and is ready for you to copy! I promise you: THE KIDS ARE READY!

Hat tip to @khrista_lou for tweeting me the link to this article today!

Technorati Tags: oklahoma, programming, scratch, stem, yukon

The Daily Oklahoman Shares Yukon Scratch Camp Learning with Oklahoma City Readers originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on March 28, 2013.

I’m working with a middle school geography teacher on some technology integration ideas for his curriculum. His students are studying Africa in upcoming weeks. Since the school computer labs are tied up from now through the end of April for online testing (I wonder how many Oklahoma parents, legislators and taxpayers realize this is the NORM now) I’m recommending that he consider “paper slide video” projects. Paper slide videos can be very low-tech in terms of their requirements. While “narrated art projects” are best created with a tablet or smartphone running a specialized app, paper slide videos just require some kind of camera to record along with paper students draw on. In the following video, Lodge McCammon explains why this model of creating paper-based slides and narrating “live” on video can be so powerful. He calls this the “Fizz Video Lecture” method for Flipped Classrooms. This statement near the end of the video resonated deeply with me:

We are modeling a low barrier creative process that requires deep level thinking & a focus on content.

That’s exactly the reason I’m recommending “paper-slide videos” to the 7th grade teacher I’m working with now.

Check out the full video by Lodge, it’s six minutes long and worth watching in its entirety.

I’ve added resource links for paper slide videos to the “Quick Edit Video” page of the Mapping Media to the Common Core website. Lodge’s site, “FIZZ Paperslide Projects to Differentiate” is excellent. For additional resources, check out Mary Frazier’s resource wiki on Paper Slide Videos, which includes helpful PDF storyboards. I dropped in briefly on a workshop Mary was sharing at the MACE conference in Kansas a few years ago. That was my first introduction to “paper slide videos.” Also “like” Lodge McCammon’s Facebook page, “Fizz Education.”

Thanks to Linda Clark from Piedmont Schools in Oklahoma, who shared “Paper Slide Videos” in February at EdCampOKC. Her presentation got me thinking more about the value of this relatively “low tech” media project model.

Technorati Tags: classroom, edtech, education, flipped, learning, paper, slide, video, paperslide, flip

Value of Low Tech: Paper Slide Videos originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on March 26, 2013.

Jim did a great job with the article overall. There are five things not mentioned about Scratch Camp I want to highlight, however.

1. We had 21 participants in our Spring Break Scratch Camp this year, with one-third girls and two-thirds boys. The photos included in the article just show boys, so I think it’s important to mention this. Scratch and computer coding is for girls and boys, women and men! Check out the 9 recorded videos from our Spring Break Scratch Camp for proof!
2. The organizing sponsor for our Oklahoma Scratch Camps is The Div, which is a 501.C3 Oklahoma non-profit sponsored by the Edmond-based web design company iThemes. Without the support of The Div and iThemes, our Scratch Camp wouldn’t have happened!
3. Independence Elementary School in Yukon Public Schools DOES have an after-school Scratch Club, which STEM teacher Chris Simon started in January 2013. To my knowledge, the only other Oklahoma school district with a Scratch Club (so far!) is in Piedmont Public Schools. (If you know of others, please let me know!)
4. All our Scratch Camp curriculum is available on a Google Site, and we encourage anyone to use/borrow/modify anything we’ve shared there. Curriculum from Scratch Camps in March 2013, July 2012, and June 2012 is available.
5. At least two more Scratch Camps are being planned for the summer of 2013 in Oklahoma City, but dates and locations are not yet finalized. Those will be shared/announced on the website of The Div in upcoming weeks. At least one is likely to be held again in Yukon. Yukon PS was a GREAT host for us!

Here are the photos and text from Jim Powell’s excellent article.

A group of local youngsters spent spring break learning a new language, but instead of textbooks, they worked with a computer programming code that allows them to create projects such as video games while learning complex mathematical concepts.

And, they had a ball in the process.

Over two dozen enthusiastic students from area schools met at Skyview Elementary the past week at a “Scratch Camp” learning a new programming language using computer code that was developed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Dubbed “Scratch,” the code allows students to create interactive stories, animations, games, music and art and then share their creations on the Internet.

Working on their Scratch projects, the “campers” learned computational ideas while also learning to think creatively, reason systematically and work as a team to develop ideas.

“It introduces them into an environment where they’re writing programs,” said Wesley Fryer, an instructional coach for the Yukon School District who helped facilitate the five-day camp along with Independence Elementary STEM instructor Chris Simon.

Scratch was created at MIT by people who want math to be a “natural thing for students,” Fryer said.

“When kids are immersed in a language because they’re in another country, they learn it because it surrounds them,” he explained. “That’s what Scratch is like because everything they’re doing involves math.”

Fryer and Simon used computer labs at Skyview during the one-week camp attended by students in the 2nd through 6th grades. They started with an “All About Me” project, a “linear” storytelling endeavor, but most of the kids were more interested in developing games so that aspect of programming was emphasized at the Skyview camp.

And they wanted to “push the envelope” by working to develop complex games.

“The don’t just want to stop with simple games, they want to take them to different levels and make them more complex,” Fryer said of the class’s motivation. “Some games require multiple layers of complexity and one of the things they learn is to break down the problem: How are you going to do that? What are you going to do next?”

Fourth-grader Van Winkeler said Scratch is perfect for kids his age.

“It’s basically to teach kids simple coding and it’s making it simple for kids,” the youngster said. “It’s computer programming for kids. You can make a simple project or a really complicated one. It’s your decision.”

Mason O’Hara, a 5th grader whose father works in computer technology, began learning Scratch in 2009 at a friend’s house who had the programming software on a computer. Mason has his sights set on attending MIT to become a computer engineer while Van would like to do the same, but admitted it’s hard to “make the cut” to attend the institute saying, “It’s really hard to go there.”

Scratch can be a little intimidating for some teachers because it is complex and there are a lot of questions that kids bring up that they can’t always answer. But there is an online Scratch “community” where users share their projects and knowledge with others across the country.

“Another awesome thing about Scratch is there’s over three million projects that have been shared on their website,” Fryer said. “You can download any of them and look at the code or look at the ‘blocks’ for all of them. We’re constantly looking at them and some of them are pretty complicated and can be intimidating.”

The Scratch website can be accessed online at http://scratch.mit.edu.

The kids who attended “Scratch Camp” go a step beyond what those who only play computer games do and enter a world where they learn mathematical thought while also having fun, according to Fryer.

“Kids are playing games all over the place,” the instructional coach said. “But these kids are making the game. When you create the game, you are in a different head space… you’re in a different thinking space.

“They’ve played Xbox games, Wii games… and have a lot of experience but they haven’t done the creation,” Fryer added. The creation is “what really gives them an appreciation of those games and it develops a lot of great problem solving skills. I think every school in Oklahoma should have a Scratch Club.”

It speaks to the creative and motivational mindsets of the kids who wanted to attend the camp at Skyview over spring break. Because elementary school-aged youngsters chose to use part of their one-week vacation in a a computer lab learning a new “language,” it shows they are hungry for knowledge in a field that is helping to build the world of tomorrow.

Technorati Tags: code, edtech, oklahoma, programming, scratch, stem, yukon

Yukon Review Covers Spring Break 2013 Oklahoma Scratch Camp originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on March 24, 2013.

Here are the titles and links to each video individually, including the direct links (when available) of each project on the Scratch community website. Several are remarkable for the computational thinking and creativity which students exhibited in the game designs. I’ve listed my personal favorites first. The key here, IMHO, is “metacognition,” when the students “think about their thinking” and verbalize their process of creating these projects and the ways they overcame design challenges. That is how you know a student “owns” their learning with Scratch, when they can explain their design and discuss it in detail.

Tomorrow on day 5 of Scratch Camp our students will share their projects and learning with parents in our “Scratch Showcase.” Reporters from The Yukon Review and The Daily Oklahoman (newsok.com) have interviewed Scratch campers the past two days, so hopefully we’ll see some mainstream media coverage of our camp in upcoming days. Please copy and borrow any of the Scratch Camp curriculum materials we’ve collected and are using. Chris Simon and I are planning to lead at least one Scratch Camp in the Oklahoma City area again this summer, and will be announcing that date soon on the website of The Div (our wonderful Scratch Camp sponsor).

Don’t Touch the Cat Scratch Project by Michael

Link to “Don’t Touch the Cat” and play it from the Scratch website.

Maze Game Scratch Project by Kaitlyn

Link to “Cool Mazes” and play it from the Scratch website.

Rainbow Race Scratch Project by Wyatt

Link to “Rainbow Race” and play it from the Scratch website.

Alien Attack Scratch Project by Harrison

(Link to “Alien Attack” not available yet)

CatLibs Scratch Project by Geneva

Link to “Cat Libs” and play it from the Scratch website.

Unicorn Eating Hamburgers Scratch Project by Sadie

Link to “Unicorn Eating Hamburgers” and play it from the Scratch website.

Deathball Dodge Scratch Project by Hunter

Link to “Death Ball Dodge – Easy Mode” and play it from the Scratch website.

Pokemon Battle Collaboration Scratch Project by Van and Mason

Link to and play the “Pokemon Battle Collaboration” story from the Scratch website.

Maze Game Scratch Project by Michael

Link to and play “Maze Game” from the Scratch website.

I recorded these videos on my iPad2 and uploaded them directly to my YouTube channel using the free app, “Capture” from YouTube. These are examples of “Quick Edit Videos” included in the “Mapping Media to the Common Core” digital literacy framework.

To learn more about Oklahoma Scratch Camp, check out the audio podcast Chris Simon and I recorded earlier this week.

Technorati Tags: code, edtech, oklahoma, programming, school, scratch, stem, yukon, yukonps, coding

Oklahoma Students Reflect on Scratch Projects at Scratch Camp (March 2013) originally appeared on Moving at the Speed of Creativity on March 21, 2013.