Sustainable Actions

Learning from "No School"

2010-04-08T00:09:00.000-07:00

This morning I woke to the news there is no school today. Initially, I wished that I had had this information before the students did, so I could have made changes on PantherNet before the students first viewed the subject sites. So, my initial goal was to get on PantherNet and make modification as soon as possible.

In my Environmental Systems and Societies class, I was giving a test on natural capital and demographic analysis. The test was already written, but how was I going to give the test to the students virtually? The objective of assessment is to determine what learning had occurred in the students. I wanted to assess individual student learning, but not allow them to use notes, books, or electronic resources and not allow them to get or give information from or to their classmates. This would be a good time to try out the running of a virtual school and use of an honor code at the same time. I provided the students with this message on the subject PantherNet site:

I hope your preparations and the help sessions have prepared you well for today's test. You will be taking the test away from school today, so you should plan your day accordingly, so the test can be completed and sent back before 2:00. (If you were not prepared for this test today--Expect to [and plan not to have anything conflict with] take it after school Monday [20 April] when we return from break. This is not the regular assessment; this will be a make-up. We will continue with the sustainability unit when we are back.)

When you are prepared with the following, email harveyh@isb.ac.th with the following information and he will send you the test.

When you are ready, send Mr. Hinsz an email with separate statements stating that:

a) you have access to a printer on which you can print a Word document which will be sent to you by email,

b) you will be in an environment in which you will not be disturbed (cell phone off, computer off, TV and other technologies off) by your friends, family, or other duties or expectations.

c) you have access to a camera or cell phone which you can use to email him pictures of your test when you have completed it.

d) you will not access your text, other people, or any resources during the time you are taking the test,

e) you will not discuss or communicate in any form anything about the test with anyone else until after 3:00 this afternoon,

f) you will not share your test or image of it with anyone, and

g) you are ready to receive the test by email, take the test in the hour, and photograph it and email the images to Mr. Hinsz in the 15 more minutes allowed, and abide by these rules.

Tell him you are ready to take the test and would like it to be sent to you. Mr. Hinsz is online and ready to receive your emails.

The statement for a) removed the possibility that students would have a time problem because of printing problems. I should have had the students ensure the printer could print the email I sent them before I sent them the test. One student took 30 minutes beyond the limit, because she could not print and had to copy all the questions by hand onto paper.

The statement for b) was clever, because students were focused and would not be tempted with calls, emails, or text-messages coming from others who might be colluding with them.

The statement for c) allowed me to document that no changes were made to the test after the students said they had finished it. This also allows me to have a digital copy if the student fails to bring me the original. The digital photo is also a time stamp of when the test was finished. If the test took particularly long, one might wonder if the student had used a lot of time searching for answers.

Having students individually write each statement made them cognizant and commit to an honor code. I was not so worried about their sticking to it; the test was not much different than the topics listed on my study guide.

Some things I learned:
School should inform the teachers before the students, so teachers can modify PantherNet before the students are on it. I can see a number of students accessed PantherNet well before I was even informed school was cancelled.

The electricity going out was not planned for. I let students know two scenarios: one with electricity out beyond 11:30 and one if electricity came back on by 11:30. Fortunately the electricity came back at 11:20, so they could take the test.

Some students used scanners, BlackBerrys, and cell phones to photograph their tests and send them in. None of these technologies were taught in my class; students had to get them on their own. Some students took some time to transfer cell phone images to an email account--they might more frequently be sending them to a social networking page.(My "Use of Cell Phones in Class" blog addresses other ways cell phones could effectively be used to promote student learning.)

The students who looked at their emails and looked at the PantherNet sites were often the best students. The worst students did not respond to the email and probably never saw them. They probably saw today as a day free from school expectations. With this experience, will those students learn it is wiser to look at PantherNet when school is closed? Should I have learned to not try to run a class when school is closed?

Some students needed more hand-holding and instruction and repeating of instructions that were already on PantherNet. I was reminded how some students have trouble with the clearest instructions. My having students write me with statements of what they understood was expected of them helped me know they crystalized the instructions before proceeding. It was important that I remained relatively consistently in email contact so students lost little time on task.

Of course, the next step is having the students get and submit the test from and to PantherNet. It's motivating that digital learning always has more ways to improve the way we communicate.

The school will be closed the next day, also. I am having my biology students review the flower diagrams on images.google.com to learn the names of the parts, then find an unlabeled diagram and determine the names of its parts. This will lead into a discussion about their functions when school resumes.

Thanks to Yochin for the Flickr image of the digital contents of a digital learner.

Managing the Digital Classroom

2010-03-29T23:10:00.000-07:00

We tried a new program that allowed voice threads and images to record individual ideas about Managing the Digital Classroom better ways to manage technologies in a classroom. I submitted a couple comments and recently tried to make a voice thread, but it didn't work.

The only submission I can find is: "Sometimes there is more than one computer cart in the classroom at one time. To help students remember which cart to return their computer to, place a label of cartoon characters on the cover of the computer that matches the character on the front of the cart."

"Students tend to leave the powercord from their computer hanging out of the cart, onto the floor. Have the students follow a convention of placing the cord over the top of the cart when then take the computer out. This ensures they wil not step on or damage the cord by closing the door on it. It also makes it easy to find the cord for that computer when returning the computer to the cart."

The comment I tried to enter into a voice thread was something like to make the sound clear when you are making a story board or video use a headset that has a microphone attached to it. When I tried to play it back, I could see the progress of my recording, but there was no sound. Dennis suggested it might be the microphone settings on my computer.

Reflections on expanding on use of technologies in the classroom and move toward "flowware"

2010-03-29T13:01:00.000-07:00

Some of my blogs lately have followed a pattern of: the plan, the implementation, what I learned. For this blog, I would like to highlight the digital risks I took this semester and list some digital accomplishments.

I got a real scare when the unit plan I had submitted to the Coetail wiki was blank. It helped me sympathize with students who even now are having frustration when we require them to use technologies they don't fully understand.

Being away from all this for a few weeks when I had to return to the US, I was surprised how much skill I lost for doing some basic technological things. I was making and storing voice threads when I left and I lack confidence in that area now.

I focused parts of lab lessons on properly referencing sources of digital information. I was surprised how weak some of my students still were in this area--even this week after I had specifically assigned products related to this.

During the beginning of this semester we discussed the validity of web resources. Students found some food web Internet resources with errors. I wrote the webmaster of one of these (US government) web sites and the site has been corrected and I received a letter from the webmaster of the site. I had asked for volunteers from the clas to do this, but none did). I shared this action and result with the class.

Unfortunately, they did not remove the site from the Internet before it had spread further into the cloud. A quick search just now found another site that uses that same image, is referencing the original source, and has a "topic editor" "reviewing and approving" it.

The students did collaboratively produce a common written product in the values of a resource unit, but I did not get them yet to publish to the world.

With numeracy being a goal for our department and with students having weaknesses in using and analyzing graphic information the units of population dynamics simulations and gathering Internet demographic information and developing a demographic transition model for two countries was ideal for addressing numeracy, student weaknesses, the IB Environmental Systems and Societies syllabus, and global citizenship. (Addressing globalization and numeracy standards were additional goals I mentioned in my Coetail Course 4 project preparation plans.) I am still grading the products, but initial results are encouraging.

Some of my students still lack skills in properly labeling their graphs with titles and axes labels. I offered regular Monday help sessions to address this, but weak students fail to come if they are not required.

Students really responded well to the computer 3-D animation of the parts of a DNA structure. I believe this really assisted the learning of some spatially oriented learners.

Editting on wikipedia was a bold and rewarding move for me. I guess this is the 'next step' in my preparing my students to become global publishers. I was pleased to find wikipedia specifically referencing research I did before I came to ISB and directly linking introductory content to an article I co-authored. I still have not met my goal of writing a new entry for wikipedia.

The unexpected benefit of having students use cell phones, as well as data logging equipment, was a leap in my understanding.

And, of course, the confort with trying out new things on PantherNet to expand student understanding is the most obvious way technologies have impacted student learning in my classes. My SmartBoard presentations are regularly part of my PowerPoint and are assisting students who are frequently absent this semester. Embedding videos and their links are becoming more and more frequent in my PantherNet pages with time.

This semester pushed me to move more toward the flowware that I discussed in a previous blog--seamlessly moving between optimally effective and appropriate technologies to provide students a richer learning environment.

Thank you to Dennis and Jeff for their expertise and patient support throughout this process.

Learn and share on a wiki

2010-03-29T07:46:00.000-07:00

I planned a lesson in which I had students learn about renewable, non-renewable, replenishable, and recycleable resources from any resource they wanted, then read examples of each kind of resource on a wikispace, then add two examples of their own that were not close to those already listed on the wikispace. Then each student was to comment on why they suggested that kind of resource belonged to that group.

Some students chose the book we use for the class to find information about the terms, but more chose sites on the Internet, frequently wikipedia. They placed their examples on a wikispaces site, and we will discuss them during the next class.

What I particularly liked about this assignment was that I could watch each entry as they submitted it, and I could determine the validity of each suggestion and get back to the student in class (as I did for two of them). Those students reviewed their submission and changed them.

Next class we will review the characteristics of the four kinds of resouces, then make verbal descriptions of the characteristics of each. They will then review the list they, as a class, put together last class and in their cluster, evaluate the examples and reasons for each category and report changes they would make to the class.

After students completed the assignment:
Only one student did not get the assignment done in the five days since the last class. She didn't attempt the assignment until after 10 pm the night before class and said the Internet would not give her access to the wikispace. When she tried it in class, it opened immediately. After a discussion of the terms, all students were given an assignment of reviewing, correcting, and elaborating on what they had placed on the wikispace.

Playing with production of a group product

2010-03-29T07:31:00.000-07:00

I'm toying with an idea of trying to get my Environmental Systems and Societies students to produce something online as a joint project. At first, I thought of setting up a structure of a spreadsheet on Google.doc in which each student has an assigned set of line numbers (like I did on the Resources types project) and each student writes their comments by the number I have placed on a spreadsheet line for them. But this becomes forced when students are trying to do word processing on a spreadsheet document.

Next I thought I'd start a Google.doc Word document with the student numbers, then have the students write their responses next to their number. After completing this, students could read what each other wrote and reflect on it in a space provided at the bottom of the document. This also was forced in the way it wouldn't flow.

My last thought was to divide the students into two groups, give each group a task, (like describing the various kinds of value people place on a given natural capital) a separate Google.doc Word document address, and have each produce a document in which each student writes their part of the final document and all of them are addressing the task to produce a cohesive product.

My most recent thinking is, why set up the Google.doc word processor sheet for them? Show them how to do it and let them produce it all. I abandon this idea because the energies directed toward learning to set up a Google.doc account (yes, they could use their ISB gmail account) would distract from their learning about the various kinds of values given to a resource.

I decided I would follow the path of having students select a resource, divide up the four kinds of values as suggested in our text and each volunteer to write one part of this document. Then I would have them read and append each other's documents. We would wrap up the learning about resources by suggesting which of the resources are more valuable to lesser developed countries (LDCs) or more developed countries (MDCs).

Dennis suggested, rather than having the students compose a Word document together, I have them fill in a table. I liked this idea, because I could put two columns, LDC and MDC, to the left of the table at the end, and students could place an 'X' by the resource that was more important in those kinds of developmental environments.

Thanks to Ronaldo F Cabuhat for the Flickr image of the forest and lake, the two resources the class chose to study further.

The class performed this activity on a day when class was shortened to 55 minutes. There were a few areas which were unexpected learning areas and some that were good for learning.

Some unexpected issues:
a) a student copy-and-pasted material from the Internet and did not give proper references to the source, nor did the student put quotation marks around the information. The student was not learning from the information they had found.
b) I did not find a way to add columns to a word-processer document on Google.doc. I copied the entire table, imported it into Word, added the two initial columns, and exported it back to the original Google.doc document.
c) The content was weak in some areas and the students in the cluster were not good about appending other student's work. There wasn't sufficient time to review all the resources before the end of class, so I had to amend the document so students did not learn the incorrect information presented in this document.
d) students became involved in Internet research that took longer than I had planned for. This delay was, in some instances, due to students not being specific enough in their selection of search terms.

The product that was produced was good for student learning. By coming up with a lot of values of a lake and forest, students created knowledge that helped them produce lists of values for a resource on their exam.

Reflections on mitosis images

2010-03-20T21:34:00.000-07:00

For years the Bio 10 team has used a University of Arizona interactive website to review the phases of mitosis. In addition to specific information about each of the phases, this site is excellent, because it gives the students some small images and has them select the phase each image represents. If the students select incorrectly, a short description helps them understand their mistake.

It is good to review these tested and true sites. The last thing on the worksheet was a video of a cell actually undergoing mitosis. The animation site was dead, so used YouTube search to find a mitosis animation that worked equally well, and give it to the students with the worksheet.

The next thing was to put what they learned together with previous microscope skills they learned last semester. The team decided to have the students do size calculations of the images they saw on prepared slides. Once students had demonstrated this skill at two different powers of magnification, I felt the same task for the other four phases would not improve student learning much, so I modified the lesson to have the students evaluate images from the Internet and label these larger images, which offered more opportunities for detail.

First I had them work with the microscope and find onion root tip slides in anaphase. I chose this phase because students would find many of the other phases and would identify them before they found a much rarer anaphase image. Then:
"Using images from your computer, find plant cells in each of the following phases: INTERPHASE, PROPHASE, METAPHASE, and TELOPHASE. For each phase, look at three different images and choose one that you feel best represents that phase and make a detailed, labeled diagram of it in the appropriate boxes. Include the URL of the site at the bottom of each box."
Flickr image courtesy of The JCB.

Many of the prepared slides were old and their colorizing stains had faded, so the use of Internet slide images was timely. I briefly reviewed with the students how to use Google images and reminded them of the importance of giving references in their presentations.

I had reviewed the images of mitosis on Creative Commons and found only two that were relevant, not enough to create a lesson around. One was the image above. The other was an attractive painting to the left that actually looked like a phase of mitosis.

Flickr image courtesy of rakka.

I verbally told students to check if there were any errors in the images they chose. Looking back on that now, there is little chance they would have seen errors, because the images would more than likely not include labels. A better statement would have been to either check if the phase was correctly labeled or check labeled diagrams (not slide images) of the various phases to see if structures were mis-labeled. An obvious mistake online would have been labeling a centriole on a plant cell. (With the exception of mosses and ferns, plant cells do not have centrioles.)

The use of online images was a good idea. The clarity of detail of the images online allowed students to label their work more thoroughly. The major learning that I didn't expect in this lesson came from how students documented their references. There were four areas I reviewed with students after grading their work:

1) With URLs that are long, students didn't know how to break them up, so they tried to squeeze them into one line. I explained they can move to the next line after any hash mark.
2) Google uses dots, "...." in URLs that are long. Some students copied these: "www.microscopy-uk.org.uk/.../jronionroot.html" and needed to be shown that the URL is in the address line for the browser .
3)Students sometimes gave only the address of the server location, only up to the first hash. We discussed how this is a parent address for all the files in the folders on the server. I explained all valid URLs should end with something like .html, .gif, or .jpg.
4)Students continue to use "http://images.google.co.th/...." as the URL for sites. I explained how Google is a search engine and showed them where the URL is embedded in this address and suggested the image they studied would be better if they actually clicked on the "See full sized image" button.

This lesson brought together a few of the standards we discussed in the course: EL1b, EL1c, EL1d (making diagrams from images and labeling them is considered data processing in Biology and IB Sciences, and EC2b.

I could have expanded this lesson more by having students scan their labeled diagram and display it on a school site for others to view, but I do not believe this would have assisted their learning or the learning of other students. This is a standard I would like to have students do in future activities.

Computer used to translate for student focus and attention

2010-03-07T23:43:00.000-08:00

I haven't tried it yet, but changing the word order in a sentence or presentation can cause a student to return attention to the lesson. Alternatively, it can draw attention to a part of the topic that the presenter wants emphasized.

Do you have some fun want to, hmm? This Yoda language translation site while doing some research on such use of languages I found.

Thanks to niallkennedy for the Flickr image of Yoda.

Online graphing database of competition and predation

2010-03-05T05:13:00.000-08:00

Thanks to Wild Dogger for the Creative Commons picture of the impala.
Thanks to ucumari for the Creative Commons picture of the leopard.
Thanks to Olivier DELAERE for the Creative Commons picture of the kongoni.

I still have three more tech-related tasks I want to try with my students to help them learn the concepts of population dynamics: manipulating spreadsheet data to produce population over time graphs, use database data to produce a demographic transition model, and use a wiki or blog to share their views about some issue related to human population changes. ( I also would like to start an entry on wikipedia as an extension effort to this course. )

For this activity I was fortunate to receive a "Population Growth Model" spreadsheet from Laura Brown, an excellent IB presenter for the new IB SL Environmental Systems and Societies course that is offered starting this year. I was able to manipulate the parameters to produce the initial graphs I desire for students related to exponential growth, carrying capacity, competition, and predation on individual sheets of the Excel program.

My goals for this exercise were:
1) to have students gain experience with changing parameters on spreadsheets and seeing the changes in graphs,
2) to have students gain experience with a variety of population concepts by varying parameters to show changes in population curves for different trophic levels,
3) to communicate the tasks clearly so students could go through the exercise without further assistance from others or need any additional assistance from me,
4) to have the students communicate their learning in words by reflecting on their learning, and
5) to have students demonstrate their understanding of the above well on related questions on the unit test.

Later..
I was fortunate in having all students complete the lab over the weekend and complete their reflection on their learning. No students sought help in understanding what to do on the lab and the class did very well on the related questions on the test. A general weakness students had with the lab was understanding why carrying capacities decreased with two species were competing for teh same resources. I covered this concept when I handed the reports back. I should introduce the competitive exclusion principle to students to help them understand this concept better.

The student reflections were specific in parts, like seeing how the herbivore population can affect the predator population, but were occasionally general, like, I gained a better understanding of how populations can affect each other.

This lab addressed Effective Learning standards EL1b, EL1d, EL2a, and EL2c, and Effecive Communicator and Creator standard ECC2.

Online 3-D molecular simulation

2010-03-03T04:41:00.000-08:00

For this part of my class tech project, I had students use an online site to learn more about DNA. A corresponding worksheet was provided by the Bio 10 team.

Image is the courtesy of the Image Library of Biological Macromolecules based in Jena, Germany, at http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/glossary/gloss3/dna.html.

My classes had already studied DNA's structure and almost all students were able to draw a perfect 2-dimensional DNA molecule containing six nucleotides. This activity was intended to give them a deeper understanding of DNA's structure before we moved on to observe replication of DNA. This assignment had an closed part (the worksheet) that requested students to sketch what they saw and an open part (my project) that asked students to comment on their learning. My objective was to evaluate their learning and evaluate the site for future use during the DNA unit.

The site represented a DNA molecule in a three-dimensional projection. Individual chemical radicals (nitrogenous bases, sugar/phosphate backbones, and hydrogen bonds) could be 'amplified' to make them look fatter. Elements were color-coded so they were easily spotted. The molecule could be rotated for viewing from any angle. The molecule could also be set to automatically rotate through 90 degrees. Individual base pairs could be amplified or closer observation. And a click could make all external hydrogen atoms disappear, to make the molecule appear less cumbersome.

After the unit was completed, I asked the students to comment specifically on their learning and to vote if they felt I should use the unit again next year. 62 of 73 students recommended I use this activity again next year for the DNA unit.

Some specific student comments of their learning included:
It showed how the nitrogen bases are perpendicular to the sugars
Helped see where hydrogen bonds are broken for replication (not intended to show this).
From top can see that hydrogen bonds occupy the center
Easier to understand with any angles and highlighting of parts we selected.
Color of elements made it easy to understand
DNA is more complex than what we learned
Twisting together
Color coding
That phosphates contain oxygen
Nitrogen bases next outside ring to hydrogen bonds
The elements of the atoms of DNA
I saw the purine (two rings) and pyrimidine base
If one of the components is missing it might cause a mutation
Hydrogen and nitrogen connect…the side of DNA backbone
Zooming the picture made me see more clearly
The complexity is much greater than I thought
Better understanding what is meant by “double helix”
Different kinds of chemical bonding
Surface is rough, rather than straight
Viewing the DNA strands from the top,…sugar and phosphate appears on the outside
How many hydrogen bonds were formed at each part of DNA
The “Spin” feature ..was very fascinating
How that structure we drew on the quiz actually becomes a helix…a lot more complex
O – N (oxygen and nitrogen) and N – N (nitrogen and nitrogen) form hydrogen bonds
At the outer part of the DNA there is a lot of oxygen and phosphorus
Carbon was the atom [that] DNA contained the most

Students learned considerably more than I had expected. The depth of students understanding helped them with comprehending the replication lessons that followed. The best students were able to get a lot more out of this open-ended lesson:

“I already knew about the exact configuration of the nucleotides, but I did not have an idea how it curved around itself in its double helix shape, specifically how its shape is created with molecules. I noticed how the two nucleotide strands twisting around teach other help to protect the base-pairs in between them. On the molecular level of the base pairs, I noticed how the pairing, A-T C-G, works perfectly with the molecules designed to fit each other.”— T. E. (name withheld)

I will use this lesson in the future.

From software to flowware

2010-02-18T04:52:00.000-08:00

We talk about Web 2.0, a construct of the web accessing itself and people using the power of the Internet to have digital work done for them. I believe a number of our students are already flowing seamlessly between the non-digital word and the digital world and that our next challenge as teachers is to do the same in our instruction. While it is not one of the NETS or ISB standards, having this quick and appropriate accessing of digital information, applications, and conveniences is a goal I am increasingly seeking in my classes. I want to highlight the quick and appropriate.

There are many teachable moments that used to be left to a separate "let's-get-to-that-later-if-time-permits" list off to the right of our white boards. When students ask those questions and the answer is not ever given, the curiousity we seek to tap, the 'digging for deeper understanding' we claim we support, and the contributions shy people give to the class discussion can easily be stifled. With affordable, anywhere, anytime, abundant digital age we live in now, the class can easily donate seconds or a minute to taking advantage of these teachable moments.

Today my lesson was on the history of our understanding of inheritance. I wanted students to learn about racism, prejudism against women in the field of science, and the science behind our present understanding of the structure of DNA. Three times, students asked questions that helped students and me alike know more about this topic. (and I am looking up another question now before I continue....see Chargaff below)

Reference: http://kentsimmons.uwinnipeg.ca/cm1504/Image265.gif

1) A woman named Rosalind Franklin had a "beautiful" x-ray crystalograph of DNA. It looks like a smudged 'X' on paper. "How did she see something about the structure in this picture?" Looking up 'Franklin Crystalography DNA', I found a clear explanation that the 'X' showed there were two helices and the widths of the lines of the 'X' being uniform showed that the two lines were uniform in length.

Reference: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikibooks/en/5/5d/Biochemcamille2.jpg

2) "Franklin didn't get the nobel prize, but she got an award later..." She not only did not get any award, her real contribution was not recognized until 1968, 15 years after the discovery of DNA's structure and five years after she died of ovarian cancer.

Reference for image on left:
http://media.photobucket.com/image/Watson%20and%20Crick/Primate_bucket/WatsonJames-CrickFrancis.jpg

3) I wanted a copy of the posed picture taken of Watson and Crick, which was readily available on google.images . See the above picture on the left.
I also found it on Flickr, thanks to mmullen31. See the image on the right. I am not sure it should be in public domain because it comes from the text Unraveling the History of DNA. Notice the Flickr image does not have the quality of Google.images yet.

4) I remember hearing something about another scientist in the race to discover DNA's structure, Edwin Chargaff. He did not get the Nobel price, either, with Watson and Crick. I knew he had called Watson and Crick something like "intellectual pygmies", so I searched 'Chargaff intellectual pygmies' and got:

He [Chargaff] said later on that, "They impressed me by their extreme ignorance ... I never met two men who knew so little—and aspired to so much." Later on after the structure of DNA had been published Chargaff said, "That in our day such pygmies throw such giant shadows only shows how late in the day it has become." Larry Moran, "Sandwalk: Strolling with a Skeptical Biochemist." 23 July 2007.

In the 50s, the racial and stature slurs were equally insulting.

I guess I did not address the issue of flowware well in this discussion. I do not yet consider myself one who flows seemlessly between technological developments. It is my goal to do so to be a more connected and more appropriate teacher for students of our time.

[The comments added to this site after my posting it shed light onto why the woman Franklin did not get the Nobel prize. She was off base about the helical structure of a complementary A form of DNA. (same source)]

Use of cell phones in class

2010-02-16T20:11:00.000-08:00

Cell phones come with increasing capacities for doing useful information gathering in science classes. For the present unit, I taught students the skills of planning an investigation in which they measure the change of some populations across some sort of gradient. I gave them a recipe lab to meaure how the density and species of plants changes as one gets further from the trunk of a tree. The students then individually found a gradient on campus that they chose to investigate and developed a lab to sample this.

I thought this would be an ideal opportunity to investigate the variety of ways cell phones could be used in the lab. The plots the students were studying varied from the berm by the parking lot in front of the school, to the weeded area by the Suriwan Gate, to the slopes and drainage ditches on the cross country path around the soccer and baseball fields. I would not be able to be in constant contact with all of the students, so I gave them my cell phone noumber and asked them to call me when they had questions or concerns. I also suggested they use the cell phone to take pictures of the individual species of plants they were sampling and the calculator to do their averaging. I suggested students could use the angle function on some phones to measure the slopes of their plots. Now that I look back on it, those with GPS functions should have included the locations of their plots and used the compass on their phones to lay out the transects of their investigations.

Within five minutes, while I was working with one student, another student 150 metres away had a question that required my going to her plots. I was able to help her move to another, more suitable location early in the class period, reducing frustration and lost class time.

Students also used LoggerPro interfacing during this lab to measure the temperature and light intensities at various locations in their plots. This was done to either ensure these variables were maintained as relatively constant throughout their plots, or showed the values of the independent variable they were studying. (A student might check how the shade of trees affects the plant life. By measuring the light intensities at different locations under a tree and away from a tree, students plot the change in plant species' populations against light intensities.)

To use the light and temperature probes outside, students needed to put batteries in their LoggerPros, open the software on the computer and run the program for the appropriate probes, and use and care for the computers outside. It was a joy to watch students using a computer like they normally would use a clipboard and notebook to gather data and make observations.

The ISB TAIL standards - developing a project

2009-12-02T02:00:00.000-08:00

On the back channel chat following Kim Cofino’s “Going Global: Culture Shock, Convergence and the Future of Education” (see wiki), the keynote speech for the K12Online09 Pre-Conference, “Seamus” (obviously Jim Fitzgerald) wrote (so I learned) that David Warlick says in his "What Difference Might One 'S' Make" blog, "I would suggest that students simply learn to apply computers to solve problems or accomplish goals….Students would simply learn how computers can help them do interesting things, and then gain the skills and confidence required to teach themselves, with the guidance of their teachers, the applications to make it happen.”

Basically, our assignment of developing a unit that includes the ISB21 Technology and Information Literacy Standards is an application of this having students develop skills and do interesting things learn and demonstrate learning. With the smorgasbord of tools, information, ideas, and means of communicating digitally we were exposed to in this COETAIL course, the challenge of the project is not to develop something that is large enough to encompass a lot of the TAIL standards, it is develop something that will help students gain skills, be interesting, and be the right tool for student learning, rather than a digital add-on.

I find the TAIL standards mimic a lot of the learning reflected in our quality science curricula. Gathering data, evaluating processes and information, planning investigations, conducting research, using digital tools and digital resources, constructing knowledge, and practicing ethical standards are all monthly challenges in the IB science courses. But I feel the Effective Communicator and Creator Standard 1: "Communicating ideas, knowledge, and understanding to audiences ranging from local to global" is one I seldom have my students address. The challenge for me in this project is to see if I can include this in my project.

Along with Tech initiatives, our school and the Environmental Systems and Societies course appear to be developing globalization and environmental awareness standards. Without stating what they are, I would also like this project to include these initiatives.

Reflections about NETS Student and ISB TAIL standards

2009-12-02T01:58:00.000-08:00

Looking over the International Society for Technology in Education's (ISTE) National Educational Technology Standards and Performance Indicators for Students (NETS-S) for 2007, especially after comparing them with the American Association of School Librarians (AASL) Standards for the 21st-Century Learner, what is initially apparent to me is how different it is from what was considered 'computer education' in the early 80's. Back then, geek-type students enrolled in the courses to learn about flip-flops, bits and bytes, Boolean functions, making graphics, and learning to program in BASIC (Beginner's All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code). The curriculum was designed to have students complete set assignments, in class where they had access to computers, under the supervision of a teacher, in preparation for writing programs to do simple operations, like putting numbers in squares. Note all of this was to help the students be prepared.

Thanks to Hanan Cohen for the Flickr image of the old computer.

The NETS standards of the past two decades reflect a different world which is designed for all students (and teachers and administrators). The standards are relevant for every day life operations on a variety of platforms for a variety of functions and for a variety of possible future needs. (These standards are robust in that they are relevant even though the future technological needs cannot yet be defined.) The 'operations' that are to be learned (the curriculum) to meet these standards are dynamic with time and development of new technologies. The assignments to meet these standards are open and go well beyond the use of computers by a few to the infusion of computers into practically everything. The performance that indicates proficiency of these skills is often done not only without supervision of a teacher figure, but also often in collaboration with many peers (and colleagues of many ages and cultures) scattered across the globe. The skills involve a mixing of many technological developments for the demonstration of mastery achievement.

When I consider these and consider the TAIL standards ISB has adopted from these standards, I am drawn to look over the descriptors for Effective Learners (efficiently gather, critically evaluate, effectively use information and plan and conduct research, manage projects, solve problems, and make informed decisions using tools and resources, is see a description of the path students take through our HS Science laboratory investigations program. I am proud of what we do, but this breakdown helps me realize how much learning students get.

The HS Science program gives students a variety of lab investigations to do to prepare them in each aspect of the Effective Learners’ profile. In biology, we meet regularly to work investigations into our units. The IB program has a requirement of students independently and collaboratively plan, investigate, manage, analyze, and communicate about their research. The use of technologies for data logging, statistically and mathematically analyzing, graphing, and investigating is embedded in both these programs. Individual planning of investigations and evaluating the weaknesses and improvements of investigations is a focus in my biology classes presently.

1)This is good to think about what more areas of learning to consider for my students

2)I could assign students to do on line reading for ESS more, then report on their reading to the class. They could do this for their home country.

3)I could recommend use of Creative Commons more

4)I don’t do much in which students produce group results. This is an area to consider.

Who's responsible?......Who, me?

2009-11-04T04:46:00.000-08:00

Answering the question ‘Whose job is it to give students technology training in a school?’, one needs to look at who does it?, who supervises it, who evaluates it, who gets given time to do it, and who gets paid to do it? I prefer to consider what is the best way to make it happen in a school.

First, the school community needs to investigate what all ‘technology training’ involves and decide to what extent it will commit energy, funds, time, and support to the students, staff, administration, and parent community getting on board. A vision, mission, and/or philosophy is then agreed upon by the stakeholders and a strategic plan is developed to get the resources to make the plan a reality.

This paragraph may seem boring or needless, but it is most essential in answering “What is the best way to make it happen?” A philosophy of parent involvement and education for parents is far from a strategy of having scheduled computer labs that all students attend on a rotating schedule. Hiring staff that are technoliterates and assigning them to train a cluster of the staff is different than bringing in presenters and requiring all staff attend PD days. And checking off each student’s computer skill ability levels is different than having students individually self monitor their technological understandings and skills and developing individual growth plans.

In a school whose focus is learning, the question might be re-phrased, “Who is responsible for the technological skills development?” I think the answer to this question needs little discussion--Everyone in the community is responsible to learn technology and support the goal of increasing the community’s technological literacy.

We all benefit from the entire community being able to effectively use PowerSchool, communicate by email, honor copyright agreements and proper referencing codes, access PantherNet information, effectively search the Web, supporting broad-band reliable access, and providing carts with computers readily accessible for student learning. Being in a department of technophiles makes my instructional environment richer and, I believe, also improves student learning.

A piece of the “Everyone” that I seldom hear this responsibility assigned to is the student. In a school priding itself in students being aware of their own learning, I advocate that students know their own strengths and weaknesses and individually develop learning plans and challenges to improve their skills. Some may find themselves learning digital photography, make podcasts, blog about a passion they have, mix music, use new data-logging probes, expand their use of other platforms, or try different avenues and levels in the communication of ideas with other students and their teachers.

Staff and the community could have similar goals to continually raise technoliteracy. In time, the community would be considered tech savvy much the same as communities are considered outdoorsy and physically fit.

Flickr image by Roo Reynolds

Which of the TAIL standards do I address?

2009-11-04T04:37:00.000-08:00

After we studied the TAIL standards, I wondered which of them I addressed and which of them I hadn't. I discussed it with Dennis and chose to address these standards in two parts. One was to matched the TAIL standards of the activities I now do in my classes. The other was to reflect on what I learned from reviewing the standards.

I found the areas I address least were in the standards for Effective Learners. Of these, I found no activity in which I presently address standards:
EL1a inquire about their learning…,
EL1c selecting information [tech] tools based on the task,
EL2a analyze to make informed decisions, and
EL2b use multiple processes and diverse prospectives.

For the other standards, I summarized that address them the following number of times:
ECC1a - 2
ECC1b - 2
ECC2a - 3
ECC2b - 4
EC1a - 4
EC1b - 1
EC1c - 4
EC2a -5+
EC2b - 1
EC2c - 1

I investigated the spirit of the IB program more thoroughly to understand how their standards might overlap these and the goals of ISB (as addressed in a previous blog). For the use of information and communication technology (taken from the 2010 version of the Environmental Systems and Societies Guide) "teachers should attempt to expose students to a variety of ICT media, resources, software and hardware,...... calculators as data collection devices (data loggers).....electronic data measuring and recording equipment...hand-held global positioning systems. Students should...utilize the wealth of data, information, and software avialalbe on teh World Wide Web. It is important .... that students are encouraged to develop the skills necessary to evaluate this data and information critically." (page 13. As I move forward to develop my project, I would like to keep this in mind.

Course reflection: Another beginning...

2009-11-01T17:30:00.000-08:00

My confidence in the production, finding, and use of video images leeped repeatedly during this course. I hoped I would learn to find good video images and maybe make a video out of slides, but now I am comfortable planning a video storyboard, getting images and video to support it, splicing and splitting, transitioning and labeling, and adding sound and my voice over the images to make a story. Yesterday I thought of sending my mother a four-minute video of us and our activities here. It took me 50 minutes from sitting to the computer until I published it on YouTube.

[A skill I developed that I didn't think about at all was editting the html of these sites to make them 'work'.]

I have made a content video about a challenging topic, productivity. I published it to YouTube and it has been viewed 80 times since then. Someone embedded it in www.encyclopedia.com and (besides my embedding it in PantherNet) it has been embedded in two other sites.

I found the discussion about preparation for keeping school functioning online if we had to close temporarily most relevant. I have challenged myself to learn all I need to to use PanthNet for my classes now and try using technologies in preparation for a school closure. I find PantherNet to be an asset for all students, especially the lesser organized students. Students seem to become increasingly dependent on this avenue of learning and are beginning to use computer malfunctions and lack of Internet access as an excuse for not preparing for class, even when it is a couple hours before due times. On one hand, we are preparing students for their future integrations with technologies. On the other hand, I fear students are leaving more to do later when they know everything is always available to them online.

I think the best demonstration of my learning is the three 4-minute story boards with video, dialogue, still images, and transitions that I made for my mother to see on YouTube. Every time I do a new one, the continuity gets better, the time to complete it gets less, I gain confidence, and I feel happier.

I'm trying to line up three images on one line below, but have not been successful.

Panther Creative Commons Flickr image from tim ellis
Pampers Creative Commons Flickr image from majorbonnet
butterfly Creative Commons Flickr image from e³°°°
bee Creative Commons Flickr image from aussiegall
bugs Creative Commons Flickr image from by Marten LaBar

What if . . . . a school had to close temporarily....?

2009-10-30T01:24:00.000-07:00

If a school this size had to close for a week or two, what would need to be taken into consideration? I've given it some thought since this Coetail Course 3 started and during the coming days will detail some of the thoughts and concerns I've pondered during this course. I will start writing this as a series of questions I have been considering. I hope to respond to some of these questions if time permits.

What would need to be taken into consideration to optimize student learning?
If students learn in groups, how can stuff be shared by groups?
How would Face-to-Face (F2F) meetings occur?
How would group fora be conducted?
Blended classrooms – is this a skill all students should experience anyway?

Would the closure be complete or partial? Could the school be closed by division? Would the administration allow teachers to conduct courses from off-site, the Americas, Hua Hin, home, or a vacation spot and can instruction be effective from those locations?

How would teachers (and students) best communicate with each other?

Should teachers give students regualar, clearly-scheduled times when they will be available?

What would teacher of student (and supervisor of teacher) assessment look like?

Which applications would be most relevant for which courses (and communications)?
Podcast, embedded video, PantherNet chat, Wikispaces, Movie Maker, all the present applications on the PantherNet minimum list.

Would there be reliable service and access for all stakeholders?

Should teachers now be selecting units they lend themselves best to blended classroom instruction and shoule teachers be preparing for this instruction now?

Should we get the entire ISB community (students, teachers, admin, Ed Tech, Board, and parents) to buy into this concept now, so we are prepared when the day arrives? and Should we be trial running some aspects of this kind of education now?

If some teachers are not prepared to run such a class, would it jeopardize the tech savvy teachers from being able to continue with their classes?

What is the best use of time with both individual student issues and groups of students?

How can teachers protect themselves from being constantly "on call"? Would an eight-hour work day be respected by the community? Could teachers set schedules for the time they will maintain contact? Could students work on schedules from the other side of the globe?

Would it take so much time to prepare an online lesson, or gather and comment on students' submitted work, or dealing with individual commmunications that such a course would not be feasible? Would the demands on student time increase significantly?

What would be an effective activity for students to blog to the rest of the group? The assignment I gave today: Having students read three Research Questions we developed in class, individually write the dependent and independent variables, and as a group write the key and lesser controlled variables and how they would be measured and controlled, might work as an activity. Students certainly could learn from each other. But would the weaker students find this a way to lay low? And how could the teacher help these weaker students become activated to contribute *more* than they usually do? I normally would use classtime for them to share. Maybe some students would be rejuvenated to learn in this new environment.

All students are going to have to get over the concept of being right or wrong – all of us are learning. Maybe I need to break students in a bit with this learning online.

A storyboard with emotion, story, and cause

2009-10-30T00:50:00.001-07:00

This clip is a series of short snapshots by the Greek Ministry of Culture and Hellenic Culture Organization annimations with gradual transitions shows the history of the Parthenon. The angles of view, color, music, and occasional dramatic demonstrations of destruction lull one into feeling for the "owners" of the Parthenon throughout its history. It draws one to feel for the "owners" as victims of the powerful countries who stole their cultural heritage through the years.

I like how the storyboard portrays various political and religious forces' impacts upon the Parthenon. The director, Costa Gavras, created some controversy by portraying these participants in sometimes unfavorable lights.

Putting it all together in a video

2009-10-12T01:55:00.000-07:00

After class I decided to find a way to solidify my learning by putting it all together: sound, splitting, recording, muting, publishing, embedding into my blog, and titles on slides and over video, by making a digital gift for my daughter for her efforts in this season’s basketball. After learning the newer cameras take mp4 video, I got out an old camera with which I had taken some digital clips of her games.

I had trouble getting the product on YouTube because there is apparently an issue with downloading from Internet Explorer. I learned Movie Maker made my regular computer freeze up a lot. It eventually died in the class and I had to get another one for the weekend. I learned if I tried to do anything to the story line before I clicked “Done” for the last operation, Movie Maker and the new computer froze up. (This happened three times, before I figured it out.) Using the new computer I had to learn some basics of Word 2007, which is not on my old computer. But most of all I learned how to place the lines of a label over a video that still allowed the observer to see the video action where I wanted their attention drawn.

The next thing I had to learn was to make a YouTube account. It was good having a Gmail account, which made it easy. By publishing this video on YouTube, I can offer my mother an opportunity to see her granddaughter playing basketball. I would next like to try recording a lesson using the SmartBoard recorder then placing sound over it.

A relevant lesson using video in science

2009-10-12T01:11:00.001-07:00

Today’s short session on Movie Maker showed me how to import music, split a sound track, embed a message on an image or on a title sheet, how to “twiddle” the audio track, and some transitions. Other rules for using Movie Maker include: start by making a folder for the project, save often, that .mov and .mp4 are kind of Apple video formats while .avi and .wmv are PC video formats and are probably only compatible on their platform, it crashes a lot when a lot of memory (more than three minutes) is being used. iMove is easier to use, can handle bigger files, and can handle mp4.

After today’s discussions about effective use of video we were given an assignment to make a short presentation. Patience, Karen, and I thought it would be informative and fun to have a video showing students how to properly (and improperly) use a microscope. We selected three of the most important concepts, developed good and bad behaviors for those concepts, and planned our storyboard. Our plan included both still images (which our Flip video camera had to take as video) and action shots. We got all the pictures and recorded on shattering glass sound, then tried to import them into iMovie. This didn’t work so we simultaneously imported the clips into iPhoto on an Apple and tried to import the clips into Windows Movie Maker on a new PC. We struggled with this for 20 minutes and returned to class. Later, Patience finished the video:

In class we learned we had problems because the Flip camera takes images in mp4. Both our programs could not handle this. We still learned a lot about how we could effectively use video for teaching a lesson, especially if it is funny.

On a related note, You Tube is continually increasing its abundance of excellent video footage that is relevant in a science class. The link below is one I find noteworthy for the concepts of food chains, decomposition, productivity, and upwelling:

Antique microscope images originally posted on Flickr by Jacopo Werther then posted on Wikimedia by Mike Towber.

Should we have students do science reports with videos?

2009-10-12T01:09:00.001-07:00

Being a science teacher, one of the best parts of the course was observing, critiquing, and discussing the video report made of a respiration experiment in the face-to-face session on 10 October. This part of the course clearly emphasized how important it is to teach have students ( and ourselves) use the right digital tool for the purpose intended. In this video, students basically presented a lab report on an investigation they had conducted as a group. I then included images of the equipment, graph, and set up and moving pictures of students on treadmills and LoggerPro data being processed by a computer. Having not thought of video reporting like this before, it made me question the ways in which this would be preferred. I concluded this means of reporting would be worse for a number of reasons:

1) All the video technology, while cute and stimulating, could equally have been equally clearly communicated in still images. The motion of a person on a treadmill and the motion of a series of dots filling in on a graph are slow means of showing unimportant (and unnecessary) ideas.

2) The energy that went into the technology of the investigation was distracting from the valuable learning that students could have had by doing the investigation. A focus on what the control variables are and how they could be controlled would have been valuable.

3) The video product could have been done equally by all four students, but I doubt students with less digital literacy were the ones doing the final ‘writing’ or editing. Having students turn in individual reports engages students more in the product.

4) The teacher needs to spend more time assessing student work when much of it includes video of needless action. With the technologies we use today, the teacher would probably prepare a paper or computer-linked Word document to use as a rubric. Modifying or commenting directly on the students’ video would require much more teacher time and require students to use even more time to look through the video for the comments.

5) Video technology is usually not yet indexed like paper products are. To assess a video product, the teacher would need to repeatedly go back and forward on the video to link the variables, equipment, procedure, results, and evaluations. On a paper product this is quick and seamless.

6) The students needed two class periods to prepare the report after two class periods performing the investigation. The entire investigation could be completed in one session and reported on as homework.

7) Students needed specialized computer programs to do the video reporting. This restriction removes from the immediacy of the learning and reflecting.
A comment was made that students needed to be brave to put themselves out there with the mistakes they had made. In science, the hypotheses that are not supported and the mistakes and wrong assumptions are part of the process. Finding that the investigation does not support one’s believes often leads to further and deeper understanding of the process being investigated. It is not brave to state these, it is essential.

Using video to present Productivity

2009-10-11T23:57:00.000-07:00

Once I had seen the process of story boarding and making a video story, I looked for a relevant reason to use it. My ESS students continued to have trouble with the concept of productivity, particularly with the story / math problems. I wanted to develop a tool that:
a) The students could use during my upcoming IB workshop absence
b) Would give them a review of the importance of productivity to food webs
c) Link productivity to the producers and show how energy is lost through food chains
d) Gave them numbers to work with
e) Could be stored in a way they could access it for review
f) Was in a format they could watch a segment over and over again to get a full understanding when the concept or process needed time to ‘ sink in ’.

My idea was that students could use the video as a stand-alone tutorial on productivity or use it in conjunction with a worksheet I would prepare that asked related questions about food webs, productivity, and energy flows in ecosystems. I started by finding two images that didn’t have too much information, showed food chains that students would clearly relate to and understand, and demonstrated the different pathways of energy flow in food chains. By referring repeatedly to modifications of these two images, I hoped students at all levels would gain a deeper understanding.

One might ask why I did not just record the entire series on the SmartBoard. I need to practice this new technology to help me feel comfortable enough with it so it can be part of my digital toolkit for developing future learning aids. I did use the smart board to make the images that I then transferred to PowerPoint slides to import into Movie Maker.

The most challenging step was to learn Movie Maker. I got some idea from Jeff about what it could do, but not how to stretch images, match images and voice recordings, and edit the product. The entire process of making the 8-minute project took me about six hours. Dennis helped me learn how to convert the project to a movie, store the movie on You Tube, and then embed the movie in my PantherNET course page so students could watch it there. Once I learned these, I improved and saved the movie, deleted the old movie from You Tube and PantherNet, and imported the newer one to both. This helped me solidify what I had learned so I could do it again on my own if I needed to.

This last step introduced an achievement I had not originally set out to do. The video is 8 minutes long. I intended my audience to be my students, but I developed the project because I found no good animation or video about productivity on the Internet. By placing this movie on You Tube, I was allowing other teachers to use it, come up with ideas they might try, or show to their classes. I had trouble the first couple times; Dennis suggested that Internet Explorer was not a good browser to use for loading to YouTube. I had better success with FireFox.

This also gave me an opportunity to track how this video impacts the world. Even though the video is lengthy, as of today, it has been viewed 35 times, ten of those from ISB and our community. I am very surprised with the frequency of views and number of countries of the viewers, given there is nothing catchy in the video to lure viewers (other than the topic). I will be curious to see how the statistics progress.

Next, Dennis suggested I place the video on PantherNet, so students could watch it directly and not have to go to another screen. My students claimed both the video and its presence on PantherNet helped them learn this material better.

Making of a StoryBoard

2009-10-11T23:16:00.000-07:00

I have long been envious of people who were able to take the pictures in their cameras and put them into an electronic album, indexed and organized in a way that they could find them. Far more impressive were those who had their videos organized and archived. “Someday I hope to get all my [digital image] stuff in order”.

The next step, actually creating a product that organizes these videos in a coherent flow was beyond what I hoped I would do in this class. Being exposed to the movie makers, shown what they can do, and working with other teachers who showed me the process in action helped me realize it was within my reach. Once exposed to this technology I was quick to see relevant products that could be useful in helping students and family understand a message I was trying to communicate.

The project of creating a story board in a group was an excellent place to begin. Fortunately, John came up with a story by Utah Phillips that already existed in digital form, so our team could focus on collecting and organizing images. I had heard iMovie was good for making videos, so I was happy we were working in that program—it should be easy. Patience an expert, so our team had the support to answer any questions and offer supplemental ideas to enrich the experience. I had worked with them and Jonathan before, so we were quick to divide up the tasks and get on with accumulating the resources.

In previous Coetail courses I had learned about getting images from Creative Commons, now I was learning about “importing” images, changing the lengths of time images were shown, and linking these video images with sound. I was amazed at how quickly the process could occur once the story was developed and the importance of having the story in place from the beginning.

Reflection on readings 1

2009-10-11T23:15:00.000-07:00

By the end of this course, we should be:
1) learning the basics of how to use a digital still camera;

2) downloading your pictures to a computer; and

3) using ImageBlender software to create more advanced imaging techniques and integrate those images in the curriculum.

As a teacher it doesn't matter if I am a beginner or a novice, my goal is to create a collection of images that will optimize learning and visual literacy with my students.

A visually literate person should be able to
• Interpret, understand and appreciate the meaning of visual messages;
• Communicate more effectively by applying the basic principles and concepts of visual design;
• Produce visual messages using computers and other technologies; and
• Use visual thinking to conceptualize solutions to problems

With visual images helping students learn, a parallel could be drawn to action learning. Having students get up our of their chair and move their body to represent a process may be considered more important learning than memorizing a definition of a word.

The research in the ten Brain rules suggest making our students regularly have physical exercise could increase the oxygen to their brains and therefore help them learn.

Productivity

2009-09-20T18:23:00.001-07:00

Among the most challenging of topics for the IB Environmental Systems and Societies students to fully understand is productivity--a measure of the rate at which photosynthesis converts sunlight energy to a chemical form that organisms on earth can use.

After guiding the students through this concept, I will have students relate all they knew about productivity to this image. I expected they would see:
1) there is a lot of green biomass
2) the water is green-photosynthesis is occuring there
3) the birds in the air get energy by eating organisms which get energy from photosynthesis
4) the 'smoke' in the air relates to carbon dioxide which is used for photosynthesis
5) some plants are dead (brown colored)-dry biomass
6) some plants are reddish
7) wood biomass feeds termites
8) fungi decompose all the forest biomass for their energy

Creative Commons image from Tangent~Artifact, here sometimes :)

What made you look here?

2009-09-09T07:18:00.000-07:00

The difference is now technology is the first, current, and definitive resource for topics I present or enjoy at home or school.

You Tube contains music (including songs in German that my mother loved when she was young), old movie (Star Trek, Red Skeleton,..), poetry (Poe, Frost, Longfellow), history, science (New Scientist, Brainiacs, about animals) that I use for entertainment, contacts I correspond with now about common hobbies, and the primary source for helping my kids at home (Google Earth, Free Typing, musiceducation, choice words).

How I prepare for my classes is the biggest change in my IT use. I become less inhibited by not knowing and more pro-active in trying out resources I believe will help my students learn: excited about PantherNet, its chat capabilities, the links to TurnItIn.com, and abundance of relevant animations, and the potential of Google forms and Google doc.

But mostly I am more critical of what to use. If a function, site, or program is cumbersome, lacks precision, or out-of-date, I am much more likely to not struggle with is and pass it over for a resource at another site.

The digital aspects of technology are among my weaknesses and I have been looking forward to this course the most of all of them. I hope to learn enough to take risks in bringing a lot more video clips (and maybe even making some), podcasts?, animations, and probably still images into my presentations by taking this course. Maybe I’ll even digitalize some of my important old VHS material.

In addition, I like the dialogue about the look of various web sites (and their advertizements). What made you look here?

Creative Commons image taken on 5 September 2005 by n0nick / Sagie Maoz

Final project reflections

2009-05-07T02:52:00.000-07:00

For my final project I wanted to do something that was directly related to helping student learning. I made a wiki site that allowed them access to class information via the Internet, but that was done with the skills from the first course. I had heard of Goggle forms and wondered if I could use that program to effectively check student learning during class time.

The concept I wanted was a little advanced from the “clicker” technology talked about at the EARCOS conference (and reviewed here at ISB in 2005). That technology allows the teacher to see students’ selections of four multiple choices; basically an immediate assessment of students using a multiple choice question format. But I wanted a avenue to assess students with a variety of questions and not be limited to multiple choice, which could leave me believing a student understood a concept if they guessed the right choice.

Google forms allows such a technology. Multiple choice (even the option of “Other” with a more extensive answer), long answers, and surveys are all possible.

My first attempt was to have students select a choice of the direction they would like the course to proceed: review, hydrosphere, discuss IB Exam formats for a mock exam…. By having the students log onto the form site, students were forced to make a decision of their own before being swayed by the most verbal or dominant individuals in the class. The results were encouraging because the quiet student expressed an opinion that was different from the rest of the class. So the schedule was made with her opinions included.

My second attempt was to use the form to assess student understanding of information we had just covered in the class. Some questions were short answer fill-in-the-blank and some were multiple choice. The class has a number of ESL (English as a Second Language) students who are very quiet, so it is difficult to just their understanding during class discussions.

This form had the advantage of requiring every student to commit to an answer, even if they did not understand the concept. In one of the classes, it was obvious that all students understood two of the concepts completely, so we didn’t review those topics any more. In another class the answers showed misconceptions in definitions, mix-ups in terms, but no students who completely “didn’t get it”.

This form of assessment has the potential of being used for a paperless test. If one can get graphs and images to the students and the test can have all answers in the form of multiple choice, short answer essay, and fill-in-the-blank, those questions could be completed by students using the form application.

Two problems exist with the form application for now. It is free and public, so any questions posted on it are available for all to see. So once a test is given, students would be able to find those questions and pass the URL on to other classes who have not taken the test yet. This can be alleviated by giving another test to another class or posting the questions just before the test is given.

Google uses the host country location to determine the default language for the buttons and tool bars within the site. I have not been able to get around this setting, so students have to be instructed to click on the two-character Thai button at the bottom of the site when they are done with the page.

Having a template, questions can be uploaded quickly, the site can generate accurate information quickly, the teacher can learn of common misconceptions and help the entire class or learn of individual needs and address them with individual students or small groups. Best of all, when students understand a concept, the teacher can move on to the next topic. If the students already understand a unit (or part of it) before the teacher begins it, the teacher can move on to extension material, quicker assessment, or the next unit.

Success--mass collaboration?

2009-05-07T02:44:00.000-07:00

During this second COETAIL course, I expanded my research of blogs and the Internet for my hobby of family history as I discussed in a previous blog. Via a blog posting I just "met" another researcher who just came back from my mother's lineage's ancestral home village in the 1600s. The researcher had discovered a missing link in our lineage and I was able to learn about it from the other side of the globe by just writing like I am doing now. A few people working together on a common project like a genealogy search could be considered mass collaboration. A useful produce is produced by many that would be unlikely done by a few.

Are we preparing students for a future of mass collaboration?

2009-05-07T01:58:00.000-07:00

No, the school focusses students on achieving locally and individually (often in preparation for an IB curriculum) and in small groups. For schook, students go to their classes, then their activities, then gather in groups or individually and do their homework. This part of their lives is not an example of mass collaboration.

What goes on outside of school and may matter more in their lives, what challenges them and motivates them, is often related to the digital world. Students are on their cell phones as soon as they are out of class. They are combatting in the World of Warcraft before they think about homework, and they are deciphering their class notes and teacher expectations by cell phone when they do get down to homework. But these are not preparing them for mass collaboration.

As I see it, mass collaboration involves the responsible contribution to the growth of a societal system. The development of edible grains from wild grasses to the formation of a CreativeCommons concept would be included in mass collaborative efforts. I fear (probably not unlike my parents when I was in high school) the youth are learning how to collaborate as users, rather than creaters, of products.

But maybe the World of Warcraft is giving these youth not only the exposure to working in teams toward a common goal, but the strategies to effectively size up team members' collaborative skills, trustworthiness, and responsible behaviors in real life simulations. Students learn from mistakes they make on their profile or sharing with "friends" on Facebook. Students communicate with efficiency when they text message. The digital contacts they make worldwide by blogging, tweeting, and sharing of music and images gives them contacts that may be the most important individuals in their future university success, job placement, or mate selection. We cannot know which of these actions today will lead to having an advantage in tomorrow's society. These skills my give students an advantage, but no matter what, "we" are not preparing the students for this future by what we do in our classes.

But are we preparing them for mass collaboration by raising them in the Eastern culture instead of the West? Whereas, the West is know for its focus on the individual, the East is known for its community orientation.

Digital impact

2009-04-16T18:57:00.000-07:00

Digital impact

The Coetail (Certificate of Educational Technology and Information Literacy) course clarifies a variety of dangers in using, submitting, and reproducing information that is freely available digitally. Students analyze acceptable use policies, copyrights, fair use, special considerations for use in education, and one’s digital footprint.

Every posting of music, voice, blog, picture, tweet, or email leaves a trail back to the one who posted it. Some of these trails are good. It is convention to give credit to the author of a copied picture when using it. Some trails to one’s computer are less than desirable. These trails and the long term consequences of the postings are included in a concept known as one’s “digital footprint”.

Seems to me the use of “footprint” stems from what one leaves behind from one’s presence at a location. If one walks on a beach, another can see the impression left in the sand. When one burns fossil fuels, an increase in atmospheric carbon is part of what ‘one leaves behind’. When one visits the internet, there is a trail, but little impact. But what one ‘leaves behind’ when one submits a post to the Internet is bigger than a footprint; it’s impression is more like stepping into and rippling the water, rather than just marking the sand, at the beach. One’s footprint is still left in the sand below the water, but it’s the ripples or wave made in the water that spread around and impact the world. It might be more appropriate to refer the ‘what one leaves behind’ as one’s digital impact.

It is this digital impact one needs to be aware of before clicking the mouse on ‘Send’ or hitting the ‘Return’ key when interacting digitally. One might want to consider the digital environment and assess the consequences of the action on the digital environment and conduct a quick digital impact assessment before clicking the button.

To ascertain if a digital submission is wise, a digital impact assessment could include the quick answering of a few questions:

1) Will this action be traced back to me at any time in the future? No matter what the digital user thinks, the answer to this should always be considered “Yes”. The security of anonymous surveys, encrypted transactions, and the information we have on our personal computers are already challenged.

2) Is this digital environment safe? Sending an email to a select group of ‘friends’, conducting a financial transaction via the internet, and even viewing internet sites from a cyber café computer are not safe. Your boss can read your emails, credit card information has been stolen from the Internet, and porn sites are traced back to their observers.

3) Would I mind my mother or the reviewer of your next job application seeing this?

4) Am I comfortable leaving this action public for the rest of my life? That’s how long it will be available for viewing by others.

5) Have I given credit to the originator of any images or ideas I am including in my submission?

6) What am I creating? Is this action the monster, lion in waiting, inconsequential blah-g, or seed of a new idea for which it is intended?

7) How could this action come back to bite me? What might be politically correct, convention, acceptable, or the fashion at this time, might be taboo soon. The action should leave a “feel right”-ness about it.

Much of the discussion of the course focuses on the restrictions of internet use. The heart of the real value of the Internet, creating new knowledge and increasing the quality of life, should be a main consideration. Criticism of another’s actions without suggesting improvements and writing one’s train-of-thought have less positive impact for our future than a creating of something new. So the intended impact can be in the answer to:

8) What value am I adding to life?

I hope that this post is a forward movement. I welcome comments and criticisms.

Who did it?

2009-04-09T02:29:00.000-07:00

Who's responsibility is it to teach students to be safe online?

The youth of today are more tech savvy and connected than any previous generation. But unlike many other skills they develop, their elders are seldom their mentors or teachers in developing their tech skills. One of the consequences of that is there is seldom the regulation, critique, and guidance that the gardening generation felt is necessary before the youth get behind the keyboard and start driving their computers around the cyberworld. Some of these youth are aware of the dangers, some ignore them, and some are ignorant of the consequences of cyber activity that is not restricted.

The question of “who is responsible” is a very Western question. Why are kids fat? Why are there unwanted pregnancies? Why tooth decay, bad posture, plagiarism, …? Some societies are quick to turn to teachers and request a quick fix to the growing problems. Teachers probably know more about technologies, both parents are probably working and don’t have the time to monitor their children’s activities when domestic chores await, and computer-related activities frequently are associated with education.

Students do need to know how to use technological tools to further their understanding, communication, and education. Their culture also assumes literacy in the variety of tech services that are available. For these teachers rightfully should be knowledgeable and skilled at using the technologies when they are the best avenues for assisting student learning. Teachers help students avoid plagiarism, create tech products as class projects, use tech tools for analysis, and critique information found on the Internet.

While it sounds like a logical progression that teachers are also responsible for teaching students to be safe online, the links of these safety issues related to student learning in the various subjects is not as direct. Some questions arise from the “Who is responsible for teaching students cyber safety?” issue:

1) Where in a school’s curriculum would this be taught?
2) Who would be responsible for developing the curriculum?
3) How would the appropriate staff be trained to prepare and be kept up to speed in the variety of technology safety issues?
4) When would this training occur for resident students in the school and when would new students to the school be given this orientation?
5) Would something that is already a student requirement (of time, energy, stress, and scheduling) be dropped so this curriculum could be included, or would time be taken out of a schedule that is already undersubscribed for classes?

In spite of all of this discussion, schools are responsible to giving students a safe and healthy environment for learning. All teachers are media teachers, so all of us are responsible to learn about cyber safety and use it at teachable moments in our presentations, lessons, and assessment criteria. In addition, schools need to instruct the youth about the school’s acceptable use policy (AUP) and include concepts like cyberbullying, inappropriate sharing of password and personal information, and profile hijacking and pirating.

The “responsibility” task is only completed when parents have taken on their part. They , too, need to be educated, take on their share of monitoring, guiding, and screening of student cyber use, and understand that it is not the school’s responsibility when students access inappropriate sites, become addicted to cyber gaming or social networking, exhibit other behaviors that are not part of a healthy, balanced young adult life. The school provides instruction and opportunities for learning, but is not the scapegoat for the reason students deviate from the information the school provides.

It will be a challenge to determine where the line will be drawn between society and governments restrictions and responsibilities, parent’s responsibilities, and school’s responsibilities for students’ online safety.

IBO and the fair use policy

2009-04-02T22:21:00.000-07:00

Response to the Code of best practices and Fair Use for Media Literacy Education article

My use of Google images and video in class presentations is significant. I used to take the time to place a URL on each slide for each image I used. This article left me feeling I should be doing that, but that it is not necessary.

1) To what extent should every PPT slide have a citation?
2) Whose responsibility is it to shut down BKK trade in copyrighted materials?
3) How do I go about getting permission to use a Gary Larson cartoon?

IBO strongly restricts the use of its materials if they are not individually purchased.
4) Are rules different in UK?
5) Are teachers breaking the law when they photocopy IB exams and pass them out to students:
i) to understand what the exam is like?
ii) to be tested in a mock exam setting?
iii) to practice in preparation for the exam?
iv) to compare their answers with the markschemes to help them learn the material better?

Notes about using "Chad" rooms

2009-03-18T23:39:00.000-07:00

Notes about chatrooms – F2F with Silvia Tolisano

A chat room can be used as a warmup for thinking at the beginning of a class. I immediately see this as an effective way to get students into learning mode in my class. By having the computers already setting out (from the previous class) and logged onto a site, like her Tiny Chat room or the Today’s Meet (which seems really easy to set up and use) site she mentioned, students could engage actively in learning from the time they enter class. A prompt like, write a sentence explaining a way peoples’ actions influence the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, or today’s class list of all foods they can think of that contain seeds (and, therefore, are fruit), can direct students attention to tasks, engage their thinking and expand their understanding about a topic, and have a ‘discussion’ in which everyone is able to ‘hear’ everyone else, each student is able to respond at their own rate, students are working collaboratively, and the class settles in for learning. With it already being online, it could be projected onto the screen for further discussion to begin the class.

Silva suggested Tiny Chat would be good for summarizing information. I would need to see this work. The summarizing we did in class was novice work, but, as a reader, I would have needed much more organization in my mind or maturity in my digital experiences to glean a summary out of all the short snippets that were posted. Besides the making of lists I mentioned above, a chat room could be helpful for students to ask each other questions (@Chad: I appreciate your assistance with how to find the bottom of the page…..) or to generate ideas and bounce them off each other. The question then becomes, Is this a better way of engaging students’ creativity, productivity, and learning than the other collaborative means of engaging students face-to-face? In the near future there will no doubt be many social networking applications discussing the success (or lack thereof) of this avenue.

A side comment about the digital footprint we make:
Chad suggested one can hire a company to do a search on your footprint and hire a company to clean up one’s footprint. Seems to me one would want to hire a company to go after those who slander or bully digitally as well.

My future in geneology (personal post)

2009-03-01T06:19:00.000-08:00

This course gets my thoughts going. It's been a while since I have had the freedom to take the time to expose myself to a course like this. I don't have the time now, but when will we?

I've researched my family origins since I was 12. They took me to records written in an old German script in south Russia and to dates preceding the 1800s. I reached a wall, though. I have the names of villages that existed in scattered regions throughout what later became Switzerland, Germany, and Poland. But many of those villages and records do not exist. So how could I go the next step back?

I thought I could get books that have records of people in villages with those same names, and build a census of all the names of people and families in villages with those names over the 18th century. But this course has helped me see the future of geneology. People will see they can have this kind of information come to them.

By putting a simple question out there in what I understand to be a ning, I can get people with interests (and knowledge) in the village of that time into a social network. By getting an RSS feed for everything about those villages sent to me from Google, I can get updates and contacts on such information. And I'll bet technologies in the next five years will be developed that will give us an application by which we can feed in specific search criteria and the smarter search engine will do the work for me.....and probably even organize the information in a way that is easy for me to analyze (kind of like Google.docs does now).

Last day (of course and February) reflections

2009-02-28T02:54:00.000-08:00

Now I have even more applications and sites to learn about: Moodle, Ning, Teacher tube, voice threads, Twitter (“Tweets”), the Black Cloud project, Google Calendar, and Google Groups.
Suzie Boss and Jane Krauss suggest:

--Kids don’t know how to interact in a responsible manner and that lots of attention needs to be directed to help them with this. For this reason and to avoid being sued, many schools in the US and Australia are now blocking social networking sites like we have at ISB—even Google images. We are fortunate.

--If technologies are leading the way for the development of a project, it is time to reconsider the technology. This is a good idea. Inappropriate technologies make students and teachers shy of technological use, are time and energy consuming, and hinder, rather than assist student learning.

--It’s too late to interact with students when they have already developed a project (Like a PowerPoint or Document). The teachable moment is gone. The learning interactions (with the teacher of other students) that assist students need to be contained within the processing of their work. I am happy this was addressed in the IB Environmental Systems project I developed for this course.

The discussion about how much time technology takes from teacher’s days leaves me feeling I need to read The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, which I recall seems to address how to tackle time budgeting of one’s projects.

The collaboration among students is most useful. I liked the discussions in the class today. They reflect the good discussions on blogs. I particularly like the insight John Breedlove and Senor Denby gave. John gave me five minutes of his time to discuss how I could set up a Google.forms idea I have. Again he is an amazing resource in this course. I look forward to seeing his Google.Earth project.

The educational literature for the reading link to the Foothill de Anza Community College is an excellent synopsis of current beacons in education and I thank the course leaders for giving us that link as a resource and assignment. It helped put the project into relevant context for the new technologies (and review what we covered earlier in this course, but I forgot about.)

We teachers will always be taking time to learn the better way to help our students learn and understand using technologies. I predict the last course in this Master’s program will be about the effective use of a tech tool or technique that has not even been developed yet. And we will all see how it will effectively help our students. (Here at ISB, we will probably have access to it.) With the rate of new developments, we teachers will always be dealing with a conflict of how much time to dedicate to keeping up.

Study guide for Environmental Systems project

2009-02-28T00:11:00.001-08:00

The students in my IB Environmental Systems course can benefit most from specific help in their laboratory work and their reviews for tests. Many wait until the last night (or later) to review the material. My course project is an attempt to get them to review earlier before the test, organize their understanding of the key concepts, reflect on their learning, and collaboratively prepare a document they can use individually to review for the test, and later, for the IB exam.

Using the concept of Understanding by Design or backwards design, with the above objective in mind, I made a list of expectations and specifications I would hope to see from students. I wanted the project to be collaborative, use technology out of need (rather than because it was there), address students’ needs, allow for evolution and improvement, and use the technology tools we learned in this course.

The development of a study guide is collaborative in that students each contribute to the production of the document. With ten topics to write about, each student is given ample opportunity to contribute a unique, creative product. I anticipate good students will be first and most thorough in their contributions, so I requested students who were not confident about their understanding to make their contributions first. I expect the better students will all benefit from each contributing to the product and having each other’s work to benefit from.

The use of wikispaces and its ability to have side discussions is an excellent tool for this project. Students are already contacting me on the discussions to clarify what is expected of them. Kim helped me realize the site would be cumbersome if the ten main topics were not divided up into individual pages, so students could be working on the site simultaneously—kind of like Google.docs.

I have already made a number of changes on the site to make it more clear, improve its relevance, and improve its usability by students.

Reflections from the balcony

2009-02-25T05:44:00.000-08:00

I always enjoy discussions about where technologies will take us in the future. For the past ten years, the predictions seem to have both fallen short of where we actually went (Google Earth) and exceeded where we ended up (all teachers now being guides). The readings, class discussions and interactions have stimulated me to take more risks in my technological life. These fall in three areas:

Attention - As I look around the class during the discussions and presentations, I notice the "old" paper and pencil people like me are visually and attentively directed at the source of the presentation. A number of "younger" computer people have their faces onto a series of changing website images. At first, I found this rude--like reading a newspaper in front of your college professor during his lecture. Now I see this as efficient. While class was going on today, I was actively looking at the websites and ideas people were presenting--scanning images, reading short bits of articles, gathering information, and asking myself questions. Is this what students would do if we let them? When a student doesn't understand what I mean by Hadley cell, might she look it up, get a quick idea about it, maybe ask a question about what she is not understanding, and then move on to greater understanding of the class discussion? I think I will be more welcoming of students having their faces in computers during my class.

Phones in class and in my future - Today I took a phone away from a student who was text messaging during a large portion of the class presentation. I hadn't checked to see if she was actually gathering relavent information before I had her give it to me. (When she moved on to the task to doing the exercise we had discussed in class, she was lost, which suggests she was not attentive.) But, like in the previous paragraph, she might have been. In which case I would have been wrong to follow the school policy and have her give the phone up.

Furthermore, the discussion about phones made me wonder if an iPhone or similar device is more economical than my present methods of digital living. The cost of a computer and phone and access now must be more than the cost of an iPhone and its access for a couple years. I would also have much more flexibility and accessibility with a mobile phone device. Maybe I need to think this over.

Sites (in addition to those I checked out during class) to check out -
WorldMapper (http://www.worldmapper.org/)
Zotero (http://www.zotero.org)
Delicious (http://delicious.com)
Diigo (http://www.diigo.com)
What a widget is
How images on Flickr can be used effectively

Amazing memory of today's session - With the analytical power of technologies, once voice recognition (and its translation) is effectively achieved, semantic aware tools will give us un-realized capacity for accessing useful information.

Adopt and Adapt by Marc Prensky

2009-02-24T16:01:00.000-08:00

So, wouldn’t it be nice if this Ed Tech course was offered alongside a course in Differentiaton? Wouldn’t they fit nicely hand-in-glove? I find I can always be a better teacher by changing the way I am grouping the students, changing the “assignments” I give them to make them more authentic, more diverse, and more in line with the students experiences and learning styles. By grouping them differently, assessing them by more than just my old exams and written assignments, I know I would reach more of them more effectively.

That has turned out to be a secondary goal for me taking this class (though I am not sure I am doing more than “Doing old things in new ways.” when I try them out).

I agree that much of my class time is spent with students getting and setting up computers to use them effectively in the classroom. With the new requirement of registering to produce a Word, Excel, or PowerPoint document, I have given up on using class time for students to produce such works in class. Maybe I need to follow up with Ed Tech more about this registration bit.***

Now that I have used Google.doc, I could more effectively use it to check students’ understanding during class. If I became better at quickly writing a form for students to respond to (especially a template that could be used over and over again), I could get a quick handle on students understanding quickly and effectively by a short digital quiz on Google.doc with the results showing up on my screen instantaneously. Maybe that will be a future project.***

Is there a web-site where teachers “try something new each lesson and report back on the Internet what works and what doesn’t”? I guess the entire Internet has a lot of it, but I am not astute enough to find it effectively.Prensky correctly suggests teachers would ask, "When will we have time for the curriculum," they will ask, "and for all the standardized testing being mandated?" But his response, “If we really offered our children some great future-oriented and they could develop their skills in … technology, I bet they would complete the "standard" curriculum in half the time it now takes.” We have heard similar arguments repeatedly in technology-supporting literature. With as long as these innovations have been around, we should by now have the data to support this claim. This data would be some of the most significant information one could learn from a course like we are taking. It would make headlines in many educational journals. The absence of such data in articles suggests the data does not exist and that, in fact, students do not prepare better the core material once they have effectively learned to use the technologies available. This study should be THE major focus of many tech courses. In the previous paragraphs (here and in the article) it was suggested that the teachers “report what works and what doesn’t”. I WANT to hear that technology HAS helped students learn core material effectively better than the “old things the old ways”.

The path toward tech instructional enlightenment...thorns of elitism?

2009-02-12T04:17:00.000-08:00

I might have considered we students would be overwhelmed with new internet tools, applications, and tempting niceties, but the “Connectivism” animation kind of outlined the path I believe we are going to take. This path takes us lay students from fear and ignorance to having our students share their learning digitally with the technological world:

1. Build learning network
2. Practice finding online sites
3. Determine the credibility of the information
4. Use Google to find peer-reviewed articles
5. Social bookmark the sites I select
6. Finds others who bookmarked same sites
7. Next look at blogs which are opinions about the topic from like minded others
8. Based on what I have learned blog (and make recommendations) to others
9. Use a Reader to subscribe to blogs to know when information is updated
10. Use an MP3 player to record audio and video pod casts which are accessing courses
11. Access professors via podcasts
12. Video conference by Skyping with experts like we did in our face-to-face session
13. Teachers like to share expertise with students, so they might be asked to give a face-to-face
14. Have students summarize with video or audio their learning to the rest of the world

Seeing the mountain before us as a series of treks with smaller steps make the challenges attainable. But I wonder if:
* the technologically savvy instructors will be considered elitist by those who are either older (and did not learn ICT from their youth) or un-motivated,
* an even greater gap will develop between private and US public school education, or
* the standards of use of technology in instruction do not grow so fast that it leaves many good instructors struggling to keep up with the innovations and even newer developments.

Educational Technology Standards and ISB—where will we go from here?

2009-02-12T04:14:00.001-08:00

I took the assignment on reading about NETS a step further and tied it with ISB’s Enduring Understandings and Essentail Questions and Andrew Torris’ blog post “When is it too much? AND When do we say “DO IT or GO!”?

Four inputs for effective technological growth in a school are the administration, the teachers, the students, and the community. We course students were told ISB supports the NETS standards for educational technology, we are constantly improving the hardware to make this possible, and we are having this coursework to support these standards. Andrew Torris’ blog post “When is it too much? AND When do we say “DO IT or GO!”? suggests a “PD that is voluntary [like this course is] results in just a few [in our case a significant minority] “interested” teachers showing up, and the technology use being enhanced in classrooms where there is already integration already going on.”

Where will ISB go from here? The Enduring Understandings and Essential Questions ISB adopted state “students will begin to understand” the various aspects of educational technology. Does our strategic plan envision a move toward making this understanding more enduring? Will teachers be required to take educational technology PD in the next couple years? Will teacher evaluations include requirements for demonstrating more current educational technology use in the classroom? Will our future hiring practices reflect such a commitment? To what extent are we already screening teachers for digital dexterity?

At first glance, the Performance Indicators look formidable. I look forward to the discussion of these issues in the course as I look forward to moving forward in effectively using these technologies.

Reflections on “Bloom’s Taxonomy Blooms Digitally”

2009-02-12T04:12:00.000-08:00

The article is timely, relevant, and informative:
* Review of Bloom’s taxonomy. Every time we look through this list it stimulates us to re-consider how we could do more or better.
* Defining computer tech terms we have only heard of
* Discusses computer tech terms we have used and shows us how those skills are taking our students to higher orders of thinking. (This gives a kind of pat on the back for some of the projects we are already having our students do, but also giving some insight on why some students have more trouble with these higher order projects.) This helps us evaluate the other tech assessments we are now using and modify those lessons to bring them, also, to a higher level. I could have had students evaluate the scientific value of a recent Google.doc project I had students do, rather than just get information for analysis. In the evaluations I’ve had students doing to date, I have not had them evaluate the kinds of technology used in the lesson.
* Introducing how new tech terms are applied, therefore, giving us ideas of future project

I’m not sure what a “popout” (term I got from Kim’s blog posts) is, but I think it might apply to these paragraphs. This article helped me see that the blogs I have been studying this week have largely been un-organized. I, too, am not good about helping the reader know from the title what is going on in the blog, so they know whether they want to read further or not. I will attempt to be more clear in my future blog titles to inform the audience. I also noted that my bookmarks (and Reader) organization is inefficient. I will attempt to make folders and organize the wikis in my Reader and the favorites in my Bookmarks into folders to save me time in the future.

I also want to learn more about mashing, which I assume will come with this course. I look forward to learning how to integrate links and animations into my projects. Finally, it would be a wonderful way to celebrate someone’s life by giving them a digital tribute using these technologies.

Going against the grain of modern technologies, this paper is one I would like to have under the glass at my station desk.

Any thoughts?

PD development by the ISB tech team and my goals for this course.

2009-02-12T03:56:00.000-08:00

I applaud the tech team and the administration and curriculum support for taking us in the direction ISB was and is heading. Attracting and hiring the team we have at ISB, funding the technological developments of the past few years, and throwing support behind increasing the tech staff so we can expand and improve are commendable. I am most pleased that they all agreed to support advanced PD in technology and followed up with a current, relevant, attractive, and comprehensive avenue for us to move to a more technologically aware, skilled, committed, and motivated institution. The picture of the many of us in the course speaks 1000 words to this.
What I expect to get out of this course is . . . . opportunity. I have learned to trust the members of the team over the years and repeatedly am smiling when I walk out of one of their after school sessions. (I’ve actually been upset because the sessions are so often in direct conflict with my teaching schedule.) I approach “the learning I hope for” with an expectation that they know what I “should” learn and will provide me the opportunity to learn, practice, and improve these skills. I believe what one learns in a class is dependent on the learner. This course is opening doors I didn’t and will not know even exist. I already have the knowledge that students learn differently now, the knowledge that technology can improve the way I guide students toward learning, and the awareness that there are so many learning avenues that I am not aware of. I hope this course will show me the avenues so I can go and try them out to see which might work for me, my courses, and my students.

Five years from now things we are discussing now in this class will seed the development of where each of us will go to make our students, classes, and learning more challenging, interesting, successful, and current. Having so many in the class means we will have a community to discover with, share with, rejoice with, and get support from. The course is giving me what I hoped for.

Reflection on Siemen’s “Connectivism”

2009-02-05T19:43:00.000-08:00

I liked the flow of the paper once he got into the background. Introducing definitions of learning, knowledge, and learning theory was essential to the rest of the paper.

My favorite two questions to explore were (emphasis mine):
* What adjustments need to [be] made with learning theories when technology performs many of the cognitive operations previously performed by learners (information storage and retrieval). and
* With increased recognition of interconnections in differing fields of knowledge, how are systems and ecology theories perceived in light of learning tasks?

‘I store my knowledge in my friends’ reminds me of the society set up in Fahrenheit 451 in which (I believe) all books were memorized and kept in the minds of people to access from each other. Now the store has gone a step further than books, to digital and global storage.

“Chaos” – Our brains form connections from a chaos of neurons. The ‘wiring’ gets selected and reinforced with repeated use. I’m curious if, using technologies, what “wiring” will be reinforced and if it will alter people’s capacity for passion, commitment, and depth of thought. Flexibility, adaptability, and diversity will be characteristics that will be selected for success.

I love the social ant behavior as a model for human community digital interactions. Ants actions have implications for digital community success.

The concept of ‘organizational ecology’ is attractive. I support, “Creating, preserving, and utilizing information flow should be a key organizational activity.” In this course we are now doing the ‘creating’ step.

“The internet leverages the small efforts of many with the large efforts of few” reminds me of the Obama campaign and the action emails since that are mobilizing people to do the ‘small efforts’. “Diverse teams of varying viewpoints are a critical structure for completely exploring ideas.” is also consistent with Obama’s choice of cabinet members and how to work through conflict and resolution.

My compliments to the individual who selected this article for us to review. It took over an hour for me to read, synthesize, reflect, and ponder on it; the time was like a good movie. Thank you.

It's war

2009-02-05T19:40:00.000-08:00

“To combat the shrinking half-life of knowledge, organizations have been forced to develop new methods of deploying instruction.” I smile at the use of combat and force to describe changes that must be made in instruction because of there being more knowledge.

The 18 month half-life of knowledge has existed in the biological sciences for decades. The focus has needed to change, and instruction of the sciences has taken advantage of the new technological innovations, and we probably are much better at giving our students hands-on and electronic learning experiences now than we did a score and years ago. This transition is continual, gradual, adaptive, and appropriate.

In our class we are each taking making our transitional steps toward including technology in our repertoire. It becomes part of us when we “choose to use” it. We resist it when the combative ultimatum of force is upon us. We choose to take this course and we will all get a lot out of it. We will modify our instruction as we see best within the constrains of our energy, environment, and abilities. It will not come about because of the pace at which new information is being generated.

Solution to problem of copying Word text to post as a blog

2009-02-01T04:48:00.000-08:00

With the problems I've been having with my computer (which lead to my having to restart or get back into Internet Explorer) I've learned it might be faster to use FireFox, but I've also learned to do all my composing in Word and save it as I'm doing now. Unfortunately I didn't do this earlier and I lost valuable time and ideas.

The problem with copying and pasting this information to post as a blog was it was pasted as an html document which could not be published as a "compose". I got around this problem by saving the document as "Plain text" on my desktop and copying this plain text a new posting. As you can see here, this works fine.

Now to solve the computer's not working.....

PS. I love the "

Your blog post published successfully!

" sign

Reflections on Richardson article Learning with Others

2009-01-29T21:16:00.000-08:00

I enjoyed the Richardson article on Learning well with others. I can see myself easily spending a lot of time following up on stuff I read there.

The “linear, age-grouped, individual, teacher-guided curriculum” is my history, both the way I learned, the way I was taught to teach, and my comfort zone. I expect to learn a lot from this site. My first two concerns are “How do we locate and discern good information and good partners for learning collaboratively and electronically?”. My second concern is if this method of preparation takes more prep time for giving students less preparation for the IB exams they are responsible for. “Collaborative solutions to knowledge problems” sure sounds attractive.

I wondered if the students in the Science 4 Humanities club could get information about projects to work on using "topic".blogsearch.google.com. (This might be a biased or 'personal' opinion, but the thought is interesting to me and I hope to try it out.) I unsuccessfully tried it for information for my environmental systems class, but discovered I can get ideas by typing in the topic as , which I hope to follow up on.

I liked the Fan Fiction link for my daughter. I found some Harry Potter stuff I now is right up her alley. I would like to follow up on the Clustrmap and Delicious sites.