SMARTBoard Lesson Review

In my grad class, we started looking at some SMART lesson plans on the SMART Exchange website, which has a bounty of wonderful lessons varying in subject, length, use, and grade level.

I decided to search a topic that I remember viewing in my observation classroom.  It was a lesson on telling time in an inclusive classroom.  So I typed in time and came up with this SMARTBoard Time Lesson submitted by user tleter.

Overall, the presentation is visually attractive and well put together.  What I really liked about this lesson is the ample opportunity for student involvement.  There are lots of practice questions to get students to come up and get involved.  Also, I enjoyed how the teacher instruction part of the lesson is shown in one manner and then the student practice part of the lesson has the students performing the same sort of tasks as they had been taught.  For example, on the teaching pages of the lesson, the instructions are to use the pen to draw in the hands, then later, when they practice, they are asked to do the same.

Some things I would change have to do with the consistency of the slides.  On slide 4, every other time has "o'clock" labeled.  I would keep all the same, or have none at all.  Also, on slides 7 and 10, the instructions on the page say "Type the correct time for each clock."  Unless I am unfamiliar, I do not see how one could easily type in the times.  Lastly, while I feel the interactive activities are good, I feel like there is much more that could be expanded upon.  Perhaps including some other multimedia, like a video  about telling time, would be a great addition to the lesson.

Also, I think many students may have difficulty with digital time compared to analog time, so maybe showing representations of the two forms next to each other could provide extra support.

What do you think of this lesson?  What's really great? What would you change?

Accessibility for All!

In my grad class, we are looking at the General Public License (GPL).  With GPL software, there is such a thing as free!  I am amazed that I haven't realized this before.  My brother was always the technology guru of the family and I would often tell him the woes of having no money, but needing some software.  He would always direct me to CNET Downloads where - unbeknownst to me at the time - I would download free software.  Now I am making the connection!

I think the ability to download, see and edit code, and redistribute the software is a really interesting idea.  It reminds me of Wikipedia in that no one is getting paid or making any profit by writing or sharing knowledge in this online encyclopedia.  Similarly, on Source Forge, Fresh Meat, and Open Science Project, people are coming together to collaborate on software or in the case of the latter, science projects, to create better products.  

So I looked into Source Forge for some software that I would like for free.  I was thinking about my love of music.  In one class in undergrad, I had to compose a short piece of music.  While I was using staff paper and pencil, I wanted to be able to create the music in a software program.  I used the likes of Sibelius and Finale, but these were expensive, and the free trial versions were very limited.  Sure enough, I type in music in the search bar and I come across MuseScore.  This sheet music generator has all the aspects of Finale that I enjoy, but it's free!  It plays the music, I can create notes, rests, ties, etc.  I can save, print, export, import - it's amazing!

As far as educational uses - I can think of a few.  I definitely would like to incorporate music into my teaching when I finally get into a classroom.  One way I could do this is by creating or downloading songs to sing or play on the piano.  Using this free resource - it would be a cinch!  Perhaps if I run an after school chorus or even if I want to incorporate mini music lessons into my classroom teaching, this would be a great tool to use!

What do you think of the GPL and sites like Open Source?  What cool software have you found and downloaded for free?  How could you use GPL software in the classroom?

The ABCs of PLEs - LMNOP?

Hello cyberworld!

First and foremost, I would like to apologize for my absence.  But I am back now and ready to rock and roll!

So to catch up, I would first like to discuss my reaction to a very interesting read on the PLE (Personal Learning Environment) from Mohamed Amines' PLE list.  The article I read is entitled "Envisioning the Post-LMS Era: The Open Learning Network" by Jonathan Mott.

My initial reaction to learning about Personal Learning Environments was what is with all of the abbreviations?  Just in skimming the passage I came across LMSs, CMSs, PLEs, PLNs and OLNs.  I guess it is constantly easier to talk about each one with the abbreviation, but I got confused, so perhaps you did to.  Here's a quick cheat sheet:

• LMS - Learning Management System
• CMS - Content/Curriculum Management System
• PLE - Personal Learning Environment
• PLN - Personal Learning Network
• OLN - Open Learning Network

Ok, we've now got that all cleared up.  I realized in my research of PLEs that there was a great deal of discussion, debate, and compromise amongst these terms.  I realized throughout my reading of this article I had some experience with LMSs - Echalk (High School) and Blackboard (College and now Grad School).  I often thought about my experiences with these LMSs as I read.  

The author points out three limitations of LMSs:

• "First, LMSs are generally organized around discrete, arbitrary units of time — academic semesters. Courses typically expire and simply vanish every 15 weeks or so, thereby disrupting the continuity and flow of the learning process.
• Second, LMSs are teacher-centric. Teachers create courses, upload content, initiate threaded discussions, and form groups. Opportunities for student-initiated learning activities in the traditional LMS are severely limited.
• Finally, courses developed and delivered via the LMS are walled gardens, limited to those officially enrolled in them. This limitation impairs content sharing across courses, conversations between students within and across degree programs, and all of the dynamic learning affordances of the read-write web."

The first point I was not made aware of until I read it! It was so true.  I can't even tell you how many times I've wanted to revisit an old class' notes or submissions after it had been erased.

The second point makes sense, and the third does as well - again, points I was not made aware of until reading this article.

So then the article talks about PLEs/PLNs.  Immediately I thought of the George Siemen's theory of Connectivism and realized how well PLEs align with the theory.  As the author stated in this article:

"Value accrues to the system as a whole because the more users or ‘nodes’ there are in a network, the more possible connections there are.”

So the benefits and weaknesses of LMSs and PLEs are wide not really complementary, but using the strengths of both, we can create an OLN. The author suggests that by taking both of these models and attempting to integrate them will result in this OLN.

I realized that the Grad course for which I am maintaining this blog (besides my own pleasure of writing blogs) is attempting to do just that, meld the two worlds of LMSs and PLNs to create an OLN.  Something that is:

• "Secure and open 
•  Integrated and Modular 
•  Private and Public 
•  Reliable and Flexible"

Or as the author put so eloquently in this article:

“However, a one-or-the-other choice between the two is a false choice between knowledge-dissemination technologies and community-building tools. We can have both.”

I know it is difficult to maintain an OLN, but if we keep trying, I know it will be excellent!

What is your experience with LMSs, CMSs, PLNs, PLEs, and/or OLNs? I would love to hear your thoughts!

Foley Artist

This week, in diligently going through all of my blog updates in my Google Reader, I came across a really great blog post: "The Art of Movie Sounds"on http://www.freetech4teachers.com/.  This post referred to a wonderful video (seen at the end of this post).  The video features Gary Hecker, a Foley artist (the ones who make all the sounds for films' final cuts).  I feel like this was not only a great introduction to the art of Foley, but it also was an inspiring video about creativity.  The blog suggests showing this video to students who are creating their own videos in class.  I would go even further and say that we could show this to our classes in order to inspire creativity and possibly introduce an art form in which a particular student might show talent.

Questions:
-Can you think of any other purpose or use showing this video could present?
-Do you think you have what it takes to become a Foley artist?
-What role does creativity play in our conventional models of education?

I look forward to your comments!


SoundWorks Collection: Gary Hecker - Veteran Foley Artist from Michael Coleman on Vimeo.
From "The Empire Strikes Back" to "Robin Hood", award-winning Foley artist Gary Hecker of Todd-AO says it takes “timing and a huge creative mind” to be the man behind the sound. Here, he shares tips and tricks he’s learned during a career that has spanned more than 200 films. Hecker also recently joined CSS Studios’ Todd-AO in late 2009. One of the most accomplished Foley artists in Hollywood. Among his recent credits are 2012, The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3, Angel & Demons, Watchmen and the Spiderman trilogy. Check out more video profiles at www.soundworkscollection.com. Join the Vimeo Group: www.vimeo.com/channels/soundworkscollection.

Advice at the Beginning of a Journey

So I'm not quite at the pursuing-a-doctorate-degree level yet, but Mark Wagner, Ph.D. gives some great advice for an Ed Tech Newbie (like me) on his blog post this week on his "Educational Technology and Life" blog.  He was responding to an e-mail from someone pursuing a Doctorate Degree in Educational Technology.  Some of the phrases that stuck out to me were:

"Research something you are passionate about."

"At the start [...] you don't know what you don't know."

"Any program is only as good as you make it."

These out-of-context phrases meant a lot in his e-mail to that student, but they also mean a lot to me as I am still at the beginning stages of this journey.

"Research something you are passionate about."  - I have found that in this first two semesters of Pace's Educational Technology Specialist Masters Program, I have really found my passion.  Never before had I desperately wanted to learn, read, tweet, and blog about something in education.

After watching The Road to Nowhere (see my last blog), I got on the phone with my mother to ask her some questions about my childhood and all she had done to protect me throughout my educational career.  We got to talking about how with this new surge of technology, there are so many who want to become Luddites - working to destroy the technology, instead of embracing it.  In the end, we agreed that technology should be integrated into classroom lessons.  But more so, we need need to teach effective uses of these technologies, so the benefits will far outweigh the negative aspects of technology.  It became so heated at some points - something I can only attribute to my passion.

"At the start [...] you don't know what you don't know." - Once I began this course in particular, I didn't know that I didn't know a thing about wikis past using Wikipedia.  I also didn't know that I didn't know what an augmented reality was.  There is so much to learn that it can at times become overwhelming, but I absolutely love it!

"Any program is only as good as you make it." - I certainly learned this in my undergraduate work at St. Thomas Aquinas College.  I was able to become involved to a ridiculous level, but it certainly made my experience.  I think this is absolutely relevant to my coursework so far in the Master's Program because I am truly making my learning my own with the online courses I have taken so far.  I am reaching out past the material presented to me (with the help of the material, of course) and exploring my passion.

Thanks to Mr. Wagner for his wonderful advice!  Maybe I'll look into Walden University when I am at that pursuing-a-doctorate-degree level. :-)

So as to use my previous advice: What do you think makes a good educational program?  Did any of the phrases in Mr. Wagner's advice mean anything to you? What is your passion and how did you discover it? I look forward to hearing your responses!

Race to Nowhere and What We Can Do

So I did something out of the ordinary today. I actually went to the Grad school I am enrolled in (I have been taking all online courses so far) and attended a screening of Race to Nowhere.  From my viewpoint, this film is about the U.S. Educational system and how it affects children.  It talked about pressure, homework, stress, suicide, adolescence, teaching to the test, the value of education in our society, No Child Left Behind, standardized testing, and so many other critical issues that we need to look at.

I highly suggest seeing the film.  Here’s the trailer:

At one point in the movie, it shows the concrete steps everyone in the system can take and I’d like to share them with you:

Students:

• Speak to the adults in your life about how you are feeling.
• Make sure you get plenty of sleep.
• Unplug and slow down.
• Make time for things you enjoy.
• Limit AP classes to subjects you enjoy.
• Limit extra-curricular activities.
• Seek colleges that use a comprehensive approach to looking at applicants.
• Learn about the long-term impact of caffeine and performance-enhancing medications.

Parents:

• Discuss what success means to your family. Do your actions as a family reflect your values?
• Reduce performance pressure.
• Avoid over-scheduling.
• Allow time for play, family, friends, downtime and sleep.
• Ask your children how they are feeling.
• Allow your children to make mistakes and learn from them.
• Dialogue with your children about their experiences in school.
• Know the signs of childhood depression. Follow your instincts.
• Attend school board meetings and other venues where education is discussed and policies are established and reinforced.
• Form alliances and organize other parents to join you. As a group, talk to your children's teachers, school administrators, and attend School Board meetings.
• Challenge accepted homework practices and policies and the imposition of state and national standards that have narrowed curriculum.
• Advocate for a later start time in high school.
• Eat dinner regularly as a family. 

Teachers:

• Become knowledgeable about research in the area of homework and the importance of play and downtime.
• See what happens when you assign less homework.
• Empower students with more voice and choice in the classroom.
• Find opportunities to evaluate children aside from tests.
• Share your voice on policies impacting education in your school community and at school board meetings.

Administrators:

• Develop a “plan of action” to create a positive and healthy educational environment that supports the “whole child”.
• Support "multiple pathways" in school integrating academics with career and technical education.
• Consider a later start time for the school day in high school. 
• Address sources of stress for children, educators and families.
• Set expectations with faculty at the beginning of the year: ie. if homework takes longer than a set amount of time, child should not continue to the point of frustration and should not suffer any consequences at school.
• Make sure that elementary school students have recess and older students time for lunch.
• Consider the way your school recognizes students and include opportunities for a broad range of young people to be recognized.
• Consider block schedules which reduce the number of transitions and contacts for students and teachers.
• Re-think AP programs. Work closely with college admissions offices to share how your students are evaluated. 
• Ensure that school websites are focused on school communications rather than grades.
• Create calendars to reduce overlapping demands and establish guidelines for tests and projects immediately prior to or after holiday breaks.
• Provide opportunities for open communications between teachers, parents and students.
• Create a vision for change with the emphasis being on engaged learning rather than teaching to a test.

Teacher Certification Programs

• Include classes in child development and the importance of relationships and how to develop them.
• Include classes on how to create engaging lessons.
• Include classes on different intelligences and how to develop curriculum that includes social and emotion learning.
• Include education on the research around the issue of homework and educate teachers on how to assign high quality homework that is meaningful and on the importance of downtime for children and adolescents. 
• Take the lead in putting research into practice.
• Offer continuing education courses for educators in your area.
• Include classes/information re: family engagement --how to enhance family/parent engagement; how to establish and maintain supportive and positive communication; and cultural responsiveness.
• Include classes/information re: identifying and understanding the pros and cons of different ways to assess and evaluate students; understanding what type of assessment is appropriate for garnering what type of information; and the uses and misuses of assessments.
• Include classes/information re: resilience of teachers: maintaining your own resilience in a job that is known for high-stress and high-burnout.

It seems difficult to do some of these things, but if something is not done, we’re going to have to pay as a society for it.

To Question or Not to Question: That is the Question?

So I may be pushing my theater background a bit to much in my titling word play. I was thinking about questioning on blogs. I was looking at my blog and hoping for responses from my classmates. I then was reading my multitude of other blogs I am attempting to follow on my Google Reader when I realized what elicited responses on their blogs - questions.

It is rather simple to respond to a blog post with "That's superb" or "I had never thought of that before" but when a question is posed it elicits a deeper sort of responses and creates a *gasp* discussion.

I went through all my Delicious bookmarks reading all I could about blogging and looking through all the blogging rubrics - like this one which I particularly enjoy (due to the Bloom's Taxonomy tie in), but I couldn't find anything on including questioning in the blog posts.  Should we include questioning in our blogging rubrics or rules?

Until I was re-reading the article I linked to in an earlier post, where I came across two statements that made me think:

"When we publish on our blog, people from the entire world can respond by using the comments link. This way, they can ask questions or simply tell us what they like. We can then know if people like what we write and this indicate[s to] us what to do better."

and:

"But more important, it is about reading what is of interest to you: your culture, your community, your ideas. And it is about engaging with the content and with the authors of what you have read—reflecting, criticizing, questioning, reacting."

Questioning, in my opinion, is a great tool to elicit conversation, allow readers to think more deeply about an issue or information presented, and can create the larger amount of responses that I am looking for.

Then, I was also thinking about using questions as a blog commenter.  Is it rude to ask questions in a blog response?  Does it create more work for a blogger?  Or does it encourage more dialog, creating an online community of learners?  Or perhaps something I had not thought of?

I would love to hear your responses - and please - feel free to shoot some questions my way...

Venturing Out on a Technological Journey

Wow. Just wow.

I started this course as I start many others. I need to get in, get out, get my grade.  But this class has drawn me in to another level of learning.

I think I have finally found something that I truly enjoy learning about - technology.

I created my Delicious account, my Twitter account, my Blogger account, my Google reader, and who knows what's next.  Everytime I log in to any of these, I find myself spending hours exploring, clicking, gasping, and reading about things I had never imagined.  I see a tweet, which links to a blog, which links to an article, which links to resources, which of course links to a massive amount of websites.

I am old fashioned and linear with my thinking in that I must follow every link and when I reach dead ends I go back and click the next link.  It's my own personal treasure hunt.  While I have 15 tabs open in Safari and it's 2:00am, I do drive myself slightly nuts.  But it's worth it!

I know that one day when I get in front of a classroom (but let's face it, not much is taught exclusively from the front anymore), I will have millions of resources at my fingertips to dazzle, impress, inspire, and motivate my students.

On my journey, I came across ClustrMaps - a pretty neat "hit counter map widget and tracker" that "shows locations of all visitors to any site."  What better way to show students who is reading the classroom or student blogs, how the world is slowly shrinking into the palm of our hands, and how influential we can be in our writing, media, and actions?!

I am in love with this journey and I know it will never end!

Enjoy:

To Blog or Not to Blog...? THAT is the Question!

I am a repeat offender of starting blogs and then leaving them in cyberspace untouched for years.  Every time I started my blog, from LiveJournal, Xenga, Myspace Blogs, Facebook notes, to the most recent endeavor of Apple's iWeb (starting a written and/or video blog series to let my friends and family know what I was up to), I would write on it religiously - every day, if not more than once a day.  After about a week or two, it spanned between weeks, then once a month, then I all of a sudden a few months to a year would go by and I'd re-read my previous blogs posts thinking how silly and immature I was and how much I've grown since I wrote those posts.  So the question I ask myself - is it worth it? Or since I am a thespian, more appropriately, to blog or not to blog? <- That is the question!

However, this is not why I am writing my first post on the next chapter of my blogging ventures.  In studying at Pace University in the Educational Technology Specialist Grad Program, our online class was posed the question: "Why could blogging change, or not change, the traditional classroom?"

Initially I thought it would be revolutionary, classrooms of the past never had this capability because of the lack of technology.  After reading this article, I realized just how revolutionary it could be!  I had not thought about the students' writing - with the added element of their writing being seen by the world.  I believe some may have the fear that increased technology use strips students of interpersonal contact.  However, this article made me realize that we are possibly shifting to a different kind of interpersonal contact.  One of the students explains, "the blogs give us a chance to communicate between us and motivate us to write more."  The article also made me think about the dangers of a public forum for a private classroom.  We need to protect children from the dangers of cyberspace.  Monitoring posts and protecting students' identities are of utmost importance.  But I believe with resources such as Miss Brunes' 5th Grade Class' Rules and the extensive list found on Bud the Teacher's Wiki Page we can proactively handle any sticky situations.

This article also opened my eyes to why blogging in classrooms can be so beneficial.  We need to have the students practicing what we are eventually going to be testing.  As the article states, "Educators cannot teach one way, test another way, and expect positive outcomes."  If students are blogging, students will certainly be prepared to enter answers to tests online in an even simpler format than blogging!

I am so glad I came across one resource in my clicking around in research.  I got to hear it straight from the horse's mouth. These students give a very compelling argument in the video posted by the students of Miss Baker's Biology Class in Why Blog? Science Online Students Answer.

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So to answer my question - To blog or not to blog? - I lean very heavily towards blogging in the classroom.  I also lean more towards blogging in my life again...in case you were interested...