The research is pretty clear. Organizing and brainstorming tools provide students with support to structure their thoughts and learning. I’m thinking specifically about Inspiration software since that is something we have had for years. It continues to be one of the most useful and least used tools we have. I count myself number one in non-use. Anytime I’m beginning a project for myself or for use with a class, I do not break out Inspiration and organize my thoughts. I use a word processor or other format to put things together. For some of the research projects students do, we have included Inspiration as part of the organizing process, and then converted to a word processing document. When the time ogre rears its ugly head, Inspiration is the first thing to get tossed out of the project.
Why is this?
Organizing is a top issue with students crafting their writing. Inspiration is the perfect tool to assist with this. Is it because Inspiration is a separate program that is not the final product? Are the benefits not worth the time to learn it? Jamie McKenzie always publishes his writing with diagrams that show his thinking and it is very informative. Should we have students produce writing that includes diagramming to enhance their work? Tools like Inspiration are perfect to help promote the Better Answers writing process we use.
So, where am I at with this? Let’s see… (click & drag the diagram around)
Well, that pretty much clears up my thinking…organizing and brainstorming tools take time, but the benefits definitely outweigh the challenges. The key is finding the right tool to facilitate the process, be it Inspiration or Bubbl.us (used above) or something else. Clear and thoughtful communication is difficult – tools such as these can really help.
Prezi is a web 2.0 presentation tool that allow for much more control of how material can be presented visually. The easy-to-use interface lets you create interesting dynamic content very quickly. Courtesy of Twitter, I just learned of this short slide show demonstrating how Prezi can be used in the classroom:
My initial reaction to Prezi is that it is just another slick visual tool that will distract rather than enhance. Used well, that probably won’t happen and there are some definite advantages to what Prezi has to offer. I guess I’ll have to create a few and see how it goes…
February begins a big push for research projects at school. 6th grade students learn about the Middle Ages, while 5th graders are researching a famous person.
With all the great new tools for research and inquiry, I sometimes long for the days of index cards, an encyclopedia, and a few books. (not really…don’t worry)
When a student sits down to research, they literally have the world at their fingertips to learn from. Google alone will deliver far more than a ten year old could process in a lifetime. Organizing and brainstorming tools like Inspiration and text editors like Microsoft Word are invaluable.
The fact is that kids still need to read, process and organize information. It does not matter if they have index cards and books or a word processor and the web. If they cannot interpret what they read into their own ideas, it does not matter how pretty the product is. Sometimes I wonder if all the new technology tools mask this underlying need.
Wikipedia is an awesome tool when used well. One of the issues of this collaborative tool is that the language can be far above the readability for a young student. Enter a sister project of Wikipedia, aptly named Simple Wikipedia. The goal of Simple Wikipeda is to present the same content as Wikipedia, with simpler words. Not simpler concepts necessarily but simpler words. It is also geared for English Language Learners.
It is easy to see if there is a Simple Wikipedia article on a topic. Do a search at Wikipedia, and after finding an article, change the “en” part of the web address to “simple” to see the Simple Wikipedia version of the same article. You could of course just do a search at Simple Wikipedia. Simple Wikipedia has a much smaller but growing list of articles.
Simple Wikipedia is one way to help tame the flood of information available to students today.
CSIRAC (Council for Scientific and Industrial Research Automatic Computer), Australia’s First Computer (1949)
Creative Commons image from the Wikimedia Commons
A little over two years ago I wrote a post titled, Is Google Big Brother, right after attending the NYS educational technology conference, NYSCATE. Basically I was concerned about how a for-profit company may use personal data in ways we are unaware of.
Now, looking at my Google Dashboard to check out the Google services I use, what I see is:
Buzz, Calendar, Contacts, Docs, Gmail, iGoogle, Reader, Tasks and 15 other services from the Google mother ship.
So much for being paranoid – while I was not watching, I was assimilated. Hook, line & sinker. I rely on many Google services to manage my daily life (especially Calendar, Tasks, and Gmail). All the work for the degree I’m working on in educational administration is produced, shared and stored in Google Docs. While I have resisted the Twitter rage for various reasons (though I did recently sign up for a Twitter account), as soon as I saw Buzz, I jumped on board. Maybe I was just finally ready for the microblogging world – who knows. As with many of the Google services, Buzz seems to put lots of pieces together in the right way.
The Google cloud rocks – I will still continue to read the privacy policies and have offline versions of critical documents – but you can count me one of the Google Army now.
Resistance IS futile!Creative Commons image courtesy of zsoolt on Flickr.
This is the next-generation concept design from the One Laptop Per Child team. This device does not exist yet, but the XO-3 as it is called simply looks awesome. I’m not sure what is the most appealing part – the slim design? The onscreen virutal keyboard? For many years I’ve been in the camp that tablet computers are the wave of the future (see this post). Like many, I’ve been disappointed by the design and/or price of current offerings.
It’s impossible to make judgement without being able to actually use this device. On appearance, it looks like this tablet could be the one that fills the mobile-tactile-interactive media device need.
What if it came in at the projected price of $75? What if it was in the hands of EVERY child in EVERY school IN THE WORLD?
It is still just a concept device, but as good concepts should be, this one just demands attention. I’m in…
See and read more about the XO-3 on the Laptop.org blog (images courtesy of that site).
Forget about simply imagining where Santa is on his busy night delivering presents. Thanks to the folks at NORAD, in partnership with Google, you can track Santa in Google Maps and/or Google Earth.
NORAD has been tracking Santa for over 50 years now. Check out this article at CNN on how the government’s primary missile defense operation got into the business of keeping up with Mr. Claus in the first place (it is a very sweet story).
I’m getting more and more hooked on the capabilities of Google Earth, and just watching Santa’s journey for a little while, I learned so many more things about our world. My kids were captivated, and without realizing it, got a great geography lesson. Way too fun!
No matter what religion you celebrate…Happy Holidays!
On a certain Thursday in November, the tradition goes that one must stuff oneself with as much food as possible and spend the next three days going through withdrawal and recovering from such a fun endeavor. The weekend immediately prior to that day, in New York, one goes through a very similar experience at the NYSCATE annual educational technology conference. The difference is that what gets stuffed is the brain with new ideas, action plans and friends met during the four-day event.
In an effort to unpack all the information and try to come up with an action plan, here is my “top” list of items from the conference:
ePals is one of the original global collaboration websites. I’ve looked at it and learned about it many times but have never tried a project. Within a few clicks of visiting the site, you can be connected with a classroom anywhere around the world and get your classes working together. There were no formal sessions at the conference about ePals this year (that I’m aware of) but references were made to it regularly.
When math teachers get a look at the math tools in this add-on for Notebook software, I think they are going to freak out (in a good way). In a brief demo, I was very impressed by the new manipulation features available for shapes, graphing, and more. There is a new equation editor built-in as well, although that tool was not in the beta version.
David Jakes won the “cool new thing” demonstration hands-down when he showed this augmented reality simulation during his keynote. What is augmented reality? In a nutshell it is where you can take something in the physical world and augment its properties by interacting with a computer. Its easier to see in action – click on the link above, and if you have a webcam, try it out!
The NYSCATE conference is about people and making connections. There are a lot of great people involved. Some of my favorites include David, who is a technology director in suburban Chicago. His down-to-earth and direct style is very engaging and motivating. I’ve attended workshops with him let that ultimately led to the project myself and my colleague presented this year, Google Lit Trips – What an Odyssey! Sylvia is the president of GenYes, and is refreshingly focused on involving students in all aspects of learning. Brian Smith is a technology integration specialist from the Rochester area, and is a key player in putting the conference together. He has created and maintained many of the tools that make NYSCATE work.
Top presenter who has it figured out: Harry Tuttle
There are lots of presenters who have it figured out, but one that stands out to me is Harry. If you scan the presentation page at the NYSCATE wiki for his sessions, you notice something: the focus is on learning strategies, and not technology. Harry, a former board member of NYSCATE, has been presenting at the conference for years. I really like how he has always focused on topics such as thinking skills, formative feedback and assessment, and writing skills. There will always be cool new tools and tricks, but what will never change is the need for the focus to remain on learning and strategies to support it.
My hat is off to all those involved in making NYSCATE 2009 another great success!
Top resource I’ve known about but have never put into action
~ePals
Top pay-for resource to get going with
~SMART Notebook Math Edition
Top future-tech resource
~plugintothesmartgrid.com
Top thinkers and doers
~David Jakes, Sylvia Martinez, Brian Smith
The person who has it figured out
~Harry Tuttle – his presentations are about learning, not technology. Yes, he talks tech, but it is less important than the learning.
I recently attended a presentation by online learning vendors who have been awarded a contract by our local BOCES. They offer online courses for students who need to make up missed or failed classes (credit recovery) or want to get ahead or take a low-enrollment class (credit accrual). The vendors offered to us through this contract are Apex, Aventa, Florida Virtual Schools and Pearson NovaNET.
The three things I came away from these presentations with are:
Online learning is big business (as evidenced by the reps who flew/drove in from all over the country)
Online learning is an inevitable, rich, plausible model for delivering instruction (note the order I put those in)
Online learning is most effective when there is human interaction with real people along the way (read: teachers are still the most important part of learning)
IMHO, based solely on the presentations I saw (and not too much additional research on my part yet), the programs I like the most are the ones where students have access to teachers/experts as they experience the online course. Some of the products appear to have more of a support system for this while others seem more stand-alone. All of the reps talked about how human guidance was important (although not all the products had that guidance built-in).
It goes back to the basics of teaching and learning – anyone can be an expert in a content area. It is people who go beyond the knowledge and use their passion to connect with students who are successful in helping students achieve. All of these online systems offer the content in some rich-media, sequenced, accountable fashion. I think the ones that will be most successful for student learning are the ones that include the most important part of the learning process – people.
In a year-long review of items I wrote in this blog 5 years ago, this installment of Flashback Friday looks back to October 2004 and the post, Making the Connection. What I wrote:
Kids today are connected. When they go home, they do not pick up the phone anymore. They get on the computer and IM each other. This way, they can have group conversations and keep up with more people and more events at once. If one friend IMs 4 of his buddies about going to the mall, each can ask mom or dad at the same time, and within 2-3 minutes, everyone knows who is going and what time they can go.
We have the same connected environment for our classrooms. By using the WITS Notes pages, students and parents can stay connected to what is going on in the classroom. When teachers post assignments and events to WITS, everyone who needs to see them does automatically.
There is no IM section in WITS, but if the need arises, that can be created as well…
The Internet has broken down the walls of the classroom forever.
So where are we today? How about…
Kids today are connected. When they go home, they do not pick up the phoneIM anymore. They get on the computer and IM each otherThey have been talking and texting on their phones since the final bell rang at school. This way, they can have group conversations and keep up with more people and more events at once. be constantly connected to those they want and need to be with. If one friend IMsTweets 4 of his buddies about going to the mall, each can ask mom or dad at the same time, and within 2-3 minutes, everyone knows who is going and what time they can go.
We have the sameno such connected environment for our classrooms. By using the WITS Notes pages, students and parents can stay connected to what is going on in the classroom. When teachers post assignments and events to WITS, everyone who needs to see them does automatically.How the always connected world of the mobile phone will come to be a part of the learning environment remains to be seen. Some schools are starting to dabble in this, but there are lots of concerns and issues surrounding it.
There is no IM sectionTwitter feed in WITS, but if the need arises, that can be created as well…
The Internetmobile phone has broken downwill disrupt the walls of the classroom forever in ways we have not yet imagined.
That rewrite was more fun than I anticipated. The interesting part is that during those 5 years, the technology changed, the students adapted instantly, and the classroom remained the same. I wonder what my post in October of 2014 will look like?
We have certainly heard a lot about the H1N1 virus and what we should do to help prevent its spread. When I first read the email from BrainPOP that they had resources about H1N1 (swine flu), my first reaction was, “Oh, great, even Tim & Moby are talking about it.”
I must say that I was pleasantly surprised about the swine flu video for 2 reasons – first that it is directed at students, not adults (as all BrainPOP videos are), and secondly, the treatment of the vocabulary in the video is excellent. Any key vocabulary term used in the video is displayed clearly as the conversation ensues. The video displayed while the vocabulary is on the screen gives visual cues to what the term means. This provides reinforcement for the key points, and develops vocabulary skills.
I think the video is a good conversation starter or reinforcement to help kids express their questions and/or opinions about the H1N1 virus. Check it out:
You can also check out the BrainPOP section on Swine Flu or BrainPOP Jr. video on Hand Washing.
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