The Rest of the Story
Fulgham describes the ending he used to convince his children to go to sleep after story time while the sleepy kids wanted more:

“The father sold all the children who would not go to sleep to a passing gypsy who ground them into sausage meat. The first children to be ground up were those who would not stop asking questions.”

While funnier in context, I burst out laughing because it is so true that we sometimes resort to bizarre tactics to quell the insatiable need of children to question and wonder. Sad thing is that by the time they get through school, we often succeed.

Jumper Cables and the Good Samaritan
This story is about how Fulghum tried to help a stranger jump start his car when neither really knew how:

“I thought he knew what he was doing, and kind of went along with it. Guess he did the same. And we hooked it up real tight and turned the ignition key in both cars at the same time. And there was this electrical arc between the cars that not only fried his ignition system, it welded the jumper cables to my battery and knocked  the baseball cap off his head.”

I laughed out loud at the description (easier to laugh since no one got hurt). What rings true are the times I know I’ve been in a similar position (not necessarily as dangerous) and rather than simply saying, “I don’t know,” I pretended to. Admitting ignorance and asking for help are signs of strength, not weakness. Why do we often think the opposite?

Pickup Truck
While talking about how autos are about image for Americans and not transportation, Fulghum describes his perfect vehicle:

“I remember riding home on a summer’s eve in the back of an ancient Ford pickup truck, with two eight-year-old cousins for company and my uncle Roscoe at the wheel. We’d been swimming and were sitting on inner tubes for comfort, and had a couple of old quilts and an elderly dog wrapped close for warmth. We were eating chocolate cookies and drinking sweet milk out of a Mason jar, and singing our lungs out with unending verses of “Ninety-nine Bottles of Beer on the Wall.” With stars and moon and God above, and sweet dreams at the end of the journey home. And not a care in the world.”

Talk about imagery - those words got me to thinking about the “good old days” of growing up. The summer weeks spent away at my Aunt’s house (and the girl I had a crush on there). The endless nights playing in the neighborhood with whatever kids could make it (meaning those who were not grounded because of a previous night’s activities…). It’s a shame that as life progresses, it gets harder and harder to have those timeless experiences.

Census
Counting tangible things (such as people) is the subject of this story, but Fulghum’s point is that truly important things are hard to count:

“Fulghum’s Exchange Principle…Every person passing through this life will unknowingly leave something and take something away. Most of this “something” cannot be seen or heard or numbered or scientifically detected or counted. It’s what we leave in the minds of other people and what they leave in ours.”

Pow. In a few words, that’s why teachers do what they do. As I reflect on Fulghum’s principle, I think it is going to make it onto my very short list of favorite quotes. That list used to have one quote on it - I think it will now have two.

Crayolas
The most famous brand of crayon known around the world is at the heart of Fulghum’s invention:

“Maybe we should develop a Crayola bomb as our next secret weapon. A happiness weapon. A Beauty bomb. And every time a crisis developed, we would launch one first - before we tried anything else. It would explode high in the air-explode softly-and send thousands, millions, of little parachutes into the air. Floating down to earth-boxes of Crayolas. And we wouldn’t go cheap, either-not little boxes of eight. Boxes of sixty-four, with the sharpener built right in. With silver and gold and copper, magenta and peach and lime, amber and umber and all the rest. and people would smile and get a little funny look on their faces and cover the world with imagination instead of death. A child who touched one wouldn’t have his hand blown off.”

What do I want? A Crayola bomb for Christmas. How about you?

Image courtesy of bcymet on Flickr.

Book citation:
Fulghum, Robert. All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten. New York: Ballantine, 2003.

In our ongoing look at the book, Using Technology with Classroom Instruction that Works, the next planning question is, “Which strategies will help students acquire and integrate learning?” This question obviously has the most strategies since this is where most learning takes place. Cues, questions and advance organizers is the first strategy in this section.

Many technology tools are available to support cues, questions and advance organizers. I’m going to highlight two - organizing and brainstorming software and multimedia. Inspiration is a great tool to brainstorm and organize information. In a class setting, an Inspiration document can be projected on the screen. Using the rapid-fire tool, activating prior knowledge on a topic can quickly be facilitated while students call out what they know on the topic. The Inspiration map can then be organized into groups, and with one click, converted to an outline to drive upcoming instruction. In a lab setting, students can create individual knowledge maps of what they know.

According to a research study from 2004, students who were given a multimedia advance organizer (for example, a PowerPoint) to guide their learning retained more information than students who did not use such an organizer. If you create a multimedia file for students to use as a learning guide, it could be shared through your teacher notes page in WITS, or through the Y: drive on the network.

Image citation:
Open Book with Question Mark. Corbis. 2008. Discovery Education. 17 December 2008 <http://streaming.discoveryeducation.com/> 

The safest way to open and save documents in school is through My Computer and your H: drive, not through My Documents. Because of the way our system is designed, there are occasional (and not consistent) times when opening or saving through My Documents does not work. Use the drop down menu in the dialog box to choose your server folder on the network, instead of My Documents.

I watched and considered last year while the Give 1 Get 1 program was introduced. This year, I’m not watching, I’m in. I ordered an XO at Amazon, and it just arrived. Another one is on the way to a kid somewhere in the world. I’ll never know which kid, but that’s OK. It’s like blood donations - you give because you should, and you know some good will come of it.

What am I going to do with the one I received? I’m going to put it in the hands of my five and four year old kids, sit next to them, and learn with them. I’m going to do my best to NOT see how fast it performs, if I can check my work email, or any of the other typical adult uses. The interface and OS are totally different, and that’s OK (perhaps great). The XO is about kids learning.

I don’t know how many XO users are in the Buffalo-Niagara region, but we’ll be heading to the OLPC wiki to hook up with them. Maybe we’ll have to create a local group so kids can connect around here in addition to around the world.

If you have ever found yourself typing, and suddenly realized that what you were typing was replacing the text in your document, the culprit is most likely the Insert key. This happens most frequently in email or Word, and happens if you accidentally tap the Insert key (located above the Delete key). Simply tap the Insert key again, and all should be good again.

FYI, in Word, this is called overtype - there is a spot at the bottom of a Word document window with the letters OVR - indicating if overtype is turned off or on.

In the ongoing review of Using Technology with Classroom Instruction that Works, the next strategy is providing recognition. Recognition is the most enjoyable part of learning, as it is the way we get to show off what we know and are able to do.

Of the tools discussed to provide recognition, one stands out as the easiest and most accessible to promote recognition - using web resources, and specifically web showcases. The Student Showcase section of our WITS webpage is our version of this, and is also something I need your help to keep updated with current material!

We have had a showcase for student work in WITS for a while now, and each year I try to update it with new projects. Inevitably, I forget to think about this piece as a class comes through for projects. What products do you have that would be good candidates? If they are digital already, or if they are “analog” and could be scanned, it does not matter. The student showcase is a perfect way to show some of the great things we do, and easily get parents and family to see them also.

If you have not checked out the Student Showcase in a while, take a look at it - on the homepage of WITS, click on Student Showcase under School Intranet in the left navigation bar.

If you have lots of work you can post, I will suggest another resource discussed in this chapter - data collection tools - to have your students help to select the top 4 or 5 for showcasing. Using the clickers, have the students anonymously review and rate projects, making selection a collaborative process.

I look forward to “ramping up” our showcase with your help!

Image courtesy of Joe Hatfield on Flickr.

When you login in school, you automatically connect to a series of network drives, which are available for various purposes. To see what drives you connect to, double-click My Computer on the desktop, and look for the following:

Here is what each drive is for…

(H:) - your home folder - for personal files, etc. that noone else has access to
(I:) - summer school drive- for teachers and students in summer school to access and share files
(M:) - common Heim Middle drive- for Heim staff to access and share files (no student access)
(R:) - multimedia drive - where large files (movies, etc.) are stored and moved for class projects
(W:) - common district drive - for district staff to share files (no student access)
(Y:) - common staff/student drive - for all Heim staff and students to access and share files, including teacher dropboxes

The great news was that as the morning and afternoon progressed, things just got better and better, and I left only after the last words of the conference were spoken…

My session went well - I’m a huge proponent of using video in the classroom, and was glad to share some of the things we do in our district with others. I think it was received well - there were many more things I wanted to share, but one hour goes by so fast!

The session on the XO laptop, Little Green Monsters (nyscate08h08) presented by Brian Smith, Gary Stager and Sylvia Martinez was eye opening. I’ve known about and followed the XO for a long time now, but listening to them made me start to understand what it’s about. Pete Reilly summed it up best on his blog - check out his thoughts (and my comments there).

Next up was the session on Web 2.0 Open Source Server Based Apps (nyscate08i05) by my friend Steve O’Connor. I met Steve last year by coincidence at NYSCATE as he and I presented in the same room. Steve has the angle on where we will be going in Ed Tech - we want to use the neat Web 2.0 apps, but are concerned about safety/security/privacy. His take on this is right on the money, I believe. Check out his blog and session wiki page for more info.

Lastly was the closing keynote by Gary Stager titled, The Best Educational Ideas in the World. I’ve heard Gary on many occasions, but his presentation was so engaging and right on, that it did not matter how tired I felt - I left wanting more. I strongly recommend anyone who was not able to hear this talk, go listen to the podcast.

The theme of NYSCATE 2008 was Discovering Your Digital Destination - and for me the pathway was opened. A BIG thank you to all of the people who helped make the conference a huge success!

Image courtesy of leshoward on Flickr.

Here is the result:

I think it’s too soon to really process this, but I like how it makes one think.

The sessions I attended on Monday were:
Rod Serling Video Festival (nyscate08d13)
10 Standards-Based Formative Feedback Techniques for Your Classroom (briefly) (nyscate08d07)
Prensky Keynote
Where Teachers Learn, Where Teachers Teach (nyscate08e03)
Knezak Keynote
Leader to Leader (nyscate08f10)

I’ve had a great time at NYSCATE so far, in the hands-on workshops that precede the regular conference. I spent two rewarding days with David Jakes - first in the workshop titiled, Creating Immersive Learning Environments with Mixed Media, followed by, Cartography on the Cutting Edge. David is a terrific educator who knows how to harness the value of technology while still focusing on the core learning literacies that are timeless.

In Thomas Friedman’s book, The World Is Flat, the world changed while we were not looking in terms of the global economy. Similarly, while we are busy using Word, PowerPoint, and every other installed program on our computers, the game has changed in that all of the software has moved to the web. There are many names for this - cloud computing, software as a service, browser-ware, etc. The bottom line is that the computer you type on is the vehicle that gets you to the software and content - all located on the web.

We spent two days talking about and beginning to build powerful environments for students and teachers - and all the tools are web-based (see list here from David’s site). There are pros and cons to this, but the fact is that web-based tools allow for RSS feeds, html code that is embedable, and a multitute of uses and a re-uses. The internet connection and browser become the only necessary resources to communicate, collaborate, and be productive. In this light, is it a suprise that Google jumped into the browser market with Chrome?

The web is the new slate on which we will be drawing our future - literally - how will we harness it and make it what we want it to be?

Image courtesy of JcMaco on Flickr.