Point A to Point B

  • Podcasting in Science Class

    One of the best technology conferences recently was one I did not go to. Rather, it was one I was supposed to go to, but due to a very busy schedule in the labs, could not. So at the last minute I approached a science teacher to go in my place.

    It was the best thing that could have happened. Mrs. Merlino went to Riding the Digital Wave 2008 at our regional BOCES site, and got hooked immediately on podcasting.

    Why was this best? Because since I go to many events and see many new things, I sometimes spend too much time thinking about how something could be rolled out, or what the logistics are, etc. I’ve been hooked on podcasts for a few years now but never got over the hump of getting them into the classroom. Mrs. Merlino saw the end product of podcasting at the conference, and came back to me for the details. With a bit of leg work, we soon had a plan, a podcast feed host, and results.

    I’d like to share an example of her podcasting with you. For this initial attempt she was doing an end-of-year review show to help students prepare for the final exam. As we worked together, I suggested that she get students talking, and present it in a way other students could relate to. In this example, Mark and Kevin talk about moon phases (total time = 3:33):

    Get the Flash Player to see this content.

    moonphases.mp3

    Note the player above is audio only, although it looks like a video window.

    One of the very useful tools with this medium is that when you engage in a dialogue, you can talk through the thinking process. In other podcast episodes, Mrs. Merlino speaks with students, and when they don’t understand, they discuss that. This is a huge learning tool!

    To listen to some of the other episodes in her podcast, titled Merlino’s Mystery Media:

    Click here to subscribe in iTunes

    Click here to subscribe via an RSS aggregator

    Her students are coming in this week to create their own podcasts – it should be really cool!

  • Aaack! Can Anyone Recommend a Good Web Host?

    Flash back to 2004, at the NECC Conference in New Orleans. I think it was during David Thornburg’s spotlight session that I decided to jump into blogging. I did not do a ton of research; rather I wanted to get going quickly. One of the blogging services I took note of (and which happened to be hosting quite a few blogs featured that year) was Teacherhosting.com. I signed up for the basic blogging service, used their provided wizard/templates to get started, and off I went. I did not necessarily know the ins and outs of managing my own blog, but the challenge of it was cool.

    I have purposely stayed with managing my own blog, playing with the mysql databases, installing my own WordPress management system, etc. I do not for one moment pretend to be a techie when it comes to this stuff. My usual preference is for hosted services who do all the dirty work in the background. I want to have an understanding of the technical side of things, and have learned that it is really not magic – just occasionally complex – to manage a site.

    I’m very proud of how this blog has grown, in many ways. For example, the move from the more generic russo.teacherhosting.com to the domain I purchased, pointatopointb.org was a personal milestone. I’ve carefully caressed the look and feel of the site, in addition to the writing (which of course is most important). Check out some of the posts from that first summer of blogging here.

    Fast forward to yesterday, and the following email from Teacherhosting.com:

    “Effective Monday, June 30, 2008, TeacherHosting.com will cease providing Web hosting and e-mail services. This e-mail contains important information about actions that you�ll need to take to prevent any potential interruption in service or data loss.”

    So suddenly in my quest to understand and manage my own site, I now have to figure out how to move hosts. Aaack! Can anyone recommend a good web host (and any tips for a successful move)?

  • Performing Knowledge

    We recently completed a video project with one of our social studies teachers. This 7th grade project involved students picking one topic from the curriculum, and interpreting it with video in some form. We showed the students some samples from TeacherTube, including some done locally in a Buffalo high school. We then set them loose with teams, storyboards, equipment, and guidance.

    What I love about video projects is that since the focus is on performing knowledge, rather than just repeating knowledge, you get a better picture of what the students really know. While this can be either rewarding or scary, it still gets to the deeper understandings they have.

    Quite a few different classes have created video projects this year, with some exciting results. I’m looking forward to many more next year!

    18th_century_engraving_of_commedia_dell_arte_actors_on_stage__medium.jpg

    Image citation:

    18th-Century Engraving of Commedia Dell’arte Actors on Stage. Corbis. 2006.
    unitedstreaming. 29 May 2008
    <http://streaming.discoveryeducation.com/>

  • Data

    Data can be awesome – as long as it is meaningful. The Dilbert comic below came out recently, and it hit home with me only because we are right now trying to determine if the data we collect for Fitnessgram is telling us what we want it to.

    Dilbert.com

  • Video Poems

    We just finished a video poem project with Mrs. Calandra’s classes. The idea came from a Creative Educator article I have on my digital storytelling page. The twist we added was to have the students put imagery to their own original poetry. I have to say I was very excited by the level of work everyone did. I hope to be able to post some of the student work here in the near future (working on the logistics/legal stuff regarding that now…)

    In the mean time, the students motivated me to create my own piece. I chose to write a reflective poem about one of my favorite books that I just re-read, Jonathan Livingston Seagull. I also wrote a little refelction on my Shelfari page about the book.

    Thanks to the students in Mrs. Calandra’s class for motivating me on this – I hope you like it. (click below to play)

    Get the Flash Player to see this content.

    Jonathan

    Dodging, swooping, yelling, screaming;
    Why don’t you stay away?
    Useless, crass, dirty, rude;
    Please GO AWAY.

    I did not see you since you were off on your
    own.
    When you soared by I thought you were
    one of the bunch.

    How is it possible we want the same things?
    What makes us so much the same although we are
    vastly different?

    PLEASE let me
    fly with you.

  • Where is the Middle Ground?

    Somewhere between Twitter in the Classroom and old school lecture-till-you-drop teaching is a middle ground that begs to help move our classrooms forward.

    The majority of K-12 classrooms today are f2f. How do we acknowledge and incorporate that underlying fact? The online, global, always connected network is incredible, valuable, necessary and worthwhile, but how do we foster and manage the transition to this new learning space within the framework of what is going to be the classroom of the foreseeable future?

    How will we get from point a to point b?

    studentsatmylecture.jpg

    ritchiescoresredo.jpg

    twitterymacworld.jpg

     

    Image citations:
    Interplast. “Students At My Lecture.” Flickr. 6 April 2008. http://www.flickr.com/photos/interplast/15968190/
    C o a c h. “Ritchie scores (redo). Flickr. 6 April 2008. http://www.flickr.com/photos/alleneagleshockey/381866241/
    Juque. “twitter y macworld.” Flickr. 6 April 2008. http://www.flickr.com/photos/juque/350786064/

  • Twitter: Stop the Insanity!

    I just can’t keep up. Sorry. I love following the blogs of the top names in ed tech. Then along comes Twitter, where you can post what you are up to in 140 characters or less from a cell phone, constantly, and its the new rage. Honestly, when one person generates an average of 10-20 tweets per day, enough is enough.

    Do I need to know when someone’s plane is delayed? Do I need to see an ad for a new blog post? (hint – no – my aggregator will tell me when there is one). What I need is a manageable stream of thought and conversation, with the emphasis on manageable.

    I do not have a Twitter account, but I have been following some top names in ed tech via the RSS feed from their Twitter pages. If I actually tried to follow more than a handful, it would become a fulltime job, and the information garnered from knowing what they are up to at any given moment would not be worth it.

    Is there value to being able to plug into a network of experts, on call from anywhere in the world? Sure, but there are other ways, too. Twitter is cell phone IM, so you can literally be connected anywhere, anytime. Once the newness wears off, its just another way to banter. I have better things to do on a daily, hourly, and minute-ly basis.

    I’m looking for value in being this connected, and so far I’m not seeing it.

    With apologies to the best, brightest people in educational technology, whose opinions and thoughts I absolutely respect and aspire to replicate in my own work…

    To borrow and repurpose the title of Susan Powter’s weight loss book – Stop the Insanity!

  • Ten Year Plan: One-to-One Programs Are Not Worth It

    Perhaps I’ve gotten your attention with the title. Please take the time to think about what’s on my mind here. If I look out over the next ten years, pushing and prodding toward better learning, dedicating time and resources to implementing a one-to-one computing program is not worth it. That is not to say that one-to-one computing is not a worthy goal. In fact, it is the only goal. Anything we do or say revolving around better learning and technology means that the learners have to have the technology access. We do not talk about one-to-one teacher programs. Be it a desktop or laptop – most every teacher has access to computer technology. Why then would I say student one-to-one computing solutions are not worth it? Simple…

    Students are coming to school right now, today, with their one-to-one computing device.

    cellphone.jpgJust about every cell phone out today has not only voice, but data access, a camera, and more capability overall than computers of just a few years ago. I further think that the cell phone, or smart phone as prices come down, as a one-to-one device will not be affected by the digital divide seen in schools. While the schools that many students walk into may not be digitally equipped, the students mostly are.

    Some states, and a number of districts, are investing heavily in laptop programs for students. The overhead in managing such programs is huge. Juxtapose that with the simple, powerful tool already in students hands that they use constantly while out of school, and what you get is a win-win situation. Cost of management of cell phone as technology tool – minimal; value – priceless (with apologies and credit to MasterCard).

    Would such a solution be viable in elementary schools? No. Middle Schools? Maybe (upper grades especially). High School? You bet. If I were to accept a student response to a class question that has correct grammatical construction, capitalization, etc. but was typed with all thumbs, should that matter?

    Here is one scenario that is young in thought process, but I think worthy of conversation. A school has a building-wide access phone #, and each individual class in the schedule has an extension #. A student walks into 2nd period English, and upon seeing the warm-up activity on the LCD projector, dials into the class, and texts his/her responses to the warm-up activity. In this case it is a daily edit, and the teacher watches as the responses from the students appear on screen, making comments as they appear. Since the students have linked to the class right at the beginning, attendance is done automatically with no intervention by the teacher. Instruction on the particular topic, along with feedback from every student, occurs within three minutes of class beginning.

    Now, the other side, better know as reality. How do we manage an environment where students use cell phones as a learning tool? How do we keep them focused on learning, and not messaging, bantering, bullying, or distracting? I do not have the answers, but I think this is where we should spend the time, energy and money for the next ten years. My motto is that a school is people. learning. The people in this case, the students, need to learn how to manage and interact appropriately and effectively within the context of being connected. We need to focus on how to get them there.

    There are a whole host of issues to think about in order to make a cell phone as learning tool workable, but that is a far better conversation to focus on. In this scenario the tool is owned by the learner, and the school does not have the exorbitant management costs. There will still be some equity issues to deal with, but even if some schools had to provide cell phone devices, that is a vastly different cost/maintenance issue than with computers. Will schools still need comptuers? Of course. So will students at home. However, if we want to focus on the best value for anywhere, anytime learning, the cell phone is the direction I believe we should proceed in.

    Image citation:
    JonJon2k8. “Cell Phone.” Flickr. 31 Dec. 2006. 23 Mar. 2008 <http://flickr.com/photos/jonjon_2k8/340305918/>.

  • Has the Tablet PC Finally Arrived?

    A very fun piece of marketing mail arrived yesterday – from Dell. They have announced the first Dell-branded tablet PC, called the Lattitude XT Tablet. For a number of years I’ve been a huge fan of the tablet PC format – I played with a top rated Motion Computing model at NECC in 2005. Currently, the Lenovo X61 tablet gets top ranks, and if I had the spare $2000, I would get one in a heartbeat. Despite the seemingly great possibilities of tablet PCs, they have never seem to take off in any big way. While Will Richardson was still working at his school in NJ, his focus was on placing wireless tablet PCs and wireless projectors in every classroom.

    So why might the tablet PC finally be coming of age? Simple – if Dell has finally committed to making one, their marketing power might propel the conversation forward about the use of tablet PCs. I’m all for anything that will get the ball rolling on this one. Why do I like tablet PCs? It comes down to the ability to handwrite and annotate on the computer (like on a pad of paper) and have it captured directly without scanning, etc. I feel it is a strong bridge between non-digital expression and digital expression.

    How does the new Dell XT Tablet perform? I have no idea, but I’m looking forward to how this impacts the playing field!farmer__small.jpg

    Image citation:
    Farmer    . Jupiterimages Corporation. 2006. unitedstreaming. 20 March 2008 <http://streaming.discoveryeducation.com/>

  • Embedding a Google Docs Presentation File

    I’m in a meeting where Chris Shively from Alden is doing a presentation on open source software tools. His Google Docs presentation file is embedded in his blog. Here is a test to see how the embedding feature works, using a presentation file some of the tech facilitators created after NYSCATE in November…