Point A to Point B

  • The Second Full Week – Just as Full

    So here it is a week since the last post, and the second full week is done. Were we ever on summer break? I can’t remember it at all now…

    Open house was Wednesday night, and I’m very pleased with how our feature video went. We have changed the format of open house a little to where we have a “spotlight” section of about 20 minutes in the middle of the night to feature something about the school. Last year we focused on our Internet Safety efforts with Netsmartz (from the National Center for Missing and Exploted Children), and our in-house website, WITS. This year we used the theme Healty Bodies = Healthy Minds to produce a video about the many ways we promote health and wellness in our building. The shooting and editing of the video was quite hectic due to the deadline, but the results were worth it.

    The second activity that started up this week is our 5th graders registering for EM Games. These online math games are part of the Everyday Math program in 5th grade. They are good reinforcement and practice for the skills they need in math. With just a few minutes of login instruction, you quickly hear students gleefully trying to win Factor Captor, Baseball Multiplication and more.

    Next week brings the start of 2 digital storytelling projects – one new one and one started last year. The following week I’m doing an inservice on digital storytelling which I think is going to spawn many more projects. Should be quite fun.

    Note – this is my first post using ScribeFire, and it appears to work great – thanks to Chris at On the Trails for the idea!

    Powered by ScribeFire.

  • The First Full Week – A Full Week!

    The first full week of classes included a very full week of activity in the lab. The district has initiated a keyboarding program in 5th grade. In addition to the many startup activities (classes registering for electronic textbooks, WITS orientations, etc.) all the 5th graders have begun their keyboarding classes. One of the nice side-benefits of this is that all our 5th grade students are oriented to the network and basic operations already.

    Our new keyboarding teacher, Mrs. Meyer, brings a wealth of experience to the program. I’m excited for how these skills willredkeyboard help our students now and in the their future. Mrs. Meyer will be with us for the first half of the year, and then goes to Transit for the second semester to teach keyboarding to their 5th graders.

    Image citation:
    “Red Lit Computer Keyboard.” Online image. PowerMediaPlus.com. 15 September 2007. <http://www.powermediaplus.com>

  • The Beginning

    My summer reading list did not get too long, but the books I read were awesome! See the recently read list in the sidebar at right for my book list. Interestingly, two of the books, totally different in nature, ended the same way. Each had as the closing, “The Beginning,” instead of, “The End.”

    Peter Reynolds “The North Star” is a simple, inspirational book about following your heart to where and what you should do in life. T.H. White’s “The Once and Future King” is a classic fantasy of the story of King Arthur. The reasons each of these made it on my reading are similar – they both invoke and reinforce a lifelong desire and committment to learning.

    Both books leave the reader with the sense of desire for more – the beginning of a journey. Both were great as a kick off to the new year. Having just finished the first day of the 07-08 school year, it really the beginning of an awesome new adventure – and only we can make it end up as we wish!

  • 10 Most Powerful Women in IT

    Following in the series of article on leaders in IT (see my previous post, The 100 Most Influential *People* in IT) eWeek just released the 10 Most Powerful Women in IT. While I continue to struggle with the genderizing of the technology world (in other words, it’s only an issue if we make it one), I do believe we have to make sure we help girls realize that technology related fields are not just “for the boys.”

    10powerfulwomen.jpg

    Browsing this list, there are women in high places in some pretty powerful companies. This is what I think our girls need to see – bright, public, female leaders helping to shape our technology world. The one that jumps out at me is the person in the #1 spot – Diane Greene, CEO of VMware. VM stands for virtual machines – a technology that is just starting to come into play, and will likely transform our everyday computing experience in the next 10-15 years. Its great to see a female leader in an arena that is up & coming.

    Girls – remember – you are bright, capable, and have the absolute ability to change and shape the world – do not forget it!!!

    Citation:

    "10 Most Powerful Women in IT." EWeek. 31 Aug. 2007 <http://www.eweek.com/slideshow_viewer/
         0,1205,l=&s=26744&a=214069&po=1,00.asp?p=y>.

  • What Makes a Web Site “2.0”

    So “Web 2.0” is the term for the second generation of web sites. What exactly are the characteristics of a site that make it 2.0?

    Sites that are “Web 2.0” typically include most of the following:worldwide_web_network_cables.jpg

    • publishing (writing, pictures, videos…)
    • networking (link and group with other users on the site)
    • tagging (keywording)
    • RSS feed (for others to be able to subscribe to your site)

    If you take this blog as an example, it has 3 of the 4 listed – publishing, tagging and RSS. Blogs are the hallmark of Web 2.0. You’ll find that many sites now qualify for the new generation. In the old web, pages were there to read. In the new web, pages are there to to contribute to.

    Image citation:
    “Worldwide Web Network Cables.” Online image. PowerMediaPlus.com. 14 July 2007.

  • The Machine is Us/ing Us

    This video, created by Michael Wesch and posted at YouTube, is great to show how Web 2.0 has changed our world. The one here is a repost of the video at TeacherTube, a much more educational friendly site. It is not clear if this repost is has permission granted to do so, however.

    I’ve been trying to embed video here on the blog with mixed results – if your browser crashes, my apologies – still trying to learn how to do this fun stuff.

    Update 7 Sept. 2007: I’m pretty sure the emebedded video has been crashing this page, so to see the video, click here to view it at TeacherTube.

    Video citation:
    The Machine Is Us/ing Us. Dir. Michael Wesch. 2006. TeacherTube. 20 Aug. 2007 . This repost by mrstacey on Teachertube – original by Michael Wesch posted at YouTube

  • The Rules

    Following up on the previous post about what matters, where does technology fit in? Schools are about people and learning, regardless of technology. That being said, obviously technology plays a huge role in where we are going, so how do we keep on the best path? Its very easy to get sucked in by technology that is cool, or a time-filler, but has no real value. So here are 2 easy, basic rules for harnessing the power of educational technology:

    1. Does the use of technology create new and/or unique learning experiences not possible without the technology?
    2. Does the use of technology exponentially increase the efficiency and/or value of a process that is possible without the technology?

    If the answer to both is no, then its not worth devoting time to use the technology.

    Learning to Crawl

    Image citation:
    Lutz, R. Frank. “Learning to Crawl.” Flickr. 7 Aug. 2007 <http://flickr.com/
    photos/lf-photodesign/337715955/>.

  • What Matters

    As I form the foundation of the work for the new school year, what crystallized for me during the 3 day Bea McGarvey workshop on What Works in Schools, continues to be what I posted about last November:

    A school is people learning. (click on the sentence to go to the original post – still holds true).

    I’m excited about the District taking the Marzano research as the foundation of working, as it will give us common languageDictionary Definition: Learn to improve. As my thinking firms up even more, the work going on at Fablevision and Generation Yes continue to peak my interest. I do not yet see a vision for how they play in, but I think that will become clear when the time is right.

    Image citation:
    “Dictionary Definition: Learn.” Online image. PowerMediaPlus.com. 10 August 2007. <http://www.powermediaplus.com>

  • What Works in Schools

    I just finished a 3 day workshop sponsored by the school on the research of Robert Marzano and Debra Pickering. The workshop was lead by another of the Marzano group, Bea McGarvey. Bea is an entertaining speaker and shared many insights on the current state of education, and what we could/should do, based on research, to improve what we do.

    I think the most important aspect of this workshop is that it will provide everyone in the district with a common framework and language of research-based methods for improving learning. Much of what is in the research is stuff we do, but the research also indicates there are many things we should change or can do better.

    teamwork

    There were so many things covered, but here are my top “take-aways” from this week (not necessarily in priority order – just listing things that jumped out):

    • Just as doctors are experts on the human body, mechanics are experts on engine systems and pilots are experts on aerodynamics, teachers need to be experts on learning.
    • We spent quite a lot of time on on the systems of learning, including a model of the systems. I found a connection to the backdrop of learning which included the habits of mind, something I studied via the work of Art Costa.
    • The basis for Marzano’s work is, 1. Students Learn in Different Ways, and 2. Students Learn in Different Time Frames. Pretty straight forward, but Bea purposely put this slide up repeatedly, because if those are the foundationsal principles for learning, then we need to do some things differently.
    • We spent a lot of time on various pieces of the 11 factors that infludence learning (from the perspective of the school, teacher, and student). This research represents the breadth of work that Marzano undertook since his time at MCREL.
    • There are 9 proven strategies that influence learning positiviely: identifying similarities and differences, summarizing and note taking, reinforcing effort and provdiding recognition, homework and practice, nonlinquisitc perpresentations, cooperative learning, setting objective and providing feedback, generating and testing hypothesis, and cues, questions and advance organiziers. We spent time looking at a few of these.
    • Regardless of the strategy used, the goal is learning.

    The primary take-aways for me were the reaffirmation of 2 things (which I will post on separately soon…):

    1. We all own all kids in the school (that is, kids come first, and we all have to help every one of them in any way possible).
    2. Learning is why we are here.

    Reynolds, Peter H. “Teamwork.” Fablevision. 4 Aug. 2007 http://www.fablevision.com/education/clipart/index.html
    FableVision artwork on this web site copyright by Peter Reynolds/FableVision

  • Am I a Dinosaur?

    Attending NECC virtually has been fascinating. Not the same as being there for sure, but reading and watching what I can, I do feel a connection to what happened. There is still a long list of videos/podcasts to catch up on, but I’m brining my official attendance to a close.

    The twitter-skype chat-live blog thing has me thinking a lot about my own personal preferences for learning, and so I wonder…am I a dinosaur?

    When I want to really concentrate on something, I have to focus on it and immerse myself. If its reading, I dont like the tvdinosaur_skeleton.gif on. If its writing, no music in the background. Attending a session with a speaker I want to hear – that’s all I want to hear. If its practicing the piano, then that’s it. OK, maybe one little exception – I like to have a cup of coffee while doing any of those things…

    We talk all the time about how kids multi-task, and reports are coming out that brains are working differently. Are there any kids left who need to focus? Who really should turn off the chat client and log out of the social site to get something done (even if they don’t want to)?

    Am I the new dinosaur? Is the ice age that is going to freeze my bones in perpetuity a huge spout of ones and zeroes that the younger generation can process and manage with the flick of a finger? I consider myself reasonably tech-savvy, but what do we need to do in schools to meet the needs of these kids? Or, are we just letting them be over-stimulated and under-focused when we should still be guiding them in how to train their minds?
    Definitely a Russo’s Rambling…

    And on that note, pointatopointb is going to power-down for a couple of weeks. Its that time of summer when I dig into my hosting site, re-learn how to tweak, align and update all the background stuff, and get ready to launch into the new year. I really like the current design for the site (implemented last year), so probably no new look for the new year, but maybe some tweaks and such as I upgrade the verison of WordPress. See ya soon!

    “Dinosaur Skeleton.” Online image. PowerMediaPlus.com. 6 July 2007.