Thanks for the Shout-Out

A very NICE mini-conference
Filed under: Musings — Steve @ Jan 30, 06 | 7:37 am
I know, I know, the title of the post is corny, but how can you avoid it when the group hosting the mini-conference is named "NICE", Northern Illinois Computing Educators? The conference itself was a resounding success. There were only three time slots, perfect for a half day mini-conference. I did a quick 45 minute overview of Educational podcasting. You can read Dick’s write up of it here and check out the resource page here. I really should post the entire presentation there. I wish I had recorded it. I was planning to record it on my camera, but seems as though I forgot to charge it up the night before and the battery was dead. Anyway, it went smooth, and based on the comments people shared with me afterwards, quite a few people left the session thinking to themselves, "You know, I really think I could do that." I’m pretty satsified with that. I also attended a session about using Moodle for virtual staff development, hosted by Charlene Chausis. Charlene is the staff development trainer at Stevenson High School and showed off a Moodle course that she created discussing teaching technology to Digital Natives. To be honest, I want to attend that course! I must admit that I was surprised to see that John Blake and Wesley Fryer were already attending and participating in the course! I wonder if Charlene’s teachers know that she’s really got some heavy hitters playing in the sandbox with them? Anyway, the class itself was very informational to me. It had been a long time since I played around with Moodle, and I definitely learned about some features that I either forgotten or never knew about to begin with. It looks perfect for this project I’m going to be getting started on soon (very hush hush, but I’ll share when I can). Charlene also did a great job of sharing projects that other schools have been working on. Great stuff and well worth the time. The quality of Open Source products never cease to amaze me.

Proud to me mentioned in the same sentence with Wes Fryer. Thanks for the kind words Steve. Moodle has been a real life saver for me. It forces me to plan my lessons much more completely than a conventional lesson. I am struggling with finding new ways to teach using Moodle. Coming up with creative engaging activities that force my students out of their comfort zone is a challenge. They feel very safe with filling in the blanks in a worksheet. Moodle lets teachers prepare these activities. I finally tried a lesson module this week. It worked great. However, it took hours to prepare. I have downloaded eXe, which is a content editor I am trying to learn use with Moodle. The trick in using Moodle is to have the students create their own learning activities. HotPotatoes is my favorite tool.

I need to look at Charlene's course again to steal some ideas...check you later...

Social Bookmarking

I know when I post articles about social bookmarking tools, someone is going to read it and post a comment. Bookmarking companies really understand how to use search engines so, I am going to be very truthful and precise. I have be very happy using Del.icio.us for almost an entire school year. My students had issues with trying to use bookmarking software in class. I never have been able to pin-point their reluctance in using bookmarking tools. I read a post on Tim Lauer's blog:

The great thing about Scuttle is that you can download the source and run the application on your own server. Today my friend, Dick McPartland, came by and installed the necessary software and we now have Scuttle running locally at, Lewis Elementary. This means that we can provide our students with a social bookmarking tool, running locally in our building. Several teachers have asked for a tool similar to del.icio.us. I wanted to set up so that students did not have to create a login on a remote system.

The idea of hosting our own bookmarking software makes good sense so my students will not have to create a login to use the bookmarks. When I created a Del.icio.us bookmark account for my class to use, they never could remember the password. I tried changing the password to a very simple password like the initials of our school. That did not work. Wrote it on the board at the front of the class, but they could not remember the URL. Tried installing the javascript bookmark button on their browser, I just need a better way. I do not mean this ugly, but it seems that my students are not 'digital natives', unless they are searching for wrestling, pit bulldog images, or online game sites. If it is something they want to find, they are wizzards. If it is instructional, they basically act like they are oxygen deprived. Could it be a lack of motivation? Basically, it is a very frustrating to me. How many times do I have to reteach how to use social bookmarking?

Social Software

What is Frappr?

Frappr is an online tool that lets you map out the city where you live, work, vacation, or anything else! You can then share your unique URL with friends and find out where the rest of them live and work in relation to everyone else. It's great for keeping in touch with friends, families, and groups! You can also share photos, private message them, or leave comments on their MyFrappr homepage.

Could be heading down a road I do not want to travel, but...here goes! This social software seems to have features that could be interesting to try in my classroom. After reading about how a teacher in a nearby school district got into trouble. Seems a someone, posted on his MySpaces blog, what was described as a lewd photo (probably 'photoshopped'). A parent printed out the photo and took it to the adminstration of the school. Lesson learned, teachers may not necessarily want to have a page that can is not password protected. How does Frappr protect teachers from the possiblity of vandalism? I am not sure. I have read the statement below on their site:

How public are these Frapprs?
If you don't enable the "Add to Frappr's Public Directory" checkbox, the Frappr doesn't show up in "Browse Other Groups" and it isn't searchable. No one can view the map unless they know the url or Frappr name, or they happen to browse across one in someone's MyFrappr homepage.

Our Frappr class group is not included in Frappr's Public Directory so unless the students know the url or Frappr name.

So, first step: Teach students the ethical use of these shared photo social software. A question is where do teachers find resources to use with this "lesson"? This is a problem with being on the 'bleeding-edge' of technology. Maybe I should just keep images on a harddrive or burn them on a CD.

Interesting Concept

CIMG1015
Originally uploaded by teach42.

Think about this one- This is me, getting my picture taken, as I take a picture of a person taking a picture in a conference on podcasting in schools. As Steve says, "there's something poetic about that."

PodcasterCon2006 Chapel Hill, NC

PodcasterCon '06 Chapel Hill, NC
Originally uploaded by The Blake Slate.

What do you get when you mix 300 folks interested in podcasting?...

A great time!

When my head stops spinning from the facts and tech talk, I will try to sort out an idea or two on the possible instructional values of podcasting that I was thinking about while participating in today's event. L-R: John Blake, Dave Warlick, Steve Dembo, Jean Claude Bradely.



Mr. Blake attended a podcaster conference Saturday, Jan. 7, 2006, in Chapel Hill, NC. He participated in discussions on how schools use podcasting and listened to lectures on advanced podcasting topics. Attendees for this conference included a wide variety of interests and backgrounds. There were men and women from all over the nation participating in the sessions. Presenters in the sessions talked about how they used equipment to create their podcasts. The audience participated in lecture by adding comments to the session based on their personal experiences and personal preferences. Participants in the advanced podcasting session were real experts in their fields. I noticed in the presences of internationally famous podcasters and professional musicians, network engineers from universities, recording and news entertainment media and corporations. One important consideration was that this conference tried real hard to (IMHO) to discourage commercial sponsorship. Those in attendance were more interested in sharing how podcasting works. I did not personally attend all the sessions, however topics discussed in those sessions included a variety of issues that included video blogging, copyright issues, and educational podcasting. After lunch, I did participate in Mr. David Warlick's session on podcasting in education.

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Podcasting as a Teaching/Learning Strategy




Session Description

New information and communication technologies are providing students with unprecedented access to the world they are learning about. Classroom walls are becoming invisible through the Internet and the information it causes to flow. What are the potentials of using podcasting to give voice to that world and to give voice to our students? What are the barriers, and what are the key entryways into leveraging global voices in our neighborhood schools? Join us in discussing the potentials and avenues of podcasting in the classroom <--click this link to read more....

It was nice to finally meet Steven Dembo. I have been reading his blog at Teach42.com for some time and listening to his now famous car-podcasts recorded on his way to work as a technology director at in a private school. He has since moved on the a different challenge and I wish him the best. He is a visionary educator. I took some notes on my laptop during the session, however, due to some network issues the wireless network was mostly non-functional. I closed my laptop after becoming frustrated with not being able to blog the session in real-time and probably was able to focus more on what was being said. Steven Dembo was able to login to the wireless network using his laptop and documented some interesting and detailed information on his blog.

Mount St. Helens releasing lava at astonishing pace

Roughly every three seconds, the equivalent of a large dump truck load of lava -- 10 cubic yards -- oozes into the crater of Mount St. Helens, and with the molten rock comes a steady drumfire of small earthquakes

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Predictions for Educational Technology in 2006

Anticipation of returning to school bright and early Monday morning, makes me a little nauseous. Maybe it is all the left-overs. Anyway-- while reading my blogines this morning, and drinking several cups of ginger bread flavored coffee, this useless information somehow made its way to my fingers: Predictions for Educational Technology in 2006.

Rob Hof’s article in the weeks BusinessWeek blog caused me to want to copy his writing idea. Thanks Rob. My writing style really lacks in many areas, but if you do not like it, go back to reading your aggregator, listen to PBS radio, or turn off your computer and go stand outside in the fresh air and run around the block.
It you are still read this, I hope you enjoy my stupid list of edtech predictions for the coming year-IMHO (in my humble opinion).

* In the wake of publicity about mistakes and fabrications on various entries, the online volunteer-written encyclopedia Wikipedia will see growth skyrocket.

* Psychologists will identify a new disease, tagophilia: the obsessive compulsion to label everything on the Web using del.icio.us and other tagging sites. However, when Web 2.0 companies hear about it, they hire them all, quickly turning a neurosis into a promising new profession. My source: Rob Hof BusinessWeek

* Steven Dembo’s video wish list will grow to include a huge HDTV screen, Sony Vaio PC (and a Linux box with all the software, to make Miguel smile)

* Skype conference calls will make their way into the science classroom for students to create podcasts that are more “two-way” conversations about science topics and less “one-way” reading of scripts from their textbooks. Marc Pensky will be proud of this.

* Moodle’s new version will be rolled-out. The question is–will I be able to safely update to the new version without distroying months of testbank editing. I predict a major backing-up of our back-up.

* Blogging using MySpace.com and others will continue to be of interest between students, teachers, and administrators and the community.

* Video blogs on the Internet will not be as popular in classrooms due to bandwidth and concern of security for students, but will be used more as a way to communicate with homes. “this week I learned ____ in math and ____in social studies___and about_____ in science”. Including work samples or video clips of student work. Now, for the hard part, I predict homes will continue to not pay attention to what is happening at school until something “goes wrong.” Note: this is not true for all homes, but way too many– IMHO.

Top "7" Personal Tech Highlights for 2005

Shared the "podcast-kool-aid" with many educational professionals

Quoted in nationally syndicated magazine: student's using wikis in the classroom

Moodle site launched for online courses in our school district

Posted 8 Classroom Podcast Episodes, listed in iTunes and Yahoo directories: middle school and high school students featured as they reflect on their learning in science class.

Classroom Podcasts noted on Techpod

Technology Facilitator - North Whiteville Academy

Launched P2LS blog

Watch NOVA programs online for free !

This is a great science classroom resource. The Einstein piece on E=mc^2 isn't online yet, but for now you can watch "Elegant Universe", "Cracking the Code of Life", "Life's Greatest Miracle", "MARS - Dead or Alive?", among many others. . .


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Savings With Open Source in Schools

This has been a point of discussion for some time. Let's assume that none of your school's families have computers and the students only use computers at school, then I can see using open source for teaching computer skills. As long as little Sally's grandmother has a PC with Works and her uncle has a PC with Word, Excel, and Powerpoint-- I see a problem. For example, I have a student that uses OpenOffice at home. When he downloads a template from our Moodle server to create his weekly current event, OpenOffice can open the file with not problem. However, he has never mastered to extra step to save his OpenOffice document to .doc file format. I know it should not bother me that his document does not display the same as the other students, but it actually makes my assessment process more difficult. When teachers use a Word document to assess student's work, we can post comments that can be read and responded to by the student. This comment feature reduces me from having to single out mistakes students make in their writing. From personal experience, and having received many writing assignments with so much red ink marked on them that I could not read them, I try to attach my comments with post-its. It is just one of those quarks of mine.


Using Open Source software Noxon School District saved $92,675.20. Linux and Open Source software allowed this school district to provide cutting edge technology to students.

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Update
I have been schooled on this topic today (Dec. 27th). Now I have a list of links to Linux distros that may work better than Novell's and a list of video editing apps for Linux. Several really good points have surfaced over on Miguel's blog: http://www.mguhlin.net/blog/archives/2005/12/entry_807.htm I have enjoyed replying to this topic. It has provided me with an enlightened view of open source. I still will continue to use our commercial software to edit video with our students and teachers. It works, it is paid for and the teachers know how to use it. Our students are learning how to use it too. As for a question of why we teach them to use video equipment, our state has a standard course of study: In accordance to Objective 3SC.05, "Select and use technology tools for class presentations". This is my justification. I will keep looking for open source software to use in my classroom.

I wonder this: how many people who advocate the use of Open Source in schools are actually using it as their primary OS? We've all got our excuses, but at the end of the day, who's actually walking the talk? I use Moodle and tikiwiki everyday with my students. But, my PowerBook running OS X is what I prefer. I have several apps that are open source running on it. Would I use Linux--absolutely. Should I use it- not without tech support. Would it help our school district- that is a good question and in my humble opinion is out of my realm of influence, yet is still food for thought.

Top 10 little-known science stories of 2005

"A compilation of 10 amazing science stories, all quite interesting. Who would have ever thought that we could use honey bees to find land mines?"

I have a former student that told me after returning from Afganistan that this was something our troops really like to use in caves to go in ahead of his follow ground forces.



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A beautiful view of Saturn for Christmas

One of the latest colour shots of spectacular saturn, from the Cassini probe mission reveal our solar system's unique beauty for all to see as though we were viewing it with our eyes.Few sights in the solar system are more strikingly beautiful than softly hued Saturn embraced by the shadows of its stately rings.

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Using Performancing to Blog

I am writing this blog entry using my latest Firefox extension-- Performancing. I think this is the best thing I have seen in a while. I really like the way that this extension can be launched by clicking an icon in the lower corner of the browser and start typing. Well, it does not help me write any better, and it does not have a spell checker. This is the real thing.

I think I am going to stick with Blogger's text editor. I have to have spell checker. Not sure how to add an image with Performancing. Maybe it will work if I launch the editor while I am viewing my Flickr account. Have to try this tomorrow.

Mass Dodo Grave Found- Now this is Real Science!

Scientists have discovered the "beautifully preserved" bones of about 20 dodos at a dig site in Mauritius. This is amazing since no complete Dodo skeleton has ever been found. The mystery is why they are buried together like this...Ok, I have an idea. Maybe the birds were gathered for a Dodo seasonal ritual. They could have been waiting for their other Dodos in their family to arrive at Grandma's house for a dinner, when volcanic ash covered them in a flash. What clues will the scientists be able to pull together? It all depends on how many artifacts they can find still in the area. When lots of bones are found in a dig site, this indicates that the site was not disrupted by erosional forces and was quickly covered after the death of the animals.

I will be studying fossils with my students when we return from our break. This will be an interesting story to have them read.

Still have a couple of last minute shopping items. Have a Merry Christmas. Thanks for reading my blog. If you have just found it, I invite you to add me to your RSS aggregator and constructive comments are always appreciated. I know I can not spell and write like I talk, but blogging helps me try to reflect on what has worked and what needs some work on.

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OMG -- WWAY is using Digg.com?

In today's email from one of our local area tv stations, I noticed to my surprise that they had linked DIGG.com stories into their web site. I hope to get to the bottom of this. I will email the TWIT crew today and ask if Kevin Rose and the boys at DIGG a news source/syndication. I think it is cool. A little RSS goes a long way. I hope the web guys at WWAY are looking at the feeds. DIGG gets some weird stuff from now and then. The guys at WWAY may need a disclaimer. I wonder if there corporate legal department has signed off on this yet. This is so exciting. It is really a cool example of that Web 2.0 is all about. Hum, I wonder if DIGG news feed would be something our superintendent and school board would allow on our school district's web site? Heck no!!! If one parent called to complain about a single dirty word in a DIGG news article, the link would be DELETED in minutes. Not that DIGG contributors are all evil, but-- well-- call me cautious.

It will be interesting to see how long they keep this on their site.

Winter Solstice

Dave Winer blogged this morning: "Congratulations, you made it to the shortest day of the year. They all get longer from this point on." His post reminded me of interesting science lessons about seasons.

More Stuff
Cool Picture!
USNO Earth Seasons site
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4d/Earth-lighting-winter-solstice_EN.png

Electricity generated by mixing sea and river water

Dutch and Norwegian scientists have invented devices that generate electricity by mixing sea and river water. Science news update!

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How Google woos the best and brightest

Free cafeteria food, annual ski trips to the Sierra and free laundry are just some of the fringe benefits of working at Google...

Maybe school systems that are having a difficult time attracting and retaining qualified teachers and administrators need to read this. Sure, principals eat free in the school cafeteria, but school pizza and french fries somehow pale to the cuisine of Google's cafeteria food. Annual ski trips...hum, I do not know too many teachers in our district that ski. Our district is 5-6 hours from the mountains. Maybe we could offer them a beach trip. Free laundry, now that would be nice! In our town, we could set them up an account at the two local laundries. Our school board actually gave our teachers a free car wash each month for 12 months. That was so nice. This past week, my wife noted that the local suppliment for two systems differs by $400 with about the same years of experience.

Bottom-line: Follow the money! We have only a short time to earn money. The cost of living is higher in different areas of the country, and job security is worthless these days. Buy cheap housing and term insurance. Drive the biggest SUV you can park in your mobile home parking lot space. Also, buy and sell everything at your local flea market. Drink the most expensive water you can find.

Last but not least-- do not follow any of my suggestions. I will have to teach until I am 60 before I can retire. Even then, I will not make enough to live the way I am right now, so I know I will have to continue working as log as my health can hold out or until I get fired.

This is why I work-out at the gym 4-5 times each week. I once told my family I wanted to rust-out, not wear-out. I regret having made that mistake many times. We never listen to advice. Well, I never have. But what do I know, I am just a teacher.

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Merry Christmas From The RIAA

The music industry dropped 751 copyright-infringement lawsuits in the mail today. Today in my computer class, we were editing their iMovie. I did not read about this "Christmas Present" until after class was over. My students wanted to use their favorite rap star's music to play in the background of their iMovie. We took the time to mention copyright laws. They do not understand it is against the law. My student reply to my mini-lecture on copyright was--"it ain't against the law Mr. Blake, until you get caught."

We live in a challenging world.

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Friday is a Half-Day

This past week, our students have been very busy crafting plaster masks. After applying a layer of petroleum jelly on the faces of the students, three layers of cloth with plaster embedded in it was applied to their faces. We took tons of images of the process. We burned a CD of the images and loaded them on our mobile laptop lab and students edited a short iMovie. Teaching middle schoolers how to use iMovie is a real challenge. They do not get it. I know the project was too complicated for their first iMovie project, but they were engaged in the painting of the masks. I assumed that the students would like to see images of their masks and even take home a DVD to share with family. I am not sure they understand how much their parents would like to see what they have been doing at school. Maybe it is because they do not think that anyone will care?

I am just very thankful that Friday is a SHORT DAY! I will link a slide show of images posted in Flickr later. I need to rest up!