Kick Off Fireside Chat with Preconference Keynote

   Please make plans to attend the K12 Online 2006 Unleashing the Potential Kick Off Fireside chat with Preconference Keynoter David Warlick on October 16, 2006 at 6pm EDT. This informal virtual chat will take place online using Elluminate Live software.

Here is the link for gaining access to the room:
http://tinyurl.com/rpt4a

See you there!

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Claymation Project - Week 4 - Update

This week's Friday Learning Institute here at North Whiteville Academy we continued working on claymation projects.  Students in half the groups actually captured most of their images.  One group will begin editing their presentation this coming Friday.  During next week, students will be able to take their images of their clay figures.

Student seen in this image is hard at work molding the stalk of his sunflower plant. 

This is an example of how one of our teams utilized the storyboard to check to make sure his seed clay model is the correct size.  This project requires a tremendous amount of problem solving skills.  Decissions about scale, color, sequencing, timelines.  Students that have problems following directions seem to be having the most difficulty with this project.  Basically, it requires students to focus and pay attention to lots of details.  Those students in the class that lack self-discipline, or are authoritatize defiant, make you not want to do any thing with them but worksheets...but that would like "giving up" on them.

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Our New Gecko

Morning Coffee- More Sugar Please!

Sitting here looking at my half full coffee cup, makes me think about my students. We feed them "breakfast" each morning. The milk is either sour or they do not like the cereal. It is always something. They complain about it being to cold in the rooms if the AC is on or the teacher next door is too hot. Somedays, I wish it would stop, but -- I owe, I owe, it off to work I go...(hummed to the tune of a famous family classic).

Motivating Middle School Students with Technology

I noticed at drop in the folks reading my blog that occured after I included a YouTube video clip. I am not sure if reader dropped my blog from the their reading list because I had included a video clip, or because I have not been finding the time to write. Seems the only time I deleted the YouTube clip, but hope to include student claymation project we are working on in class on my Junk EduBlog. I have to write is on Sunday morning. This morning, my mind really sparked fire when I ran across this product from the creative thinkers at Griffin Technology.

While reading an article found in iLounge The iPod Book 2.2, I followed a link to Griffin Technology's upcoming gadget for iPods: iKaraoke. I was almost read to turn the page before I remembered a resent presentation conducted by Larry Bell, national presenter, educational
consultant and author, and how he used tunes of Calendar Girl, My Girl, The Lion Sleeps Tonight, Accentuate the Positive, Oscar Mayer Weiner, The Adams Family, and Are You Sleeping to help students learn twelve words. These twelve words are critical links to students scoring better on standardized testing. They include analyze, infer, evaluate, formulate, describe, support, explain, compare, contrast, summarize and predict. I can just see a classroom full of elementary or middle school kids being throughly entertained with a teacher using their iPod and iKaraoke. Man, would that be fun. I know, you do not have to go out and buy any of this to accomplish this instructional strategy. Heck, a hair brush and anyone that can carry a tune can lead students in a chorus of The Adams Family-- if the kids know the song. But, most of our students do not know that tune. My middle school kids do not know any of the tunes Bell mentioned. In the Flat World, the author lists adaptivity as a skill that successful folks must possess in a this day and time. Well, using this iKaraoke to teach kids to know 12 words to help them score better on standardized tests has to be adaptive thinking. Maybe I am just crazy as heck. Hey, we have to use whatever it takes to motivate and engage learners.

Griffin Technology: iKaraoke - Karaoke for your iPod

technorati tags:k-12, iKaraoke, iPod, edtech, instructional, motivate

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Professional Development - Closing the Achievement Gap

The Southeast Education Alliance for Professional Development sponsored a wonderful presentation today in Wilimington, NC.  The title of the presentation was "Practical Strategies for Closing the Achievement Gap," with Larry I. Bell, National Education Consultant. 

I was simply blown away by his energy and really practical strategies.  After about the first hour, my mind began to focus on how I was going to use one of his main tools in my classroom.  I have been using Moodle in my classroom for almost two years now.  My students like Moodle activities like Hot Potatoes J Matching but they get tired of it.  I have struggled with creating reading activities that engage my students.  Mr. Bell has a reading strategy he calls "UNRAAVEL". 

Let me try to outline how I plan to initially implement this in a Moodle lesson.  I am not sure how it will work, but I will be blogging about it soon.  The first step is to find an appropriate reading passage.  This could be a challenge.  Let's say for now that I have an original story about a science concept.  More than likely, I will use materials from Wikipedia, or our textbook, it I can acquire permission from the textbook publishers.  Since I am not opening the class outside my classroom, I  am banking on traditional fair-use protection of copyrights.  Our Moodle site, WCS WebCampus

is password protected.  Anyway,  Moodle has a module called a lesson.  In the first part of the , students will first see the reading passage.  Next, they will have to complete a series of edits to the reading passage.  Finally, they will answer a multiple choice question about that passage. 

I am just in the initial thinking stage about this process, but I think it will work.

technorati tags:teaching, Moodle

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Weekly Update

This past week, my students began a project in science. Student will demonstrate knowledge of concepts of plant growth cycles. We are using clay figures and stop motion animation to illustrate the growth cycle of plants. Friday, we introduced the students to some of the tools they will be using to tell their story. We used a couple of examples of animation for them to see how animation works. They seemed to understand it. Well, it was very obvious that some of them did not get it. When we started having them complete a concept map on the four main stages of the life cycle of a plant, after watching two examples on movies, they also had a packet of images from a bean plant with diagrams of its life cycle, they had a difficult time completing the concept map. I was ready to throw up my hands. What in the world was wrong? Then it hit me, these children have never studied plants. In seven to eight years in school, they had never mastered the basic concept of the life cycle of a plant. The next challenge was to have them work in teams to create a storyboard of the life cycle. In past experiences of teaching middle school students claymation animation, I have learned that students must sketch every frame, not just four or five. If they just sketch a few of the frames, they think that when they start shooting with the digital camera, all they need are four pictures.

I did not think about it until while talking to our communications teacher that I should have passed out a pack of post-its and asked them to sketch the life cycle on the post-its. So, tomorrow, I plan to pass out the post-its and have them create a simple animation of a bouncing ball (gravity demo). I found a great example on YouTube that I would love to share with my students, but our school district blocks YouTube.com. So, to get around the block, I emailed the guy that created the movie on YouTube and convienced him to email me a copy of his animation. I will put it on a thumb drive and bootleg the file in the back door! Where there is a Will, there is a Way.

This week, students will finish their storyboards and on this coming Friday, they will begin shooting the frames. If they complete the required 30 frames. Students think that they can take their clay figure and in a couple of minutes, shot their movie. It is a process, like science, which requires critical thinking, problem solving, technology skills, and time. This process of creating claymation animation is engaging, but is enraging to kids with no attention span. We have a few students that none of their classmates want to have in their group. It is a real challenge. We spend as much time teaching the other kids in their group how to cope with class clowns and disruptive behavior as we do helping them master the science concepts. We had to have one group removed from the room. I hated it, we rearranged the initial groups, and still, the disruptors continued. The dynamics of the group changed significantly after they were removed. Maybe we need a behavior contract for our next group activity. Maybe we need to invite the parents of the kids that are misbehaving to sit in class with them.

I know we need to figure out what the root cause for their inappropriate behavior is and deal with it. I know why teachers burn out. It is not enough to prepare, plan, setup, reschedule, correlate the lesson with the Standard Course of Study, facilitate and still have to negociate with kids with behavioral issues. This is exactly why worksheets are the number one way to teach science-- IMHO!

First Day: 2006-2007

See my Tabblo>

10 PM and Ernesto is Strengthing

I just can back in from taking the dog out for his nightly walk, and man, is it rough out there. We are experiencing strong gusts here inland.

Things have changed in two hours!  Winds have been reported in Wilmington, NC to be in the 70 mph range.  My daughter is in Wilmington tonight, and called earlier, around 7 pm and said that the weather was rough, high winds and heavy rains.  The NWS reported 0ver 6 inches of rain has fallen in Wilmington.  We have received over four inches here inland in Chadbourn.

technorati tags:Ernesto

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Two Hour Delay - Public Safety is Job One

Our school district will start the school day Friday, Sept. 1, 2006, on a two hour delay. This is in anticipation of Tropic Storm Ernesto. In the era of post-Katrina politics, everyone seems to be covering our tails in royal fashion. But, this is a good thing. Mother nature is unpredictable. I sure would not want my 6 year old riding in any vehicle, school bus or family truck or car on a muddy, rain slick, dirt road after a storm like Ernesto. No, I do not have a child that young, but I remember an incidence when one of my daughters was in elementary school. The school bus she was coming home on was in a wreck. The weather conditions worsened rapidly and they had to drive in a rain/sleet storm. Luckily, she and all the other bus passengers and the car were fine. I remember being a nervous wreck as I rushed to the wreck site. No one has to tell me that schools have to do everything they can to avoid dangerous conditions.

How will this impact student learning? I am not sure, but we can basically draw a line through our lesson plans. It is not going to happen. Combine the fact that everyone is on a different schedule, teachers have to remember that children may not sleep well. When they do not sleep well, they are cranky and hyper. I over heard my high school students telling each other that they are going to... [let's say they will not be reading the Bible, if you know what I mean] because they do not have to get up as early as they usually do. Now, I hope they were just "bragging" and "running their mouth." They will not be very receptive to learning about controlled variables, the scientific method and science models. Friday morning, with a two hour delay, will make the day-- a real challenge. Any change in routine, automatically compounds disorganization. Since students will be "off their schedule", teachers have planned an alternate activity day.

On the topic of planning, I have been trying to pull together another episode of our podcast. However, this week has been filled with hours of meetings and discussion as we edit our school's improvement plan. This is a very important process for our school. We have received input from parents, teachers,

Day One - Photo

NWA welcomed our students back to school on Friday. This photo was posted using Photobucket.com. This works much faster than Flickr. I tried to email images to Flickr, tried uploading and was frustrated with my Flickr account. So, I switched quickly to my account on Photobucket, and in a snap, had the photos uploaded. I have been using Flickr for a few years, but from this experience, I am re-evaluting which of these to use as my primary service.

Fossils of new dinosaur species unearthed in China

Fossils of a new dinosaur species have been unearthed near Lingwu City in northwest China's Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, said experts on Saturday afternoon. Eight sauropods, or huge, long-necked herbivorous dinosaurs living in the middle Jurassic period some 160 million years ago, were unearthed in a 3,000-square meter area,

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Things That Make the Earth Go Hm

The Earth hums.... Long dismissed as "background noise" by seismologists, a new look at this constant hum is opening a window on ocean activity, providing insight into the Earth's structure that may one day be used to give advance warning of earthquakes.

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Can This Machine Rescue Physics?

When the world's biggest particle accelerator, the Large Hadron Collider, opens next year near Geneva, the focal point of the high-energy physics world will shift from U.S. soil for the first time in half a century. But America's brightest are busy devising a rescue plan.

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Classroom III Episode 1 for 2006-07 School Year

Show Notes:

Today's podcasts features a chat with Mr. Leon Dockery, mathematics teacher at North Whiteville Academy. We discuss the beginning of school and technology in our classes. We used the TuneTalk from Belkin on a 5thGen iPod Video to record this podcast.

Classroom III Podcast, August 24, 2006

technorati tags:podcast

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Classroom Tech Idea?

While trying to catch up on my Flock News aggregator's backlog of articles, I scanned across this interesting story. Our school just purchased nine new Lenovo desktops and ordered Office for each of them. My question is what will software look like in 5 years when we upgrade five or six more computers? As far as that goes, what will it look like in 5 weeks?

Teachers will be interested to know that instead of Microsoft, we may be sending our tech dollars to Google in the near future.

The guys over at TechCrunch posted this and I had to repost it. Sorry guys, you did such a great job, I could not help myself.

Google’s Writely released; will another sector be squashed?

Online ajax-rich word processor Writely began accepting new accounts today after closing registration when the company was acquired by Google in March. A number of startups who used to compete with Writely will now have to challenge Google.

Writely’s acquisition fueled talk of a Google Office suite of services, a vision made more real by the subsequent launch of Google Spreadsheets and Google Calender. A Google Drive for online storage has long been rumored to be just around the corner and analysts at Gartner have predicted that a Google PowerPoint type service will be released some time this year. (Garnter references Thumbstacks, see also Zoho Show and our coverage of both.)

Writely is collaboration friendly, can import Word documents, save to PDF, OpenOffice, Rich Text Format and zip. The system autosaves your documents every 10 seconds and offers online storage. Google Accounts will soon be used for signing in. Writely works on Mozilla based browsers and IE only.

Writely got the best review in a recent CNet round-up that goes into detail on its features and compares it to Zoho Writer (our coverage), Think Free Online and Glide Write. Other tools in this class include Rallypoint and WriteBoard.

Now that Writely is publicly available in the Google suite, do these other vendors stand a chance? They certainly may, but yesterday’s surrender from calendar company Kiko - with a nod to Google Calendar - certainly makes you wonder.

Writely

Tags: TechCrunch, Web2.0, ajax, writely, Google

technorati tags:ajax, writely, Google, Kiko, OpenOffice

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Blogging in my classroom

This week has been a busy one. Yesterday was the first day back from summer break. Today, we had our district's annual "kick-off" breakfast and day-long staff development session.

I have been trying to pick a new device to create podcasts with and finally made a decision between several really good choices. After listening to Aaron Smith's podcast using the new Belkin TuneTalk, I read reviews from the guys over at iLounge.com on them. While reading their review, they pointed to thought I wanted an Edirol R 09. Aaron's podcast showed how good the TuneTalk could work. I am not sure how high the gain was on his podcast, but it sounded fine. So, with his example and the fact that the TuneTalk has USB port to supply external power while recording, I thought the iPod video would do what I wanted it to. In addition to voice recording at a high quality than my old iPod, plus my educator's discount, I got real serious about selecting the iPod. While looking at the iPod, and articles about the TuneTalk, I started having second thoughts because after spending time creating podcasts the summer, I ran into one big issue: you need two microphones to record a conversation between two folks. If a podcast is just a TV news style interview, were the reporter basically asks his/her question off camera and the interviewee responds into the mic, the iPod works fine. So, I started looking for a way to get around this.

No one makes a device that I could find that allows two microphone to be feed into an iPod. Someone needs to build it. They need a cheap mixer so the volumes and gain levels can be controlled and then can be connected to the iPod for recording. I found that a Marantz 660 has two XLR mic jacks. I am not sure if Marantz makes them, but there is a company that ships what they call conference microphones, which are twin mics, which are perfect for a two person interview situation.

I saw a podcaster at the PodcasterCon event, that had a pro set up with a mixer and compressor, and could mic up to five panelists or performers. He ran this through a PowerBook. Ok, that is like the ultimate podcaster setup. Not realistic for my use.

Another option, the Edirol R09, was so hard to find, I gave up on it. Last weekend, I made a trip to Walmart, again, to see if they had an iPod instock. Much to my surprise, the electronic department associate I talked to told me that they had been out of them for three or four weeks and "Apple" just sent them what they wanted to, they had not control over what they got in. I smiled at the acne-faced teenager employee and thanked him for his time. Within 30 minutes from almost having an "Apple Basher" tell me how sorry the batteries are on the iPod video, I went home, got online, ordered the black iPod Video/ 30 GB, and Belkin TuneTalk. I got a confirmation the next day from Apple. The estimated ship date was initially two weeks. This made me a little disappointed. However, arriving home Wednesday, only four days later, there was a sicker on door and when I got closer to the door, the note was from the FedEx driver. I was amazed. Looking back at my email, somehow, I had overlooked another email from Apple with a FedEx shipping tracking info. The info supplied showed that the iPod has been shipped from Shanghai, China Sunday night, flew to Alaska, then Wilmington, NC and FedEx's driver had not left it in the door because no one was home to sign for it. I almost fell out of the chair. It was almost here.

I have to go this weekend to Walmart and show the Walmart clerk that on one has to "wait for Apple to ship" an iPod to Wally World. Get online and they can build it in China, ship it via FedEx and you can be watching videos by Wednesday! This is a Flat World. Walmart - you have to do a better job if you want to sell electronics! Wally World must make more profit on the Creative products. I know they have their own Walmart Music store, or did they close that?

The Belkin mic worked with my brief testing the night my iPod arrived. It occurred to me that it might be interesting to record some audio from various teachers and ask them what they did during their break, and what one thing they were looking forward to for this new school year. So, I charged up the battery on my new toy. I arrived slightly late for the breakfast that began at 8:00 am. My iPod was in my pocket. Evidently, sitting down during the breakfast, the battery ran down. Pulling it out of my pocket and punching the play button, nothing happened!

Crap. No recording during the breakfast. After the breakfast, it was time for a mad dash back to my vehicle. In the glove compartment, was my trusty iPod cigarette lighter converter. Plugging it in, the iPod powered up. Crap crap crap. Lesson learned #1- USE THE HOLD BUTTON to make sure you do not accidental turn on the iPod in you dang packet. Lesson learned #2 Allows carry a power converter. I have one for my old iPod that uses Firewire to connect to an AC wall outlet. I am not sure if the new iPod works with the firewire cable. But if it will, I have that AC adapter. Hum, got to try it. Better read the Apple Support page first to check for issues.

Have a great school year! Life is too short to be miserable.

I am looking forward to working with my students to create this year's podcast series.

Podcast Episode: Transportation Technologies Career Pathways

Check out this episode of our CCTPC podcast as we investigate the transportation technologies career pathway here in Columbus County.

Podcast Episode: Bio Ag, Build It and They Will Come

Bio Ag, Build It and They Will Come

This episode explores the Agricultural and Natural Resources Technologies career pathway featuring a special guest, Rebecca Westbooks, director of Agricultural Biotechnology at Southeastern Community College, Whiteville, NC.

• Interesting Fact #1: The North Carolina is one of the top three states in biotechnology in the United States
• Interesting Fact #2: Out of the 50 states, only California and Massachusetts rank higher than NC.
• Interesting Fact #3: NC is a worldwide BioAg leader
  
• Interesting Fact #4: Salaries in biotechnology field are very attractive. Annual salaries for entry-level technicians start at $25,000 to $30,000 and can progress to $50, 000 in five years.
• Interesting Fact #5: The NC biotechnology industry is growing 10-15% each year. At this rate, 125,000 workers will be needed by 2025.
• Interesting Fact #6: NC has more thatn 150 biotechnology companies. These companies generate about $3 billion in annual revenue and employee more than 18,500.
  
  Southeastern Community College, in Columbus County, North Carolina. We are going to explore one relatively new career pathway and course offering in the field of Agricultural Biotechnology – or BioAg. Our guest for this episode of CCTPC podcast is Rebecca Westbrooks, project director of the Agricultural Biotechnology curriculum at Southeastern Community College. She is also the lead instructor and developer of SCC’s Environmental Science Technology program. Westbrooks was awarded a Biotechnology Innovation Fund grant to develop the Agricultural Biotechnology curriculum back in 2005. The first class start(s or stated depending on when you listen to this podcast) in August 2006. Westbrooks also was awarded a grant to develop six Biotechnology course lectures for Internet delivery. She was selected to receive a full fellowship to attend the BioLink Conference “New Frontiers in Biotechnology” in Berkley, California in June 2006. She was one of 50 nationally to receive this fellowship. She has been teaching at SCC for more than 18 years and has taught for a total of 32 years. She holds a bachelor’s degree in biology, and chemistry from Austin Peay State University, and a master’s degree from University of South Carolina with an interdisciplinary concentration in biology (botany), chemistry and physics. Welcome Mrs. Westbooks to our podcast.
  

technorati tags:podcast, careers, CCTPC, k-12

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Podcast Episode: Business Technologies Career Pathway

Business Technologies

This podcast features a description of the business technologies career pathway and an interview with a West Columbus High School graduate and a conversation about his career exploration.

technorati tags:pathways, k-12, podcast

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