Something to think about over the holidays....

I plan to take a couple of weeks off writing my blog over the holidays...

Here is something both exciting and disconcerting to think about... there are 100 Ways to Use FaceBook in your classroom...

http://www.onlinecollege.org/2009/10/20/100-ways-you-should-be-using-facebook-in-your-classroom/

Maybe we need to start thinking about if we open this up on our filters?!?!?!?

(I actually spoke with a principal recently and they opened FB in their school... the school is still standing... classes continue... no major injuries in the first few months!)

An interesting leak

With all of the discussion related to leaks of sensitive information, I found the following article humorous... but at the same time useful as it illustrates the importance of using complex and "good" passwords. If your password is on this list, you might want to change it!

http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2010/12/13/the-top-50-gawker-media-passwords/ 

Make Your Own Animations

There are a number of sites where students (and teachers) can create animations. The idea is simple: add characters, compose dialogue, change camera views, assign expressions to characters... well maybe it is not so simple after all.

These sites require usernames and passwords, and most require users to be over 13. In my classroom we have a small collection of usernames and passwords that are for use by my students. The accounts are associated with email accounts that I can access but that students cannot.

My approach to using this is to let kids "sand box" for a day, learning how to add animations, dialogue, add background sounds and use al of the other controls. Once they have a sense of how to use the program, we start making movies for storytelling.

xtranormal

meemov

The More Things Change...

The most recent PC World arrived today. I am not as interested in it now that I am not maintaining computers (I only worry about curriculum and instruction!), but as I flipped through the pages, I was struck by the emerging technology featured in the pages... tablet PC, smart phones, HDTV, cloud computing... but also by the familiarity of tech issues... password security, patches to fix hole exposing our computers to hackers, steps to improve the performance of your PC....

Makes me think that we are still in the middle of the transition: Thirty years ago, we were just seeing PC's become mainstream and there were great claims of life-changing information on the horizon. We are still hearing the same claims and still spending time and energy fixing things that it seems should have been fixed by now.

New Math?!?!?!

I have heard TED Talks described as "YouYube for smart people." Given the recent video about math and math education, I think that is an accurate description:

Wicked Problems

In recent weeks, I have been reading a fascinating collection of articles that were published in the 1970's (and of course some more modern articles); the topic is wicked problems. (Being a New Englander, I immediately connected with idea, although I was severely disappointed when I discovered the authors of the original idea were from California!)

Wicked problems are those in social sciences (including education) in which the science and engineering approaches used by natural scientists use are not useful. Wicked problems share many characteristics, many of which relate to the observation that these are social problems and one's assessment of the solution is affected by one's social context. In education, we know that "how good a teacher you are" depends on one's perspective; and your students, the school board, and the writers of standardized tests may all have different answers and different evidence to support their answers. Other characteristics of wicked problems relate to the many many factors that influence our understanding of the problem, the solutions we create, and our judgements of the solutions.

Education Week asked 11 education leaders to define 21st century learning. There are common themes in their answers, but in reading between the line of the answers, we see that we still have a long way to go if we expect to come to consensus on what schooling should look like in the 21st century.  Increasingly, I am coming to the conclusion that we will never come to consensus, and if we avoid looking purposefully at our work and doing the best we can to invent new practices in our schools and classrooms until that consensus in achieved, then we will forever be stuck in 19th century schools.

Online Writing Communities

I am a fan of the several online writing communities that are available for young people. As a Vermonter, I have a particular affinity for the Young Writers' Project, but I am also impressed with Figment that recently went online. The basis organization of these sites is the same and not complicated: members post their writing (usually heavy lots of poetry and short stories), other members respond with (usually) good criticism. The sites also make prompts and contests available.

The one concern that many educators have (reasonably so) is that membership on such sites is restricted to those over 13. Most educators also come up with reasonable workarounds. Perhaps posting students' work with an account used my an adult or by downloading the writing and using it in other venues than the online interaction.

Visit the site

Visit the site

Technology Stewards

Ettiene Wegner is well-known (along with several of his colleagues) for developing the idea of a Community of Practice (Cop). CoP is based on the idea that a group of people (the community of actively engaged participants) who are connected by a some actions they share in common (the practice) can become a mutually supportive (the sense of community among the participants). A CoP is not usually a formal group, it emerges and grows in an organic manner; if a school principal announces the years’ professional development initiative is to become a CoP, it will not emerge. If a school principal creates the conditions that lead to the emergence of a CoP, then it may happen.



In 2009, Wenger and two colleagues (Nancy White and John Smith) wrote Digital Habits: Stewarding Technology for Communities. The book proposes technology stewards as individuals within a CoP who are responsible (in either a formal way or an informal way) for ensuring that computers and related technology is used in a meaningful way within an organization.



Technology stewards will be familiar to many educators; an excellent example of a technology steward is the teacher who uses computers in hos or her classroom, shares ideas with colleagues, and talks with technology support people to ensure systems are configured to allow for effective use. The signs that a school needs a technology steward may be unfortunately familiar: Systems that we can’t use. Things we want to do, but can’t. Systems well designed and built but not used to their fullest.



The role of the technology steward in a school will be to work to help technologists build systems that meet educators’ needs and to make sure that educators know and use the systems that technologist build.


Learn more about the book
See Ackerman's review of the book here (scroll way down on the pdf file... my review is the last one in the file!)

Another programming idea...

For those who are in search of an even easier programming language with which we can give middle schoolers experience writing programs (easier than Processing which appeared here on Dec. 1), I recommend Scratch.

This is also open source (that is free to install and use), and it was developed at MIT from the work of Seymour Papert and LOGO (which started even before Papert in the 1960's!). Anyways, users create programs by dragging blocks that look like Lego's. Programs are run by clicking a green flag (at least this is the usual starting method).

I have colleagues how have used both Scratch and Processing in both formal classes with middle schoolers and as exploratory classes (including after-school clubs).

Visit the Scratch web site.

A Programming Tool

As I watch more and more adults who perceive computers as "black boxes" in which magic happens and over which we have no control (or even understanding), I am convinced we need to give our students experience programming. We need to give every student experience in programming-- the rich white male computer geek as well as all of his classmates regardless of gender, race, or socioeconomic status.

Processing is a relatively easy to use (and open source!) tool for creating animations. It can be installed in a short time and there are online tutorials available that will get middle schoolers writing programs in a matter of minutes (maybe tens of minutes).

Visit the Processing web site