My Macbook Pro Was Possessed!

Today was the weirdest day. I was sitting at my desk and was working on my pc.   I also had my Macbook Pro open and about halfway through the day I noticed that strange foreign music was playing out of it.  At certain moments the screen kept changing. I almost freaked out when I saw the pink screen of death flash for a moment.   Pictures were flashing up that I had nothing to do with anything  I had on the computer and I really thought that it was possessed. I started thinking about a when I could fit a trip into the apple store, but after a few minutes the activity stopped. All was fine for a little while.   A few hours later I received a phone call from the main campus and it was a woman who told me that she could see my MacBook Pro come up on her iPhone when she tapped her home button three times from the locked position.  She said she noticed it in a meeting and that everyone in the room could see it on their phones as well.  They noticed a square with a triangle on it and when they tapped it  they could see my computer name.  

I tried it out myself with my  iPhone and realized  it was happening there too.    I immediately checked my sharing settings in system preferences and they were off.   I checked my bluetooth and shut that off.  It was still there on my phone.  I could not see anything on the phone, just the listing that my computer was there.  I closed all my programs out and restarted my computer. 

It took me an hour to figure out I left my AirServer on and anyone on the same wireless account with an ipad or iphone could start broadcasting to my Macbook Pro. The people in the meeting were broadcasting al their iphone stuff to my Macbook Pro all day.  Unbelievable. 

 In case you do not know what AirServer is, it is an affordable app ($14.99 for 5 downloads) that you download to your computer so that you can Mirror broadcast your iphone or ipad to whatever computer is on the same wireless connection.  No dongle is needed to mirror on a laptop or macbook if they have the app on them.  HOWEVER, if you fail to shut it off, other people can also broadcast on your computer.  I was a mile down the road, but sharing the same wireless connection because it was networked.  I am so relieved I do not have to contact the Vatican or the Apple store, I simply have to remember to quit when I am done mirroring. I can see how easy it is to have students share their ipads while in a classroom, but they can also take over if they like unless their teachers remember to quit AirServer.

The New Edmodo- EdmodoCon 2012

EdmodoCon 2012 was thrilling this morning as we watched the Keynote presentation given by Nic Borg.  I was excited to see all the new features that would be available to conference attendees before they are rolled out to everyone else, but also wished that the rollout happened earlier in the summer so all teachers could start with it in the new school year. They kept the new edmodo completely under wraps, so this first presentation was a revelation. There were no hints on the blog.
 I was thinking of the day before, when over 40 teachers walked away from my training classroom, ready to start using the current edmodo interface. I want them to have the latest and greatest version and since I invited them all to edmodocon 2012, at least some of them will know about the changes that are coming our way.  Although the calendar and Gradebook will have an updated look and functionality,  (We can soon track badges!) the most exciting features will be Apps, Discovery and Insights.  I have had Apps for a while now and can't wait to try them out with real students this fall instead of my test students, although many teachers complained about the prices associated with them.  I know that a lot of districts already pay for some of the apps that are being linked with edmodo.  The benefits are that students have one login to access both edmodo and apps. The work they complete using  the apps will be tied in with edmodo assignments and gradebook.  Discovery is a feature that will enable teachers to post their topics and search for topics in a much more user-friendly fashion. Think of google search capability within edmodo, in a visually appealing format.  Collaboration will be much easier from now on, without having to scroll through groups and communities. Insights is one of the features we have been asking for. We wanted "like" buttons, and now we will have a choice of reflection buttons that can help us know what students respond to, and what they have trouble with.  They can reflect on their assignments and I can't wait to see the output of this feature.  Valuable data about how our students learn will only help my teachers be better at what they do, and the students will have that reflective piece for themselves. Get ready for a new look, better functionality, and many of the features we have been looking for. As soon as I get my beta invitation, I will update you on how they all work.

I Trashed my Clicker at ISTE 2012

 I had a bit of fun trashing my clicker in San Diego this past June, I have great aim and was intriqued by the product they were offering.  Quick Question is great for classroom formative assessment - students use any web enabled device, no 'clicker' required!  iPads, smartphones, laptops, netbooks, etc - they all work.  Instantly assess your students using Yes/No, True/False, Multiple Choice, or Text (Free response) questions.  Use Quick Question as a class discussion starter, exit tag, or anytime you need to know what your class knows.  Teacher accounts are free, and students don't need an account.  Have a teacher friend or colleague that would like Quick Question?  Have them sign up at www.naiku.net/quick-question.  It's free!

SMART Response Assessment Strategies Workshop

SMART Response Assessment Strategies- DEMO ONLY
Formative assessment enables educators to adjust teaching and learning while they are happening. Use SMART Notebook software, SMART Response interactive clickers, and accompanying Teacher Tools to see how well each student has understood lesson material. Learn how to use the clickers to engage your students, create question sets that will increase their performance, set up class records, and establish effective assessment strategies to raise student achievement. Learn how to modify your lessons based on quick and easy responses from your students. Target your lessons for success while engaging students of all ages.

Audience: All Educators
Workshop Code: TIPS13009
Dates: Tuesday, July 31, 2012
From: 9:00 to: 12:00
Cost: $106 OR 4 ETTC Hour(s). For info on membership, call the ETTC.
Instructor: Michelle Wendt
Location: SRI & ETTC - Meeting Room #128


Location:
Southern Regional Institute & ETTC
Richard Stockton College of New Jersey
Parkway Building
10 West Jimmie Leeds Road
Galloway, New Jersey 08205
Directions


Here is the Registration Link.

Music Research Project Glogster Rubric

• Interesting rubric for a glogster multimedia project for music teachers that enjoy a one-to one device program or have access to a computer lab.
  
  
  
  
  
  Music Research Project Glogster Rubric this is the link to the actual pdf.
  
  

Minecraft and the Common Core Standards

Here is the other topic I have begun on scoop.it.  

 There is going to be a lot of interest in this topic as teachers scramble to justify a reason to use minecraft to their administrators. We know the kids are into it, we just have to tap into the magic that is inherent in the product. After my son and his friends spent weeks building pre-history village for social studies (after- school) and making sure the details were meticulously correct for the time period, I knew that it had amazing potential.

Minecraft and Digital Storytelling

This is my first scoop.it, thought I would go with a topic that has lately been on my mind as I see more and more schools start their own minecraft servers.

If you are a scooper, please feel free to suggest items for it.

Top Rated Educational Apps from ISTE 2012 and "Shlogin"

After a little pre-conference sightseeing and the ISTE Unplugged'd SocialEdCon,   I attended the SocialEdCon After-Party hosted by StudyBlue at the Marriott Marquee in San Diego. What a great group of people I met!  In fact I kept running into the same faces all during the conference, which made me feel right at home.  I met the friendly Jerrilyn Jacobs, a Media Arts Educator from Encino, California and we spent quite awhile together sharing our experiences and challenges with multimedia projects. We had a chance to app-share with each other and the rest of the crowd and Zach Galin just released the list of top apps that all us educators and business people voted as the most critical to what we do.  If you don't know these, perhaps you should. At least 4 are always at the top of my own list. Here they are... don't forget to check out the honorable mentions at the bottom.  I will be looking into the apps I currently am not familiar with to see what I am missing.




Also of note was the incredible opportunity afforded us by Startup Weekend. Educators were pitching the rest of us their 1 minute appeals for products or services that they think  need developing for our market. It was truly hysterical, but most ideas were valid.  We voted on 5 teams won the opportunity to attend a StartUp Weekend to develop the ideas they came up with that we voted on.  My favorite idea did not get picked, it was for "Shlogin,"  an app that would allow at least 5 users to login on an ipad or tablet;  tell me that is not desperately needed! We have students that change the settings on each other all the time. The winners had great ideas, but that was the one I was yelling for.  I included a picture of that teacher, it is a little blurry, but I was cheering pretty hard. Next year I hope to get a chance to try my own ideas out on the crowd.  I would love to be part of another startup.  

Rock Stars of ISTE 2012

All year long I am on the computer, checking out blog posts, tweets and wiki updates from other professionals in the Technology Integration field.  Since we come from all over the world, it is rare that we get to meet one another face to face.  Luckily I had the chance to meet one of my gurus at the ISTE 2012 conference in San Diego, Lisa Johnson.  Lisa is a self  proclaimed appaholic and is the creator of techchef4u, where she shares the lastest free IOS apps for educators on a daily basis. I have been following her on Google+ since I first signed in and have no idea how I originally hooked up with her contact information in the first place.  Anyway, at the ISTE conference she was hosting a poster session a few boards down from ours and I was able to catch her in action. After battling the swarm of people around her booth, we had a chance to speak for a few minutes. She shared one of the latest tools in her arsenal,  iCardSort, and even gave some of the partcipants a redeem code.  Ask me for the code for the app and I will share it with you.

In case you have need of information on apps for educators and classrooms, be sure to get the the techchef4u app for yourself, you can also follow her on blogtalkradio.com where she has hosted over 36 episodes so far. they are archived and always ready to play, or you can participate in her next show. You can check out some of her sessions below.

Listen to internet radio with Techchef4u on Blog Talk Radio

Google and more at ISTE 2012

Google in education was all over the place at ISTE 2012 and I didn't mind making a fool of myself taking this picture.  I was lucky enough to meet some fabulous educators from Canada at the Google for Educators event at Wine Steals wine bar in the East Village.  It was a very sticky floor downstairs where all the youngkins were playing the quizzes, but upstairs on the deck was where the true action was.  As well as free eats and libations, there was lots of networking. The most fun people we met that evening were Shelagh Lim and Kevin Amboe from Surrey Schools in British Columbia. Shelagh is a STEM integrationist, who I just really needed to meet, while my friend Ann was whooping it up with Kevin, the technology integrationist. Hopefully, we can share ideas between our districts. I have never been much for networking, it takes me a while to warm up to new people, but since I traveled so far...  I decided I like it after all.  We met so many interesting people that I wouldn't want to have missed the opportunities. The view from the deck was incredible, it is a perfect place to catch the Padres playing in Petco Park. We did find a Jersey Girl at the Google event, she was from Ocean City but may never leave sunny San Diego.

High Tech Hall- here I come

I am very excited to announce that I will be presenting in the High tech Hall at the NJEA conventionin Atlantic City on Thursday, November 8th 2012.  I hope you  get a chance to stop by and check out this free web 2.0 tool that has helped us in some of the more challenging classrooms in which we work.

Free Classroom Management with ClassDoJo

Thursday, November 8th

3:00

Table 3 in High Tech Hall

The Literacy Shed

This fabulous website was shared in one of my edmodo groups, just had to check it out.  Tell me what you think!

• The Literacy Shed - The Literacy Shed Home
  Short video clips tied in with language arts. There are so many possibilities. 
  tags: literacy writing reading fantasy ghostly inspiration moral picturebook fairy_tale

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Royalty free music and songs

• Royalty Free Music & Songs | Free Background Music Downloads
  tags: music audio creativecommons mp3 royaltyfree royalty download podcasting

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

QR codes across content areas

• 
  QR codes across content areas
  tags: qrcodes qr technology learning web2.0 tools

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Talk about perspective!

• Award winning short film - Chicken a la Carte - YouTube
  tags: Hunger_games award winning short film chicken carte youtube

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Skyping with authors

• Skype An Author Network

  Virtual Author Visits in Your Library or Classroom -

  tags: skype author authors collaboration literacy books classroom web2.0

• Authors Who Skype with Classes & Book Clubs (for free!)

  Authors Who Skype with Classes & Book Clubs (for free!)

  tags: skype authors literature literacy author authorvisits Reading author_visit

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Common Core Standards Resources for Edmodo Teachers

• 

  Example of conversation

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  There is a wonderful group on edmodo that addresses the common core standards everyone is trying to make friends with. I came across a particularly helpful reminder post about using the appendixes.  Teachers may forget they are there to help make sense or provide guidance.  I have posted a picture of what you can expect from this group with the user's names and faces  blurred.  It is just a sample of the rich conversation I have found in this  professional learning community.  If you are an edmodo teacher and want to join this group, the group organizer is 

  Mrs. Kristina Holzweiss and the link to her as a connection is http://www.edmodo.com/lieberrian

How to subscribe your edmodo group to an RSS Feed.

Apps for Pre-schoolers

• http://www.jogtheweb.com/run/OiSA0H7fiby1/Preschool-Appy-Hour
  This is a jog the web  Created by Lisa Johnson, Instructional Technology Specialist at NEISD.  It contains apps for pre-schoolers.  Teachers will get to see the itunes preview by navigating through the left side of the jog. 
  tags: ipad_apps ipadapps ipadedu ipad ipads pre_school technology education web2.0 resources educational edtech

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Ebooks and opensource books for education

• Where Students Read Textbooks FREE | Flat World Knowledge | Flat World Knowledge

  tags: students textbooks free College flat knowledge ebook resource books ebooks opencontent

• Download free ebooks at bookboon.com

  tags: ebooks college textbooks books ebook resource travel library opencontent

• OER Commons

  tags: education resources opensource curriculum lessonplans learning opencontent collaboration

• Curriki K-12 Open Curricula Community

  Curriki is a hub for free, open course materials. Find thousands of course materials in a variety of subjects and grade levels, including free courses and textbooks.

  tags: ebooks textbooks opensource science math ck12 curriculum resources lessonplans wiki learning teaching

• CK12.ORG - FlexBooks

  tags: ebooks textbooks curriculum opensource flexbooks science math ck12

• 150 Free Textbooks: A Meta Collection | Open Culture

  tags: textbooks ebooks education books free

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Embedding youTube Videos in PowerPoint

Collaborative Projects using Minecraft

There are many opportunities to participate in a project while living in different locations. Recently, this group of middle schoolers' worked on a collaborative project together, each from the comfort of their own homes. They all have a Minecraft account, and they used one student's Minecraft server. This project allowed them to use their favorite online game to meet social studies and technology standards. The students communicated throughout the process with the online chat and through Skype group calling. The purpose of the project was to make a video about a pre-history village. Instead of dressing up and playing characters as the rest of the class did, they decided to BUILD an entire prehistory village using Minecraft software.
Minecraft is focused on creativity and building, allowing players to build constructions out of textured cubes in a 3D world.
Some of the challenges included getting certain students to stop goofing around and they also failed to START with a plan. As they built their village, they argued about each inclusion and whether or not it followed pre-history in terms of historical accuracy. They concentrated very heavily on only using building materials that were accessible during that time period.
What they learned by the end of the project was to set up specific times that they could all work on it together to finalize certain areas and make group decisions, to have a common plan and set zones and directives for each student to work on. They also had to learn diplomacy, they destroyed project pieces that did not meet rubric guidelines, but they had to explain/debate/support why they made that choice. It would have been more helpful to have a project manager who made final decisions like this established from the beginning. There was also a student who gave a non- participant access to the server, which was against the rules and he was temporarily turned off until the project was complete and captured on video. When it came time to shoot video of their online world, the students tried out various screencasting scenarios. They used Jing, and screencast-o-matic.com. For the narration, the students used a group call coming through Skype which they captured while they navigated through the site. This way more than one voice was represented on the video and no one had to leave their homes. This scenario works wonderfully if you have students in different countries, provided they are able to meet according to the time zones. It was also challenging because certain students failed to mention to their families that they were recording. There were background noises that interfered at times, forcing them to make many retakes of the video. Some students had microphones and others didn't. Some students had Skype accounts and others had to quickly create one. The beauty of this project is that the students chose the technology, they had to problem solve on the fly, and use multiple web 2.0 tools to assist them. The teacher simply gave them the topic of their video and the students managed the project specifics and timeline on their own.
As a teacher who now understands how this program works I would have asked for a basic master plan on paper first along with a list of team members and their roles. Although the students managed their project on their own, they could have benefited from some project management guidance and follow-up. I think I would also have mentioned that they should have scheduled times to work on it as a team for the necessary debates as well as the asynchronous work. It would have saved them some time.

Memiary Tutorials and the Power of Edmodo

I have a teacher who needed a daily journaling program for his music students.  He wanted them to have a place to enter certain information on a daily basis about the music they heard that day in class.  Paperless was pat of the challenge.  We debated using google forms but I posted my question on edmodo and received a quick response from another teacher.  Memiary!
Here are the quick screencasts we made on using this tool.  As a teacher, I can track all my student's Memiarys and make sure they are up to date.  As a student I can see my whole calendar full of what I learned in music class during the year.

The Loss of Creativity

Click on the comic to get the full view, The loss of creativity stems directly from what we ask of our students. Rote memorization and drills kill creativity. I thought this was one of the best articles a professor had ever shared with me.  

A great article to read if you are a teacher or administrator...
Click on it...

Google+ New features -ripples and Creative Kit for quick photo editing

See how a post is shared through rippples. Tracking the flow of information is a useful tool if you want to market your own posts or services. You can evaluate how information is spread, find the fastest route for the type of information you are trying to share and model your flow based on your research.


The creative kit tutorial is very easy to understand. My students are going to love this.

Now Google+ should be available on Google app accounts. I will be checking that out later today for a few of my districts.

Q-charts, Blooms Taxonomy and Edmodo

Adding questions to edmodo

See where the questions are clustered

The Q-Chart is in use in our language arts classrooms. The teacher asks students to create questions by using one word from the left hand column and one word from the top row. The farther down and to the right she asks them to go, the more complex and high-level the questions. She explained to them where they were on the Bloom's Taxonomy Chart based on where their questions fell in the Q charts. With this particular activity, she chose the columns from they could build their questions. After the students wrote the questions, they posted them in our edmodo group for other students to answer. By allowing the students to create their own questions, it becomes a peer activity, totally student-directed, instead of teacher directed.

We expect students will to improve their ability to ask higher level thinking questions on their own as they have opportunities to practice during their guided reading groups.

Using the Smartboard for Keyboarding

Smart Notebook solves many problems. We took a picture of the onscreen keyboard using the picture tool in Smart Notebook. Then hovered our hand over the home row keys and traced the outline using the red pen. We grouped the objects. The students come up the board and and we were able to move the keyboard with the hand placement to their height and resize it for their finger size. They were able to practice on the smartboard,(which they love) then go back to their seats and practice on real keyboards. We had them press each finger down on each key and sing the letters while they were up at the board.

Earning Edmodo Badges

Here is one of our students earning her first edmodo badge for Keyboarding in Computer Class. The other students are clamoring to earn their own badges. The gamification of the classroom is underway.  We will be developing leveled edmodo badges so that students can "Level Up."

How do we Keyboard?

Inspired by Mike

Never was hosting a podcast so easy as using soundcloud.com I cannot wait until they come out with a RSS feature, for now it is perfect for me to make podcasts in audacity and edit them, then upload them right to soundcloud.  I am sure to exceed the free amount of space on my account in no time.  Thank you Mike, in honor of your share I made a quick and dirty podcast about the edmodoCon conference I attended this week. I did not bother to edit out my uuuummms and aaaahhhhhhsss because I was doing it on the fly for a last wildcard fun exercise. Normally I script out my podcasts, but this was just a quick reflection. EdmodoCon by MichelleWendt

Meeting our classmates

Last Wednesday was a fabulous evening.  I was able to meet Angela and Mike for the first time; I realize I have never been to actual class this semester.  The first time I met people in person was at the Graduate Orientation. I also had to chance to meet some new students who have not been in our classes so far.  I am glad I brought my laptop, we enrolled for classes right there at the table, even the newbies!  Mike and I got right to work on a project- we both learned new tools. We played with soundcloud. I like how social this podcasting application is- people can annotate your podcast in the timeline and the annotations play along in text format during the podcast.  Soundcloud reminds me of MTV's Pop-up video. The new Campus Center is beautiful, and I hope to be able to spend some time there eventually and reap the benefits of all that construction.

Wading through the debris

I always feel busy, so this is a fun picture that gives me
an attitude adjustment. I am very lucky to be so busy...

In the process of trying to get my life in order this weekend, I am supposed to be working on many projects at once.  How can order be achieved by chaos?  I do not know... and seriously hope someone steps in to help me make sense of it all.  As I sit here, trying to catch up on homework, work projects, and cleaning up the house/closets/drawers/fridge/laptops, I feel like a mountain is sitting on my head.  I am going to try to focus for at least the next ten minutes on my orientation reflection homework.  Since I am seriously disoriented working on everything I do NOT want to work on, I thought it was a fine match.

 Last week some of my teachers attended a three day institute on technology integration.  On the final day they had to plan a sustainability plan for technology use for the year. I had to talk one of them (let us call her Mary) off the ledge because she could not believe that she was going to use this document during the year. She was convinced that she would never open it again because that is not the way she works.  Mary's orientation to learning demanded that she have a real-life application for her time spent on this project. Since she did not participate in the the planning of this activity, she couldn't see the connection to her own classroom and would rather have spent her day on something that was important to her. Although Mary learned how to use google docs and wikis on this day- skills she can carry back with her, this teacher would have benefitted from being involved in planning the learning objectives and activities. The next day, as we worked at our school on projects we had all planned together- there were no ledges or cliffs. I could tell that every teacher appreciated being in charge of their own learning, and were more oriented to learning. I see this trend in adult learners and do not see it as much in the pedagogical model. I think younger learners may be more conditioned to work on projects they did not select than older students.

Add Facebook and Twitter to Google+

I found this very useful post today and installed the plugin, it works properly, I am pleased, so far.
You do want to read the whole post and take the three minute tutorial that they suggest.  It is worth
the time to work these social networking sites to your best advantage.

Here is the link to the extension.
http://www.vikitech.com/4817/add-facebook-twitter-to-google-plus

 I now need to find a plugin for edmodo and  linkedin. The one I found for linkedin says it has a verified author, but I still have the willies. Extended Share for Google Plus

Verified author: mohamedmansour.com

Free  

I now have the willies about all manner of plugins and extensions.  I have to go back and check them all out because google+ is still so new.

Unplugged

Me against an insane asylum background

Amazing that I am getting stressed out because my laptop battery is dying and I have to totally move to plug in somewhere. I do not want to interrupt the session.  That is what happens when you go to a training and want to use your own equipment.  Half the outlets in the room wouldn't work-had to run out to my car to get my trusty 50ft extension cord.  BTW this is a photo booth shot with an imported background. If I had a pop-up green screen- that I keep forgetting to ask Santa for- it would have looked better.

Sent on the Sprint® Now Network from my BlackBerry®

Schools may block Google!

Many schools block social networking sites. After one day of playing with Google+ and seeing how connected it is to all other google apps when we are signed in, I am worried that in an effort to block google+, schools will just block google.  I am looking for answers on this topic.  I assumed it would be a standalone piece, and it may be if just using google and never signing in, or if using google apps for education.  My fear is that not every school technician understands how important the google apps are to educators, they may block google+ and wind up blocking google.   I myself am usually signed in when I am working in schools, and now that I have google +, will I not be be able to use all my documents and calendars?  Anyone out there have any insights?

You know what to do...

All that for nothing!

I wanted the google+ button on my posts and they just wouldn't show up no matter how many times I refreshed my blog.  Since I have + they should automatically show up under my share area with all the other sharing icons.  It was not showing at all.  I read a few tutorials and actually went in and edited the HTML code, which is not normally a problem for me, but I swear the code I was looking for was SOOOOOOOOO buried.  I did this with both blogs, put in the code for + and then when I saved, I noticed that my share bar HAD REFRESHED to include the +.  Give me a break.  My eyes did not appreciate that little 1/2 hour exercise at all. Now I have TWO buttons at the bottom of each post.  Too bad, I am not going back in after the code now.

The Innovative Educator: Google+, Facebook, Twitter, and Blogs - When and W...

The Innovative Educator: Google+, Facebook, Twitter, and Blogs - When and W...: "After week one I shared my thoughts about “ What Google+ Means for Education .” I’m on week two now and the big questions are: Do I really..."

Experience can go a long way- or it can get stuck in the mud

Not all skills translate over from one job to another, some fields are very specific and so are some skills.  I feel bad for some of my adult learners because it is not always possible to draw a personal or direct analogy to the technology they are facing to give them a frame of reference for understanding. Today, for instance, I spent a long period of time with one teacher and we were not speaking the same language.  She wanted to save some links and some documents she had saved on a jump drive to her own computer.  I was teaching her how to update her website and her jogtheweb.com sites. (That was the objective) Couple the lack of communication with internet troubles and we had a fun time trying to unstick ourselves from the mud.   She understands favorites, she thought they would also exist on her google site.   I was trying to show her how not to lose her data, and was uploading her documents to her google docs and linking them to her site pages.   She does not understand documents in a cloud, so we had to go back and save them on her computer.  Funny thing, her computer was hating us all day long. It would not stay connected to the internet, and we were all a little frustrated with it. She kept trying to use another person's computer to achieve her ends.  She understands favorites, but doesn't understand where they live.  She was trying to save favorites and documents to my computer and her friend's computer,  not understanding that they would not be accessible on her own laptop.

How did all this happen?  When a workshop is planned for  a specific topic, such as google sites, that does not mean that all learners are ready to learn that topic, they may have questions and goals that are important to them that are PART of the objective, but are really not the focus of the day.  It is hard to unstick oneself if there are other concerns dragging one down. She was not ready to move past her own goal to the class goal even though it was related.  She was also trying to transfer her knowledge of favorites to another function, documents - not everything will translate over that easily.  I could have shown her diigo or delicious, but that would have been like me speaking Martian to her.    She needs bookmarks in the cloud, and we will get there, today she did learn that bookmarks are the same as favorites. Baby steps and lots of laughter saved the day...

Epals post ( Guest Blogger)

Hi! I read your epals post and viewed your blog.  It is wonderful!
I am Missy McCoskey in Missouri.  I teach high school at risk students, which
means that I work with students who are at risk of dropping out of school or who
have already dropped out and are returning to try to get their diploma.  I am
working on my masters degree on integrating technology in the classroom.  Last
year I also taught one hour of math and was able to integrate technology in
innovative ways.  It was wonderful.  This year, I am focusing only on the at
risk students.  They have a prescribed agenda to follow and it leaves me with no
outlet for my technology learning.....However, I have also moved rooms and will
have a smartboard for the first time.  This is wonderful and I will play with it
and learn about it, but using it in my classroom will be a little difficult. 
Since my students have a prescribed way to achieve, the smartboard is not part
of that, I will have to be creative.  When my students finish recovering their
class, I want to have them work on projects for the school, like redesigning the
website, etc. I also want them to skype and email students in other countries. 
I am open to ideas!
Last year I loved having my students start wikis.  I created a wiki to organize
the wikis.  Students created wikis for fractions, graphing, etc.  They found
websites, games, etc. and posted those on the wiki.  It was a very good
experience. 

I have to collaborate online with other teachers for my masters degree and am
looking for someone to email or skype.  Are you interested?  It looks like your
schedule is already full and busy.  Great job on your blog!


RESPONSE!

Missy, we would love to collaborate with you and possibly your class. We have new 6th and 7th grade classes starting up in September- let us know what time of year you are interested in and we can schedule it according to what works with your curriculum. April and May are tough for us, that is when we test, but we are available the rest of the months, September to June. I also have access to some high school teachers who may be a better match for you... They will see this blog post and let me know. I will be in touch through epals, thank you for being a guest blogger here!
Missy

Reflections of Adult Learning

A picture does not always paint a thousand words, sometimes an explanation IS needed. This is what I learned this week in class. We each created an exhibit on the characteristics of adult learners. By themselves, just as pictures, we could infer a great deal, but it was the explanations that each member of our class added to the pictures that made them come alive.

For instance, this dog could represent an adult learner who is satisfied with himself, or it could be a trainer keeping a close eye on a learner.It might even be a proud teacher witnessing her/his class take charge of the their own learning. We figured out this week that our take on a situation is based upon our individual experiences and backgrounds. The connections we would automatically draw are going to be different for every one of us. It was difficult looking at exhibits from an earlier class and trying to figure out what the graphics meant. I personally had a lot of trouble understanding until I had to build my own.

Pedagogy and Andragogy

History of Pedagogy on Dipity.

NOTE TO SELF

I guess the biggest realization I came to tonight was that I only had class one day per week until now. Guess I was spoiled, because I do not have two days in my week and time to do homework along with all my other obligations.  NOTE TO SELF- only take classes that actually meet ONCE a week.  I do not know if that goal is even achievable- It may take me a few years to complete my MAIT degree that way- but I am stressed right now, so this is my rant.    Everybody needs a piece of me right now and I don't have any extra pieces to give.   I think the projects we will work on in class will be interesting and very helpful to me in what I do, which is train adults, so I have to get past the stressed part and down to the learning.    I also have to remind myself that people new to wimba and Blackboard have it way harder than me.  SO I need perspective as well. (This is me yelling at myself for pitying myself) Don't feel sorry for me, because I am just whining here and not being constructive.

New class-New Year and Newbies!

I noticed tonight that no matter what class I take, we are always starting from square one. There are always newbies in each course that may not know how to use all the tools we are familiar with.  I noticed this particularly tonight because  I am spending my summer preparing teachers for next year's classes.  We are starting from square one again with new learners who do not have the technology skills our students developed over the last year.  I think I would prefer to loop with a class, rather than start all over every year.  I think of all the skills our students have learned and how other teachers will benefit from that next year and we will be "stuck" with the "toddlers."  It is not a fair thought, or even a nice one, but it is honest.   I am excited over the prospect of thrilling a new set of students with empowering tools, but the thought of starting from how to turn off a laptop correctly is a little exhausting.  I also have a new group of teachers who have not used smartboards or laptops with students, because the ones I trained retired and took their skills with them to the golf course. I can only hope that we can plan better for next year knowing all the missteps we may have made this year.   As I start this new course, Adult Learning, I have to remember that we have some new students amongst us and they may need time to learn all we know already about wimba and blackboard. I am a total newbie to the concepts being presented in this course, I haven't even heard of  Andragogy before!

  I loved listening to the newbies from our last class totally take lead in this class tonight.  Their growth is a testament to their strength and tenacity. Of course, I did not enjoy hearing them try to get me to go first.  I think they are trying to throw me under the bus...