Digital summary of Synectics

I have officially exceeded my cognitive load

Cognitive Load Quiz » quiz

Who knew learning Spanish numbers 11-20 would be so stressful for me? Perhaps this is the way our students feel everyday. We should slow down- wish we could, we should have more fun- wish we could. It makes me reflect on how busy we all are and how Sundays aren't sacred anymore and how much we need to project a balanced mood in our classrooms. In this class I am taking right now- there is a lot of pressure, there are many intelligent people who constantly keep us on our toes. The stakes feel high, otherwise, why would I be worried about ten little numbers? I was though, and so grateful for the handout- or I would have failed. I guess I need more time (as our students frequently do)with concepts that challenge me.

 I need a break, Seriously!

Connectivism Lesson quiz

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Research Reflections

I was grateful for our time last week with the librarian. It reminded me of how much my students enjoy a guest speaker.  Although we had taken a library tutorial last semester, I definitely benefited from the reinforcement and I was glad she reminded us to remove the "Noise Words." Since we are doing so much research right now, this was just-in-time learning.  I also benefited from the folder conversation. I finally found out what went wrong in 2005, during my senior seminar with Professor Tompkins. All my Northrop Frye research disappeared from my folder after a long night of research and I had to do it all over again. The discussion of  the Interlibrary loan (ILL) was lively, especially since one of our classmates is so far away. I hardly think it would be cost- effective to ship books to Panama, but it is nice to know we can get what we want when we are on campus. I did take advantage of this on a number of occasions and was happy with the result.

Tech Quiz

MAIT Technology Quiz - Michelle » funny quizzes

We were asked to post our quiz results here, and for now it will clutter up my blog. While not immediately valuable to me, I did see that some people in our class learned how to grab an embed code for the first time to post various assignments and assessments to their blogs. I can see the value in this when working with my own students and asking them to post their results. This works only if the quiz locks them out after the first try and if the students are comfortable posting their grades in an online forum. Hmmmmmm... food for thought. I am conflicted because I KNOW that I have students that would be horrified and some students that wouldn't care a whit. I know I took the quiz a few times just so I could post my best score. If the quiz is being used to LEARN, and not as a FINAL assessment, it could be valuable to post the score certificate, such as " When you score an 80 or above, post your quiz certificate." Another observation I had is that I would ask students to use their first names or nicknames so their full names would not be published on the certificate.

Bit of a control freak here

I now have a direction for our lesson, but I am not inspired to write much about it here yet. I am still digesting this upcoming lesson for tonight's class, it should be interesting to create a pln graphic using only text. I was a little confused by the directions because we were supposed to be able to work on something we wanted to work on, but if we are in groups maybe we will be arranged according to the topics we selected. Anyway I created my own for tonight in case we have more rough snowstorms- here it is.

Perhaps I need some coffee to get motivated- I was up all night waiting for a snow day to be called or not called for kids and myself- amazing that I can never sleep when a snow day may occur. I am glad my partner and I got together for our project- I always feel unsettled with things that are not certain. I get anxious, just like the snow day thing. I guess I am a bit of a control freak. Since many people in class exhibit these tendencies- because we prefer to work alone rather than give up control, I thought I would share this picture...

I hope they are all headed in the same direction...

Who wants to follow them?

After tonight's lesson in class, I  am so much more aware of how the stakes have risen.  A perfectly executed lesson is a hard act to follow.  I particularly noticed how the assessment quiz related to the instruction and with the flashcards. The end result was tied in with the actual lesson, and if I took more time I would have aced my quiz, as it was I got a 60% because I kept selecting what I would do rather than what Gagne would do.  I would dissect at least part of frog to gain student attention rather than show a video clip, but that is just me.

I already have too many flashcards, but I can narrow them down to 10  assessment questions easily.  In fact, I think I may have already done this without knowing.  Let me explain, the quizlet application creates quizzes as well as flashcards- so I really just have to copy and paste 10 of the best into proprofs or word.  I can see if I can use quizlet to give me a link for others to take the kind of quiz I want them to take. Of course, Brian was going to do that part so we may have to shift roles yet again and trade jobs. We will see. I was so glad Dustin and Erin used the notebook software, not only because it is my favorite software and so much fun, but because it worked in WIMBA!  Finally, something works in the Wimba window the way it is supposed to. I learned some new things tonight about teaming up in the wimba environment.  Clearly the chat window was always being monitored by at least one of the presenters.  They handled the whole environment very well.  The bell ringing and little horn were nice touches.  I am glad Dustin and Erin used the people in the room to their advantage to assist them in making it such a great lesson.

I have to remember to put it all in one place!

Theory presentation notes:
A jog may work,  I have been using Dave Dimmerman's tool since last semester with a vengeance!  Here is a sample of some jogs I have created for various content areas.  I think for Brian and I, we may have to put everything in one place to present.  We run the risk of people running ahead- but it will save time in opening files and avoid the whole sharing nightmare that I had before in Wimba.  Last semester, I pre-loaded a powerpoint- and then once I hit the archive button,  it wouldn't load properly in the screen.  I hate the lag of presentations in total share mode, it just gets annoying for me.  Therefore, I must stick to my guns.  Other questions remain--- what lesson to teach?  Which Synectic strategy to use?  I do not want to over-think it, nor do I want to leave anyone confused as to the application of Synectic theory.  Last semester was definitely simpler, but I am grateful that Brian and I do not have to present first.  I made the powerpoint too long last semester- so I am glad Brian will do our digital summary.  He is bound to get right to the heart of the theory.

Reflection on class:
I was kicked out of wimba a few times- that means Brian and I each have to have total access to everything we are creating- so we have a back-up plan.  I felt bad for John and Ryan, because they did not have the benefit of watching some of us struggle last semester with Murphy and his "anything that can happen, will happen."  I thank them for paving the way.  Can't wait for next week, the avatars are my favorite elements of the presentations so far.  I want puppet avatars.

School Tech: 6 Important Lessons From Maine's Student Laptop Program

School Tech: 6 Important Lessons From Maine's Student Laptop Program | Diigo

Since we are involved in the Talent 21 grant in NJ, I thought I would share this article.

Everybody's Different...

During our class tonight, I really noticed how everyone can hear the same thing and come up with a completely different understanding of what they heard.  We all bring our own filters to the table.  People who were familiar with Learning Theory Families knew certain things and the rest of the class played catch up.  The ones who understood the way the product could look or what it should represent, didn't necessarily understand the content.  THANK GOODNESS we had each other.  We all come from different backgrounds and don't all have the same starting point.
  After examining some of the products, I knew we shouldn't have second-guessed our inclination to have some text in the product.  I felt like the link we created for the two families was not clear. Halfway through the exercise- I realized someone else had joined our team, so that was a surprise.  When I tried to load Ryan's PowerPoint, it fragged my macbook and I had to switch to another macbook. I was lucky I had another on hand.  Whew!   I may have to re-download the Office for Mac software because I think my PowerPoint is corrupted.  I have had trouble a few times with it and I do not have time for that in this class.  It just won't do if my macbook freezes up when I open a PowerPoint.  Half the time we are opening PowerPoints.

Our Class- as different as the two sides of the brain

 I was unaware that we could have two wimba rooms, though we can't be in both at the same time.  If we can I haven't figured our how to do it.  I truly enjoyed working with new people tonight. Even though we each brought different understanding to the communal table, I feel like we worked well as a team.  We LEARNED as a team, made decisions as a team, what emerged was our shared understanding or misunderstanding, which is an example of George Siemen's connectivism. Here is a link to a nice Connectivism glossary.

I love pot luck suppers because you never know what you are going to get, and there is always the potential to find a new dish to enjoy.  In the case of this class, the mixture of students who are familiar with each other and the students who are fresh to the group are going to make this an interesting and rewarding semester.  The scavenger hunt activity was fun and we were so careful to leave breadcrumbs.  Consequently, when we opened another group's hunt, we were laughing because they left just the bare bones for clues, and we still found what we needed to find.  It goes to show that one method can be just as right as another, or there is MORE than one way to skin a cat.  I wonder who came up with that saying? Who wanted to skin a cat anyway?

Pseudostupidity

"The tendency to approach problems at much too complex a level and fail, not because the tasks are difficult, but because they are too simple." (Elkind)

Trying not to over-think the tasks in front of me, hard to do. I couldn't even make breakfast happen right this morning, burned the wrong sausage- the plantains not ripe enough, not happy with rice cooker, hated the back-up breakfast choices, and over-thinking my schoolwork enough that I don't even feel confident enough to take the syllabus quiz. I should have moved past this stage during adolescence, but apparently, I am still stuck. Sorry for complaining, trying to move past it all. I would help if I chose ONE direction to concentrate on for more than five minutes. I keep going back and forth. You can tell because I am here blogging instead of working.  My process of learning stinks on a regular basis, and today it is just a mess.

UPDATE:
Ok, after a little nap and some amazing macha refreshing me, I have returned to life, though I do not plan on cooking or baking anything until I am sure the curse has worn off. The syllabus quiz was too easy for all the stress I assigned it (I hate timed assessments), and I have looked at many examples of  Synectics.  I am taking it slow, I will get to the personal learning theory papers next after I am done looking at all the synectics examples.  I am grateful that they are all posted for our benefit in the course materials section.  It would be helpful to know which ones were the best- if there was a rating system so we know which are the absolute BEST examples.

 After looking at a few websites that showed "best practices"  I came to the conclusion that it is easy to slap a "best practices" label on anything.  As we have peer-reviewed articles available to us through the library or other internet sources- it would be helpful to have peer-reviewed websites for all teachers to access for any best practices claim. I know there was some talk about an alternate internet of only peer reviewed "stuff"  Forgot what it was called.  Waiting for it... we all know what works BEST for us or for our students, to have websites rated not by number of hits but by scholarship and experience would be amazing (Plus just think of all the jobs that would be created this way).

On another positive note, I  was on EBSCO and realized that some of the articles has associated mp3's what a boon to my tired eyes!

My Learning Style

I had to decide what my learning style was, I think this is it.  I like a model, I am not very creative on my own, but I can find applications and tweaks ONCE I have a model.  Tonight's class was good, some fresh faces and lots of familiar faces as well.  Brian is mine, hopefully he and I have fun discovering Synectics, I have NO idea what that is.  Sounds fishy to me.
The syllabus is a furry, smelly beast right now that I have not yet made friends with. I know once we start rolling,  it will stop having eight heads and a thousand claws, but I also know it will be a lot of work in a very short period of time.  So enough of my jawing, I have to get back to work.  Honestly I do.  My readers need to ready themselves to read another smattering of weekly class posts interspersed with my real life, my non-academic life, which fits into like TWO hours of my day, when I should be sleeping, or showering or something extremely creative or fun.

My Learning Style

I have planned some fun in the next week and then officially my life is over until this class is behind me.  I will be done by Easter break, that is a blessing because I plan on visiting some friends far away. I posted a plea for an epal from Paris, France, I will have to see if I get one. I need one for this course, so if you know anyone, and DRINNE, I am sure YOU do, please let me know.

Prezi for the ipad!

It's all who you know

Biggest Hit Day Ever

Thank you David Pogue, you brought my obscure blog over 5,000 hits in one day.  You tweeted my post to your over 1,328,181 followers, and I was famous for my 15 minutes (My brush with fame). You also have me tweeting again after a little hiatus.  I have forgotten how much information and how many cool people I met on twitter. New items I learned from twitter this week: how long the lines were are Seaworld,  Delicious is up for sale, and people get real sappy around the holidays. Mr. Pogue, since you were so generous with me I will re-post your latest book here in hopes that anyone reading this will run out and support your latest endeavor. 

Colonial America

Colonial America Wonderful resources for teachers with smartboards or one-to one laptops focusing on Colonial America studies.

Did I at least get an honorable mention?

I was on David Pogue's page today and noticed he had a new book for sale:
The World According to Twitter
By David Pogue and His 500,000 Followers
The wit and wisdom of the Twittersphere captured in a collection of hand-picked tweets.



Now,  I am tempted to buy this book just to see if he gave me credit for sucking him into the twittersphere.  Let me explain...
A few years ago, when I was "into" twitter, I noticed that my favorite tech guru was listed, but had no tweets.  He had many followers, but no tweets.  I emailed him, despite his page-long explanation of why he doesn't normally respond to emails, and asked him why he had not tweeted. Here is my email to him, which I have lovingly saved for 2 years:

On 12/5/08 6:58 AM, "michelle -----" wrote:

By now you know that twitter is like crack for some people, you have  a decent following and you haven't tweeted in a year.  I am just wondering why you stopped using it.  Was a fun toy that couldn't sustain itself, did you not find anyone interesting to follow? Just curious.  There are tons of people who throw up twitpics and the applications are  multiplying day by day.  I think there are a lot of annoying marketing people on there, but there are also some very funny people, i just dump the ones I don't like. I'm a bit of a twitch that way. throw your followers a bone, too lazy to correct this i am drying my hair at the same time.

His response:
I’m glad you wrote... I was just thinking about this last night...

I DON’T GET IT!

I need a Twitter teacher.

I’ve sent out tweets several times, and they just... disappear into the void. How do I know if anyone’s listening? Sometimes I pose a question ... nobody answers.

I once saw a guy with a Twitter program that runs in the corner of his Mac screen, so he doesn’t have to be logged into the Web site to do Twittering. What was that?

Can you help me?

Hope your hair dried OK!


dp

My response:

I think that application is called twitterific, it is for the macs.  I have a

gadget on my blog so when I am workign there I can tweet from my blog and see

what is being posed by the people I am following.  You have a bunch of

followers already so THEY will see what you are tweeting every time you tweet,

you will see the people you are following.  A lot of twitterers talk to each

other, they put an @sign in front of the username they are addressing. then

when you are in your home page you can look to the right and check your @

messages first to see if anyone had something to say directly to you.

you can also DM each other if you are following each other.

Tweets can be general or specific, it depends on your style.  I will email

more later, go to get back to the class.

Michelle -----------

A short relationship followed with questions asked through twitter on DMs, but they were BORING, so I won't share them here. Since he dived back in, Dave has tweeted 3,500 times has 1,327,540 followers, has written at least five columns about the application, and has now written a book.  I think I deserve an honorable mention.

My most successful student...

Test blog from phone<3

42 of 3123...

I finally got around to de-authorizing my computers in tunes, and reauthorizing two of them. I had only one computer left and was sure I had not de-authorized two machines I used in two different schools a while back.  I think it is  a shame we can only do this once a year, I mean, what does it cost Apple anyway?  the 42 of 3123 represents the fact that I finally turned on home sharing between my two macbooks.  Right now 3123 songs are making their way through space to live on my other laptop.  It is a beautiful thing. I will update later and tell you how long it took.  Here is a link telling you how to use home sharing in itunes.  Now I have to figure out how to share the  playlists and  the settings for each ipod and nano.

All she does is smile?

During a Skype session with my evil twin Sheila the students clustered around and wanted to extend their greetings.  They could see my face and Sheila's as we talked to each other.  Then, we lost connection. When we reestablished it, Sheila did not automatically turn her video; on  her avatar was showing instead.  One of the students stopped by my desk and watched for a few minutes and then scoffed, "All she does is smile?"  I could not stop laughing.

Technology Invasion!

I was teaching a bunch of teachers how to use blogging with their students and a teacher mentioned the invasion of technology. WHAT A MIND BLOWER!   I am an integrationist, not an invader, but ultimately,  this is how the teachers view these changes to their curriculum.    I know where they are coming from, no one likes to be told to do something that is not of their own choosing and teachers have had to deal with NCLB and many more mandates for years.  They are fed up.  I have to walk on eggs sometimes because they are so adamantly opposed to technology.  Don't get me wrong, they act like they are interested, they do their best to "fit it in,"  but I can hear them the second my back is turned, complaining to each other about what they have to do now.   Technology upsets their pacing charts, it gets in the way of content during the learning curve process.  They make little digs about technology and I have to really try not to get upset and take it personally.  But I am the face of what they are hating and that is difficult.
I have to remind myself that there are things I do
not like to do either.  After all, I hate math, I really really hate it, and I try to act excited about it when I have to teach it, but lets face it, we all have different interests, and that is what makes us interesting to other people.  I respect the teachers I work with and pray that I keep understanding their pain as they try to change the way they teach to fit the interests of the generation we are teaching.  It IS hard, technology integration is unlike any other educational reform that has ever taken place.  It is constantly changing and shifting and is sometimes like working on quicksand.

You have to get it done and fast because the internet could go down, the moviemaker could freeze up again, the edublog logins will fail due to timing out.  It is stressful and uncomfortable for anyone who doesn't love and embrace technology.   For all the teachers forced to integrate technology, I feel for you. My hope is to be less of an invader and more of an organic presence over the year.

What really happened to the Roanoke Colony

 This was a project that my son and his 7th grade friends worked on for a weekend.  They had to explain the disappearance of the Roanoke colony. They also had to explain the word Croatan carved into a post. They clearly had lots of fun.  It looked way better on the big screen with a disk. but you know how much resolution is lost when uploading to youtube.  Welcome any suggestions about boosting resolution.  Someone gave me handbreak, I have to figure out how to use it.
This is not a repeat post but rather an update as to my progress burning the project. Again, I do not have a superdrive but I WAS able to save as a disk image and burn that with an external drive. WOW it works, I read it in the forums as I mentioned in the earlier post, but I implemented it last night and burned copies for all my son's friends who took part. It would have been better if the kids had seen what I did for them so that they could do it, but they all have piano and babysitting and all those other things going on.

Can You See Me Now?

One of my friends, who shall remain nameless, thinks that he is invisible when wearing his "Digital Camouflage jacket." Since I am a techie, I should not be able to see him. What do you think?  I think I can still see him, but I do need glasses you know.

PLN

Working hard on my PLN, I met a lot of very grr people at the NJEA convention this past week and I am connecting to them using Grouply, Ning, Thinkfinity Community, Linkedin and Delicious.  I have learned how to USE my network on Delicious instead of just treating it as a repository for my bookmarks. Adding my Delicious feed to my blog was easy but it is disappointing that I only get the last five bookmarks I added on this Blogger site.  I will start to post the feeds of the people in my network and this will give me a bit more of what I really want. I have taken charge of connecting to people outside of my personal Facebook and have started honing my Twitter friends into categories that match the different interests in my life.  While this takes lots of time, I am sure it will be rewarding and will help me stay on top of my game in my field of study.  My fingers hurt. Now I have to have a professional look over what I have done and get back to me with more direction. I have to wait for people to accept my friend requests on the various social platforms as well.

We have had lots of problems with the grouply, apparently only the group creator can send invites to our group, in the Ning platform we could all invite people into the group.  It could be an administrator setting that is off, but whatever the reason, it is not acting as user friendly.  I have 119 members to connect to in this group, but the never share anything.  I guess if it is a mandatory thing instead of a passion, you just don't get participation.

My blog is getting some major updating, I have been tagging appropriately, so that I can split off some of my posts to specific blogs if I need to do so in future. Zemanta in Firefox has been helpful as it suggests tags I do not think about. You all know I just throw everything in here and sort later, so I am in the sorting process. I have added feeds of some of the blogs I follow in my personal life and in class on this site as well.

This Weekend's Work

I am very tired. The toughest part was letting the kids take total charge of their project.  I just manned the cameras and assisted with editing for like 15 hours.
Problems we encountered:

1. Objects in park that did hindered our commitment to historical accuracy (such as cars, trash cans, and someone blasting "Eye of the Tiger").
2. Wardrobe malfunctions and misinformation.
3. The noise of the fire station horns every half hour, along with the church bells.
4. One weird looking duck that kept distracting the actors.
5. A table of donuts and coffee that distracted the crew AND actors.
6. Not enough baby wipes to get off all that face paint.
7. Taping over the opening sequence- having to copy another scene and reversing it in imovie.
8. Not being able to match the sepia tone in the movie clips to the picture clips and having to use all black/white instead.
9. Not being able to edit out the rope tied to the canoe, the canoe club, the outbuildings, the trash cans, the cars, or the barbeque pits in video clips. (We could only do this in still shots).
10. Not having a super drive on my macbook to burn the DVD movie for best resolution.
11. Not being able to get George's Mom's superdrive to work and having to upload all our beautiful work to the internet instead, at only 12 frames per second on youtube and 30 frames a second on iweb. ( I could just cry).
12. Just found this tidbit in the forums and it is too late! "If you'd like to transfer a file to burn on another mac, go back to the project on your mac and use the Save As Disc Image command. This creates a virtual DVD that you can move to another computer and Copy to an actual DVD."

SO WHY WAS IT A GOOD WEEKEND? 
 I got to work with my son and his friends for this 7th grade project, they were extremely prepared with a script, a storyboard in mind, costumes and a boat.  They were creative, flexible and funny as all get out. While I am extremely tired, I am so glad I had the opportunity to assist them.

Who Follows Directions Anyway?

Do we read directions anymore?  Sometimes I do, and it is the thing I complain about to my son, "Always read the directions, honey."  If I followed my own advice,  I could have saved myself some time in last week's class. This week I had a new dilemma, after setting up edublogs for 25 students and having to go into their emails getting their logins, and then logging in to change their passwords to be the same as the other web 2.0 tools they use, I could scream.  Turns out I could have set the password if I had clicked on the advanced blog creation button and set the password from the very beginning.  I WAS looking for the manual but all they had were a bunch of pdfs, not even addressing the issue.  It seems that when I go looking for directions I never find them. When they are there, I may ignore them and play for a while instead, trying to figure out the solution.

 I have always liked to explore as opposed to going the way the arrows point in life, and there lies the crux of my problem.   My happiest days are the ones when I strayed off a path to see what else might be there. I do not ignore signs that point out danger, I am not that ridiculous, but I always like to play with tools as opposed to reading about them.
I do usually go to manuals when I cannot immediately discern the way to work something.  Since I started going blind as a bat, I am less inclined to read, except for pleasure (Can't live without my books).  I just can't be bothered to take out my glasses so I don't have to squint.  My days of "Dreamweaver for Dummies" is behind me, it better have  a video tutorial for me to follow or you will hear me complaining as I search for those stupid Progressives.  I can't make them work anyhow, the reading zone is too darn small.
I am willing to get a Kindle or ipad this Christmas just to be able to make the text bigger. Of course I will have to make friends with so many people so I can borrow the books they bought.  I read way too much to buy the books I read, I go to the library every week and stock up.   I am not really interested in free ebooks, they are books that I don't really want to read or I have read already.  Wow, I have really strayed off topic here, another thing I tell my students and kids not to do.   Back on topic, following directions.... Good or Bad?  Hmmmmm, ask me next week... meanwhile I have enclosed a helpful article about teaching students how to read directions.

Why are you raising your hand?

Mrs. V asked, "Why are you raising your hand? So the computer can see you?" She was using the Smart word randomizer feature to call up students to share their daily journal stories.  The students wanted to be picked,  and kept raising their hands. It was the funniest thing.    Apparently that paradigm shift has not yet occurred.

Tech Slam

Check it out, tech slam.

Missing my Class

I 

Smartboards need Smart Teachers

In the last week, after our training from Faisal, I was really struck by how well the mimeo worked.  I have heard of mimeos hiding in closets in some districts and I personally know some teachers that have Easyteach boards in their rooms that they never touch. Why?  They lack training.  It is not a good idea to spend money on technology and not FULLY train teachers how to use them.  I had no training when I received my Promethean board. It took a me a year to fully understand how to use all the features and I would have used it for more if I had been trained for a few full days.  The training has to involve not just the features, but the content area toolbars and resources.  Teachers need TIME to build or change resources.  Unfortunately, districts want the biggest bang for their bucks, so they choose increased technology over training.  If we had the chance to learn our craft, we would be more effective and could turnkey our knowledge with other teachers in our district during district professional development.  I am seeing a trend toward this area in some schools, simply because districts cannot afford to bring people in from outside.   It is not enough.
If there is a teacher in a school who knows what they are doing, we can use prep times to be in their rooms and learn from them as they use the technology.  Both can get professional development hours for this.  We started off in the field as simple observers in our fieldwork classes, and it is still a wonderful method of learning as we attempt to keep up with the latest innovations in education. Here is a district goal outlined by Alan November, senior partner at Educational Renaissance Planners in Evanston, Illinois:

• Develop a technology budget, earmarking funding not only to acquire technology and design the infrastructure but also to ensure successful plan implementation by means of professional development for school staff and adherence to rules of thumb for professional development. Include funding for a technology specialist to provide ongoing support and feedback to staff.

Since this is the job I am performing right now, Technology Integrationist, I am more aware than ever of the lack of technology education our teachers have.  The little things like saving to a jump drive and printing in greyscale are big dilemmas to teachers who are now expected to provide interactive lessons using Smart boards.  I only hope that we move away from the drive-by trainings that don't provide the ongoing assistance teachers really need.  Only some of the teachers are comfortable with screencasts and webinars, a huge population of teachers need hands-on training that can be repeated as they need it. As I try to squeeze such trainings into lunch periods and preps, I get frustrated.  I feel like every other teacher feels when their students are just about to complete an objective and the bell rings.  I will be pushing for some substitute coverage so I can get more time with individual teachers.  Luckily I work in districts that have technology-rich goals, so I may actually get somewhere.  

Parent Night for Talent 21 Grant

It was a rewarding evening for the parents of the Talent 21 students in Woodbine, NJ.  They were able to use their child's new laptop and learn about the acceptable use policy, insurance options and the rationale for  the laptop rollout. Parent asked questions abou the use of laptops in their homes and in school.

 These students are the lucky few, they will have one-to- one computing for three years, across all subject areas.  One of the challenges they face is the learning curve to use the technology in a constructive way to learn content and share what they have learned with others.  Every day new challenges arise, new technologies are available, and they will keep pace with theses lightning changes.  This ability to adapt will serve them well in the future as they compete for jobs in a technology rich society.

Technology-enabled Substitutes

Yesterday, The substitutes of one of the school districts I work for participated in professional development. They learned how to access the teacher's websites and to use the Smartboards. Technology-enabled substitutes will be able to carry on with lessons in the technology-enabled classrooms when the teachers ...moreare away. The laptops can still come out and the students do not have to complete worksheets all day long.

The substitutes spent the morning in trainings and the afternoons with teachers in their rooms learning how technology is used in the classroom. This experience was the first of its kind that I ever witnessed. The principal also conducted a training session with the substitutes on how to be an effective substitute in the district. This planning for school-wide and student success is commendable. We will provide substitutes with a list of every teacher's website until the district website can be updated to include that information. They were also given directions for laptop basics and turning on projectors and smartboards.  An issue still outstanding is the ability to log into the teacher laptops.  A substitute username and password will have to be enabled on all machines and laptops that are connected to the smartboards. It would
be helpful to create hotsheets for each room that is technology enabled for the subs with quick reference sheets for the programs the students may be using.  We should also create a substitute website that has information and training tutorials.  Since the technology-enabled substitutes will be called first to serve in those classrooms, it does provide incentive for them to learn on an ongoing basis.
UPDATE!
On a sad note, in another school, the susbstitutes  allowed students from another class to use the 6th grader's laptops.  Substitutes need to follow the plans we leave for them as teachers, they definetly shoud never allow students to tell them what they "usually" do, because the students "usually" lie  to substitutes.  When in doubt, check with another teacher nearby, call the office and just maintain that it is your responsibility to follow the teacher's plans.  As a teacher it is hard enough to miss a day with our class, it causes huge problems when susbtitutes deviate from our plans.  We spend time getting those plans ready and it is frustrating  when we come back to havoc. In this instance, the offending students tried to visit blocked sites, they changed the students backgrounds and settings and added items to their favorites.

Upping the game

After last week's incredible presentations, I have upped my game when giving internet resources to my teachers.  Instead of  looking for  Prepositional Phrases PowerPoints for one of my English teachers,  I was haunting Prezi and looking for  presentations that would make the most of the Smartboard. Most of the lessons in the Smart exchange are a bit young for the 8th graders so I was seeking other quick solutions.  Now I am off to investigate how the two programs can work together, can I upload an old PowerPoint to Prezi and then work with it?  I will update you when I get the answer. So far Prezi does not have a lot of grammar teaching resources on  their site, just those made by students, and I do want to be able to provide the best alternative to spending hours making Smart Notebook lessons.

8th Grade Prepositions~Mrs. Groom on Prezi

This was the best one I found so far. It appears that most of the grammar Prezi presentations were geared for English language Learners.  I will be sure to share them with my friends that teach Bi-Lingual and ESL students.

Teacher Interview Questions

As an offshoot of last week's discussion in my Intro to Ed. Tech class, I though I would share a helpful link with anyone out there still looking for a teaching job this year. You know that if we get the interview, and that is pretty hard these days, we have to make the most of that moment. You may have read about some of my worst job hunt moments last year in this blog, and I hope to help alleviate some of your fears.
The Apple posted this article recently on how to answer the toughest interview questions effectively. There were some admirable answers, especially to the question, "What is your greatest weakness?"  We hate to have to answer that one!  It is impossible to do correctly without being self-serving and we want to be honest, but we can't because then we would appear weak.  If you like, please post YOUR toughest interview question in my comments section. If you would like to share YOUR worst interview moment, I can give you a link to be a guest blogger on this site.

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Post Tutorial Search Behavior

Hating life and PowerPoint right now

PowerPoint fragged up on me three times today with my macbook making the most incredibly weird noises.  Having to employ the hard shutdown always makes me nervous.  I had to redo a few areas of our group presentation many times because it refused to SAVE! Even when it did the backup every few minutes, it still didn't have the changes.   Since my entire weekend has become this project, I could have done without this nonsense.  I still couldn't embed video, like I can do on  non- mac machines. I just couldn't find the feature on the PowerPoint for mac. I wanted to upload the whole thing to Issuu as a flipbook, but it wouldn't take the formatting.  I had to go to Plan B for the Web 2.0 component.

I used slideshare instead.  I did not yet use the narration feature, because we have to narrate as a team.  I look forward to doing that on my own when we are done.  It would be too hard to do it with three of us in different places.  Slideshare has been a resource for my blog when I want to post a bunch of pictures from an event. As a presentation solution, I was thrilled with some of the free options it offered.  It has some great features and I wish I could change my tooltime to that tool.

Can you read our Webspiration?

The most illuminating thing that happened this weekend was having to work as a team.  Giving up control of even part a project has to be  the most challenging feeling ever, and one we have to remember stresses OUR students out as well.  I had to understand and implement what Brian's main ideas were from our  mindmapping in Webspiration.  I hope I stayed true to his ideas, if not, it is tooooooooo late.  I started working on what we had, then he added more and I had to match it all up again to make sure I didn't miss anything.  Note to self: Don't even start until it is all done. I have no idea if Roma finished our  Timeline activity Gant chart, our meeting this evening did not come about due to scheduling issues.  So now I have to rely on the email for communication until we can all talk again in Wimba.   Wimba as a crutch?  I am officially spoiled and hate having to go email everyone as they are not on Skype right now.

I chose the peace sign because what is contained in the this Tagxedo
just a "piece" of the whole IT picture. I know, very corny.

Spending the entire weekend tracking down appropriate pictures, videos and articles to make the mindmap come to life was accompanied by the endless sneezing and snuffling of my nose.  Infection from all those school kids has finally set in, and I am tainted. At least now I have a comprehensive understanding of the history of Instructional Technology and a trash-can full of tissues.  I could have just read the textbook, but then I would have had no reason to yell at my family for asking me silly questions when everything was going wrong.

 I also made a Tagxedo to enhance the presentation and spent some time rearranging the Webspiration so it wasn't so busy, then Brian really fixed it and it looks nice now.  Too big to actually read the screen capture in a photo here, you will have to be content with my Tagxedo instead.  I was unable to do the things I REALLY wanted to do with this project.  I wanted a blinking eye between the  time eras, and I wanted to shoot words out of a cannon or a rocket as a transition as well.  I especially wanted a photo of Tompkins with the macs from the 80's to include, but I can't always get what I want. The transitions won't work well in a  web 2.0 sharing scenario unless I convert the entire thing to a movie.  This will not work for me because of the video clips I want to have in it.   The audience will be able to just move ahead after they watch what THEY want.  Oh, well, best laid plans...

Transtechnical?

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Holt's Intro To Educational Technology: Waiting for Superman

Holt's Intro To Educational Technology: Waiting for Superman: "There is a new documentary out in select theaters entitled 'Waiting for Superman'. It explores the inefficiencies of America's school syste..."

Reflections on Wimba, Skype, and Project Management

The Wimba Whiteboard or Eboard.

This week I spent hours on Wimba and Skype, meeting with my team members and working on our History of IT project. It was an interesting experience. When I took online classes before, they were asynchonous and our group projects involved emails and posts, not live communication. After using Wimba for this, I do not know how I will be able to give it up at the end of our class. I will have to use something like Adobe Connect or Go to Meeting to get a similar experience. As I use Wimba more, I learn new things. I took the tutorials a while ago, so I was relieved when Brian showed us how to get the whiteboard feature back by pressing the eboard button.  I also learned about project management this week and gant charts. I've never heard of them before and apparently people have been using them forever. "What a concept!" Amy, my professor, was pushing us to use a free Web 2.0 tool. I found Tom's Planner, it looks very visual and you can share your chart online.  Another I found was Basecamp.   It will be interesting to see what my friend Adrienne, the quintessential project manager, writes in my comments. Anyway, my team member may choose a product that she is comfortable with over the ones I just mentioned. We will have to wait and see.

How I search for Web- Based Tutorials

Loving it!

She gave me top status!

This morning I walked into the teacher's room whom I had worked with last week.  She just started teaching again after having a baby and does not have a lot of technical experience.  She is by no means afraid of technology, but she has not had exposure. Nor did she attend any of the summer trainings.  She saw me and her face just started glowing, she had three new ideas for for technology integration that she wanted me to teach her how to implement.  An OnCourse teacher website, uploading word documents to the smart assessment tools and assessing her students with the PE clickers and having her students blog their daily journals, WHEW! She also shared her experiences of technological mishaps that happened when I was away from her room.  The most impressive thing she said was that she felt like she could be helping other teachers by the end of the year.  A teacher-learner becomes a teacher-leader!  I wish we could all have "students" like this; people who are just dying to know something and can't wait for you to give them that little nudge in the right direction.  I couldn't have been prouder than her mom when she told me how she had figured out some things for herself and shared them with her team.   The she showed me how she had "added" me to her class.  At the end of the day I was wrung out, trying to get her trained in everything she wanted to know, but it was so worth it!