Author Archives: kschaefer

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Maybe I’ve been Thinking Wrongly : 2¢ Worth

Wrong Way

http://www.flickr.com/photos/64251830@N00/406285615

I have read David Warlick for many years so I am inclined to listen when he says something. I thought this worth the time to add to my blog. We are going to pilot some iPads with sixth grade students. While I think a “pilot” is sort of silly since I think the iPad is a worthy device, where we mostly ask the question worthy of a pilot, is it is enough device. David’s post got me not to think different but thinking differently.

Maybe I’ve been Thinking Wrongly : 2¢ Worth: “I have been reluctant to share the ecstatic delight that many have expressed about iPads and the classroom.  It’s partly a sense of skepticism that I am convinced comes with age.  I would also admit that part of it might be my own investment in information and communication technologies that have become less emblematic of the digital networked world.  When did you buy your last tower computer. Perhaps my problem is that I’ve been comparing iPads to laptops — when I should be comparing them to pencils and papers.”

 

 

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Still Sparkling After All These Years

Me2yrs

Today is my birthday so I am a bit reflective. I was born in Potosi, WI 55 years ago. I have travelled many roads on my journey to where I am today. I was 2 years old when this picture was taken. I see the spark in my eyes at two. There were days, probably years when I lost the spark, but through teaching, I am reminded able to rekindle the spark when I am in the Flow.  I was greeted at work today but some very different tasks. Task 1 was to meet with my new retirement benefit coordinator to determine how best to invest my 410K funds so I could retire in 10+/- years. The next task was to go through my email. I found some gifts that sparked my day due to their thoughtfulness and the fact they took the time to create something.

Besides the sparkles I get from my wife, children and grandchildren, my students give me sparkles as well. Here are some digital versions. I also got lots of bakery and a warm bagel with fresh fruit.

Ellie P. made this for me in Skitch which is a free drawing program we have been using (spell check not included). FYI Technology is in the Fine Arts Rotation and I do not have time to explain that before my next birthday.

EllieScott H. took a different approach as he created a VoiceThread with a simple message. He knows that I see every VoiceThread made at Durham Academy so his gift would be delivered automatically. He created it sometime yesterday.


There have been other gifts and acknowledgements as today, I am the topic. With that in mind, I thought I would share the project I did as part of the NCAIS Master Teacher Project. I was to tell my story and how being an NCAIS Master Teacher has impacted me and will impact my students. Using technological tools that were not available to that little boy of two, I decided to Google it. Enjoy.

 

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Listening and Teaching

Listen

‘listen closely‘ 
http://www.flickr.com/photos/14784969@N08/2233417054

I read a blog post this summer from Steve Goldberg about this TEDx talk and added it as a favorite to my list of talks to listen to when I reconnected to the Internet. In addition, I finally purchased a set of hearing aids after going years asking my students and grandchildren to repeat what they said as my mild to moderate loss impacted me the most in these situations. Getting older and needing equipment to restore what I used to have naturally is all part of the process. I got my hearing aids at Costco and have been very happy.

 

With the equipment installed, I now am working on my intention and listening practice. I suggest that we all try to do a little bit better as our students and children/grandchildren have a lot that they are saying.

5 ways to listen better

 

4 Ways sound affects us

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Evernote and Skitch – Hey You Got Perfect in My Awesome!

Skitch is acquired by Evernote A Great Skitch Heart Love

 

Two of my favorite applications that I use on my desktop, laptop, iPad, and iPod Touch are now together. It reminds me of the old commercials where the person is eating chocolate and bumps into the person eating peanut butter. While at first upset, they realize it is a perfect match and the rest they say is confectionary history.

Skitch has been used at our school for the last 3 years and quickly became the most used piece of software next to a browser. In fact, it became a verb in my teaching as we skitch anything we need to add to documents, VoiceThreads, Portfolios, or to create a great desktop picture. It is the Swiss Army Knife of software tools. I have paid for others and know how to take a screenshot, but Skitch remained my go to tool. While the use of expiring betas did make it a source of frustration since each time the version expired, I had to blast out an update, the sheer power of what could be done with the software out weighed the 10 to 15 minute task of blasting out the latest version. When they announced Skitch Plus last year, I contacted them as I wanted to buy it for our school. Sorry, Keith said but they are working on an educational solution, but it is not ready. He then gave me a 5 year license to Skitch Plus for our school!

Evernote has become an integral part of my productivity and as I get older, the best way to remember what is so easily forgotten by my brain. As our school gets ready to pilot test iPads, I believe we need to put Evernote into the workflow for students and teachers since it will increase the efficiency of every member of the team. With the new groups and sponsored accounts, it is practical and economical to test out a new way of document workflow even within our existing systems of Moodle, Google Apps for Education, and FirstClass.

Here are two stories of how our school could use Evernote. Sixth and Eighth Grade Science Teacher from Evernote’s Blog and Montclair Kimberley Academy’s 1 to 1 program with Evernote.

I am excited to see what these two companies can do together and look forward to the day that we look back and cannot remember a time before they were together.

A side note, my granddaughter and I share our love of Reese’s Peanut Butter cups and I suspect someday, she will also share my love of Evernote and Skitch.

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Innovation and Learning Cohort – Chapter 1 Word Cloud

This school year I am co-leading an Innovation and Learning Cohort of 19 teachers at Durham Academy who are reading The New Culture of Learning by David Thomas and John Seely Brown. I shared this post there today and wanted to add it to my blog as I am excited to be undertaking this learning and discussion with fellow teachers. We are blogging at http://labs.da.org/wordpress/dailc/ where you are welcome to follow along or leave a comment.

NCoL_Chapter1_Comments

Thought it might be interesting to take all of our comments about Chapter 1 – The Arc of Learning and paste them into a Wordle to make a word cloud. The larger the word, the more times it is used in all of the comments. Good to know words like students, learning, kids, think, learn, curious, and read play such a role. I think we need to stop using my name so much though as it is used more then school!  I will add this to our VoiceThread, because, that is what I do:)

As part of our cohort we plan to hook-up with Page Lennig’s group at Wyanflete School later this year. Her school is doing a cohort that is similar and is reading the same book. I was at her group’s site and saw she had linked to this video so I thought our cohort should read it as well. I like this video as it features a message that resonates with me and my teaching as well as featuring fellow educators whom I have visited with or followed online for years. As part of my “collective” al of you continue to shape my teaching and learning. Thanks and I hope I add to yours.

Watch the full episode. See more Digital Media – New Learners Of The 21st Century.

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Learning in a Networked World – Will Richardson’s Message to Durham Academy

Networked Teacher

‘NetworkedTeacher’ http://www.flickr.com/photos/51035553780@N01/344832591

Today almost seems like a dream. Will Richardson is in our school talking to most of our faculty. The Middle School will be watching a movie we are creating as they are having Olweus training.  I have wanted this to happen for the last five years but wondered if we were up to the discussion as a school. I was thrilled when Lee Hark, Upper School Director, asked me last year for a list of speakers as he was looking for someone to kick off our school year. Faculty are participating in a back channel provided by Will where our faculty are able to discuss what he is saying. This is a whole day event that will challenge us to engage in a conversation that will help us answer the big questions facing our school and students.

I plan to weave the challenges he is into our Innovation and Learning Cohort that is discussing the book: The New Culture of Learning by David Thomas and John Seely Brown.

Bravo and thanks to Durham Academy for being willing to discuss these challenges.

His presentation is at this link.

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Getting Digital Again

davidmcgeary

After a wonderful summer break where I worked around the farm, played with grandchildren and rested,  I headed to the NCAIS 21st Century Teacher Academy today to listen to David McGeary. I am presenting tomorrow on VoiceThread and doing an Ignite presentation tonight as part of the NCAIS Master Teacher program. I am doing my Ignite on the premise of old technology committee meeting notes. I hope the humor is not lost on the audience. The idea is that the more things change, in education, many things stay the same. Check it out if you want as it will not embed for some reason.

I have written about that program in past posts. Next week I head back to work to get ready for the school year. There are many changes awaiting me next week with a new Moodle setup (both Moodle 2.0 and being hosted at Moodlerooms), Lion OS on the lab computers. I look forward to the challenges that lay before me as I will appreciate the change from trying to keep the squash bugs away from my squash and instead getting used to the scrolling in Lion.

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Change in Leadership

Change

 

‘Time for Change’

http://www.flickr.com/photos/8211018@N03/2328879637

 

At the end of each school year we say goodbye to students and colleagues who will not be returning. This year we said goodbye to Dr. Sid DuPont who has guided us for the last 3 years as the Interim Middle School Director. Dr. D. was one of the best administrators I have had the pleasure of working with and will be missed by me for his willingness to try new teaching methods and for the support he showed me and our division as we adjusted our instructional methods to take advantage of the changes taking place in education and the world. Thanks. Dr. DuPont!

I am excited to work with Mr. Jon Meredith as the new Middle School Director. I believe he will pick-up where Dr. DuPont left off as he leads us into the future with care and his ideas. In preparation for his arrival, I created a VoiceThread for students and teachers to leave their comments as a way to welcome Mr. Meredith and provide some information to him so he could get to know us before we return in August. I asked commenters to introduce themselves, tell where they are on campus, what their Hopes, Dreams are for the Middle School, and Knowledge needed by Mr. Meredith. Finally, they were able to ask questions of Mr. Meredith. This was an optional activity but as I write this post there are 470 comments and 291 views. I will email the link to Mr. Meredith so he can begin to feel welcomed by our voices.