Author Archives: kschaefer

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My New Favorite Software

My favorite software this week has to be Apple’s Keynote which has been upgraded in iWork ’08 to be a powerful multimedia creation tool. A current project I started on with students since I returned from the NCETC conference is to create book talk podcasts using Keynote instead of Garageband to start the process. We have been having issues with using Garageband ’08 with our networked home directories that students here all use. While we have taken steps to fix that (Portable Home Directories) using Keynote to create slides and then recording the script students wrote makes a fast and wonderful enhanced podcast.

We will send them to Garageband when done recording the podcast to tweak it with additional soundtracks or other elements as well as to apply some ID3 tags so they show up with the correct information. This allows students to illustrate their podcasts with titles and images.

I showed this to Kate Birgel an 8th grade Language Arts teacher who went to work right away creating a Keynote on the book: Of Mice and Men which she will add to her DAILE Moodle course as a resource for students.

I have only begun to design ways to use Keynote to enhance teacher Moodle courses and create content with students. Thanks to Durham Academy for sending me to NCETC and for Neil and Matt for showing me the Send to command.

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Wikis in 5th Grade Language Arts

Jennifer Longee and myself are going to work with Mrs. Parry and Mrs. Doak to have their students create wikis on some Great Depression topics that appear in the book Bud, Not Buddy by Christopher Paul Curtis. Students will work with Mrs. Longee (who constructed the wikis using PBwiki) to research the various topics and begin to work on the wikis. Students will use a research template in order to guide their research.

It is our hope that students will be able to learn more about characters from that time period while also using tools that lend to collaborative and interactive learning since pages will have multiple authors and allow comments by readers. We have password protected the wikis for security reasons as we want only authorized users editing and commenting on the pages.

We will start the work on the 18th of December so follow along as our students create their own Great Depression wiki.

Mrs. Doak’s 5.1 Language Arts
http://doakgd.pbwiki.com/

Mrs. Doak’s 5.2 Language Arts
http://doak52gd.pbwiki.com/

Mrs. Parry’s 5.3 Language Arts
http://parry53.pbwiki.com/

Mrs. Parry’s 5.4 Language Arts
http://parry54.pbwiki.com/

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Reflections on NCETC

Each year I learn something new and am affirmed at what I know already when it comes to digital learning. Thanks to all who exposed me to something new. I enjoyed learning from David Warlick like I always do and hearing Alan November was a true treat. I think either one of these two could be a strong speaker for us to have at Durham Academy to propel the desire for authentic 21st Century learning. I am more convinced we need to have a digital device in the hands of our students sooner rather then later or never.

New tricks:
Keynote – send to iPhoto enables you to make titles for podcasts, slideshows, and other uses.

Excited to get my hands on:
Leopard Server and Client: The tools that are loaded on the server appear to answer many of the questions we are looking for to build our web presence for teachers and students.

The wiki and blog tools with settings for teacher controls looks like the answer to getting our teachers and students communicating with 21st Century tools. From what Mike Kole said, there is granular control for what is public, private, published and by whom so teachers can blog and students can blog while still maintaining the security needed to protect students. If students can write in a blog and or a wiki, would an iPod Touch or iPhone be the tool that would fit the digital device needs? With a browser and a keyboard could a student not interact with their content and even Moodle?

Podcast Producer looks awesome for creating content and distribution of content with again the same granular controls that the wikis and blogs posses. Options include audio podcast, video podcast, screencast, or import any file. Once recorded it follows a workflow that is built in or can be created that can post it to the blog, send for approval, etc…

Home Directory synching to an iPod so a student can take their entire home directory with them. This can be set to be the only place it is backed up or as a dual back-up with a server and the iPod.

iPod cart with Modality Content: The new iPod carts can be updated from one computer and charged while in the cart. They can fit 20 per shelf with 2 shelves in each cart. I think the Lower School could utilize this technology and make it a part of the students daily work. I can see the time when the school would have a subscription to the Modality content so if they have an iPod it can be synched to it.

Laptop Initiative Info
Leadership is key as any successful program has at its core a visionary leader
Dr. Mark Edwards is in Mooresville Graded School District He is the former Superintendent of Henrico County
Laptop bag by Higher Ground: http://www.highergroundgear.com/laptrap.html
They will filter off site use of computers – iprism
Maine Learns
K12Blueprint
Friday Institute
Did You Know Video

Restructure the Learning
See my blog on Alan November

The session that Julie Williams, Carrie Williamson and I did called Digital Dynamite in a Language Arts classroom was very well attended and went well. It is clear that teachers are looking for ways to use some of the new tools available via Moodle but also the old standards of PowerPoint or Keynote. I am happy that Julie asked me to help present as it was good for me to put myself out there.

The conference attendance did seem really low to me from my attendance in the past. I can remember being in standing room only sessions and that was not the case this year at all. In fact Alan November spoke to about 40 people in a hall that could hold 500. What is up with that?
I did hear that many public schools have cut back funding for teachers to come to conferences like these so I am grateful to Durham Academy for sending not only myself, but also Carrie, Julie, Liz Coleman and Randy Bryson.

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Free Content + Open Tools + Massive Collaboration = Learning For All

Karen Fasimpaur from K12 Handhelds

Karen did a great job presenting the plethora of tools and options that are available in the open area.

“Open Educational Resources can help us reshape education by providing free high quality resources”.

K12 Open Ed

Workshop Notes

Sites:

Tools:
CamStudio
http://sourceforge.net/projects/camstudio/

GIMP
http://www.gimp.org/

Audio
Creative Commons Mixter
http://ccmixter.org/

MusOpen – Classical
http://www.musopen.com/

Wikimedia Commons Music
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page

Spoken Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spoken_articles

Freesound Project
http://freesound.iua.upf.edu/

Internet Archive
http://www.archive.org/details/audio

Photo:
Stock XCHNG
http://www.sxc.hu/

Open Photo
http://openphoto.net/

Morguefile
http://www.morguefile.com

Educational Content
Wikibooks and Wikijunior
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Main_Page

Curriki
http://www.curriki.org

WikiEducator
http://wikieducator.org/Main_Page

Free-Reading
http://www.free-reading.net

MIT OpenCourseware
http://ocw.mit.edu

Wikipedia for Schools

Audio Books and eBooks
LibriVox
http://librivox.org/

Spoken Alexandria Project
http://www.alexwilson.com/telltale/spokenalexandria.php

Project Gutenberg
http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Main_Page

LoudLit
http://www.loudlit.org/

Lit2Go
http://etc.usf.edu/lit2go

More Options
SchoolForge – all school related software including SIS

SourceForge – all areas

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Our Students – Our Worlds (Live Blog)

David Warlick is presenting this session on what our students face in the flat classroom world of today.

Link to Presentation: http://davidwarlick.com/wiki/pmwiki.php?n=Main.OurStudentsOurWorlds

If the world is flat what is the impact to our students?

Future Tech:
Wearable computer MIT
Toe Ring GPS Units and Cell Phone with a thumb and pinky finger unit

Books:
Richard Florida The Rise of the Creative Class and The Flight of the Creative Class.

Read the notes in the handouts as it will wake you up.

We must tell the story of how the world is gearing up for broadband Mexico in 2012

Cool Web 2.0 Stuff:
Digg Labs

SWARM

Wikipedia – they do warn users that the information may not be accurate, etc.. Have students verify the information is correct and to prove the authority is correct and not just accept it as fact.

Wikipedia Junior Books “The aim of this project is to produce age-appropriate non-fiction books for children from birth to age 12.”

Wikispecies “Wikispecies is an open, free directory of species. It covers Animalia, Plantae, Fungi, Bacteria, Archaea, Protista and all other forms of life. So far we have 113,854 articles.”

There are no roads to follow like the past but students needs wings to.

An example of how the world has changed is seen at We Are Not Afraid which was set up after the train bombings.

Just the Facts:

It is Not Just Literacy but….

Learning Literacy

Not just skills…..

But habits

Not just lifelong – learning…..

But learning lifestyle

We need to prepare students for a future of opportunity.

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Alan November (Live Blog)

I am excited to hear Alan talk today about “Banning Student Containers” as he inspired me to change the title of what I do. I am no longer the technology coordinator as it was too limiting. There is no pencil and paper coordinator. It was freeing to me as I am no longer “that computer guy” but a critical component of the learning environment. Thanks Alan and I will keep spreading the word.

Communist China allow students to use more of the tools that we block in US schools.
His son uses: video games, skype, chat, etc..

We should be paying attention to what technology students use when not in school. If students had discovered paper before teachers in the past, we would have banned paper like we ban other student containers.

The best schools are the schools that place ownership of the curriculum with the students.
There are no barriers to any of this!! Fear and imagination are the barriers.
In the past children were vital to the survival of the family. Food and feed for animals were needed to sustain the family unit. Now there is nothing like that as they have school work and some chores. Now there is no connection to the survival of the family which impacts students.

Our culture gives the power of learning to teachers and administrators. A cultural change is what is needed.

The work of a few dedicated students need to create content can change the classroom.

Idea:

Digital Learning Farm where the students are essential to the learning community. All teams work as connected elements.
6 jobs at the new DLF
1. Tutorial Design Team: Screencastomatic – Homework will contribute to the good of the whole and not just one. What are we learning next week? What a great question from a student? Who benefits the most? How will other students react?
2. Curricular Review Team – Review Last Weeks Lessons and create podcasts that support it. Students must have the rigor and expertise to create content that is double-checked, organized, and streamed for all students. gcast.com
3. Daily Researcher – Student gets the answers for the class [(Critical Thinking Team for Rigorous Research
4. Global Communication and Research Team – get primary documents to support a global debate. Go global with a podcast that will be shared via a debate with a school elsewhere. Expand the discourse exposure. Why did the Americans Revolt (England View)
5. Daily Blogger/Scribe to record the days notes. What happens when you take away the fear of students needing to take notes?
Part 2 Building a Learning Community Tools: Skype and Blogs
Finding teachers to connect with is as easy as using ePals. The problem is how to make a sense of the connection you create.

Onetime events are easier to build then are long term events (New York City Poets and South Bronx student reciting a poem she wrote)

Consider how every family is a center of learning. All families must be part of the community.

Each student if not families should have a blog as part of the learning community.

Writing for a college blue book. Present your writing to the world looking for feedback from around the world. The Clem

Students write online at FanFiction.net

Each students blog need to feed to teachers blog or course.

How to work with administrators: Ask what they want to improve? Technology is not part of the questions.
Change agents are to identify what is important in the culture of your school.
Independent schools are often geared towards improving the AP scores so you raise the scores even higher.

Use Skype to connect to the world in elementary school. Have books read by grandparents using Skype and record it. Make a CD of the stories.

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Finer Points of Web 2.0 (Live Blog NCETC)

November 26, 2007.

Attending Workshop the session is on the Finer Points of Web 2.0 by David Warlick.

Next to me is Carrie Willamson and Julie Williams.
Topics to discuss are: Podcasting, wikis, Virtual Reality, Blogs, Social Networking Virtual Learning, Social Networking
Handouts at: http://handouts.davidwarlick.com

Wiki Notes: http://web2atncetc.wikispaces.com/

Tools: Twitter and Ajax Chat Open-Source Ajax Chat that we can install on a server.

Podcasting: Audacity, Castblaster [ Garageband or Ubercaster (Mac Only)]

Sounds Effects: Partners in Rhyme is a good Royalty free sound effects.

For more on podcasting notes: see http://web2atncetc.wikispaces.com/podcasting as I became the note taker for podcasting.

Wikis:
The two best free sources are: wikispaces or pbwiki. Both are free and can be password protected.

Example of wikis from David
Have a scribe post notes of the day from class

Work with colleagues to brainstorm ideas.

Virtual Reality/ Multi User Virtual Environment – Teen Second Life
How does information storage change when you can organize Suriawang Daptop is David in Second Life

Edu Island is for educators in Second Life. Discovery Education Network has an island as does ISTE.

Common Craft does a great job on showing what a wiki is and how it is useful.

Blogs:
Software: epals.com, gaggle.net, imbee.com, and 21classes.com

Tools: Clustrmaps.com – get tracking on your blog Technorati.com tracks blogs and ranks them by number of folks who link to the blog.

Aggregators for RSS: Bloglines or Google Reader. The following 2 sites are more then an aggregator and can be used as a starting page for your browser. NetVibes.com, PageFlakes.com Most of these tools can be embedded into a Moodle course or blog.

Social Media:

Flickr/creativecommons for photos that are able to be used in schools.

Flickr.com/photos/tags/map to get photographs that were tagged as maps

Tagging:

Blogpulse: This will allow you to bring in via RSS any blog entry that has been written with the tags

Hitchhikr.com is a list of conferences that will be happening or in one month or so forth.

Virtual Learning and Social Networks:
Facebook.com
Mahara.org – Open Source eportfolio and social networks

Information Literacy
4 E’s based on the 3 R’s
The ability to expose the truth, can you employ the information, writing becomes can you express it completely so your communication contains all forms of communication. The last E is ethics on the use of technology and information. Ethics should be taught starting in grades one and continued along the entire course of school.

School in 5 Years: Or where we need to be in “Warlick’s World”
Every child has a computer under their arm
The computer will look a lot like a touch sensitive device about the size of a monitor, keyboards will be in the classrooms
There will be LCDs and SMARTboards
The walls will be SMART so electronic paper will be on the walls so digital content will be on the wall and called up by the teacher (8 to 10 years)
Every teacher has 3 or 4 hours of Professional Planning Time each day – to be a 21st Century Teacher, teachers must have this time to stay up to date
Students can be online using their personal learning network 4 hours a day and with their instructor taking place the other 3 or 4 hours of the normal school day
Libraries became not just a place for the consumption but a place to work the information. Sort of a Kinko’s for Kids. Students work with the information to filter it, add to it, or in other ways massage it.
Textbooks are no longer needed – embedded and digital. Discussion boards could be embedded inside of the textbook or as a learning platform in itself.
Virtual Learning is huge and teachers could be in cubicles and not in a classroom.
Pedagogy is dead as it works on developing strategies to teach about a limited amount of content.
We have about 5 years to determine what kind of questions do we ask when students have Google in their pocket? They should have Google in their pocket.

Chat transcripts

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The New Office 2008 for Macintosh

Coming to a Macintosh in February 2008. Microsoft is introducing an entire new version of its Office Suite.

This will be a huge upgrade in not only features but look and feel. In fact it reminds me of Pages which is part of the iWork ’08 suite. Very template driven and loaded with drag and drop. I hope it plays well with network home directories as that is what we use here at school.

Microsoft Office For Mac 2008

Stay tuned.

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Technology Task Forces Proposal #3

The 3rd proposal is probably the less stressful of any proposed. It really just supports the continued investment in the tools and classrooms needed to teach in the 21st Century.

21st Century Teaching Infrastructure:
During the summer of 2007, DA began addressing some of the infrastructure needs with the installation of ceiling mounted LCD Projectors, SMARTboards, VOIP phone system and other upgrades to servers, wireless, and network security.

1. Continue outfitting classrooms with the tools of the 21st century: LCD Projectors, sound systems, recording systems and other tools as needed. Funding for curriculum specific needs will be addressed within the Curriculum Enhancement Program (formerly CIP).

2. Increase the network to accommodate present needs and the perceived needs as we bring in student laptops. Power will need to be addressed to insure we have enough places for charging to occur. Bandwidth will need to be increased so no bottlenecks slow down the learning process. In addition, DA should use its purchasing power to work with Internet Service Providers to make sure that all community members have reliable and high speed access to resources.

3. The New Durham Academy Portal must continue to aggregate the information pertinent to the different constituents within Durham Academy. Calendars, files and other resources must be accessed at one location and “pushed” to other areas to eliminate the inefficiency present in the current system.

4. Continued support of classroom digital tools so as teachers reshape their classroom, they can be assured the tools will not disappear due to lack of funding or oversight. While change is persistent with technology, upgrades should take the place of obsolescence due to lack of funding or support.

5. The position of Academic Director of Digital Learning will be added. This person is a curriculum integration specialist and not a technical person who knows how digital instruments work but not how students learn. Each division will also need a Digital Learning Coordinator to facilitate the best practices.

Where will all of this lead Durham Academy? The Technology Task Force believes it will lead us into a student centered and more authentic learning environment. Of course there will be challenges just like there was when the pen was introduced to schools and teachers swore it would be the end of writing as there was no friction.

It is our hope that the tension between teachers who believe in the traditional role of a school will be willing to take a step into the future that we are teaching our students today to prosper within.