Author Archives: kschaefer

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Global Connections At DA

As Durham Academy works on developing an enhanced global program as part of our strategic plan, it is great to know we have folks who are already investigating resources. I have been involved with The UNITE Project since 2003. I hope to take students to Uganda in 2009 so the can meet the students and tour the schools that our efforts have built. They will also be able to go on a safari at Queen Elizabeth National Park.

While at the Laptop Institute in Memphis, I learned about a Global Social Networking site organized and run by students. TakingITGlobal. This site will allow students, teachers and schools connect to projects around the world.

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Upper School Teacher, Tina Bessias traveled to Egypt this summer to attend the iEARN annual conference. Following is her post to the faculty.

There’s an organization called iEARN, the International Education and Resource Network, that held its annual conference in Cairo this summer. I attended it and would like to share information about it with any division or group of teachers who is interested. Our school will be joining in in the next few weeks, and I’ll send out login information when it’s available. There’s much you can see now, though, if you go to the web site: http://www.iearn.org/ The organization facilitates collaborative projects between classes of students at all grade levels, including a teddy bear exchange, discussions of heroes and war experiences, comparing chemical analyses of river water, and lots of other topics.

My message about my summer grant experience also mentioned Just Vision: http://justvision.org and the documentary, Encounter Point, about Palestinian and Israeli peacemakers: http://encounterpoint.com

And just for good measure, here are a few more links:
Yad Vashem, the Jerusalem holocaust museum: http://www.yadvashem.org
the News Hour profile of poet Agi Mishol: http://www.pbs.org/newshour/indepth_coverage/entertainment/poetry/profiles/poet_mishol.html
the Bible Lands Museum: http://www.blmj.org/

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Do Schools Kill Creativity?

I guess if I am asking the question, I might have a bias. Michael Ulku-Steiner from the Upper School sent me this great link. Sir Ken Robinson discussed this at TED (Technology, Entertainment and Design) in 2006. Watch the video and tell me what you think. Who is Sir Ken Robinson? From the TED website: “Creativity expert Sir Ken Robinson challenges the way we’re educating our children. He champions a radical rethink of our school systems, to cultivate creativity and acknowledge multiple types of intelligence”.

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When to use Wikis, Blogs or Fourms

From September 2006, I have moved this from my old blog on Moodle.

I have been listening to David Warlick\’s podcast on 1 to1 laptop programs where he is conducting a round table discussion on various Web 2.0 topics. He points out this information on when to use a Wiki, Blog or a Forum. I think his information is right on so I thought I would scribe it here. Of course you can just got to his podcast and download episode #67 and listen for yourself. It is about 7 minutes into the podcast.

Wikis: “Usually a small group of people working together to build a collaborative document that will help that small group of people”. Used to publish a collective of pages or material verses dated material which is how Blogs are constructed around a dated time line. Wikis are also easily formatted into a single page if needed. Wikis also have a history button so you can see what has been taking place since the wiki page was started and who is contributing to the continued creation of the content. If this is a class assignment, you can easily see how students are contributing. The creation of a “Digital Artifact” as one person says.

Blogs: They are a publishing event so it should represent the “best work” of the author. A more formal publishing event. Blogs are individual entries with comments. Useful for dated material with comments that will include time stamps with a more personal sharing aspect.

Forums/Discussions: These are used best for posing questions or getting feedback from students that will move a conversation forward. It is a conversational tone and not well formatted or sometimes well thought out.

Great descriptions on these technologies. Thanks David.

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Google Docs and Web 2.0 Tools

This is a wonderful example of how the Web 2.0 or The Read/Write web as Will Richardson calls it, can transform education by eliminating boundaries. The latest issue of MacWorld lists the top 10 trends of 2007. Number 4 is “The Net as Computer” by Lisa Schmeiser. She discusses Office 2.0 and by this she means what happened when Yahoo offered free e-mail accounts and how it started to change where and how people worked.
Check out a database of web-based Office 2.0 aps. Three notable ones include gOFFICE and Zoho and Joyent. All of them offer on-line tools that could replace local applications if users have constant on Internet access.

How will this impact our educational program in 2007 and beyond? Some students already use Google Docs so the future is closer then anyone thinks.

Since I first posted this in December of 2006, more students are using these tools. In fact, I am trying to get all students setup with a Google account so they can use them.

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Video Games in Schools (NCETC 2006)

I first posted this in November of 2006 in the Moodle. I moved it here for a large audience.

David Warlick is presenting a session on A Beginners Introduction to Games and Learning here at NCETC. Handouts are at his handout wiki. Video Games are an interesting issue for me as I see students coming to the lab at lunch to get on a computer so they can play games. Runescape is huge and I see students working together to get into the same game and then helping each other play. While this game site may be against the Acceptable Use Code of DA, I am fascinated by how students are collaborating and problem-solving for the 15 minutes they have after lunch. It seems to be mostly 5th and 6th grade students. Linerider as of late is very popular as students tend to use it for two purposes. One purpose is to make really complex lines that the rider must ride that incorporate loops and jumps. A different approach is to create lines that end with the line rider crashing. Guess which ones boys do the most and which ones girls do the most. This is not a scientific study but a casual observation as I walk around the labs at lunch time. How can we harness the benefits of games in an educational setting? David said that a study has found that those of us who are over 35 years old are only 10% likely to play games.

This topic is of importance as students are engaged and interested in gaming at school. The Serious Games Initiative is a place to start looking at how we might incorporate games. Peacemakergame is a game created in conjunction with Carnegie Mellon University.

Since my first post I also heard about Tabula Digita which uses Algebra in a game. Games are more sticky then some classes for students these days.

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First Published at NCETC in 2006

I moved this from my Moodle Blog so a larger audience can see it.

David Warlick again takes a hard topic and makes it easy to understand. His introduction to wikis was interactive as he had us work on a wiki as we were active learners. Check out my notes.

I am now in Patrick Crispen’s Complete and Total Waste of Time.

Zombo.com is a web site where you can do everything you want.

Pandora.com is really useful if you like to listen to music. This site will allow you to create a web-based radio station based on artists you like. Check it out.

Makebigpictures.com – This site with a sort of bad name that means to Rasterize and images. It allows you to upload images and create multipage blow-up of the image.

FreeplayMusic.com is a great site to get royalty-free short background pieces of music for movie projects as long as you do not make the finished project public.

Tiny URL.com will allow you to take a long URL and make it small.

Concert Ticket Generator will allow you to create realistic concert tickets. Could be useful to make tickets for events in a classroom.

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Interactive Mapping

I have just finished reading an article in Learning and Leading with Technology, August 2007 called Creating and Sharing Interactive Maps by Glen Bull. I have enjoyed his writing for years and am excited to try his ideas out this year. He discusses how the use of Google Maps with place markers can allow visitors to follow along with a trip. I thought about how I could do this at the Middle School so when David Glass mentioned he would like to work with me more this year to integrate technology into his teaching of Spanish, a light bulb went off. Then David said he uses geography of Spain to teach which put me in a full blown solar meltdown. I am very excited to get to work on learning how to do this project so I can be ready in September.

Some links from Glen’s article are:
America’s Highway: Oral Histories of Route 66

US Literary Map Project

The use of free tools along with the ability to share and put a face, a place, and a description, will help to make the courses come alive.

I spoke with David today and look forward to learning more about what he does and how we can map it together. Now that is mapping the curriculum!

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New Teachers Trained

After 2 days or 6.5 hours, we have trained the new faculty on their new laptops. This was the best session we have ever done since we used The DAILE Moodle along with our new Web Portal. Even though we had to move out of the Hock Center because there was no AC, we managed to get it all done.

Kudos to Tina, Michele, and Liz for their help.

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My Reflections on The Laptop Institute

I have enjoyed my time at the conference and have learned some new things that will lead us to the future:
For more posts, check out http://vvrotny.edublogs.org/

  1. There is no perfect 1 : 1 program as each school has had struggles with parents, teachers and sometimes students.
  2. Focus on the Learning and Engagement and not the technology (Durham Academy Digital Learning Initiative) DADLI not DEADLI
  3. Develop a group/cohort to move it forward and support teachers how ever you can
  4. Urban School and Maine seem to have the most solid approaches with respect to how best to do it.
  5. There is no doubt we need to do a digital device.
  6. What we do now will change from what we start with so we must remain flexible
  7. The landscape for both devices and e-books is dynamic
  8. Professional Development is critical
  9. Leadership is essential as there will be folks who want to jump in, some who need convincing, and others who plan to retire or corrupt the program.

I think we need to bring more folks to this conference next year.

PS: I have used ecto for all of this posting and love it.