Category Archives: Thoughts

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Learning Projects from the MS Digital Learning Labs

In the last month, the digital learning labs have been a very busy place for students and teachers. Early May found eighth grade students working with Mrs. Birgel and Ms. Kim Arrington (Artist-in-Residence) as we worked with students on multimedia projects based on The Life of Pi book they had read. Students created ID Poems and Vox Pops using many software and hardware tools.

As this creative project came to a close, students in Sr. Glass and Sra. Harrell’s 6th grade Spanish classes learned about one of Spain’s most famous poets and playwrights, Federico García Lorca. The culmination of the unit was for the students to create a podcast on his poem, “Canción del jinete”. In the podcast, they recite and illustrate the poem with images that they believe capture the poem’s essence.

This week, Mrs. Hall’s 5th grade students finished their 20th Century History Podcasts which began 3 weeks ago in the Library with Mrs. Longee. Students worked in teams to research and write scripts (reports) to record. Images were used to illustrate their reports along with proper citation.

These projects represent a wonderful illustration of the digital learning that can happen with the software and hardware tools we have available today. As I told the students in each class though, without a script or report, all you have is dead air. Research, writing, recording, illustrating, citing, and preparing products that will live outside of Durham Academy are central to providing a 21st Century learning experience. The critical element of engagement was present in all students as they worked to create their masterpiece. Bravo to all!

All projects and many others are available at http://web.me.com/damiddleschool/MS_08_09/Home.html

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When the Shelf is Emptied and Learning Leaps

In February I wrote about shelf technology where I lamented the lack of integration of many of the tools we have at the ready for our students. I have had a wonderful week working with Kate Birgel, (8th grade Language Arts) and Kim Arrington (Artist-in-Residence) as we worked with students on multimedia projects based on The Life of Pi book they had read.

We used all of the “shelf technology” plus some last minute software tools that solved a need we discovered we had.

Idpeoms540

ID Poems: Check them out at our Digital Locker
Write a poem that communicates who you are and how you have transformed as Pi transforms.

* What’s in your name? You may look up the origin of your name http://babynamesworld.parentsconnect.com/ to add to this activity.
* What does your name mean to you?
* What power do names hold?

Construct your poem as follows:
I am _____________
I am Favorite Animal
I am Favorite Candy
I am Favorite Color
I am Favorite Season
I am Favorite Clothing
I am like Pi….
My Favorite Quote
Name Meaning

Voppox540

Vox Pops: Check them out at our Digital Locker
Collectively the groups came up with at least 3 questions about one of the themes in the book. They then took turns recording each member’s response to the question. These are recorded, edited, and uploaded. In addition to audio Vox Pops, students documented the process with video cameras.

Themes for Vox Pops

* Storytelling
* Find Self
* Man vs. Nature
* Human Relationships
* God/Religion
* Man’s Inherent Nature
* Man’s will to live
* Good vs. Evil
* Rebirth

I am a proud and grateful teacher and happy that we had the shelves stocked.

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iTouch the Future of Learning – Says Who?

Last week I co-hosted an event at Durham Academy sponsored by the North Carolina Association of Independent Schools. The conference theme was on Blended Learning – When Brick and Mortar meets Virtual. We had a great crowd and I believe the day went well. There are many resources on the wiki so take a look.

We gave the participants an iPod Touch loaded with apps and no one asked how to use it? At least no one said, how am I supposed to start using this thing? What I saw was teachers, administrators, board members just sliding the unlock button and start using it. This is different from when we did a panel discussion and the first question was how to start using a blended learning environment. Just start is the best answer.

I sent the list of iTouch apps that Apple had installed to a teacher at the Upper School who has shown, shall I say, a strong desire to use this tool with his AP Physics students. I have written about him before but this is a classic. He took the list of apps and put them on his iTouch. He found many errors so he told the programmer. Here is a transcript of sorts as I have deleted out the name of the application to protect the person who is creating it and too keep my lawyers happy.

Dear Folks,  I just purchased ++++++++++ from the Apps Store.  I went to the physics section and was, simply put, disappointed and pretty shocked.  You have quite a number of errors or over simplifications of concepts that make the formulas simply wrong or misleading.

1. Your formula for force is stated as F=ma.  Actually, the formula is Fnet=ma.  This is not a trivial point since in any situation where more than one force acts on an object (many, MOST, situations) ma equals the vector sum of all the forces, i.e. Fnet.

2. Your formula for weight states that “g” is “gravity.”  This may sound picky, but “g” does NOT stand for gravity (which is a force) but rather the ACCELERATION DUE TO GRAVITY.  I believe your statement would be much better if you said “g is the acceleration due to gravity.”

3. Your “formula” for Gravity is stated as g=9.8 m/s.  This is incorrect on two fronts.  If you want to give the simple formula for the force of gravity it would be Fgravity = mg…not g=9.8 m/s!  Also, g (as I stated in #2) stands for the ACCELERATION DUE TO GRAVITY.  The acceleration due to gravity at the surface of the earth is 9.8 m/s/s or 9.8 m/s^2.  You have the wrong units for g, the acceleration due to gravity!  m/s is speed.  m/s/s is acceleration.  By the way, you will notice that the formula for Weight and the formula for the Force of gravity are the same…mg.  This is because, as long as you are not accelerating, such as in an elevator or a roller coaster, the force of gravity down on you will equal the force of a scale up on you so that you do not move. Scales read your weight.

4. Your formula for “Gravitation,” which is Newton’s more complex and general formula for Gravity, is TOTALLY wrong and confusing to boot.  You have written it as…”6.67 x 10^-11 Nm^2/kg^2.  Newton’s General Formula for the force of Gravitation is: Fgravitation = Gm1m2/r^2  where G is the Universal Gravitational Constant and is equal to 6.67 x 10^-11 Nm^2/kg^2.

So, your formula for Gravitation is actually just the value for G (number and units)!  G is just one part of the whole formula used to calculate the force of gravity between two objects, m1 and m2   a distance, r, apart. For example, this formula could be used to find the force of gravity by the sun on the earth.

5. Your “Basic eq’s of Motion” lists 4 formulas on one screen with a very rudimentary explaination-to the point of almost being useless.

I am a physics teacher.  (Maybe you guessed that by my comments!) I have encouraged my students to download your app as I thought it would be a nice resource for all the relationships we use in the study of nature through the “prince of sciences”.  Your app is significantly deficient in the number of physics formulas it covers and it is very disappointing to see the very poor proof reading that went into those formulas.  Just for fun, I have attached a formula sheet I use in my classes for Mechanics.  I hope they offer you a glimpse of what your app could do if more time were spent refining it-at least in the physics section.

I’m really not trying to be obnoxious here and I certainly don’t take any delight in telling you about all your mistakes.  But, I am now in a situation where my students have a ticking time bomb app on their iphones and itouches.  I will correct what you have written for them, but it would be very nice if you repaired these formulas.  It would, as a minimum, save you from having to receive harangues from physics “know it alls” like me. 🙂

Sincerely, Louis Parry

This of course leads to a major concern as to whether the applications being written are akin to what wikipedia once was for some folks. Who are the folks writing these applications?

What follows is the response from the creator of the application:

Mr. Parry:

Thank you for sending me these vital corrections. 

To begin, I completely understand your frustration and anger – you and your students have paid for an app, and with it should come the most correct information. I apologize for failing to do so. I am, myself, a high school student, and I am constantly refining ++++++++++ for maximum accuracy. Having physics next semester, using any of these “formulas” would land me a lost credit.

All of these inaccuracies will be changed immediately, and will add/remove/correct/change as per your attached PDF. Expect an update within the week (Apple takes around that long to approve app updates.) 

Thank you very much for the heads-up: you have gone a long way to improve the app for everyone. Please keep in touch if you would like any additional formulas added or have more comments. I would be delighted to send you some promo codes so more of your students could download +++++++++ free of charge. Just shoot me an email.

B.

Lou just shared with me that he is helping him to understand the formulas. That is how we will teach in the future, no one will know who is the expert but we will all be responsible for fact checking and helping to improve each others work.

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Romeo and Juliet Project = Tears of Joy

Every year it seems that a student who I am lucky enough to teach reminds me why I am a Digital Learning Coordinator. This year, Matthew A. showed me what happens when students are given a challenge, some limited instruction, the gift of time, and the opportunity to learn and instruct with their Whole Mind by Daniel Pink. I worked with our faculty last June to delve into this book and ideas for classroom. Mrs. Birgel was there and has applied the ideas of design, story, symphony, empathy, play and meaning into her teaching. I believe that Matthew’s project demonstrates most of the themes. Can you see them with your mind?

Background: Matthew is new to our school this year and I had not really had the chance to work with him. He is a good student but quiet in how he goes about his day. In many schools, students like this become invisible. I wondered about Matthew as I did not know his story. While I do not yet know his whole story, I do know that his mind is capable of the themes Daniel Pink discusses. He worked hard on this project with very little (I mean little) help from me other then showing him a tool or a trick (Alpha channel in Keynote). The rest he did with dedication and the sticktoitness of a digital engaged learner.

The tools he used were: Keynote, Skitch, Garageband, Paper (Romeo and Juliet were drawn by hand an scanned using a Scan Snap 300), and of course our Moodle Blended Learning Environment where he shared his project as a QuickTime movie for his classmates.

Watch this project and learn about Romeo and Juliet Act 2 – Scene 2 as well as how our students are using their whole mind to learn
Rjmatt
.

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Understanding Digital Kids – A Day with Ian Jukes

I was fortunate to hear Ian Jukes speak at http://ncaistech.wikispaces.com/NCAISTECH2009. I have enjoyed listening to Ian and this time I also was able to talk with him after the conference for over an hour as part of NCAIS C.O.T. His handouts are available at his site.

I was very interested in his brain research and how it impacts our students. It is amazing to me that schools are not paying as much attention to this as needed.

He suggests the following remedies:
1. It is time for educators to catch up. I have heard for over 16 years the refrain of “I am just not good with technology”. Truth is you must be better then you think as what aspect of your life has not changed in the last 16 years? Still standing in line to deposit your paycheck or get cash?

2. Teachers Must Teach to the Whole Mind: If you have not read Daniel Pink’s A Whole New Mind.

Why should I list them here: Get his handout and read it as we all need to Understand Digital Kids. As Ian would say, taking notes while he is speaking is so 20th Century!

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Creating Learning Studios – Live Blog

At NCAIS Tech Conference in a session called Creating Learning Studios with Matt Scully http://pdsblogs.org/mattscully/

He is giving his background and introducing how he is now teaching a Middle School English class and realized that he needed to start over with his thinking and teaching.

Quick Quotes: “What is the point?” – Jonathan Zittrain, “Part of living is working but we need to prepare students for living” – Guy Kawasaski, “Need to create ecosystem for innovation to solves world’s problems” – Thomas Friedman, “Give your works wings; it has to live outside of this classroom, not just die here”, Marco Antonio Torres

The concept of Learning Studio is from Marco Antonio Torres. Matt showed a video done by a student in Marco’s class. It was about a person who could not speak English who ate coffee and donuts until he heard someone order ham and eggs. He wrote it down in his notebook and the next day ordered ham and eggs. I will look for the video although it is a huge metaphor for how we learn and how teachers adopt new tools. If you are happy with a diet of coffee and donuts, you will not be listening when someone orders “ham and eggs”.

There are many authors: Robinson, Pink, Kawasaki, Wagner, Shirky, Gardner, et al, claim that change is needed. This is Matt’s story of how he has attempted to infuse the ideas of these authors.

Tidbits:

Education Week: Backers of ’21st-Century Skills’ Take Flak (“There is a reason teachers have been taught for 75 years to do projects with their students and they don’t do them”.

All of his students have blogs
He uses RSS readers to evaluate
He just got a iPhone – showed video of app called Brushes – $4.99

How Tools:
He balances the work time between instruction and Learning Studio time. He has had to scale back on what he thought he would do. He also pledged not to give them busy work if they pledged to not give him any half-baked work from them.

PDS teacher created a Scarlet Letter Ning – all students are in the Ning in character (one for each class and is private so only class members can access)
TKAM (To Kill a Mockingbird) projects – Must explore a theme, must have a plot, must live beyond the classroom, and must include a write up. (Photo journal, Comic Strips, Character Blog, PowerPoint on why it was written, wiki comparing TKAM and Lord of the Rings, News cast that featured and ending with banter by the anchors remembering a book they read in Middle School, many different types of projects. This is where it can get messy.
RSS Reader – iGoogle for checking posts
Shared Online Apps – Google Docs, Revision History for collaborative writing for who did what and a timeline of when.
Personal Learning Network

“Who ever does the work, does the learning!”

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Telling the Story of Romeo and Juliet

Mrs. Birgel and I started to work with the students on the Romeo and Juliet project. It involves giving students the creative license to retell an Act from a Scene. They are working either alone or in pairs and choose the Act and Scene by “claiming it” in the Moodle discussion forum so all classmates can see what is open. Of course there are scenes available for extra credit.

So far students are using the following software tools:

Garageband to record
Skitch to illustrate their recordings
iMovie to record a narration with video (video shot with the Flip Mino HD)

Students Recording

iChat to create a chat sequence. Screenshots are being taken to compile into Keynote. I have to let the students use my computers so they can get around the filter and blocking to make it happen. They also knew how to do the rest. I call this the learning back story or the learning that happens outside of the classroom. Most teachers are never aware of its existence although some are beginning to harness it into their Moodle courses.

Romeo 4

Scratch to create their Romeo and Juliet game
Comic Life to create comics to be used in Keynote or for print
Keynote for presentations which will become QuickTime Videos

So far students are using the following hardware tools
Flip Mino HD to shoot scenes
Logitech headsets

The reason this is so awesome for me is because of Daniel Pink’s book Whole New Mind as we are touching on the elements he discusses.

Last week I was having these same students take a Technology Assessment at Atomic Learning based on the NETS standards. Once they took it, they then started to work on creating their digital portfolio which will consist of a Word, Excel and PowerPoint document. Not my choices but are desired by the Upper School to show that students are capable of handling the curriculum from a technology point of view. If students complete all of the elements successfully, they will be exempt from taking any technology courses for the next four years. I only hope they get to work with a teacher like Mrs. Birgel who will employ creative projects that demonstrate all aspects of learning and the mind.

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iPod Touch + Kindle Software – Like Magic

WOW,
I read the posts and thought big deal. Over lunch (that is 10 minutes in teacher time), I downloaded, registered my iPod Touch and had the preview of Disrupting Class : How Disruptive Innovation Will Change the Way the World Learns (Kindle Edition) on my Touch. It was all down with Whispersync and is almost like magic.

Like Arthur C. Clarke formulated the following three “laws” of prediction:

1. When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.
2. The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.
3. Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clarke%27s_three_laws

The addition of the Kindle app and what else I have blogged about regarding these devices, leads me to be very excited about the near future of technology and our students.

During Mrs. Birgel’s class I found the link at Apple Learning Interchange on how the iPod Touch can touch a students world.
http://edcommunity.apple.com/ali/story.php?itemID=16472

We are at a great time for learning.

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Who is the Teacher Here?

A long weekend reveals these gems from my “students”.

Dear Mr. Schaefer,
Thank you so much for converting my MPEGs to DVs! I couldn’t have done my Independent Project without you! I really appreciate it! I hope you enjoy my picture of you working on my movie- I did it on Skitch!
Thank you,
Amanda

Amanda Jowell
Ryan created a tutorial of images on how to use the My Files.

Ryanexplainshomedirectory-2

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The Saga of Shelf Technology

Dsc01661 AlphaSmarts waiting the call
Dsc01664 iPods with Belkin Tune Talks ready for action
Dsc01663 Camcorders and Tripods rested and charged

I am guilty of stretching too far in what I want to do with our students as that is my nature. There is a fine balance between having the technology tools on hand for when I get to work with teachers and students, and having it on a shelf laying fallow. I suppose it has to do with the downturn in the economy and how I must approach my purchasing decisions that I am seeing things differently. Maybe it is the book I am reading by Thomas Friedman Hot, Flat and Crowded and how I think the culture of consumerism is unsustainable that has sparked these thoughts. I think the reflection and contemplation is a great turn of events as I am applying it in all areas of my life. I am by nature a gadget hound that often is the first person at my school to get a new device. I do this as part of my job so I know I must keep us at the forefront of learning devices and strategies. Those who know me know I am an Apple Fan Boy. I am also now known as “The Moodle Guy” so I go with the best tool for the task at hand.
What I am realizing is that there is far too much time that technology tools sit on a shelf waiting to be used for a class project. How do I combat this shelving of technology? Recruit and help teachers integrate more or is it a natural shift in what happens in education. Will I need more of fewer shelfs in the future?

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