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sgbos

Page history last edited by PBworks 16 years, 8 months ago

Sue Bos

 

Day 2 - Tuesday                                                                                                        

 

MORNING NOTES

 

Chelsea's sharing of Facebook and MySpace

  • Facebook (myspace came out first) is a social utility that connects you with the people around you
  • wall to wall, back and forth conversation/messages with other facebook people
  • photos - facebook will automaticaly reformat photos to fit the image on the page

 

Article Notes, Questions & Ideas: Immigrants vs. Natives

 

Do all Natives use a more constructivist approach to learning?

Thinking patterns have changed. Natives "think and process information differently." We know that experiences alter brain structure, so, how is this new use of technology impacting brain development and structure? 

WAYS NATIVES ARE DIFFERENT:

  • turn to interent first for gathering information
  • can multi-task and do things faster
  • prefer graphics BEFORE text
  • random access to information works better
  • function best when networked
  • want instant gratification and lots of rewards
  • prefer games to work

How can immigrants teach natives successfully? Teachers (Immigrant teachers, and, as adults who grew up in the 60's and 70's, we are all Immigrants) need to develop a whole new approach to teaching. Natives and immigrants speak a different language.  We Immigrants don't speak the language of the Natives, or even if we do, our accent is really strong.

 

What about the reduced time natives spend reading?

IDEA?  Put my science news on a wiki page instead of an the classroom easel??? (Or at least some of the news....)

 

Pensky is well known in the ed community as someone to listen to.....he is a game guy primarily

Should we be skeptical of Prensky and his approach, thinking?

 

The going faster thing is troublesome for me when thinking about special ed students.

I also keep going back to the eqaul access problem.  Are all our kids truly natives?? What about those who don't have cell phones, computers, ipods etc?

We have to teach all students, not just those who are tech-savvvy.

Prensky is suggesting that there needs to be a major shift in my approach to teaching, and I tend to think he's right, but how I can accomplish this seems like a BIG hurdle to me.

Assessment is also a big problem for me.  Our school (6-8 grades) is still in the dinosaur age of ABCDF grades.  That model of assesment doesn't seem to mesh at all with a radically different approach to teaching and learning.  ABCDF systems, and the K-6 Standards-Based Reporting system implies a given standard that students meet, or don't meet.  Constructivist and Differentiated approaches to learning can't be mearsured this way if the premise of these approaches is "start where they are at..."

 

 

CLUB PENGUIN NOTES - play.clubpenguin.com

 

  • its free
  • meant for younger kids, 2nd to 5th-ish
  • choose an avitar
  • choose a server
  • travel around and play games and chat with other visitors
  • but you don't know the visitors (unlike facebook and myspace) and seems like a kids could get sucked in for a long time into this fantasy world

 

 

AFTERNOON NOTES

 

Morning Review:

 

 

 

Issues raised by morning activities (article recap and Chelsea's visit)

  • natives vs. immigrants
  • we're all struggling immigrants
  • there's no going back, whether we like it or not (moving fast)
  • we are the "anchors in the past
  • John: spiritual losses? for his nephew (is there a place for meditative reflection?)
  • pros:
  • connection to friends, others regularly (cousins, ets.)
  • kids want to be recogninzed/known, social networking provides them with that...

    rural VT:can help build connections otherswise unaccessible

  • our kids will communicate through IM when not by phone (engaging? milti-tasking?...
  • something is workiing for them through this medium)
  • the cons were regarding TV 30 years ago; this is a bit more interactive/creative, maybe
  •  Sandy: TV, computer: Do we lose the peacefulness/quiet?  Will this generation know the difference?  What about the role of imagination?
  • the screen gives the images, (vs. reader creating images on their own....)  These images may be so unlike the images we create on our own....) e.g. Terabithia

 

 

Social Networking Tools: 

  • Club Penguin        
  • Facebook /  My Space
  • blog
  • cell phones
  • First Class            
  • texting
  • online games
  • Second Life
  • chat rooms
  • discussion lists (conferences)
  • email

 

Things we did today....

 

  • had a guest speaker in the morning: Chelsea showed us her Facebook and My Space pages/contacts
  • worked on wiki pages:  importing pictures, formatting
  • discussed our reflections on the Prensky article and our teaching
  • loaded LOTS of software (applications and programs are same)... PRIOR to lunch
  • visit to the Oak Grove and Academy School websites

 

General notes from today.... 

a wiki is a webpage

our network person should be able to link our classroom wiki to the school's website

TV show called My Name is Earl -- re social networking in today's world

Wiki pages: we can put links on our wiki page; sidebar stuff appears on every page of your wiki

(when you make a new page, keep the name short, as it will go in the address bar of your wiki webpage)

 

Hey Jane..... This is where you'll find my notes on the readings and my homework response.

 

Article Notes: Constructivism and the Five E's (the Miami Museum)

 

The Five E's

  1. Engage
  2. Explore
  3. Explain
  4. Elaborate
  5. Evaluate

 

The Seven E's

  1. Excite
  2. Explore
  3. Expand
  4. Extend
  5. Exchange
  6. Examine

 

I liked this web page (or whatever you call it) a lot, possibly because of the science perspective???  Anyway, there are lots of great things I already know that I'll want to steal to use in my classroom.  ( haven't even had a chance to thoroughly check them all out.....) One thing that I need to think more about is the idea that kids can approach a topic or concept through any one of the 5 (or 7) E's.  That is clearly a Nativistic approach that this Immigrant will need to deal with.  My teacher training taught me to try to find some kind of hook to grab students with when I'm starting a new unit.  I still think that's a good idea, so I wonder how do kids fare when they start at "exchange" or "elaborate"?  And, how can you "evaluate" or "exchange", if you haven't explored??

 

Another thing this anally oriented Immigrant teacher wonders is....Do I just put this web page of activities (or any cool website stuff)on my wiki page for students to go to when..... and when do they go there?  Would these activities be "extras" for early finishers to go to when they are done?  Or would a student learn about a topic independently, using a website like this?  I am interested in doing some work with differentiation this fall.  Using the computer, this page, and/or different websites is something I'm excited about doing, but it seems like it will take a fair amount of time to pull all this together.  Also, this is such a totally new approach, and I have so many systems already in place in my classroom (systems that I think are pretty useful and successful) that I'll need to do some major readjustments, restructuring.  At the middle level institute I attended 2 weeks ago we talked a lot about taking baby steps (ala the movie What about Bob?) when trying to introduce more differentiated instruction techniques into our teaching.  I think that's a good idea when thinking about being an Immigrant and trying to adjust my teaching to better reach Natives.

 

Article Notes: A Journey into Constructivism

 

"In constructivism I see a hidden value ascribed to the notions of diversity and adaptability, which in turn promote the root value: survival of our species. Learners who can adapt quickly by learning in a complex world are more likely to adapt to changing conditions and survive as an individual. As an insurance against our future, more capable individuals are also more likely to discover answers to the questions we haven't even thought of asking yet. A diverse population is also more likely to ensure survival in the event of unpredicted disasters, since different people may be affected differently."

 

re: Piaget's quote, it seems to me like any form of or approach to learning involves referring back to prior knowledge.... this ideas shouldn't just be ascribed to the constructivist approach..... and what is contructivist anyway, an approach, technique...???

 

Jane, this is as far as I could get on last night's homework.... not my best work.   I want to spend some time organizing my thoughts/reactions into 2 categories of reflection/response: differentiation and constructivism.  I'm hoping to get to that tonight.

 

 

Day Three - Wednesday: Photo focus.....

 

Agenda:

  • Taking, managing, cropping and resizing photos
  • Movies
  • Slideshows
  • wikis
  • documents

 

Short cut tips

    (with love from the fairies!)

cut:  apple x

copy:  apple c

paste:  apple v

new tab:  apple t

select all:  apple a

new page in browser:  apple N

undo or go back:  apple z

quit:  apple q

highlight a word:  click two times

highlight a line:  click three times

take a screen shot (camera shot of page):  apple shift 4 (this sets up the camera ) THEN, it appears on your desktop as a picture (# 1, 2, 3, etc.) OR hold control to copy for immediate paste

open in preview window on desktop:  apple o

right click on Apple: control click

 

 

Notes

 

 

WikiPage Info:

  • Wildej.pbwiki.com  -- Password: timiw
  • my wikiPage is sgbos, NOT SueB

 

For free mac software: http://www.versiontracker.com/macosx 

 

 

Firewire cables are faster than USB

 

What do we do with pictures now?

  • slideshows
  • powerpoints
  • VTS pictures
  • reports:  pics with captions
  • capture field trips
  • make class books (eg. Brown Bear)

 

To resize a bunch of photos all at once:

 

  1. select them
  2. put them in a new folder
  3. export and resize
  4. save in the folder
  5. select all in the folder
  6. hit Apple/0  ????????????

 

TIPS:

For sending images, make the longest side no more than 300 pixels

To select lots of random photos: hold Apple key while clicking

To get out of a frozen program: Apple/Option/Escape  (let go of Escape first.....)

 

 

JPEG vs. TIFF

  • TIFFs are used by professional photographers; they are BIG files, so amateurs (sp?) probably want to stick with JPEGs
  • JPEG - always photos
  • .png and .gif - are even more compressed than JPEg's;
  • cameras tend to create tiffs or jpegs; for different programs you tend to change these files to .pngs or .gifs

 

HOMEWORK: Peruse Kathy Schrock's Website

 

I spent about an hour checking out all sorts of things on this website, and going lots of other places her links brought me to.  I found it all a bit overwhelming, and had to force myself to stop (which is often the case when I'm messing around on the WWW).  One could spend an awful long time just following all the leads Kathy has assembled for educators.  Eventually I decided to add a category to my PortaPortal page to save some of the more useful sites I found.  I was really happy to find a HUGE list of different rubrics to use for all kinds of assignments.  So far that is the best stuff I found. (OK, now

 

As I was doing this, I noticed that I am beginning to use my computer a bit differently.  I have always been one of those people who need/like to write things down; I keep a teacher journal where I note down ideas I get, take notes from things I've heard or read, and even plan activities in it. This week I am beginning to sense a shift in myself, where I'm starting to use the computer more to keep notes, and keep track of things.  (Maybe I'm trying to learn the Native language???)  For instance, before this class I would have noted cool websites somewhere in my teaching journal or planbook.  Now I'm seeing that keeping these sites in my PortaPortal will be a more useful place to keep those lists.  If they are already stored somewhere on my computer, I won't have to go find my journal when I want to go to those places, I'll just jump to my PortaPortal.

 

Also, until yesterday I was keeping lots of this week's class notes in a paper notebook, as well as some notes on this page here.  But, yesterday morning I began wondering why I was keeping notes in 2 differently places.  Why not just keep all my notes here?  Then, when I need to look back for something I forgot, I only have to look in one place.  So, I am moving in that direction, but still need to have my paper notebook handy, at least for a while.

 

Another shift I'm noticing in myself happened last night.  I was reading an email from a friend who had a great gift idea for my son.  He had sent me a like to a review of a book that he knew Jonas would love.   I started to get up to find a place to note this information down, when I thought, why not start a new folder on my computer to keep these kinds of links and notes in?  So I did.  I keep thinking about how you, Jane, have been saying that you print out very little, and I think I want to move more in this direction.  The big problem I know I'll need to overcome is my fear of losing everything if something happens to my computer, if I drop it, or whatever...

 

I know this wasn't really what you wanted for homework, Jane, so I hope you'll indulge me.  This course is really changing me, and I like the change and find that I'm thinking about these changes with lots of excitement.  (I wish you could have seen me yesterday talking to Margaret Dale.  I think I overwhelmed her a little!) I did make a list of Kathy's cool sites in my PortaPortal that you can check out.

 

I sure hope you teach this class again next year.  We could all take it again next summer as phase 2 and you could offer this same course to new immigrants.

 

Day Four - Thursday

 

Agenda

 

Second Life

    9:30 - 10:30 Tour with Sadie, Emile and Poole - we will drive Poole Q and Sopea

    11:00 - 12:00 Q and A meeting with Kathy, Kyle, Desideria, Raven, Max, Teacher and Lavender - We can drive Poole Q, PooleS, Sopea, and EMile

Lunch

Quick intro to Blogs

Self-directed work

  • PortaPortal and web searches
  • Make a Blog
  • Work on Wiki
  • Work with Photos
  • Make a Movie
  • Explore the VERY BEST Math Sites

 

MORNING

 

Kathy Schrock's site

  • her way of thinking seems to match many of ours
  • very few sites didn't work
  • She has different people working to help her stay accurate
  • check out the anagram site
  • rubistar.com has lots of good rubric samples too, and you can make your own
  •  

 

SUE: Check out stickies and computer calendars and hand held things. ICal on my computer looks good.  Check this out.  I put it on my dock.

 

 

Second Life Visit

 

Visitors create an Avitar - like a second life person that represents you (Jane's is Esme

you can name yourself and choose your clothing

you land (begin) in the last place you were

Iste is a real world thing. (International Society for Technology Educators)

 

 QUESTION: Can we add clip art to our Wiki's and/or PortaPortals? (SEE BELOW Silly, We already knew how to do this.)

 

 

How to copy clip art to your hard drive

To save it to your hard drive, right click the image (if you're using a PC) or hold the CTRL key and click the image (on a Mac) for options.

How to incorporate clip art into Microsoft Word

After you have saved the image file to your hard drive, open Microsoft Word. Within Microsoft Word, click on "Insert" and select "Picture." Locate the saved clip art file on your hard drive. Clicking "Okay" will insert the picture into your document.  (Taken from the DiscoverSchool website)

 

 

Dave and I figured out how to do this while others were messing about with Second Life.  REMINDER: Use the "Insert Image" tool!

 

AFTERNOON

 

Blogs

Took a look at Emily and Chris's blog, and Jane's China Blog.

Blog vs. Wiki - other people can't add to your blog, but can comment.  With Wikis, anyone can add to your wiki.

Blogger.com - where you go to make a blog

also, try achenblog, from the Washington Post for some fun political writing.... URL -  http://blog.washingtonpost.com/achenblog/

 

Work

work on whatever we want

 

Homework

look at other classmember's Wiki's, and comment on one person's posting.

 

www.bissellwoodworking.com

 

From Molly:

 

 

Cool Kathy Schrock sites

use of digital camera in classroom:    k-12.pisd.edu/multimedia/peripherals/camera/camera.htm

monthly activity calendars:  www.enchantedlearning.com/activitycalendars/

diversity calendars:  www3.kumc.edu/diversity/

seasonal activities:  www.theideabox.com/ib.php?web=seasonal

Kathy's holiday list of sites:  school.discovery.com/schrockguide/holidays.html

Kathy's brain booster site:  school.discovery.com/brainboosters/

great anagram fun:  wordsmith.org/anagram/index.html

literacy games:  school.discovery.com/schrockguide/arts/artlit.html

bulletin boards:  school.discovery.com/schrockguide/bulletin/index.html

better bulletin boards:  www.gigglepotz.com/bulletin.htm

Equivalent Fractions game:  www.shodor.org/interactivate/activities/EquivFractionFinder/

challenging math games (lots!):  www.shodor.org/interactivate/activities/

biographies:  www.biography.com/

biographies for kids:  www.biography.com/bio4kids/index.jsp

 6 traits of writing:  www.bham.wednet.edu/BIO/TRAITS.HTM

continents maps:  www.socialstudiesforkids.com/subjects/mapsofcontinents.htm

social studies games:  www.socialstudiesforkids.com/subjects/funandgames.htm

lots of games by age/topic:  www.iknowthat.com

 

 

 

Day 5 - Friday                                                                                               

 

 Agenda

 

  • GoogleEarth
  • Google Maps
  • Other cool software and websites

 

Notes

 

Fall meeting date is Thursday Sept. 27 from 1-5,  location TBD

 

Completed the Course evaluation

Definition of Terms

  • Constructivism - the idea that students need to build their own understanding of new ideas, concepts etc through: engagement, exploration, explanation, elaboration, evaluation (these seem to mirror Eisenberg's big six - Andy)
      • constructivism doesn't really work if there isn't a skilled instructor to facilitated the elaboration and evaluaion segment
      • constructivism dovetails really well with a differentiated approach to learning; kids helping each other
      • sometimes there is a place for direct instruction
      • you still need a scaffolding of some sort (or foundation of some kind) to put the new learning on
      • constructivism falls by the wayside when time constraints surface
      • the exploratory phase doesn't necessarily have an endpoint
      • the teacher needs to be the guide on the side, the facilitator, helping them get from the explore phase into the next phase of things they need to learn
      • our task is to find the key question/s that help move kids along and to support them in this process
      • we followed the constructivist process in this class
      • lack of scaffolding limits where kids might go; they won't go places in their learning that they aren't aware exist
      • Andy and her 5/6: uses Ruby Payne (sp?) language; knowledge is power; students are empowered when they help each other, act as experts

 

  • Differentiated Instruction - individualized instruction based on where each student is at, the skill-level they are at;
    • in this class everyone grew in their understanding and use of technology, but we all began at a different place/level, and ended up at different places
    • risk-taking is an important consideration, as is honoring students' comfort level
    • true differentiation allows kids to level on their own, vs. teacher designed leveled-groups
    • give kids a chance to teach and learn from each other
    • b

 

We should have more of these projection IMacs in our classrooms

 

Google Earth Exploration

 

VT Grade Level Expectations

 

Below is a place to look for classroom activities.  JW says people are always talking about this; it is not grade or subject specific

 

  Educational Technology Performance TasksClicking this link will open a PDF document. Adobe Reader is required. To download a FREE version of Adobe Reader, click on the yellow Get Acrobat Reader icon toward the bottom of page.

Designed to support the Technology Grade Expectations (GEs), these content-neutral tasks can support classroom level determination of students’ knowledge and skills related to the GEs. The original performance tasks, created by a group of teachers in the northwestern part of Vermont through support from VITA-Learn, were the foundation for the Technology Grade Expectations. These revised tasks will be supplemented with “model” tasks geared toward numerous grade levels and content areas in summer 2005.

 

Below is what we looked at today.  The first nine pages are useless.

  Information Technology Grade ExpectationsClicking this link will open a PDF document. Adobe Reader is required. To download a FREE version of Adobe Reader, click on the yellow Get Acrobat Reader icon toward the bottom of page.

A grade expectation (GE) is a stated objective that relates directly to a Vermont standard and associated evidences. A GE differentiates performance on content knowledge or skills between adjacent grade levels and describe clearly what students will do to show that they understand a designated concept. As a set, GEs should lead to focused, coherent, and developmentally appropriate instruction without narrowing the curriculum and can be used for local curriculum and assessment development.

 

 

Page 10 and 11 are the most important pages.  Put these in a prominent spot.  They are the things we need to be referring to.

 

THE 5 MAIN CATEGORIES:

  1. Basic Operations and Concepts
  2. Social, Ethical and HuMan Issues
  3. Productivity Tools
  4. Communication
  5. Research, Problem Solving and Decision Making

 

 

Handy Tips!

 

Jane's favorite tools to have open in:

  • microsoft word -ormatting, standard & drawing
  • excel - standard, formatting and formula

 

Microsoft Word Tips:

 

to keep photos in proportion: when you are clicking on it to change size hold down the shift key while you're dragging (this is useful once you get the photo close to the size you want it to be.)

to get the photo close to the size you want it, go to VIEW

 

WORDART - in the panel on the left, the little blue A

 

There is a little WordArt box to help edit things.

 

When the hand is showing, you can move the picture, WordArt or whatever

to arrange in Word, go to the draw tool on the left hand side tool bar.  You'll get a box that has the arrange feature listed

 

group vs. arrange

  • arrange - taking different layers and moving them back to front or vice versa; think of them as transparencies that you can stack on one another
  • group - taking a bunch of layers and gluing them to each other so they don't move

 

 

Put photos into your Word document by:

  • dragging the photo from IPhoto onto your document page
  • if you can't move it, double click on the picture, and you get the dog thing.  click on the "in front of text" dog

 

 

NeoOffice vs. Microsoft Word

  • NeoOffice = free
  • Word = 400+

When you're taking a snapshot, you are actually creating a .png (portable network graphic)- SO, you may need to add this as an extension on the file name.  

 

To change your text box:

  • get rid of black box double click on the line and you get your Format Text Box.

 

If you send documents from a mac that people who have PC's can't open, tell them to drag the file to their desktop and add .doc.

 

PDF's

  • stands for portable document format
  • once you change something to PDF, you can't change it back
  • everyone can read them via Acrobat Reader, so you use them to send to people who may not have the same programs you do.
  • to save as a PDF:
    • go to print and choose the PDF option in the lower left-hand corner

 

Rubistar - rubric making web site.  You don't have to register; you can just make rubrics without signing in, BUT, if you want to keep your rubrics there, you can sign in.  If you don't register, the rubrics you create will go away.

 

URL - http://rubistar.4teachers.org/index.php

 

 

Why reinvent the wheel?

 

 

4 Teachers   -  Another really great site -    -     http://4teachers.org/

 

Comments (3)

Anonymous said

at 2:25 pm on Jul 12, 2007

Hi Sue: Thanks for taking such great notes! If you don't mind, I'd like to copy them into my notes doc.

I agree that it would be GREAT to do this course again next year. Thee's so much to learn, and so much that will be different.

Anonymous said

at 9:03 pm on Jul 12, 2007

Hey Sue,
I forgive you for peaking. That's really cool about using the laptop to take notes about things like a present for your son. They're perfect for that. Mary Clare (that's my daughter) was just watching me do my homework and asking about the stuff we've been doing in class and she said "I can't believe you are taking a class for that when you could just figure it out yourself". Isn't that funny?

Anonymous said

at 9:49 pm on Jul 12, 2007

Hi Sue - I also have had the portaportal management question in the back of my head - but figured it would all come together somehow. I DO know that I would have to introduce places to the younger students slowly and showing them how to navigate - but as I write this I wonder if even that is true...my kindergartners played learning games on the computer that I was clueless about - either they figured out how to navigate them myself or asked a friend.

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