Clif's Notes » Technology Integration

The International Student Media Festival

Clif — Sat, 26 Jun 2010 19:32:06 +0000

The International Student Media Festival celebrates outstanding classroom media projects. Students and teachers from kindergarten through college are honored in a three-day event that includes workshops, screenings of winning entries, and an awards ceremony. It has now grown to be one of the oldest and largest events of its kind. ISMF has been sponsored since 1974 by the Association for Educational Communications & Technology (AECT).

Projects are judged in categories including Live Action video, Sequential Stills slideshows, Interactive Stills, Photography, Web Design, Podcasts, and Animation.

The festival is usually three to four days long and is jam packed with hands-on, creative learning experiences for students, teachers, and parents. Various workshops for all ages are offered by our Corporate Partners throughout the festival. In the past we’ve offered workshop topics such as Adobe Photoshop Elements, iMovie, claymation, Garageband, and many more! (Workshops are subject to change each year).

There is also an awards ceremony during the festival where students are recognized for their achievements. Outstanding projects will receive an Excellence in Media Production award. From these, we cull out Judges’ Favorites and the highly-acclaimed Best of Festival designation. (Content and Image Source: ISMF.net)

Learn more about the ISMF and submit your entries.

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End of Ed. Tech. Course Student Reflection

Clif — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 22:15:33 +0000

This is a really promising start for this future teacher. Kudos to AllyBii and her teacher(s).

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Multiple Representations of Understanding through Digital Media (TAISTI)

Clif — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 13:00:17 +0000

I’m back in Nashville today for the TAIS Technology Institute. I’m excited about having opportunities to work with and learn from classroom teachers, media specialists, administrators, and more. I’ll be sharing a workshop on Multiple Representations of Understanding through Digital Media. The PowerPoint presentation is below and the full workshop notes are available on my wiki. Note that the links and logos in the PowerPoint presentation are clickable.

View more presentations by Clif Mims.

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Web 2.0 Technologies for Elementary and Middle School Classrooms

Clif — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 22:09:56 +0000

These are the slides for today’s presentation at the NCTIES Conference. Examples of how both teachers and students have used these tools are included. The full set of notes and resources from this session are available on the wiki. Thanks to everyone that attended, participated, tweeted, shared resources and ideas, etc.

View more presentations by Clif Mims.

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Multiple Representations of Understanding through Digital Media (NCTIES)

Clif — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 11:40:14 +0000

I’m enjoying the North Carolina Technology in Education Society’s 2010 Conference in Raleigh, NC. I’m excited about being one of the featured speakers and having opportunities to work with and learn from classroom teachers, media specialists, administrators, and more.

Today I’ll be sharing a pre-conference workshop on Multiple Representations of Understanding through Digital Media. This energetic session will demonstrate that with freely available digital technologies students can demonstrate their understanding of course content in multiple ways (images, audio, video, presentations, artwork, and more). Each student’s end product (learning artifact) allows them to personally self-express their understanding/mastery of the content/skills. Although teachers may not be comfortable using all of today’s technology it is important to consider allowing students to use it to communicate their understanding as they are often more naturally able to more fully express themselves with digital media. The PowerPoint presentation is below and the full workshop notes are available on my wiki. Note that the links and logos in the PowerPoint presentation are clickable.

View more presentations by Clif Mims.

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Integrating Computer Games

Clif — Sat, 27 Feb 2010 15:00:02 +0000

Creating game-based learning environments or experiences using commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) games is becoming an increasingly tenable, valuable, and popular instructional method. COTS games are computer or video games created for entertainment purposes. A few popular examples are SimCity, Age of Empires, ZooTycoon, and Railroad Tycoon.

My good friend Dennis Charsky invited me to co-author Integrating Commercial off-the-Shelf Video Games into School Curriculum. Ten suggestions to help educators effectively integrate COTS games are shared in this research article. Below is an overview along with a few notes from this publication.

10 Things To Do When Integrating a Commercial off-the-Shelf Video Gam

View more presentations from Clif Mims.

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NCTIES Conference

Clif — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 06:00:07 +0000

I’m looking forward to being part of the North Carolina Technology in Education Society’s 2010 Conference in Raleigh, NC on March 3-5, 2010. I’m excited about being one of the featured speakers and having opportunities to work with and learn from classroom teachers, media specialists, administrators, and more. On Wednesday (03/03/2010) I’ll be sharing a pre-conference workshop on Multiple Representations of Understanding through Digital Media. Thursday and Friday mornings I’ll be leading interactive demonstrations and discussions about Web 2.0 tools and personal learning networks (PLNs) in the classroom.

I’m looking forward to meeting many of my friends from my blog, Twitter, Plurk, etc. in Raleigh!

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Professional Development Partnership with MASE

Clif — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 02:30:53 +0000

I taught a professional development workshop this afternoon in which we kicked-off an ongoing conversation about Instructional Design in the Digital Age. This was the first workshop in a two year project with the Memphis Academy of Science and Engineering — a 6th-12th grade charter school with a high school 1:1 laptop program. The primary goal of this on-going project is to enhance learning and increase student motivation throughout the school. Instructional design (data-driven decision making, lesson planning, team/ grade level/ departmental planning, curriculum mapping/ alignment, scope and sequencing, and more) and technology integration (especially free Web 2.0 tools) will be key components of the workshops and instructional coaching this spring semester and during the summer (I’ll share more about this in my next post).

I enjoyed the entire event. The faculty actively engaged in the discussions and activities and helped me better understand some of the ways that they’d like to grow and improve over the course of this project. The were friendly, respectful and receptive. Many expressed eagerness to learn particular technologies that they already desire to integrate in their classes.

I am PUMPED about beginning this partnership!

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Publishing to AudioBoo from a Web Browser

Clif — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 15:30:07 +0000

Our kids and I have a lot of fun with AudioBoo. AudioBoo is a service that makes podcasting and audio blogging a snap and can positively impact your classroom (See previous posts1, 2, 3 and 4). Although the service has previously pretty much been limited to iPhone users it is now available to everyone. Here’s a screencast demonstrating how to use their recently released BrowserBoo feature which makes it possible to record to AudioBoo through any web browser.

Here’s the sample Boo that I created during the screencast above.

Listen!

You can browse through my AudioBoo profile page to look through many other examples of boos that the kids and I have published.

I strongly encourage all teachers to take a look at AudioBoo. Whether or not you choose to use it as a teacher I believe there are students in your classroom that would enjoy using it and benefit from engaging this learning modality.

Sign-up for your AudioBoo account, friend me and other educators, and begin enjoying the valuable contributions this can bring you and your students.

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Free Apple Seminar for Educators

Clif — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 12:00:30 +0000

Reaching All Learners:
The event for forward-thinking education and IT leaders

Monday, February 8, 2010
9:00 AM – 2:30 PM
The University of Memphis, FedEx Institute of Technology

At this interactive event, you will have the opportunity to experience a digital learning environment first hand and see how Apple technologies can help you meet the diverse needs of today’s learners, including those with special education and language literacy needs.

Who Should Attend?
This event is designed to host leadership teams from your school district or private institution: Superintendents, Curriculum Supervisors, Board of Education members, Special Education Directors, Title I Directors, and Education Information Technology professionals.

Full details and registration is here.

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I Need My Teachers To Learn 2.0

Clif — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 03:58:13 +0000

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Planning District-Wide Technology Professional Development

Clif — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 12:00:51 +0000

Brenda McCombs, Drew Polly, Clif Mims and ALBHS Science Department
2009 Midsouth Technology Conference

We’ll be sharing information about the Impacting Kannapolis Program today at the MidSouth Technology Conference (MSTC). This program is in its 2nd year of funding through the IMPACT Technology Grant sponsored by the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction. My involvement with this program consists of providing several weeks of professional development in instructional design and technology integration each summer.

This presentation will describe the approaches to designing and implementing district-wide professional development in a high-need, Title I school district. The workshop will share approaches to supporting teacher learning and teacher leaders, and also highlight technologies and projects that have been used in schools.

NOTE: Visit the collaborative wiki page for this presentation at Learning Telecollaboratively for additional information and resources. Photos from this presentation are available at Lifestreaming from My iPhone (my Posterous).

View more presentations from Clif Mims.

Conference Tag: #mstc09

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Connecting the Classroom and Outside World (Feedback Requested)

Clif — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 12:00:54 +0000

Educators, what are some strategies for connecting the classroom with the outside world?

NOTE: I’d like to share responses in an upcoming workshop/presentation and on my blog and wiki. You can submit your ideas using the form below, share your text/audio/video reply in the Comments section of this post or respond via Twitter, Plurk or on your blog using the tag #thruwalls. You can also view the compiled database of suggested strategies on my wiki, Learning Telecollaboratively.

Share this post using http://tr.im/104.

Conversation tag: #thruwalls

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1 Thing Teachers Should Know about Teaching with Technology

Clif — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 15:00:09 +0000

GUEST BLOGGER
Scott Rogers

Part of the ongoing 1 Thing series.

When teachers start teaching with technology (and I do mean really teaching with technology), the first thing they better do is to “strap up their seatbelts and pull it tight”, because they are getting ready to go on the ride of their lives. Teaching with technology is a ride. You will find yourself trudging up the hill at times thinking you will never get to the top, yet at other times you will be flying down the hill wondering when you are ever going to reach the bottom.

Approximately 14 years ago, I along with several other science and math teachers from area schools took part in a 1 year workshop that met for 4 weeks over 2 summers and then once per month or so during school talking exclusively about technology in the classroom. The workshop entitled “Tech Tools” provided a launching pad for my use of technology in my Physical Science and Physics classroom. It especially introduced me to the use of Vernier technologies in the classroom. Upon completion of the workshop, I returned to school determined to figure out a way to put Vernier probeware to use in my classroom. With the help of the greatest technology director in the world, I received a $100,000 grant to buy probeware, computers, calculators, etc. Our science department went from having nothing to having what I firmly believed the best science lab in the area. I thought I was the technology guru!!! Not hardly. I did become a self-taught expert with Vernier equipment, but that is only where my ride began.

My students were exposed to excellent lab situations. I set up many of my labs as inquiry labs before Inquiry-Based Learning became “the thing.” I thought so anyway. The labs were always set up so as to have a “guide to the right answer.” I have since come to realize that true inquiry will result in a lot of wrong answers and that students learn as much from wrong answers as they do from right answers. With End of Course tests, I always argued that we just do not have time for wrong answers. Although it is a somewhat valid argument, I have done a much better job of letting my students get wrong answers as long as they are learning from them.

For my entire teaching career, if my students weren’t in the middle of a lab, they were in their seats and I was at my overhead projector. I loved lecturing and actually still do. I would walk around the room occasionally, but for the most part I could be found at the front of the room with my students staring at me as we went through a lesson. Last year to aid in classroom management, I along with the other physical science teachers bought a wireless mouse for our laptops, created PowerPoint lessons for every lesson we had and became “walk around the classroom lecturers.” Because our PowerPoints were self-made and pretty funny at times, our students enjoyed them, but still found themselves in their seats in a very static classroom.

Summer 2008 came along and after all those years of thinking I was a technology guru, I was treated to a week of Impact Training (named so because of a large technology grant our school system received). I finally got to tighten my seatbelt as I was about to spend a week with a group of educators who knew more about technology that I could ever imagine. We learned about podcasting. We learned about PowerPoint games (test reviews will never be the same again). We learned about Qwizdom (handheld response systems which can be used in conjunction with PowerPoints or used with their own software). We learned about Webquests (what a remarkable idea, students using the internet for learning while in the classroom). We learned that there was more than one type of multimedia presentation students could use to present research: Glogster, MovieMaker, and Audacity just to name a few. At first glance, it may seem like teaching would be easier when you are not standing up front at all times, but this semester has probably been one of the hardest of my career.

This semester has also been one of the most rewarding. My students are having fun. They enjoy class more than ever. There are still times they find themselves in their seats listening to me talk, but it will never again be a 1 ½ hour lecture. We break up lessons with Qwizdoms. We stop and look at different situations on the Internet. We work on multimedia presentations. We work on Gizmos from Explorelearning.com. As a teacher, you will not find yourself at your desk. You will be all over the place helping students, pointing students in the right direction, getting them back on task, etc. What a pleasure when you see a student finally ”get” a concept on their own and want to share that knowledge with the person sitting next to them.

Probably one of the greatest challenges, but also one of the most gratifying challenges is the ability to collaborate with other disciplines within the school. I spent 3 weeks working with an Advanced Functioning and Modeling math class studying roller coasters. It was an extremely tough 3 weeks, but quite possibly the most worthwhile 3 weeks of my entire teaching career. Our classes learned every possible physics concept as they applied to roller coasters on their own and applied those concepts as they built their own roller coaster with Legos. The students were able to Model data they gathered as a part of the math curriculum. I would never have dreamed this big 6 months ago. Before it was all said and done, our classes had completed a Roller Coaster Webquest designed by the math teacher and myself, they had gathered data using Vernier LabQuests, they modeled the data graphically, they built roller coasters they designed on their own with very little parameters, they created videos of their design/build and posted them to the school website and learned a lot about team work and thinking on their own along the way. What I discovered during this 3 week lesson was that using real technologies in the classroom takes much more work up front. I would hate to guess the number of hours put in prepping this lesson, but as I discovered it was time well spent. The lesson is still on my computer. I am ready to tweak the lesson and use it again next semester.

Teaching with technology is hard. It is hard on the teacher for all the reasons people throw out there for not wanting to do it. It doesn’t always work as planned. There will be times your lesson will not work at all. The Internet will go down at times. The students will try and check their personal email during class time. With only 2 years to go before retirement, why should I learn something brand new? I will tell you why, because our students deserve it!!! 21st Century Skills require the use of technology for a reason. It is not the way of the future; it is the way of the present. Using technology in the correct manner will add to your teaching and will also improve your students learning!!!!

So strap up and get ready for the ride of your teaching career, regardless of how far along you already are on your particular ride.

Example
See Scott’s Biotechnology Webquest

About the Author
Scott Rodgers has been teaching and A. L. Brown High School for 18 years. He is the co-share of the science department and currently teaches physics, physical science and project-based science. Scott is the proud father of 4 children who love teaching him about new technologies.

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Multiple Representations of Understanding with Technology

Clif — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 14:00:24 +0000

These are the slides from my first Tennessee Educational Technology Conference presentation. Unfortunately the animations and effects were lost when uploaded to SlideShare. I’ve shared my notes and resources from this presentation over on my wiki, Learning Telecollaboratively. I hope to create a Vidcast or SlideCast of this presentation once I return home and things settle down.

I demonstrated that with freely available digital technologies students can demonstrate their understanding of course content in multiple ways (images, audio, video, presentations, artwork, and more). Each student’s end product (learning artifact) allows them to personally self-express their understanding of the content/mastery of the skills. Although teachers may not be comfortable using all of today’s technology it is important to consider allowing students to use it to communicate their understanding as they are often more naturally able to more fully express themselves with digital media.

View more presentations from Clif Mims.

Conference Tag: #tetc

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Webinar: Web 2.0 in K-12 Classrooms

Clif — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 10:30:55 +0000

The Teacher Education Division (TED) of the Association for Educational Communications and Technology (AECT) has a webinar coming up that I think many of you will find interesting.

“Dr. Judy Duffield of Lehigh University and her Education students will present on a series of Web 2.0 tools they have been exploring for use in the K-12 classroom. Come participate in a brown-bag-type Webinar where you can learn creative ways to use Web 2.0 tools to improve your own classroom experience.” (Source)

The webinar is Friday, December 11, 2009, at 2:00 EST. Full details are available here.

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Free Educational Technology Workshops

Clif — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 15:00:24 +0000

The Instructional Design and Technology program at The University of Memphis is pleased to offer FREE workshops on Apple tools and applications. These will be conducted by Tim Matheny, a Senior System Engineer with Apple. Seating is limited and registration is required…but these top-notch workshops are FREE.

Use the links below to discover additional information and register.

Tuesday, November 10

First Session: iLife ’09 and MobileMe
Register for This Session
Time: 4:00 – 5:45,
Place: Room 310, Ball Hall

Second Session, Apple Show and Tell (Quick demos of Leopard, iWorks, iTunesU, etc.)
Register for This Session
Time: 6:00 – 8:00
Place: Room 310, Ball Hall

Wednesday, November 11

First Session: Mobile Learning (iPhones, App Store, Apps for School, etc.)
Register for This Session
Time: 4:00 – 5:45
Place: Room 310 Ball Hall

Second Session, Digital Video
Register for This Session
Time: 6:00 – 8:30
Place: Room 310, Ball Hall

Thursday, November 12
One Session, Enhanced Podcasting
Register for This Session
Time: 6:30 – 8:30
Place: Room 310, Ball Hall

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Wordles of Every Inaugaration Speech [Video and Gallery]

Clif — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 16:48:08 +0000

Governing Dynamo has developed a gallery of all 56 American presidential inaugural addresses that includes full transcripts, Wordles (word cloud visualizations) and video footage. The video below can be a useful way to navigate through the gallery. Click on the glowing green dots in the video to learn more about an inaugural address.

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Technology’s IMPACT in the Classroom

Clif — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 19:10:11 +0000

INTERVIEW WITH
Mindy Macdonald

Listen!

Show Notes

View the website for Mindy’s teaching team.
Connect with Mindy on Twitter.

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Research and Collaborate with SimplyBox

Clif — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 16:30:16 +0000

SimplyBox is a free service that allows you to visually capture any part of a web page. As you collect items that you captured, you organize them in boxes. You can then share these items or boxes with friends, colleagues, … the world. The result is: efficient and visual collaboration around content. They call it “content networking.” (Source)

Overview

Research

Collect only the parts from a web page that you want.
Write your notes/comments on the content you found.
Have a direct link back to the sites each of your items were collected from.

Student Collaboration

Collect into a box useful content from the web and add your comments to it.
Share the box with your students, even if they are not SimplyBox users.
The students can add their comments and content.

Connecting Beyond the Classroom

Create boxes with content related to the different topics you teach.
Exchange the boxes with other teachers (even if in different schools!.
Have them help you find more content and engage their classes in the discussion.

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