Category: Secondary

U.S. Presidential Elections

Some explanations of the American electoral college are clear as mud. CommonCraft comes to the rescue with an explanation in plain English. Depending on the breadth of the topic within your curriculum you might also consider using one or more of the Schoolhouse Rock videos about American history and government.

“It all starts with your vote. Make it count.” (Source: CommonCraft)

It’s Good to Be Back

Kannapolis City SchoolsI’m excited to be working with Kannapolis City Schools again (Previous Posts: 1, 2). I’m helping provide professional development for part of their grant funded technology integration initiative called IMPACT. I’ve been asked to facilitate the following workshops:

Please share any resources, information, cases, scenarios, etc. that you think will help teachers learn more about these topics by clicking on the session titles above and adding your contribution to the Notes and Resources from My PLN section at the bottom of each wiki. Rest assured that I welcome your input in this endeavor!

NECC This Afternoon

Here are the presentations/discussions that I attended/ participated in during the first half of this afternoon.

A Plan for Wiki Adoption by Ken Pruitt
Ken’s presentation was an adaptation of Stewart Mader’s Wikipatterns. Ken shared suggested strategies for implementing the use of wikis at all levels.

Educational Technology and the Law facilitated by Jon Becker and Scott McLeod
While preparing for the Teaching and Learning with Web 2.0 seminar I’ve realized how important it is that I become more knowledgeable about copyright, intellectual property, plagiarism, and related topics. I especially liked how they were able to pose existing IRL analogies for the virtual situations under discussion.

I’m off to the the much anticipated (at least by me) poster presentation of the ISTE Classroom Observation Tool. I plan to share what I learn soon.

NECC This Morning

I’ve spent most of today participating in the following sessions and meeting online friends in the Bloggers’ Cafe. I’m looking forward to the presentation of the ISTE Classroom Observation Instrument (ICOT) later today. I’m curious to see how it stacks up against similar instruments like LoTi. Perhaps I’ll get a chance to post my thoughts about it. For now, here’s what I’ve attended to day.

Diigo: A Swiss Army Knife for Your Browser by Maggie Tsai, Diigo Co-Founder
Maggie gave a crash course in the basic features and use of Diigo. After her presentation she asked to interview me on camera and I reluctantly agreed. I shared some of the most common ways that Diigo is being used by my students, teachers with whom I mentor in professional development, and by me. She also asked me to share ways that I thought their technology could be improved and I reiterated ideas that I’d previously shared on Miguel’s discussions (here and here) related to this topic. I was pleased with her responses to my technical and design suggestions (She even contacted the engineers about one of the issues while we were talking.) and she provided Diigo’s rationale for why the ads, for now, will continue to exist throughout the tool. She assured me that they are indeed considering

Creating a Ning Network from Scratch by Steve Hargadon
If you want to learn about setting up your own Ning you might as well learn from the master. I’m comfortable using this “tool” but Steve provided useful insight regarding design and implementation which I found valuable.

Using Understanding by Design (UbD) to Create Technology Rich, Deep Learning Unit Plans by Chris Lehmann and Marcie Hull
There are oodles of similar models out there but I found this one to be practical but thorough. I’m going to take another look at Understanding by Design when I return home.

This Afternoon at EBC

Diving Deep into Google Earth and Google Maps

Web 2.0 in Teacher Education (Program Info)

  1. My presenter notes
  2. Alternative to the term Web 2.0 is the Read, Write Web
  3. Teacher education and professional development that effectively helps teachers better integrate technology with teaching and learning
    • Allow the teachers to select their own goals and help them reach them
    • Online social networks can more easily provide the in-time assistance, coaching, mentoring, etc. that individuals during development/learning, but teachers often don’t think about using the networks
  4. How do we prepare teachers to teach in the 1-to-1 environment?
    • The emphasis should change from "teaching" to designing learning that engages the students.
  5. Resources for future teachers

Designing the 21st Century Global Learning Environments (Program Info)

  1. Building on some online discussion that has been ocurring for the past year here and here.
  2. If there were no barriers what would education look like? Brainstorming notes

This Morning at EBC

I’ll be updating this post throughout the day to alert you of things happening here at EBC San Antonio. The full list of sessions is here. I’ll be sharing information form the sessions that I’m attending. The session titles are in bold.

Social Networking for Professional Development

Scott Merrick is sitting next to me and streaming this discussion live.

  1. Should it be organized or self-forming?
    • Should the tool(s) be dictated?
  2. An atmosphere promoting risk-taking is imperative.
  3. Teachers know what they want to learn. Professional development should be tailored around them rather requiring them to attend PD in which they had no say.

Social Networking in the Classroom

Vicki Davis is sitting by me and is streaming this seession here.

  1. Teachers in the room are using Ning, Elgg, and several private online communities.
  2. Julie Lindsay and Vicki Davis updated us about the Flat Classroom and the Horizon Project.
  3. How important are digital citizenship and pedagogy in these decisions?
  4. If someone says a curse word in the classroom do we close the school? If there’s a fight at recess do we quit having recess? Why do we over react to these problems in online spaces?

Greetings from North Carolina

Kannapolis City SchoolsI’m spending the next couple of days providing professional development for some of the tech-savvy outstanding teachers with Kannapolis City Schools. My classes will be focusing on teaching and learning with Web 2.0 (Becoming my new thing, I guess.) and creating and using podcasts in the classroom.

Note to my online PLC:

I hope to demonstrate the power and benefits of an online personal learning community (PLC) during my time here, but I’ll need your help with that. Please share your ideas, resources, examples, and advice on these topics. I’m sure the teachers here at KCS would appreciate and benefit from your input. You can respond in the comments section of this post or add information to the related section on my wiki.

PLEASE share! 🙂

Teaching Economics with an Educational Game

What do a stranded alien race and microeconomics have in common? You just have to see this to believe it!!!

Econ 2001, UNC-Greensboro

Here are some random thoughts that I’d very quickly like to share.

  • This is a good example of an educational video game rather than a COTS game that has been adapted for/integrated into teaching and learning.
  • Learners will need to use their imaginations. That’s always a very good thing.
  • I can see curricular connections with math and science (time, space, measurement, money/budgeting), social studies and geography (historic relevance, how would the game be different when set in different time periods, travel), and language arts (critique, parts of a story, journaling and reflective exercises, and more).
  • I suspect we’ll be seeing more and more of this in the near future. Teachers and others with expertise in instructional design need to be heavily involved in such endeavors.
  • Why wasn’t my microeconomics class like this?! Why weren’t any of my classes like this?! I’m not a gamer AT ALL (ask my son or DC) but this looks interesting to me.
  • All things considered (likely resources available, instructional setting, purpose, etc.) it has nice graphics and a good user-interface.

    • Discussion

    1. What is your reaction to this instructional strategy?
    2. What other ways could this be integrated with the curriculum?

    Summer Wiki Challenge

    I finally setup and began using my own wiki recently and have found it to be a useful technology. Use of the technology was quickly integrated into my Clif's Wikiproductivity strategies and I’m left wondering how I ever managed without it. In a very short time I’ve already found the need to setup additional wikis and have begun collaborating with colleagues on several other wikis that aren’t mine. As with most Web 2.0 tools, wikis are very easy to use and offer a wide variety of possible uses.

    I received an email from Wetpaint‘s Education division stating that “wikis are a fantastic way to keep your students engaged in learning over summer vacation — and to help them prepare for the coming school year.” They suggest the following strategies to help you get started.

    Create a summer reading wiki where students can choose summer reading titles and post their thoughts — all before the first day of school!

    Share a preview of your syllabus with your students to give them a sense of what they can expect when school is back in session.

    Collaborate with other teachers to share your ideas for a successfull fall semester.

    Personal profiles let students get to know each other before the bell rings on the first day.

    SOURCE: Wetpaint.com Education – Ideas for wiki-ing this summer

    I had a few other ideas that might encourage teachers to begin using a wiki this summer come to mind.

    • Use a wiki to collaborate with colleagues as you prepare instructional units, assignments, field trips, supply lists, and more for the coming year.
    • Provide a weekly math challenge for students to encourage them to keep their math skills and knowledge sharp.
    • Allow students to share their creative writing or poetry on your wiki. This would be an opportunity to encourage practice in writing, reading, critique, peer review and editing.
    • Host an online art gallery, photo essays or video journals around a specific topic or theme.

    Take a look at this list of ideas for using wikis this summer being compiled at Wetpaint’s Wikis in Education.

    Discussion

    1. What other strategies for using wikis do you suggest?
    2. Will you accept the challenge to begin using a wiki this summer?

    Let’s Help a Student

    The following request is from a college student and came to me through a couple of friends. She is seeking assistance with her research paper. I’d like to include your input along with my response.

    My paper is focused on the Internet being incorporated into the classroom as a resource and the need for high school teachers to be trained on how to use the Internet in their classrooms and how that will benefit students. If you have any information in this area or know anyone else who I could contact that might have information that would be great.