Educational Technology – Page 5

Day 1: MECA 2010

I’m excited to be working with educators in Mississippi this week. I grew up in Mississippi and still consider it “home.” I also taught middle school here and most recently taught at the University of Mississippi before making the move to Memphis. I’ve also been a consultant with the MS DOE at different times in recent years. I’m teaching/ sharing 5 workshops and presentations here at the 2010 Mississippi Educational Computing Association (MECA) Conference. Day 1 of the conference included afternoon sessions and activities in the hall of exhibitors.

Here are a few notes from my Day 1 experience.

Headed to MECA – A photo essay of my trip to the MECA Conference.
Using Digital Technologies and Personal Learning Networks to Enhance Learning – My 4:15 PM presentation

Event tag: #msmeca10

Reply to Miguel Guhlin

THINKING OUT LOUD
Episode 006

Yesterday’s blog post by Miguel Guhlin (@mguhlin) caused me to think…and that caused me to want to share and think out loud…and now I’d really like to know how others respond…so…please read Miguel’s brief post about the Google Teacher Academy application process, then view my reply below and share your response.

I’d definitely appreciate it.

Please share your text/audio/video reply in the Comments section of this post or respond to the corresponding Seesmic conversation (Think video-based Twitter).

I Need My Teachers To Learn 2.0

Multiple Representations of Understanding with Technology

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

Research and Collaborate with SimplyBox

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.

Kids Get Creative with AudioBoo

In episode 3 of Thinking Out Loud I pondered ways that AudioBoo might be integrated with teaching and learning. I shared a few ideas that sprang to mind and invited you to share your ideas and examples. I want to share a couple of AudioBoos that our two youngest children put together.

It is important to note that these 2 kids are young. They selected their topics, identified the major points that they wanted to share, recorded their interviews without rehearsing, and selected the title and images for their boos. They did this with minimal assistance from me. They learned to use the AudioBoo iphone app, planned their interview, and recorded and published both boos in well under 30 minutes. It was a fun and educational activity for all three of us!

Educational Uses
I encourage you to join me in exploring the potential classroom uses of this technology. Please share your thoughts and examples as text, audio or video comments. Together we learn more!

AudioBoo in the Classroom (Thinking Out Loud #3)

THINKING OUT LOUD
Episode 003

Elementary Teachers, I Need Your Advice

I’m providing professional development at an elementary school this week. I’ve been asked to survey some of the most commonly used Web 2.0 technologies in elementary classrooms. I’m very curious what others are using in their classrooms as I prepare this workshop. Please, please, please share the tools and services that you and your students recommend. I’ll compile and share the results along with related resources and examples on the workshop wiki.

Appreciatively,
Clif

Announcing “Thinking Out Loud”

THINKING OUT LOUD
Episode 001

Tag: Educational Technology