Teaching is hard work

I have been out of the classroom for a while. We took a small hiatus from our face to face classes in order to renew our agendas and syllabi. But for the last two days I toughs PowerPoint 2010for teachers. Wee do just the basics, inserting text, images, audio video, and the other basic content types. It was so much fun to actually teach again. I have been teaching my college class, but it is somehow much different. There is a sense of lightheartedness about teaching teachers who don't get a grade and who really see what this is going to mean in their classroom. It was a long hard two days though because I forgot what it takes emotionally to be on for 8 hours solid. But a lot of things came together to really make it work. I chose a new sample project on Internet Safety which worked very well and is something all the teachers could relate to. I then chose a new model project to show off how to get resources and Amphibians was a great choice too because there are RS if resources available. It also makes a good model for story boarding. All in all a very good couple of days.

Don't go quietly into the classroom

I am in an online course and this was part of the week's materials. It's pretty great.

Thoughts on Emotional Learning

I am currently enrolled in a course to prepare me to facilitate online courses. Ironinc since I have been facilitating and creating them for 3 years, but this weeks reading was particularly relevant and let me revisit an old friend: Don Norman.

A phrase from our reading this week struck me as very pertinent. The article entitled Guidelines for Working with Adult Learners had a section called: Creating an effective Adult Learning Environment. The phrase that was powerful to me was, "Developing an atmosphere in which adults feel both safe and challenged should be the goal" This phrase reminded me of a TED Talk by Don Norman. Now, Don Norman is a designer. A designer of physical things, but his insights into what makes education work are really some of the best. The portion relevant to this class begins at about 4:30 seconds but you may want to watch the whole thing.





This in turn reminded me of some of the interesting things about learning that we need to remember. Most of us have experienced some event of heightened stress, a car crash, a near accident, something. One of two almost completely different things can happen. We either have a heightened clarity and remarkable recall of the event or...we can't remember any detail. Marines are often trained under the highest levels of stress in order to help them make decision despite the stress and to help them be able to analyze a situation, evaluate their option and then act. This flies in the face of a lot of modern educational practice of keeping the classroom completely free of anxiety. The quote from the above listed article seems to encourage a healthy balance. I say let's look for that balance in the online environment too. Some mix of high stakes and safety nets that allow us to push ourselves without paralyzing fear of failure.

CTE - Manufacturing - CTE - Manufacturing

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Tech Tip Tuesday (but it had to be shared today): Google Motion

This tech tip just couldn't wait til Tuesday. Google has brought us a lot of firsts, the first algorithm based web searches with truly relevant results, video chat right in email, online document editing, even Gmail Paper and Google Translate for Animals. But I think they are really going to revolutionize the world with this one! Google Motion.  Using motions and gestures you can control your Gmail inbox.



With the ongoing trends towards obesity and sedentation, this will only help us improve our lives.  Sitting all day at a desk is taxing and foolish, now with this new Google feature  we will be able to improve activity level and even get in shape for spring.  Google is truly incredible.

Have a great 1st day of April!

Learn about other obscure Google Improvements here: About.com Article