Tweet Up Meet Up???? or Why online relationships may need to stay online and don't work face to face unless you are more friendly than I can be.

I hope that those of you who read this find it funnier to read than it was to live.

I got invited to the NECC Tweet Up Meet Up! How exciting! I can get to know people face to face that I currently only know online. This will be great!

I am here with a bunch of colleagues and friends and their wives. My wife couldn't make it because she is actually in a class right now. They are not twitterers (or my personal preference Twitiots) Well, we went to dinner at Matchbox, which was exceptional and reasonably priced. The 6 of us enjoyed our meal and then procedeed to vacillate over what to do next. Most folks wanted to take a bus tour of DC. I suddenly found myself wondering about whether I was going to go to the Tweet up. But my morals prevailed. I want to practice what I preach. The relationships we forge online are as real and genuine as face to face relationships. I could only find out by actually going to this tweet up!

So, being a complete stranger to DC and befuddled by the remarkable lack of large mountains to act as landmarks (Why can't everywhere be like Utah with large mountains to delineate North and South) Well, I knew I was close and on the right street but being a technophile I decided I had better put the address into my GPS. Well let me say, you know how when you are going the wrong direction down a street and you notice the distance to destination is increasing and then the lady says "Please make a u-turn now" it takes longer for that to work when you are walking so....after 15 minutes walking the wrong direction and then turning around and walking back to two doors down from Matchbox. I finally arrived at The Rocket Bar.



View Tweet Up in a larger map

Jared and I have had a regular argument about what happened next. He has argued that relationships thrive best in the environment the first took root in. Online friends work best as online friends and f2f friends work as f2f friends and never the twain shall intermingle in regular life. I say that the online relationships we cultivate are as real, rich, and meaningful as the f2f.

Not so sure, about that now :-( I went to the tweet up, now I am a Mormon, a Member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, I don't drink, not beer, wine, coffee, teguila, heck (yes, Mormon swear word nod) I don't even drink caffeinated soda pop (very often) So being in a bar was a little uncomfortable for me and I didn't recognize anyone. It was a very wierd experience altogether.

It did turn out better later. I ended up meeting @kellyhines, @edu4u and bumping into @shareski all face to face. On another note, I now have @garystager following me. It may just be our mutual distaste for SmartBoards, but I think we are going to get along. The actual TweetUp didn't work out so well for me, but I actually think it had to do with me. I was so far out of my comfort zone being at a strange bar in a strange city that going the extra step of talking to a complete stranger was just more dissonance than this little guy could handle (ok, little is clearly a relative term I am really only little compared to the Right Whale model in the @nmnh)

Really, this first try at a TweetUp was a success in the sense that I did something new, I tried. It didn't work out the way I expected it, but I will be joining another one when it comes around!

Tech Tip Tuesday: GradeCam

This week UEN is in Washington D.C. at NECC and we have seen some really cool gadgets and tools. We will be sharing them with your over the coming weeks, but this weeks suggestion actually comes from Judy Gibbons in the Cache County School District.  Judy Gibbons has purchased these devices for teachers and suggests their use in the classroom.  For teachers who have only one computer and can't do formative testing with an online tool the GradeCam allows a teacher to 'scan' their own key and then students can bring up their own sheets and 'scan' them into the computer.  The clever part of all this is they aren't scanned in the old fashioned way but placed under a simple inexpensive document camera which matches the pattern on the key with the pattern on the paper and give students feedback.  Students can then return to working and continue checking their assignment until it's 100% or they can get 1 try and scores feed into the gradebook.

The document cam is not the expensive item it's the software that powers it.  This is why the product comes with a site license not a per camera cost.

Malcolm Gladwell vs My Mom vs. Me

Ok, someone will undoubtedly do a brilliant analysis of what Malcolm Gladwell said last night. And they will be right, but in keeping with my mood I want to provide some counterpoint.

Malcolm Gladwell spoke last night about two different learning strategies.

1st Capitalization
2nd Compensation

Now without any clarification I think most of us could figure what each of them are. So I will give you only a small clarification from my perspective.

Capitalization is playing to your strength's! Isn't this what everybody's Mom told them. My mom sure did. She told me to figure out what you are good at and then do that. Thus.. I got a Biology degree after working on the farm with cows, horses, dogs, cats and all kinds of plants. Made sense when Mom said it made sense when Gladwell said it. These are the folk who keep working at something until they get really good at it.

Compensation is what happens when an individual doesn't have certain skills or abilities naturally, but compensates by learning other skills that enable him to achieve despite deficiencies. Gladwell spoke about the fact that many leaders are Dyslexic and it is the fact that they had to compensate for this deficiency in traditional school by learning to lead, delegate, and obtain content in other ways. Again, Mom told me when I was growing up that if I wasn't good at something I needed to work hard or figure out ways to do it anyway. I don't know if I am juxtaposing this correctly but Gladwell also pointed out that on average it takes 10,000 hours to master any cognitively challenging task. So....if I really want to compensate for my deficiencies it is going to take me on average 10,000 hours to learn that skill.

Now, me

I used to have students do a simple brain dominance test in my class. I would point out that with the information about what type of learning they were dominant in they could do one of two things.

1. Focus on their strengths
2. Build up areas they weren't strong in

Sound familiar. It sure did to me when Malcolm Gladwell said it last night. It was good when Gladwell said it and it was good when I was saying it all those years to my students. This is an example of what is referred to as resonance or echo chamber effect. When I heard Gladwell I agreed with him and loved what he said because he became the expert confirming what I already knew to be true. (There's stuff there for a whole other post)

Response to Edutopia: Are Teacher Bonuses a good idea?

I have begun following Edutopia on Twitter and got tweet about this poll. I had to answer other because I didn't like either Yes,.... or No,.... it was the .... that I didn't like.

My response was

It is so difficult, possibly even impossible to measure the effect a teacher has on a student. We can measure achievement, we can measure test scores, but how do you measure the sense of self worth a student has years after they leave the classroom of a teacher who cared about them.

I could never repay Darvel Gregory. He was probably the most influential Teacher I ever had. He added so much value to my life. I can honestly say I would not be the person I am today if not for him. What did he teach me? Did he show that extra attention that boosted my self esteem so I could conquer the world. Nope! He taught me to type.

How do you recognize that???? I have a Master's Degree, I blog, I write educational materials, I correspond, and conduct my communication on a day to day basis and I train teachers all which would be nearly impossible if I couldn't type.

I don't know how best to reward Teachers, but I think programs that allow teachers to recieve compensation, recognition, and remuneration for 'value added'. If a teacher can demonstrate that what they are doing is adding value (for example conducting out of school consultations via cell phone or Instant Messaging) they should be able to recieve credit for that. If a teacher can demonstrate a marked improvement in the scores of their students on Standardized tests, show advocacy for literacy, whatever a teacher can do to document they are adding value to the learning experience beyond what is expected in the contract should be eligible for monetary bonuses.

Here's the problem. What is expected??? The expectation for teachers already is that they martyr themselves. When you see a teacher giving up their 'duty free' lunch to help a student with a math problem, or spend hours in the evenings grading papers, or developing a web site so students and parents have access to class materials, it's just expected. We need a better rubric that documents exceptional teaching and then validates it with financial rewards.

When I worked at the Murray School District I was involved in two exceptional Projects both of which were facilitated and helped along by Life Long Learning Associates. The yearly evaluation process in Murray was lengthy, but to me at least so worthwhile. I was able to truly reflect on where I stood as an educator. The last two years I did the evaluation, I actually went through each item on the checklist and documented what I had done that showed that I "communicated well with parents" or "advocated for students" The rubric was on a 5 point scale with a 3 being the expected standard and 4 and 5 being above and beyond the expected responsibilities. The scale was structured so that it would be nearly superhuman to achieve a 5 in all areas. But again, it was a scale that provided a yard stick by which to measure my own performance. A place I could refer to in order to plan my own professional development. If I could you that performance evaluation to in part determine what 'value' I had added to the school setting and then receive bonuses based on that I would have loved it.

The other part of the Evaluation was to document exactly what I had done to improve myself professionally during the school year. What had I done to grow. This part could be a portfolio of work created during the Academy of Instruction and between the exceptional Rubric and the very positive experience I had creating my portfolio I learned to be a reflective teacher, a teacher who thinks about learning. I was not nor am I now perfect at this and certainly part of the reflections have been "Boy was that dumb" but the reflective process and the documentation of how I added to the school were rewarding and I think should be rewarded.

I forgot how much I loved Edutopia

I have loved Edutopia for years, but I forget how great they are. Today on twitter @shiftparadigm made an offhand comment about the "feed the elephant" statement. It immediately reminded me of where I had read it and I had to go look it up and reread the article, and I jumped in an joined the conversation.

I was reminded of this today on Twitter. I read the original probably just a week or two after it orginally posted. This is as relevant now as it was then. I have actually made this part of my doctrine when teaching others. We need to have not only just in time education, but just in time assessment. Assessment that actually shows us what kids are able to do. We don't need complex weighing processes we need better feeding processes.

My own comment, made me realize, I have a doctrine of education, a belief system, a philosophy. My Adviser at BYU Clifford Edwards encouraged us to write out our educational philosophy and revisit it regularly. This is one of the things that blogging has done for me. I revisit educational ideas that resonate with me and visit new ones that sometimes do and somethimes don't.

What are my fundamental Articles of Educational faith? What is my Doctrine of Education? What is my philosophy, my science, my vision? What do I think education should be? Another Professor used Well I think I am going to have to think on that a little and maybe make for another post, but I know what thing, I absolutely believe in learning. Always and forever learning!

BTW if you haven't already read it. Check out: http://www.edutopia.org/dont-weigh-elephant-feed-elephant#comment-62862

Web of the Week Wednesday: Teachers' Domain

Site Address: http://www.teachersdomain.org

A short while back a Teachers' Domain resource was posted on the UEN Multimedia Blog.  That resource is only one of thousands of fabulous sources available on Teachers Domain.  The bulk of Teachers Domain resources are things that were generated by or for WGBH in Boston.  If you grew up when I did and there were only four channels.  You know WGBH.  During the summer months it was the only kid friendly programming on during the day.

The Teacher's Domain site is organized by topic which allows you to focus on resources that are relevant to your situation. Most of the resources also explicitly allow permission to be used.

Others allow less permission but are still generous.



The site is a fantastic resource for finding all kinds of useful classroom media and interactives

Tech Tip Tuesday: Collaborating with Classroom Managment Software

Most teachers who spend time in the computer lab are at least vaguely familiar with Classroom Management Software. This is the software that allows a teacher or computer lab aide to monitor the students while they are using the computers. Most of these software packages include several features:

• Monitoring of multiple screens at one time


• Monitoring of a specific screen


• Remote control of a specific computer


• 'Pushing' of 1 Screen to multiple screens (screen sharing)


• Chatting from one computer to another

Now, how these features are implemented in each software package varies, but for the most part you see these features.   A few weeks ago a there was a twitter conversation that started with this from @shareski



To which @teachntech00 replied



Well,  I had my own input on the conversation, but I promised Patrick Black and Dean Shareski I would give some examples of how I used Monitoring Software to good effect in my classroom.

• First, in my keyboarding class, it was impossible to see all 40 computers from one spot in the room, so my choices?  Pace like a caged lion, or use monitoring software.


• Monitoring software helped me keep students practicing keyboarding skills on task for more time than when I didn't have it.


• Students (keyboarding and others) could virtually raise their hand and I was able to go through the queue in order and more quickly than running around the room.


• When I was helping a student at their desk, I left the monitoring software running and displayed on the projector.  This allowed peer influence to affect use of computers and I was able to monitor while not at my desk.


• I could share my computer to quickly show a technique that I may have not shown earlier (especially useful for multimedia projects)


• I could share or allow a student to share their screen to show a technique or effective design


• My favorite technique was to create group chats with students assigned the same work but seated apart.  This allowed them to collaborate while sitting apart.

I found that the monitoring software wasn't really about locking kids out of 'bad' sites but more about helping them focus on using their time and resources effectively.  There are also highly effective ways to facilitate collaboration, sharing, and just in time/just enough training when an instructor can step in and resolve a specific problem.  So go ahead try one out.  For most situation they will probably require some technical set up, but they are worth the effort.

Classroom Management Software:

• http://www.lanschool.com/


• http://www.netop.com/products/education/vision6.htm


• http://www.crosstecsoftware.com/educational/schoolvue.html

Visit Dean Shareski or Patrick Black on the Web.

My trip to Logan

View The Long Way to Logan in a larger map

Well, I went to Logan Utah to do some training. I went the Looong way to get there and here are some photos.

Wednesday Web of the Week: EyezMaze

Site address: http://www.eyezmaze.com/

There are some that might argue that this site is a complete waste of time.  The author wasted time building the games, and it's a waste of time to play the games.  Well, the author has developed mutliple games using Adobe's Flash Animation. (If you don't have Flash get it here) The games have one major component in common.  Each of them require that you add things in the correct sequence to carry out the task.  I have loved the games for several years, and have tried and tried to figure out a good excuse to actually use the in a teaching situation.  I couldn't figure one out so I just allowed students to use them as motivators after finishing other work.

Well, I finally found my excuse.  I realized that these games can be used to reemphasize the concept of sequence.  They could also be used to demonstrate cause and effect.  Well, check them out yourself, let us know if you can see other educational applications, but when you visit be prepared to waste some time!

See a preview of the page below:

Tech Tip Tuesday: Adaptive tools for Students

This weeks Tech Tip is more of a conversation starter. What challenges do students have when using technology in your classroom? Sometimes cognitive or physically disabled students have challenges using computer equipment. What can we do to help them? There are lots adaptive equipment items you can buy, large button keyboards, oversized mice, and larger screens with settings for better visibility. One of the techniques I have seen used with pre-schoolers, kindergarteners and early elementary is to have notebook style mini mice available for smaller hands.

Well, a designer at Microstoft took it a step further. Click here to find out more about an adaptive mouse: http://www.techflash.com/microsoft/Microsoft_designer_finds_simple_way_to_help_kids_hang_on_to_mice43390442.html

Final Post for the Grand Poobah Competition

I tweeted this earlier.  But I was totally excited to get the Social Media Grand Poobah when I thought all I got was a hat

But the competition was only a part of it.  In fact it was very loose competition.  I have been as excited to see others tweeting and blogging as I have to do it myself. 

Good luck all!

A loosely coupled gradebook!

The essential difficulty of creating an open course with open tools is how to get scores and feedback to and from students.  Creating a gradebook that is loosely coupled allows you to feed the scores from various tools to the gradebook with out pulling the artifacts.  By creating 'links' it can send the Teacher from the score out to the tool that created that score and they can see item level detail.

When creating the gradebook it also creates an iCal feed so that creating the assignment also allows a due date and calendar feed.  They are looking at creating a rubric tool that will couple with the grade book also. 

Because there is already a database of student pictures it is possible to couple pictures back to students.  It is also possible to flag certain grades or in other words report back when

One of the expectations is that students will know how to create a document that lives in the cloud.  This means that instead of submitting text, documents, files or the artifiact, they submit the URL.  The teacher then clicks on their submission and sees the document wherever it lives on the web.   This also has a "speed" grading which creates a small frame above the submission and allows you to record the grade and feedback and then continue on to the next submission

You can see his presentation slides and blog here: http://www.jonmott.com/blog/?p=54

Building a portfolio should be a valuable metacognitive (and I would argue authentic) experience.

There would be a possibility of creating a tiered evaluation of

Web services are the glue that ties it all together.  Greate quote !

A malleable learning network!  What a great quote.

In order to create the Learning Outcomes document and to make it public it was decided to create a wiki.  A novel concept in many ways, but what you have is a huge document that would otherwise have been impossible or difficult to create and difficult to update.  Now you have a live dynamic document. Pilot will should be active in January 2010. 

TTIX 09

The Teaching with Technology Idea exchange has become an influential conference over the years it has been active. This year's conference was no exception. Educators K-20 were able to engage in genuine learning and growth experiences and develop face to face friendships with people interested in improving learning by the correct application of Technology. This year the conference was very well attended. UEN was present and conducted one session on viral marketing of resources. Look for this conference next year and get it on you list of places to visit.

Session 5: Education Layers (part 2)

How are layers Applied?

• Consider Constraints
• Decisions are made tenatatively
• Consider the effects of any decision (will the instruction need maintenance)
• Design proceeds in waves.
• Jen Barry's Tabular method
• Imagine what it would be like from the student perspective.
  

I have been discussing Our Wimba Online Training tools with Dr. Gibbons

Dr. Gibbons has discussed the need for some things we haven't looked at.  Population analysis, Needs analysis.  We have been planning the course, but haven't really analyzed what the needs of our target population are. 

He has also pointed out the necessity of having our 'events' defined.  How long will each instructional unit be.  Or what will they be made up of.   How are we going to deliver this?

Gagne's Taxonomy of learning was first based on Skinner.  Gagne had changed this to include Verbal, Attitudes, Motor Skills.  Content categories changed over time.

This is a little fragmented, but the session really was great!

Session 4: Designing Education tools in Layers

One of the best things about this session was the Zork Discussion.  Zork was fantastic.  The reason it came up was the fact that there are multiple layers to how Zork worked.  It was originally a product in a text only format.  When Graphic Design begin to have power and got more than 4 colors, it was possible to peel back the original layer of display/interaction and create a new layer, but leaving the original story/game intact.

Increasing the layers increases the complexity, but allows us to create layers that can be stripped off and replaced with an improved layer.  For example, if all of the images in a 'textbook' or website are connected together and can be stripped out and updated then replace the old 'image' layer.

It is kind of like putting a new cover on an old book.

Becoming an expert when it comes to Instructional Design works like becoming a Chess expert.  A Chess expert has the ability to track more of the pieces on the board at one time than a novice.  The same is true of an Expert Instructional Designer versus a Novice Instructional Designer.

Layering is the natural outgrowth of the increasing complexity of a technology.  Shelter originally consisted of nothing but 4 posts and some palm fronds.  Instructional Design is evolving the same way.

As the complexity increases the ability to create as an amateur decreases.  I could still build a house by myself as an amateur, Instructional Design can be done by individuals but the quality is much improved by having experts do the design work. 

What prompts layers????  The history of movies changing from the Silent Era to the Talkies.  This prompted a whole bunch of layering to the process of creating movies.  This has a bunch of application for what is going on now.  It makes the idea of a Social Learning Specialists so much more valid.  This technology is emerging and it makes sense that Educational Entities would be looking for someone to specialize in Social Learning

Examples of layers:
Message Layer
Representation Layer
Control Layer
Strategy Layer
Content Layer
Data Management
Media Logic

The metaphor for instruction should be conversation!


BTW Dr. Gibbons showed my alma mater's library!!!!

Citation Nods:
flickr User: tina_manthorpe
Andy Gibbons

Session 3: Augmenting Field Trips

This session was the second half of a presentation focused on one key concept. This key concept is quite simply all that needs to be said.

Link Location to Information

This is the key!

Whatever tool might be used. It is a wonderful key to link information to a specific location. Information that can locked to a location. When I visit the location physically, it would be ideal if my portable device would recognize my area and location relevant information would become available.

Now, if when I visit a location virtually, via Google Maps or BingMaps or any mapping tool I can see information relevant to that location. This is already happening. Another way of looking at this is that information can be geotagged. Just like photo's or video are now geotagged. Even a blogpost can now be geotagged (See draft.blogger.com)

Session 2 ESL activities

Leecy Wise presents on ESL resources for educators.

Her materials are available here: http://chiresources.pbworks.com/

As I am watching her presentation about ESL resources, but I wonder myself. Particularly with the ESL course I am teaching on a volunteer basis. I find it difficult to identify exactly what to teach. Which terms, vocabulary, and grammar concepts are most useful.

The other part that is hard for me is how to understand creating language facility with students. We so often formulat this idea of blogging, web tools etcetera in terms of English Language. Language Evolves. As we see more and more influences from people who don't speak English, we will see American English evolve. We already see an evolved difference between England, Australia, and the United States. The language we use in the American Southwest is very influenced by Spanish. And not just Spanish but a specific regional type of Spanish. Different than the Spanish spoken by people living in the the American Northeast. But no matter what language will evolve. I just wonder whether we can begin encouraging students to create content in their native language. One example of my percieved need in this area: When we measure language acquisition for elementary students we measure how much English Vocabulary they have. Nothing is done to accomodate the fact that they may have as much as twice that number of words in their repertoire if you account for their Native Language.

Big I

Brian Lamb: Open Education

His presentation was terrific. The whole concept that we have students do authentic work is for some reason seen as cutting edge. This is true in one sense, but most people learned this way in the past. They learned by doing work!

One of the items that I thought was really good was the analogy. We fear often that if we send students to post on the internet that legions of Sexual Predators will creep out of their basements and descend on the students. The reality is that the people who creep out of their basements are more likely to be people who really love copy editing, formatting bibliographies or formatting tables and graphs. The point: For the Most part online interactions are positive.

One thing I wonder about with this whole idea though. Brian Lamb encourage adoption of open architecture. Things like blogs, youtube, iTunes University, and others. The challenge becomes for me is on the users end. As a participant it is a frustration to have to learn new sets of tools for every course. My wife is taking a course right now that is a mashup of three different online curriculum tools. It becomes extremely frustrating to have this course with due dates listed inconsistently, with multiple logins and with a f2f component that each sends a different message.

Course management software has it's downsides but there are advantages to it because it provides a consistent interaction for a student in a specific institution. The challenge will be watching students bringing courses from multiple institutions together to create their own learning.

21st Century Library

I have mentioned earlier that I had an experience that has had me thinking about current libraries. A library is essentially a repository of objects for learning. In our modern age more and more of those learning objects are digital resources that are online. This means that there is a very different approach to the role of a Library Media Specialist. Some ideas I have for creating a 21st Century Library:

• Videos in the Library: When I taught in the classroom, I had a collection of videos. Some times collections of collections. For example I had a great series I used part of but couldn't show the whole 16 hours. What if a student wanted to watch it? Why didn't that series reside in the library, but no... I kept it in my office on the shelf except for the 20 minutes every semester that I used it. So... Video (and DVD) Collctions in the Library for students to check out (even better, would be digital copies to share, or online but... in the meantime)
• Used bookstore from culled items: Every library has to cull items. I think it would be great to allow students to run a used bookstore from those items. This might work especially well with Special Education or At Risk students. It could even include an Amazon.Com storefront for more than one school site, possible an entire district could cull items into the same online store.
• Book Trading. I would love to have a place where students could trade their own books. Someplace where students who have finished a book they no longer want could trade it for a book they do want.
• Book Clubs: It would be ideal to have book clubs, book clubs with a f2f and an online component. This would allow teachers, librarians, and students to share reviews of books, and educational resources
• Online collaboration with other librarians. I would love to see more collaboration among librarians, a forum for librarians to share the books they are reading, great websites, videos, and other things. Ideally, there would be f2f meetings and an online tool (or tools) for doing this. Delicious accounts, or Diigo accounts, an online forum or a www.goodreads.com group.
• iPods or MP3 players for check out. I am also a fan of Playaways. iPods and some other multimedia players would also allow for loading up a bunch of video for a teacher to use and allow them to play directly from the iPod to a TV or Projector, with the appropriate cables of course.

Clearly there are lots of other things I would love in a library of the 21st century, but these are a few.

Wednesday Web of the Week: Copyright and Fair Use VIDEO!

Ever wonder what you can use?

For more suggestions on how to appropriately use and cite video check:

• http://www.uen.org/policy/copyrightguidelines.shtml


• http://www.centerforsocialmedia.org/resources/publications/fair_use_in_online_video/

Classroom collaboration via Classroom Management

Most teachers who spend time in the computer lab are at least vaguely familiar with Classroom Management Software. This is the software that allows a teacher or computer lab aide to monitor the students while they are using the computers. Most of these software packages include several features:

• Monitoring of multiple screens at one time


• Monitoring of a specific screen


• Remote control of a specific computer


• 'Pushing' of 1 Screen to multiple screens (screen sharing)


• Chatting from one computer to another

Now, how these features are implemented in each software package varies, but for the most part you see these features. A few weeks ago a there was a twitter conversation that started with this from @shareski



To which @teachntech00 replied



Well, I had my own input on the conversation, but I promised Patrick Black and Dean Shareski I would give some examples of how I used Monitoring Software to good effect in my classroom.

• First, in my keyboarding class, it was impossible to see all 40 computers from one spot in the room, so my choices? Pace like a caged lion, or use monitoring software.


• Monitoring software helped me keep students practicing keyboarding skills on task for more time than when I didn't have it.


• Students (keyboarding and others) could virtually raise their hand and I was able to go through the queue in order and more quickly than running around the room.


• When I was helping a student at their desk, I left the monitoring software running and displayed on the projector. This allowed peer influence to affect use of computers and I was able to monitor while not at my desk.


• I could share my computer to quickly show a technique that I may have not shown earlier (especially useful for multimedia projects)


• I could share or allow a student to share their screen to show a technique or effective design


• My favorite technique was to create group chats with students assigned the same work but seated apart. This allowed them to collaborate while sitting apart.

I found that the monitoring software wasn't really about locking kids out of 'bad' sites but more about helping them focus on using their time and resources effectively. There are also highly effective ways to facilitate collaboration, sharing, and just in time/just enough training when an instructor can step in and resolve a specific problem. So go ahead try one out. For most situation they will probably require some technical set up, but they are worth the effort.

Classroom Management Software:

• http://www.lanschool.com/


• http://www.netop.com/products/education/vision6.htm


• http://www.crosstecsoftware.com/educational/schoolvue.html

Visit Dean Shareski or Patrick Black on the Web.

Tech Tip Tuesday: Guest Lecturers via Web-Conferencing

Having a guest come into the class to speak can be a bit of a hassle, but with a bit of ingenuity and know how you can quickly get a guest in your room even if they are miles away.  If the guest you have in mind has a web cam and one of a couple of services you can invite them into your classroom.  Some of the services that currently allow video conferencing include:

• Skype


• iChat (for the Mac)(compatible with your GoogleTalk account)


• GoogleTalk(Windows only but compatible with iChat)


• Windows Live Messenger (Windows)(Mac)


• Yahoo Messenger


• AIM (AOL Instant Messenger)

Each of these has their own set of challenges, and the possibility of being blocked.

Another great tool you can use for video conferencing with guest lecturers is Wimba.  A tool available to all Utah Educators.  You can learn more at www.uen.org/wimba

Library Media Specialist: What do they all mean?

I had an experience a couple of days back that made me really think about some terms.

Library
Media
Specialist

If you look at that as a title of an individual it really changes depending on the emphasis

Library Media Specialist
Library Media Specialist
Library Media Specialist
Library Media Specialist
Library Media Specialist

Where does the emphasis lie? Which is the most important? What do they all mean?

A librarian in the past could focus primarily on books, and based on my experience they focused primarily on literature. But that doesn't fit what adults actually do.

This is what my reading habits look like:


Formal reading of textbooks, Journal Articles, Newspapers and the like form a small part of what I do. Liesure reading of novels, short stories and the like is also a small part. The bulk of my reading is informal informational reading. (I argue that the same pattern is true of writing too but that's another post)

The Library of today should be suited to this climate. It should be an easy place to hang out and browse. There should be areas for reading, writing, researching and collaborating. Conference rooms/cubicle should be easily accessible. I would love to see an area designed for instruction. Computers centered on a large table with space to spread out books. The library should be the most warm and welcoming feature in the entire school. It should be the place the the true interdisciplinary connections happen. Not just with members of the school but branching out to the whole world.

The media has changed. Libraries were once a repository of the vast numbers of books that needed to be protected from harm and made readily available to the scholar seeking knowledge. Now, with almost all information (0.25) seconds away on Google why do we house books? Well for one thing there is still something very real and visceral about handling a book. Something that we value. As we travel forward, it will be necessary to learn how to incorporate more than just written text. 10,000 words about subduction zones aren't worth one interactive web animation. The media part of Library Media has moved beyond books (but they are still importatnt) to 10,000,000 learning units of text, photo, video and animation.

So where does this leave the specialist. The specialist is just that, it is the job of the specialists to help connect the learner. Not to any one individual pipeline of knowledge but to the whole plumbing of learning. The specialist teaches learners and teachers how to draw resources to themselves and then pass them along the plumbing to others. The specialists teaches learners how to create well documented artifacts of their learning and then to become teachers by sharing their artifacts along the pipeline. The world we live in isn't one dominated by the Web, but by an river system of resources for learning one that we can channel and harness and use to help learning bloom, grow and eventually to bear fruit.

So, what would my library be like if I was running one today. It would be a place of collaboration, connection, reading, learning, debate, conversation, creation. A place that could truly be at the heart of learning. A school I know very well had the library literally in the center of the school. It had been a courtyard during the first few years of the schools existence. They covered it over and the classrooms that had opened into the courtyard now opened into the library. It was a beautiful analogy about the free flow of information, but sadly because there were concerns about the safety and theft of the collection they remodeled and closed off the doors, but it only changed the building. The library remains central to the learning and collaboration in a school



Photo from: Flickr user: Silver Marquis