If you haven’t already heard yet, the K12 Online Conference is ramping up again for 2007. The official call for proposals can be found here. I really think what they put together last year was absolutely incredible, and is still a valuable resource to educators regardless of their experience level.
Last year I presented a session on mobile learning. While it went alright and got some positive feedback, I’m thinking that I could have done so much more. The most impressive presentation of the conference to me was Alan Levine’s session on new web tools. He did an incredible job of using those tools to teach people what’s significant about them. It really made me reconsider just how valuable a standard video really is, when there are so many other tools available. While the format I used was iPod compatible, it wasn’t the most effective for conveying the information I was sharing.
Anyway, whether you decide to pitch a proposal or just attend a few sessions, the K12 Online Conference is definitely one to keep an eye on!
Trying out yet another theme today, and I’m definitely digging this one. It’s called Tarski, and it’s described by its authors as:
Flexible and customisable, Tarski was created with blog authors in mind: it’s easy to install and personalise. However, Tarski is also highly extensible and employs a number of innovative features which the more technically-minded can take advantage of. Its clean and well-documented code provides an excellent basis for more extensive modifications.
I do have to admit, there’s quite a few features, and its certainly a theme that I could grow into well. There’s several pieces of it that I’m not using yet. I’m not thrilled with this particular banner (stolen from my old theme), but I had to put something there so I guess it’ll work.
One other thing, it employs something called “Asides“, which are essentially mini posts that don’t even get their own title in the timeline. I’m going to give them a try and see how I like them. May be a good way to clear out the bazillions of tabs I have open in my browser.
Last week, I spent two full workdays in Second Life, delving into the nitty gritty of how things are actually put together and learning some very basic scripting. Of course, when I say learning scripting, I actually mean looking at other people’s scripts and learning how to tweak them to suit my needs.
This wasn’t an individual journey though, and I was thrilled to have so much support from friends and acquaintances alike. It really made me appreciate just how powerful having a network to draw upon really is.
I wanted to learn how to create a typing animation override, so that whenever my avatar was typing, a laptop would appear just beneath his moving hands. I found a script that I could use, but was struggling with finding a free laptop that I could apply it to. Fleet came to my rescue and found a fantastic laptop that I could tweak to my hearts content. All I had to do was delete the keyboard and mouse (which I learned how to do thanks to Kathy Schrock), slap the script in, and then tweak the position just a little. For bonus credit, I added a DEN logo and a screenshot from unitedstreaming. Voila! Instant cool looking laptop!
I had pretty similar experiences learning how to hyperlink objects to web pages and creating clothing. Meg Ormiston sent me the basic templates and together we stumbled through creating things like logo shirts. Here’s a picture of Meg with her matching shirt and poster.
At this point, people see some of these things and think that I’m some sort of expert or guru when it comes to Second Life. I’m not, I’m still just a total newb who has learned a few tricks. But what’s key is that I’m taking advantage of my network and learning what I need to accomplish my mini-goals. I have yet to meet anybody in SL that was too busy to answer a question or lend a hand. And I haven’t even mentioned Ryan Bretag and Kevin Jarrett, who have booth been extremely helpful as I fumble my way through this. It’s an amazing world within a world. If you haven’t given it a try yet, you should dive on in. And don’t be a stranger. I have the perfect outfit for pouring you a nice tall glass of Kool-Aid.
Teaching 7th graders is a treat. Really. (Stop laughing, it’s true.)
They are bright eyed and bushy tailed creatures open to new ideas. It’s
the “Gee wiz, Mrs. Brownstone, that’s cool.” state they are in that
makes them such a joy. How is it then, that when they get down into the academic work, there are some among that
group who are at risk of failing? I’ve become interested in a psychology professor Carol Dweck. (I’ve ordered her book on Amazon–Mindset: The New Psychology of Success.) In a recent article about her work Marina Krakovsky wrote:
Students for whom performance is paramount want to look smart even if it means not learning a thing in the process. For them, each task is a challenge to their self-image, and each setback becomes a personal threat. So they pursue only activities at which they’re sure to shine—and avoid the sorts of experiences necessary to grow and flourish in any endeavor. Students with learning goals, on the other hand, take necessary risks and don’t worry about failure because each mistake becomes a chance to learn. Dweck’s insight launched a new field of educational psychology—achievement goal theory. STANFORD Magazine: March/April 2007 > Features > Mind-set Research
What does it take to change their mindset to be goal oriented? And to be able to try to reach that goal? I have been having a frustrating time with one of my 7th grade classes. It seems that there are around half who are able to engage in inquiry learning and sustain their interest in learning when they leave the classroom and work unassisted at home. The other half are not working well in the classroom in small groups and rarely do much quality work at home. Friday I asked the students if they thought that there were some students in the school who were just plain “smart” that they were born with a gift and everything comes easy to them. Many hands went up.
Dweck explains. People with performance goals, she reasoned, think
intelligence is fixed from birth. People with learning goals have a
growth mind-set about intelligence, believing it can be developed.
(Among themselves, psychologists call the growth mind-set an
I have begun giving cues that are about putting in more effort, and trying harder. It sounds so strange to say that because I have unlearned that lingo. In my school (BSGE) we try to make our comments to the students grounded in the specifics of their work. We make a positive statement about what is working, what is going well, with reference to something specific they did. Then, we make one statement that starts something like this: “To reach a higher level of achievement you need to do X.” “X” is never “try harder”; it is always a very specific action they need to take on their next project.
The most dramatic proof comes from a recent study by Dweck and Lisa
Sorich Blackwell of low-achieving seventh graders. All students
participated in sessions on study skills, the brain and the like; in
addition, one group attended a neutral session on memory while the
other learned that intelligence, like a muscle, grows stronger through
exercise. Training students to adopt a growth mind-set about
intelligence had a catalytic effect on motivation and math grades;
students in the control group showed no improvement despite all the
other interventions.
“Study skills and
learning skills are inert until they’re powered by an active
ingredient,” Dweck explains. Students may know how to study, but
won’t want to if they believe their efforts are futile. “If
you target that belief, you can see more benefit than you have any
We are coming to the end of an academic year in which many of us involved with Teachers Teaching Teachers — with the support of Dave Cormier and Jeff Lebow at WorldBridges.com –have [...]
Just the very thing to go along with that new iBook or Powerbook. All of you OSX users will feel right at home with this one, while Windows users may choke on their bagel. It’s called iTheme, and it has classic thematic elements from OSX.
Hmm… I wonder if somebody has an OS9 theme, particularly an OS9 computer locked down by FoolProof. That would take me back.
While this one only has one column, it is pretty clean. I kind of like this one! Nothing really offensive to it so far as I’m concerned. Thoughts?
Ok, I don’t think I can keep this theme because it doesn’t have Wordpress Widgets.
But tell me the truth, doesn’t it just take you back to the good ol’ days? Browsing with Lynx, chatting on ISCA, exploring the virtual worlds through MUD’s and MOO’s and MUSH’s?
Quick, before your eyes get too misty, share an old school memory.
Mine is spending hour after hour in the original chat rooms, DDials. Yes, this is before Al Gore invented the Internet. 8 phone lines, 8 modems, 1 computer, all linked up together at blazing 300 baud speeds.
My handle used to be //ild Guy. Yes, that’s exactly the kind of handle a 6th grader would come up with!
Twitter has been down all morning and I’ve got the shakes. How am I supposed to ask people about the Stephen Downes interview last night in WOW2.0? Who am I going to share Dimenxianwith until I have time to create a proper blog entry about it? What did D’arcy have for breakfast today?? What blog post is Bud reading?
Strangely enough, I really do miss those little interruptions and feel extremely disconnected with a great deal of friends and colleagues right now. Crazy how quickly a little piece of tech like that becomes a part of your life.
[UPDATE] Or maybe it was just me. Just got through, and it seems others had no problem. Twitter, why do you tease me so?
[UPDATE 2:46 5/16/07] Twitter is still sick. None of my tweets have gotten through. And I think that cat working on the server is laughing at me.
Looks like I’m doing a theme a day for now. Got some great feedback on yesterday’s, so I’m hoping you’ll continue to do so as I try out a few others.
Today’s theme is the theme used by BloggingPro.com, fittingly named Blogging Pro Widgets Ready Theme. Nothing too fancy here. It’s a three column layout, with both sidebars on the right hand side. Both are Widget’s compliant as is the footer (keep scrolling, you’ll find it).
Pros: Easy to tweak, lots of sidebar room to fill with widgets, color scheme is easy on the eyes.
Cons: Not real pretty, sidebars are pretty narrow (check out the Twitter badge), and the search bar is HUGE.
Jeff Pulver blogged about how everything he needed to know, he learned in spite of his schooling. He claims that just about significant thing that he knows now, he taught himself. Then he asked his readers about their own experiences with education, formal vs self-taught.
“I am certain there was not a college program for what I have learned over the years and anything I typically ‘want’ to learn about is so new that the only way TO learn it is self-study.”
“I learn some of the foundations of my life from school, but other than that I taught myself the rest.”
“I have a masters degree from the school of hard knocks … Growing up, I was easily bored, unless I was trying to figure out something new, but once I could see what the answer was going to be, I generally lost interest and moved on to something else.”
“I’ve always learned more by forging the path myself rather than travel the road already paved.”
“I am thankful for many of the things I learned in school, but I am mostly thankful for the things I was exposed to such as the Internet and the computer club (HACKS). I got a lot out of it to a point, but after that point, school interfered with my education.”
“Having said that, I see a lot of value in mentors - people with experience that I can talk with and listen to their perspective of life, based on their experience. This is something I find fascinating, and lacking in the education system today.”
Yikes. Makes you wonder what it’s all for, doesn’t it? Interestingly enough, after reflecting on things I don’t really find the feedback depressing. It’s feedback, from one small subsection of society. However, I do find it very telling that everybody who took the time to reply had a pretty similar message. In order to do what they’re doing today, people had to teach themselves the skills they need.
“We are currently preparing students for jobs that don’t yet exist, using technologies that haven’t been invented, in order to solve problems that we don’t even know are problems yet.” Karl Fisch’s Did you Know?
So if educators were really doing their jobs, then all of these people should have the skills and know-how to be able to teach themselves the skills that they need right? Maybe the problem isn’t that teachers aren’t preparing students for the digital world, it’s that we don’t know how to prove that we are.
Let’s face it, at the end of the day our current testing system tells us precious little about how ready students really are going to be for life beyond the school building. And there’s so much that students learn in schools that just doesn’t get tested. What grade did each of you get in “Ability to find new solutions to unexpected problems?” I don’t remember that being on my school’s report cards.
And yet, just about everybody that I now of has been a result of some school system and many of us have turned out rather well. While I can definitely recall some classes that were real snoozers, there were dozens of classes that really helped me learn how to think. And while most of the skills that I use now on a daily basis were self-taught, perhaps the skills I used to learn those skills should be attributed to the public school systems in Illinois.
It’s so easy to be down about all the things schools aren’t doing well, but perhaps they’re doing better than we think. And just aren’t standing up to take credit for it.
So let me pose a question to you. Regardless of what grade level you teach at, do you feel you’re students are better prepared for the world after they leave your school than before? If not, make your comment anonymous and tell us why! And if so, stand proud and loud!
Have you ever heard of Good Magazine? I haven’t but they have an impressive enough looking website, so they MUST be reputable, right?
I always keep an eye on Viral Video Chart to keep an eye on what the more popular videos are. A video released by Good Magazine is currently at the top of the charts which relates some stats about internet and porn. It’s pretty racy and not work safe for anybody working in a school environment. If want to watch it, you can find it here.
The reason that I mention the video is because it lists quite a few statistics. Bold statements like “25% of all search engine requests are for porn.” Or “35% of all internet downloads are pornographic in nature.” Or “Sex is the most searched word on the interenet.”
Honestly, I didn’t even question any of their numbers while watching the video because I figured there’d be a long list at the end detailing where they got their numbers from. Guess what? I was way wrong. At the end, the footnotes (written on the models foot no less) only contained three sites. I’ll quote it verbatim. “MSNBC.com TopTenReviews.com Alexa.com”
Can you believe that? Might as well just say, “Statistics were found by searching on Google” or “Figures determined by asking people”. I went to Good Magazine to find the original video and couldn’t find any more information about their sources there. I went to TopTenReviews.com as well, and discovered that it’s a site that basically reviews things like DVD’s, online services, and other such things. What that has to do with any sort of research is beyond me. So I went to check other stats of theirs. Between looking up what words were searched for on Google the most and browsing Alexa, barely any of their numbers seemed to add up.
My point? It’s easy to make up numbers and people seem to just take them for granted. It’s more important than ever that we teach our students to question so called ‘facts’ and to verify information for themselves, whether the source is Wikipedia, Good Magazine, or even Britannica. Heck, the last time somebody told me that the Declaration of Independence was signed in 1776, I checked it with threeindependentsites! Now more than ever, you’ve got to do your homework.
Oh yeah, and if you do put any stats in a presentation or video… Don’t forget to cite your sources.
Now that the blog has been upgraded to the latest and greatest version of Wordpress, I’m trying out a few new looks for it. So if you only read the blog in your aggregator, do me a favor by clicking through and letting me know what you think.
Just about all of the themes that I’m using support Wordpress Widgets. I’m tired of modifying my sidebar whenever I want to try out a new widget, this will let me key in on specific blocks within it. It will also give me a lot more flexibility to bounce between 2 and 3 column layouts with ease.
Today’s theme is Durable WR, which is a widgets ready version of the award winningDurable theme. It features an extremely dynamic nav bar, and is 100% customizable by visitors. So if you don’t like the colors I’ve got on Teach42, you can go ahead and change them any way you want! It also displays the current blog post more prominently than older posts by having older posts split amongst two columns, and the current post spanning them. I think it’s pretty slick and may very well be a keeper. But I’ll definitely try a few others first.
If you haven’t heard about the Encyclopedia of Life project, it’s time to learn more about it. It’s sort of like what you might get if Wikipedia were being overseen by the folks at Britannica. They’re going to try to catalogue every species on earth, a daunting task to say the least. However, they intend to supplement the work of scientists and experts with the work of the community. The public will be able to contribute content, images, and video, and while it will likely be moderated by an expert, it does make the project much more sustainable in the long run.
Going to be upgrading the blog and working on getting away from this theme. Wordpress just has way too many cool features that I can’t take advantage of because of this custom theme. Want to move to something that plays more nicely with widgets and all. So consider yourself warned, things may get funky!
http://teachersteachingteachers.org/?p=114 Download How do I work blogging into my daily curriculum? TTT52 - 05.09.07Bud Hunt asks the question like this: “How do I work Youth Voices [a school-based social network of 1000 student bloggers] into my daily curriculum? How do I use it either to replace existing writing or to support the writing instruction that [...]
http://teachersteachingteachers.org/?p=113 Download Teachers Using Drupal (and WordPress, and...) TTT51 - 05.02.07Our guests this week were two Writing Project teachers who use Drupal in their work with students and teachers.
Jason Shiroff is a 4th/5th Grade teacher at the Odyssey School in Denver, Colorado. Jason is also the Tech Liaison for the Denver Writing Project.
Madeline Brownstone, a teacher from the Baccalaureate School for Global Education, NYC, kicked off this episode by talking about how she has begun to use Trailfire in her classroom. Madeline has only begun to explore the possibilities of Trailfire. Her 7th graders have begun [...]
How many versions of this video have there been? Supposedly this is the final version, and once again its tearing up the YouTube charts. Anybody have any idea what’s different this time?
While I’ve never been a big fan of versioning (allowing for a .1, .2, 1.5 release etc), but this seems like a classic example of why YouTube should implement it. Sometimes these just aren’t final drafts, and having 3 or 4 versions of the same video is just confusing.
Well, I wasn’t going to mention this beyond a tweet, but what the heck. Blogger’s Choice Awards are going on right now, and yes they do have an education category. What I like about this awards site is that you can vote for more than one weblog. And since you need to register to vote, there’s at least some sense of accountability. For example, you can look me up and see all the blogs that I voted for so far.
Don’t see one of your favorites? No worries, you can always nominate them. So when you have a few minutes, visit the Blogger’s Choice Awards. Oh yeah, and while you’re there you can throw me a vote!
