Friday, December 3, 2010

Background on the Adopt A Country Study

Liam had implemented a "Country Study" project in social studies and had been successfully doing it for years. He called it Adopt A Country - students choose a country at the beginning of the year and do a year long "research" project on it. Traditionally, they had used a three ring binder and Liam (being a forward thinker!) wanted to "digitize" it. He wanted to find a more efficient and 21st century way to build and organize the project. We considered database storage and other ways to capture the essays, maps, timelines, etc but quickly turned our attention to a way students could "showcase" their project while "creating" something using 21st century skills and habits.

We chose the PBWorks Wiki site and had each student create a wiki that showcased their work. As a result - the first year, students completed the componenets of the project and created a "webpage" of their work and uploaded their artifacts, attached, and scanned, etc.

This project lends itself to giving students authentic purpose in learning and practicing almost if not ALL of the ICT Literacy Standards.

Christa McCuliffe Conference Presentation


Salon B
1:00-2:00
Turning a 3-Ring Binder Project to a Rich Web 2.0 Integrated Portfolio
Allison Mollica, Applications Administrator, Lebanon School District, and PeggyJo Sahlman and Liam Coyle, Lebanon School District
* E2
Level: Beginner
Grades: 6-8, 9-12
View Extensions Extensions
Using the middle school "country study" project as an example, this presentation shows you how one social studies department transformed a tradition 3-ring binder approach to a project portfolio to an online Wiki "binder" integrating several Web 2.0 tools and giving students practice in meeting NETS and ICT standards! Using PBWorks as a foundation for the "electronic binder" students build a web page presenting research on their country and integrate the use of online graphing tools, Glogster pages, and more. This can be applied to any curriculum and probably works best with grades 6 - 12. Discover how students built an electronic binder (PBWorks Wiki) to attractively present their year long research on their country including imported images, written biographies, graphs, scanned "drawn" maps, time lines, and more.

Wednesday, December 1, 2010

Look What I Just Googled

Google Teacher Academy - Need to apply, show how you will use it and be willing to go out and present/share and be apart of the listserv.

http://www.google.com/educators/gta.html

Emails: I want to send and moderate emails. Classroom gmail account-can be moderated.

Calendar: Uses calendar (published/public) for assignments - posting and details.

Docs: Newer items include drawing and form options.

Forms: Create quiz, poll, etc.

Template component of the Google Domain allows you to share school templates.

Google Alert: Setup an alert for updates on topics delivered to your mailbox or rss feed.

Custom Search - Create a list of sites for students to "search" for things.

Google Scribe: Finishes what you are typing by predicting the word you want to type and showing you how to spell it correctly.

Google Lit Trips: www.googlelittrips.org

Google Book Marks: Set up by Grade Level!

Google Tools for Educators WEbinars: Free Technology for Teachers.

December 7th - Taking google Apps to the next Level

Sunday, October 31, 2010

This is a BRILLIANT presentation. RSA Animate - Changing Education Paradigms

Ten Ways to Get Smart With SMARTboard, Amber Price

Ten Ways to Get Smart With SMARTboard, Amber Price

More than Wordle

More than Wordle - Other Word Cloud Generators!

Top 10 EDU Channels on You Tube

Top 10 EDU Channels on You Tube

Top 10 Sites for Creating Digital Comics by David Kapuler

Top 10 Sites for Creating Digital Comics by David Kapuler

MultiMedia Blog

Multimedia in Education

A variety of projects are posted here from the Digital Media Class I took at Lesley University.

http://amdigmedia.blogspot.com

21st Century Learner - Book Reviewcast

Web 2.0 in the Learning Context

Web 2.0 in context of learning using blogs, wikis, and social networking allows greater opportunity for :
  • User Generated Education
  • Constructing Knowledge
  • Strong Self-Directed with Mentoring/Support
Which enables the student to research, create, communicate, and collaborate where learning is networked and inquiry driven.

contributor: Peggy Sahlman

Good Ideas for Tech Integration

Specific and General - Mixed List
  • Wikis - WikiSpaces; PBWorks
  • Blogs - Sakai; Edublogger
  • Social Bookmarking - Delicious
  • Webpages - Google Sites; PBWorks
  • Document Editing/Sharing - Google Docs
  • Twitter
  • Podcasting - Audacity
  • Flips Cameras/Video
  • EasyBib
  • Flickr
  • Picasa
  • Slide Share
  • Google Earth
  • Glogster
  • Prezi
  • Sakai
  • Timeline - Preceden
  • Xtranormal
  • Online Graphing Tools
  • Noodle Tools
  • Atomic Learning
  • Webspiration
  • Scratch
  • Wordle/Tagxedo
  • Kerpoof

ISTE Professional Development Site


http://istelearning.org/

Voki Avatar to Introduce Somthing New

Monday, June 21, 2010

CONFU- Multimeda Guidelines

Here is a summary link: http://www.bsu.edu/library/article/0,,14550--,00.html

For a full report, go to this LINK and then to Page 49 (Appendix A)
http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/dcom/olia/confu/confurep.pdf

Notable elements of these Guidelines:

Teachers can use the project for up to 2 years for educational purposes after the first use in instruction.

Both teachers and students can use it in a professional portfolio for personal reasons without the 2 year time limit.

Limitations:
Motion Media - 10% or 3 minutes whichever is less
Text Material Limitations - 10% or up to 1000 words whichever is less
Music Lyrics Music Video - 10% no more than 30 seconds
Illustrations - can use entire image but no more than 5 by same publisher or 10%/15 of a collection.

A disclaimer mustbe placed at the beginning of the multimedia project that incorporates copyrighted works (the first screen) and all accompanying materials that reads: "Certain materials are included under the fair use exemption of the U.S. Copyright Law and have been prepared according to the educational multi-media fair use guidelines and are restricted from further use.”

Saturday, June 19, 2010

Task 018 Allison's Illustrated Poster


I created a jpg poster from a poem my son wrote in 5th grade. The image and text are meant to support the theme of the poem. This is a good use of this type of technology to support writing and publishing goals.

Sunday, June 13, 2010

Atomic Learning Activity Worksheet

Atomic Learning Activity Worksheet


1.  Create your Atomic Learning Plan


     Describe your professional goal(s) and which Atomic Learning activity(s) you will use.


Goal: 


Training Series, Project, or Workshop:


Target Completion Date:


How it will be used next year:


Artifact or evidence:



2.  Submit your Professional Development Form for credit.

Tuesday, May 4, 2010

Assessment For Learning

The article, Assessment without victims: An interview with Rick Stiggins, discusses the effects that student involvement in assessment has upon student motivation and achievement. The following is a quote from that article:

Students learn from assessments


"JSD: A study in England found that many of the most successful instructional innovations used student self-assessments and peer assessments to strengthen formative assessment in the classroom. The study also found that improved formative assessment raised student achievement overall but that it helped low achievers most.

Stiggins: I, too, have read that very important research. The key is to understand the relationship between assessment and student motivation. In the past, we built assessment systems to help us dole out rewards and punishment. And while that can work sometimes, it causes a lot of students to see themselves as failures. If that goes on long enough, they lose confidence and stop trying.

When students are involved in the assessment process, though, they can come to see themselves as competent learners. We need to involve students by making the targets clear to them and having them help design assessments that reflect those targets. Then we involve them again in the process of keeping track over time of their learning so they can watch themselves improving. That's where motivation comes from.

We can also involve students in communicating what they learned, for example, through student-led conferences, which is probably one of the biggest breakthroughs in communicating about student achievement in the last century. Grant Wiggins says he wants classrooms in which there are no surprises and no excuses. Involve students deeply in the assessment process and that's what you get.

Kids who have given up on learning are at the low end. If we can involve them in the assessment process to give them renewed confidence and motivation, they're likely to try harder and to succeed. The kids who had previously given up on themselves have rekindled interest and get renewed confidence when involved in high quality formative assessment."

Technology Integrator/Instructional Specialists Job Descriptions

Looking to see what types of jobs schools have created to support the instructional/training side of technology. In some schools I see tremendous progress, in others I don't see that this as being as valued as it should be. Here are a couple job descriptions I recently found. I would appreciate any other descriptions added from your district or ones you know about.

  • Technology Training & Support Coordinator: Sets up technology workshops and training opportunities for staff, supervises the district's central Helpdesk and coordinates training and resources for district-wide initiatives that include technology.

  • Instructional Technology Coordinator: responsibilities include overseeing the K-8 technology curriculum, supervising the Instructional Technology coaching program, and coordinating the efforts of building-based Technology Leaders (liaisons) who support classroom teachers in their use of technology for instruction. He also works with the district's Curriculum Department to embed technology / 21st Century skills into curricular objectives.

Friday, April 16, 2010

Digital Literacy Books

I just ordered these books from Amazon





1 "Understanding the Digital Generation: Teaching and Learning in the New Digital Landscape (The 21st Century Fluency Series)"
Ian Jukes; Paperback; $26.95


1 "Becoming Reflective Students and Teachers With Portfolios and Authentic Assessment (Psychology in the Classroom : a Series on Applied Educational Psy)"
Scott G. Paris; Paperback; $17.95

Good Tech Skills We Can Teach Students

  • Communicate
  • Collaborate
  • Problem Solving
  • Leadership & Cultural Initiatives
  • Knowledge Management
From UDG:
  • Solution Fluency
  • Information Literacy
  • Knowledge of Bias
  • Collaboration
  • Creativity
  • Media Fluency
  • Digital Citizenship ( 5 minds for the future)