After writing up my summary of the PETE&C DEN event I noticed that it can easily be divided into 7 sections. So, rather than bombard you with a large report I’ll post one section a day this week. Short, sweet, bite-size chunks of information work much better for me, and hopefully for you as well.
For the 2nd breakout session I went to see a presentation on Google Earth and unitedstreaming, run by none other than Lance Rougeux (the guy who planned the whole PETE&C DEN event). I went into this with a bit of skepticism since I wasn’t sure if Google Earth had a Mac version, but a teacher at another table downloaded and installed the Mac app during the presentation so I really perked up after that.
Google Earth has some great visuals and looks at the altitude above sea level to make the maps 3D – honestly, the Grand Canyon looks awesome. You can also insert images on top of the map to turn them into great social studies lessons. Lance used unitedstreaming pictures of course, but an image is an image.
I think the best feature is Google Earth’s support of html code. I can insert pictures hosted on Flickr by using the codes they provide, and then everyone who loads my map file will see the same image.
When I had Art Club later on that week I showed Google Earth to some of my kids and they didn’t want to stop playing with it.
After writing up my summary of the PETE&C DEN event I noticed that it can easily be divided into 7 sections. So, rather than bombard you with a large report I’ll post one section a day this week. Short, sweet, bite-size chunks of information work much better for me, and hopefully for you as well.
During lunch Hall Davidson showed us some great videos that were made by students – some of them younger than one might expect. Our kids are for the most part digital natives and are capable of doing a lot more than our curriculum gives them credit for. I constantly hear about raising standards for math, raising standards for reading, and so on, but I don’t often hear about raising the standards for technology.
Is it perhaps because so many of our teachers are afraid of what technology can do?
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(At one point in this podcast I say “education” when I meant to say “technology.” See if you can find it.)
After writing up my summary of the PETE&C DEN event I noticed that it can easily be divided into 7 sections. So, rather than bombard you with a large report I’ll post one section a day this week. Short, sweet, bite-size chunks of information work much better for me, and hopefully for you as well.
The first breakout session I attended was run by the DEN’s own Scott Kinney, who only had to drive down the road to attend the conference. (The lucky guy lives in Hershey.) His presentation was all about the diversity in our classrooms and how unitedstreaming could help us meet the needs of today’s classrooms.
If I wasn’t already sold on unitedstreaming.com I would have reacted to this like so many other vendor presentations, but since they had me at multimedia downloads I paid attention to find out what else unitedstreaming could do.
We started with a quiz, and the answers were a bit surprising to us. I’d list them here, but I forgot his source so I can’t properly cite his statistics.
The main point of this warm-up was that our schools are a lot more diverse than we thought.
Since unitedstreaming has lots of features from subtitles to online quizzes to encyclopedia articles, It really does help people who have a variety of learning styles.
This morning I left two things on the counter that were meant to go to school with me:
My Lunch. I had no cash on me, so my lunch was in fact irreplaceable. I would just have to wait until after school to get a bite to eat.
My Camera. I didn’t have any lessons planned for today that required the use of a camera, digital or otherwise. Even if something came up in a spur of the moment, I still had my standby camera and a 256 MB card.
So guess which item I missed more today?
That’s right, the replaceable digital camera I didn’t even need.
Hello, my name is Aaron, and I’m a digital junkie.
After writing up my summary of the PETE&C DEN event I noticed that it can easily be divided into 7 sections. So, rather than bombard you with a large report I’ll post one section a day this week. Short, sweet, bite-size chunks of information work much better for me, and hopefully for you as well.
The first keynote speaker was Kathy Schrock, and she did a great job going over tips for visual presentations. Now granted, I knew most of her tips due to my training as an art teacher, but I’ve sat through far too many presentations (done by adults who should have known better) that included sounds, transitions, pictures, fonts, and even colors that just did not belong.
And of course the whole thing was made even better because she put examples and notes from her presentation online for us. This took a lot of pressure off of the people who were taking notes, and it also meant one less handout for us to file and forget. (I myself intend to use wikis for my presentations, since my last wiki is still the number one downloaded resource on the new DEN site. … how did THAT happen?!)
Are you interested in having your K-12 class work with another class in another school for a lesson, project, or other activity? That’s why the Collaborative Lessons group is here!
Just place a pin in our Frappr map, including the subject to which you’d like your lesson to relate. Include an email address in your “shoutout” message, along with any other specifics you’d like to add, and then other teachers will be able to see where you are and what you’d like to do.
Sometimes teachers want to do a collaboration with another class but just can’t think of a good lesson idea. That’s what this wiki is for! If you’ve got a cool concept for a collaborative lesson just go to the appropriate page (or make your own if the page doesn’t exist) and add in your idea.
Don’t worry about mistakes or immature people going in to change the pages in a bad way, every change is saved so we can always go back to the way the site used to be.
Yesterday I arrived at the Hershey Lodge for the PETE & C Preconference sponsored by DEN. (Wow, what a name!) I couldn’t go to the full conference, but this one day event was too good to pass up.
To be honest, it wasn’t truly a one day fling – last night a bunch of DEN members got together to have dinner and socialize for a few hours. While we were still in the lobby waiting to go I had the opportunity to meet David Warlick.
It was quite convenient that I was talking to DEN managers Michelle Adams and Jannita Demian, or I would have never had such a chance encounter. They got hugs and hearty greetings while I got a wave and a handshake.
Dave had no idea who I was, but why should he?
At dinner my wife and I got to sit across from Kathy Schrock and discuss everything from family to educational podcasting.
Kathy had no idea who I was, either.
The next day I had the great honor of meeting Steve Dembo himself, who only recognized me because my hat had “Art Guy” written on it. (He mentioned at the time that I didn’t look anything like he imagined.)
This is the part of the story where I’m supposed to say that after shaking hands with all of these powerhouses in educational technology I’m never going to wash my hand again, but that’s just gross, isn’t it?
There’s a point to this beyond incessant name dropping. You see, I was getting a little worried that I might be getting a little too full of myself. I mean, let’s face it – I’ve got over 2,000 kids that freak out every time I walk into one of their classrooms.
Now, having met these icons of ed tech that are doing so much more than me to further the cause, I think I have a much better sense of self.
After all, I’m way too much of a fanboy to be all that famous, right?
(PS: More info on the conference, including a podcast or two, will be forthcoming as soon as my Powerbook is up and running again.)
My 48th podcast is brought to you by the letters “S,” “N,” “O,” “W,” “D,” “A,” and “Y.” The snow wasn’t the problem today, but the trees and power lines that the snow took down were a bit of a hinderance.
I had a great post written on Flickr’s 200 image limit and my debate over whether or not I should switch to a pro account. I reasoned that by switching I would get rid of that limit and my need to resize my images (that 20 MB/month limit can be a killer…), but that I’m so much of a cheapskate that it might not be worth it.
And now I can only see 200 pictures again. Why is Flickr turning the limit on and off? In light of this I’ve added my original post below.
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As I’m sure you may have noticed, I’ve integrated my Flickr account into my blog and my RSS feed. Flickr is a great way to share photos, and it even has a Creative Commons section where you can find pictures that you’re allowed to use for other projects.
They offer free and paid accounts, and therein lies my problem.
You see, while the free account offers many useful services it will only display 200 pictures for you at a time. It won’t delete the old pictures, and if you’re already showing them on a blog they’ll still be visible there, but you won’t be able to get to those pictures from the Flickr site unless you pony up for a pro account.
As I’m typing this I’ve already uploaded 200+ pictures this school year. That means I can’t reference any of the artworks I uploaded last year.
Unless I get a pro account.
Which I wouldn’t mind having.
The question I need to answer is: “Is the pro account worth it?”
The geek in me wants to say yes, because the removal of an upload quota would let me post larger images and I hate resizing. The cheapskate in me is happy with the free service.
This is something I need to work out. I’ll keep you posted.
Yesterday nbc4.com posted this story on their website. I recommend that you go and read the whole article before you continue with my own ramblings. Go ahead, I’ll wait.
All done? Good.
I’m sure the author of that article wanted his or her thesis to be that there’s a growing problem among today’s youth where they think that the rules in the digital realm are different from the rules in the analog realm. The solution of course is to more thoroughly educate students about plagiarism and to also know how to look for it.
At least that’s what I think the author’s take was on it, and two years ago I would have agreed with it completely.
Let me first preface my own thesis with the following statements:
Yes, I think plagiarism is wrong.
Yes, I think students who knowingly commit plagiarism should be punished.
Yes, I think that we should both educate our students on the perils of intellectual theft and keep a watchful eye for signs of the same.
I don’t have any problem acknowledging any of those points. My contention is with the point of view.
Allow me to elaborate by quoting two sentences from the story itself.
I would propose that the solution would be to look at that part of the problem in a new light. Remember, when the Industrial Revolution put many farmers out of work they saw the change as catastrophic, but at the same time those unemployed workers were hired in droves to work in the factories. (Thanks for the history lesson, Bob!)
At the risk of sounding too much like Mr. Warlick, we’re in the thick of a digital revolution. The farmers who couldn’t bear change suffered, starved, and in the worst of it started riots and rebellions. Those that changed had a chance.
It’s sad that all that free information out there is seen as a disadvantage for students. With our current teaching methods (at least in most schools) we’re still pretending we’re in the 1900s or even 1800s. “Memorize this, quiz on Thursday” might have worked well when we were kids, but let’s be honest here.
How often do you encounter problems where you cannot check a reference if necessary. They make those teachers’ editions for a reason, after all!
I currently do not have textbooks that I can use in my classrooms, and frankly I don’t want them. I have a few reference materials I can use in and out of the classroom, but it’s so much easier to use the internet that sometimes O don’t even crack a book open to plan a lesson. As someone who is required to use his art lessons to teach all the other subjects, I think that’s really saying something.
If we’re supposed to prepare students to survive in the “real world,” (That is our job, right? Right?!) then we should show them how to use references the same way we do.
Don’t just copy that page from Wikipedia, check some of it’s facts to see if they’re accurate!
Don’t just take an essay off the internet, use it as a reference in a blog post!
Don’t spend all your time memorizing the periodic table, find out what you can do with all those cool elements! (Don’t forget your safety goggles!)
What if a teacher assigned a project where the report wasn’t even graded, but the responses to other students’ reports were?
I’ve rambled on long enough, so how about one of you wrap this up for me?
After writing up my summary of the PETE&C DEN event I noticed that it can easily be divided into 7 sections. So, rather than bombard you with a large report I’ll post one section a day this week. Short, sweet, bite-size chunks of information work much better for me, and hopefully for you as well.
