For me, this was a good course and thanks to David, our instructor, for making it so. During this course I got more practice with collaborative learning with my partner Kristy. We used both synchronous and asynchronous methods to complete our assignments. Perhaps we'd meet for a bit to talk about what to do, then work independently on a shared doc and then come back together to discuss what we had and refine it together. Sometimes we didn't use voice while together but just typed messages. All in all I feel much better about having collaborative experience for helping both teachers and students in the future.
I didn't really learn very many new software tricks since I am an intermediate / advanced user for most of the software we used. I used on-line versions more and am getting more comfortable with them and their limitations. When I start a new job/position, I'll be using either Google or Zoho for my documents more and depending on where I work and what I do, I'll try promoting these services within for in-house documents.
For me, the content of some of the course seemed almost opposing and contradictory. On the one hand, the stress on standards and measurable output and getting those matched up in the lesson plans was on one end of the spectrum. On the other end was the call for less measurable things like creativity and critical thinking. I guess great teachers are able to marry the two and the outcomes will live happily ever after.
One thing I got from this course was the exposure to a lot more resources that I didn't know about. Can't remember if I've bookmarked them all. If I did, then I have to remember what tags I used.
I think the biggest thing I got was help on integrating technology into the current curriculum which is what I think a lot of this degree/program/job is or will be about. I've always had this on my mind since I started my job 4 1/2 years ago but it never almost never worked out that way fro reasons I won't get into here. This is what I'd really like to do, integrate the technology into the every-day learning in schools.
End Note / Suggestion:
One thing I just thought of for introducing teachers and staff to some of the new technology and tools we have been using would be to begin holding occasional teacher/staff meetings on-line instead of at the usual meeting place. The time s already set aside for the meetings and chances are that many teachers have a computer (hopefully mics and earphones as well) in their room. Teachers could be paired up so that newbies and gurus work together in the meeting. Just a thought that came to me. This would give them the exposure and hopefully the same confidence we have gained in using these tools.
Rethink Reflection
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
Sunday, June 19, 2011
My Teaching Future
It's always been kind of difficult for me to answer questions or talk in class about what we are doing in this class and what we are doing in our schools/teaching. To keep it simple, my situation at work is much less than desirable. Things that can be even loosely called normal in other schools are way out of the ball park in my school and I will not be working there in the fall. Anyone need me?
How does what we are studying affect me and my work? Hard to say at this point. We'll have to see what I find.
About this week's Google Sites assignment? I wouldn't mind making something that I could actually use but I'm not inclined to make much of it because I know that once this program is done I will no longer have access to it/my wolfmail account. As of now to my knowledge, there is no simple one click method to download or change ownership to a different Google account for any of the wolfmail/Google services / documents. In regular Google accounts you can transfer ownership of documents and sites but with a Google Apps account like Wolfmail, you can only transfer ownership to someone in the same domain.
This brings me to think about the future. I see coming up a few courses down the road we will be creating an ePortfolio (I've already found the template). Here is an excerpt from a discussion/homework post I did on the subject from last week about ePortfolios in case you didn't read that post.
"There are a multitude of options for creating ePortfolios and learning to create them can address many technology learning standards. For elementary through middle grades the creation of ePortfolios may be created and published in a closed system such as a dedicated school portal, eLearning system or the like where teachers may have a bit more control over the process, technology and content. However, for high school students, it is recommended that they create an ePortfolio independent of a closed system. The reasons for this is that if a student changes schools, her/his portfolio will not be lost since the portfolio is not on a system they will no longer have access to but has been created using the web 2.0/cloud tools of choice. And for the same reason, when a student graduates from high school they will still have access to it and can control who has access to it (or parts of it) for future employment and/or education."
Will we be able to create these ePortfolios using a service of our choice? I don't even mind using Google sites but I'd rather do it with my personal account. I won't feel like putting in the 110% making if I know that once my Wolfmail is gone, I won't be able to access it or have others be able to access it for it's intended purpose.
How does what we are studying affect me and my work? Hard to say at this point. We'll have to see what I find.
About this week's Google Sites assignment? I wouldn't mind making something that I could actually use but I'm not inclined to make much of it because I know that once this program is done I will no longer have access to it/my wolfmail account. As of now to my knowledge, there is no simple one click method to download or change ownership to a different Google account for any of the wolfmail/Google services / documents. In regular Google accounts you can transfer ownership of documents and sites but with a Google Apps account like Wolfmail, you can only transfer ownership to someone in the same domain.
This brings me to think about the future. I see coming up a few courses down the road we will be creating an ePortfolio (I've already found the template). Here is an excerpt from a discussion/homework post I did on the subject from last week about ePortfolios in case you didn't read that post.
"There are a multitude of options for creating ePortfolios and learning to create them can address many technology learning standards. For elementary through middle grades the creation of ePortfolios may be created and published in a closed system such as a dedicated school portal, eLearning system or the like where teachers may have a bit more control over the process, technology and content. However, for high school students, it is recommended that they create an ePortfolio independent of a closed system. The reasons for this is that if a student changes schools, her/his portfolio will not be lost since the portfolio is not on a system they will no longer have access to but has been created using the web 2.0/cloud tools of choice. And for the same reason, when a student graduates from high school they will still have access to it and can control who has access to it (or parts of it) for future employment and/or education."
Will we be able to create these ePortfolios using a service of our choice? I don't even mind using Google sites but I'd rather do it with my personal account. I won't feel like putting in the 110% making if I know that once my Wolfmail is gone, I won't be able to access it or have others be able to access it for it's intended purpose.
I've already started/played around with an online ePortfoilio at VisualCV because it may prove useful for my current job search. VisualCV is a pretty straightforward resume site that also lets you add portfolio and other items in a sidebar.
When this program is done, I'd like to be able to use the ePortfolio we will be creating for this program for real. I've already emailed a message to Louis a message similar to this asking about this.
As the textbook says, allow your students choices in how they may complete a given task/project.
Monday, June 13, 2011
Real Player-In Time Video(no time video): Student News Broadcasts
The first thing I did before I started this assignment is do a search for "is Real Player dead", and got some amusing results. I've never been a fan of Real Player. Well, it is certainly dead on my computer. I happened to be on my Win 7 (64 bit) boot so I installed it. Searched for a video and found one about "Producing a Daily News Broadcast" for middle school students. The page opens in Firefox and the player is there, but the video never plays. Chrome doesn't work either.
Fast forward to my Linux Mint boot. Get the .deb installer - wrong architecture (32 bit). Found a fix, installed some other libraries and stuff. Installed with command line and force architecture. Does it ... Nope! Player is there but nothing plays, Firefox or Chrome.
Real Player is dead for me.
The information provided in the lesson (sans video) included a lot of useful information about what can and does go on with the teacher's ongoing news production such as skills learned and standards addressed. However, it is not a lesson plan in the sense that it lays out processes and procedures for someone doing this for the first time could follow and be successful. For a better lesson plan to begin such a project use this from the Media Awareness Network about video production of a newscast. (The Media Awareness website has a lot of great resources and lessons.)
Since I was interested in the student news broadcast I did a search and found some interesting stuff. Fox News in Connecticut has FOX CT Student News. FOX TV news professionals work with middle & high school students to produce news shorts (50 seconds max) and the best are aired on TV. The website has great guidelines and materials for the news production.
Sample: Bishop Gorman Weekly Student Newscast
I've always thought it would be interesting and fun to work with creating student produced news. The news stories produced by FOX TV are stories for, by and about the students. It's relevant, engaging, has a real audience, practices real skills and obviously involves a lot of technology.
I'd love to work somewhere where I could do this.
More resources and student produced news programs:
Fast forward to my Linux Mint boot. Get the .deb installer - wrong architecture (32 bit). Found a fix, installed some other libraries and stuff. Installed with command line and force architecture. Does it ... Nope! Player is there but nothing plays, Firefox or Chrome.
Real Player is dead for me.
The information provided in the lesson (sans video) included a lot of useful information about what can and does go on with the teacher's ongoing news production such as skills learned and standards addressed. However, it is not a lesson plan in the sense that it lays out processes and procedures for someone doing this for the first time could follow and be successful. For a better lesson plan to begin such a project use this from the Media Awareness Network about video production of a newscast. (The Media Awareness website has a lot of great resources and lessons.)
Since I was interested in the student news broadcast I did a search and found some interesting stuff. Fox News in Connecticut has FOX CT Student News. FOX TV news professionals work with middle & high school students to produce news shorts (50 seconds max) and the best are aired on TV. The website has great guidelines and materials for the news production.
Sample: Bishop Gorman Weekly Student Newscast
I've always thought it would be interesting and fun to work with creating student produced news. The news stories produced by FOX TV are stories for, by and about the students. It's relevant, engaging, has a real audience, practices real skills and obviously involves a lot of technology.
I'd love to work somewhere where I could do this.
More resources and student produced news programs:
- Center for Media Literacy
- PBS Student Reporting Labs
- First Take: Student produced news blog with video of NYABJ's high school journalism workshop.
- Eastview, MN high school news show
- Bishop Gorman High School, Las Vegas
- Florida Dept of Ed.: TV Production II lesson plans
Monday, May 23, 2011
Spreadsheets and Blankets
Blankets really don't have anything to do with this week's work or post but it made a good title. Excel was one of the first programs I began exploring when I started to really get into computers and was more or less responsible for me getting really, really into computers and programming. (See a post a few back where the whole story was told.)
Since that time I've used spreadsheets here and there for various tasks. Currently I use one for student transcripts with calculated GPAs and credits required for graduation. I keep some employee hours tallied on one. Nothing too fancy. I like to make things look nice and always enjoy a design challenge such as the transcript spreadsheet, fitting everything nicely on one page. If you look at my recipe spreadsheet you'll see what I mean about design and formatting.
Some of what I read about how my classmates use spreadsheets I would do in a database instead. I can just as easily create a database in MS Access for keeping track of, sorting and filtering information. I haven't found the time to learn to code in OpenOffice Base or Zoho Reports/Creator yet but learning Zoho coding is on my list of things to do some day. In my opinion, spreadsheets are best used for number crunching, graphing or testing out different scenarios. Long lists of information for analysis belong in a database. Short lists of read only information can be put in a document table where you will have more formatting options for presenting the information.
As for student use, If I were teaching I could think of lots of ways to use a spreadsheet, even ones that don't fit in my opinion of how to best use a spreadsheet. Online spreadsheets have enough features for students to learn how to use them. As with other online productivity software, the full feature set is still not there for power users.
For those of you wondering about spreadsheets for the younger grades, I suggest you check out OpenOffice for Kids. The whole OpenOffice suite has been reformatted into 3 levels: Beginner, Intermediate and Advanced, with the latter having all the normal toolbars and options and features available and visible. Choosing the Beginner user interface, kids are presented with a stripped down version of features and tools. The different interfaces apply to all of the office programs so that young beginners can focus on learning the basics without getting confused with the clutter of features and options.
Since that time I've used spreadsheets here and there for various tasks. Currently I use one for student transcripts with calculated GPAs and credits required for graduation. I keep some employee hours tallied on one. Nothing too fancy. I like to make things look nice and always enjoy a design challenge such as the transcript spreadsheet, fitting everything nicely on one page. If you look at my recipe spreadsheet you'll see what I mean about design and formatting.
Some of what I read about how my classmates use spreadsheets I would do in a database instead. I can just as easily create a database in MS Access for keeping track of, sorting and filtering information. I haven't found the time to learn to code in OpenOffice Base or Zoho Reports/Creator yet but learning Zoho coding is on my list of things to do some day. In my opinion, spreadsheets are best used for number crunching, graphing or testing out different scenarios. Long lists of information for analysis belong in a database. Short lists of read only information can be put in a document table where you will have more formatting options for presenting the information.
As for student use, If I were teaching I could think of lots of ways to use a spreadsheet, even ones that don't fit in my opinion of how to best use a spreadsheet. Online spreadsheets have enough features for students to learn how to use them. As with other online productivity software, the full feature set is still not there for power users.
For those of you wondering about spreadsheets for the younger grades, I suggest you check out OpenOffice for Kids. The whole OpenOffice suite has been reformatted into 3 levels: Beginner, Intermediate and Advanced, with the latter having all the normal toolbars and options and features available and visible. Choosing the Beginner user interface, kids are presented with a stripped down version of features and tools. The different interfaces apply to all of the office programs so that young beginners can focus on learning the basics without getting confused with the clutter of features and options.
Thursday, May 19, 2011
Finding and Using Words
I've picked up a few tricks about Internet searching, mostly that I'll probably be using the advanced Search capabilities more often. I compared my usual, Google, with Bing. Both give good but different results and each has it's own set of unique features making it a preference thing. I still haven't figured out how Bing is going to change my life and make decisions any easier like it does in the commercials. Maybe I'm not "connected" enough or maybe I'm not interested enough to really figure out how Bing can chose the right summer camp for my kids.
I tried looking at a bunch of "visual" search engines. Not including the ones that were for searching graphic images, I was not impressed with the eye candy they offered. Some give you a bunch of thumbnails in varying and dazzling presentation formats of the web pages that you must enlarge to see what's on it. Not very useful when reading the the two sentence summary included in standard search pages is much easier. Others offer a big shot of the web pages, again in super cool whiz bang style. Again, not very useful because you only see one result at a time. All of them are bandwidth hogs that need to load the result web pages first before any of the wow presentation methods will actually work and entertain you.
I was disappointed to see that Kartoo has changed it's format since I last visited it a couple of years ago. Search results were presented in a mind-map style layout with similar pages and thoughts categorized in different branches. Clicking on any of the subtopics would take you to a search for that. It was similar to Visual Thesaurus. Upon further reading I just found out that they closed in 2010. Looks like they are back up again but in the format they now have.Wikipedia says that the mind-map presentation they had was ahead of its time.
So, now that I've found my words I guess I have to process them. Without being redundant with my forum posts I'll try to say something new. Zoho Docs has more features than Google Docs but in order to collaborate and share, invitees must have an email address associated with a Zoho account. In Google, you can share and collaborate with anyone, privately or publicly as an open invitation to anyone on the net who knows or can find the document url.
Interestingly, I'm in my personal Google Docs site now and I'm trying to figure out why I have several of my classmates' shared work from previous classes listed. I don't remember giving out my personal Google name and I don't remember trying to connect any Docs between personal Google and Wolfmail. I do have my Wolfmail email pushed to my personal one?? Any thoughts?
I tried looking at a bunch of "visual" search engines. Not including the ones that were for searching graphic images, I was not impressed with the eye candy they offered. Some give you a bunch of thumbnails in varying and dazzling presentation formats of the web pages that you must enlarge to see what's on it. Not very useful when reading the the two sentence summary included in standard search pages is much easier. Others offer a big shot of the web pages, again in super cool whiz bang style. Again, not very useful because you only see one result at a time. All of them are bandwidth hogs that need to load the result web pages first before any of the wow presentation methods will actually work and entertain you.
I was disappointed to see that Kartoo has changed it's format since I last visited it a couple of years ago. Search results were presented in a mind-map style layout with similar pages and thoughts categorized in different branches. Clicking on any of the subtopics would take you to a search for that. It was similar to Visual Thesaurus. Upon further reading I just found out that they closed in 2010. Looks like they are back up again but in the format they now have.Wikipedia says that the mind-map presentation they had was ahead of its time.
So, now that I've found my words I guess I have to process them. Without being redundant with my forum posts I'll try to say something new. Zoho Docs has more features than Google Docs but in order to collaborate and share, invitees must have an email address associated with a Zoho account. In Google, you can share and collaborate with anyone, privately or publicly as an open invitation to anyone on the net who knows or can find the document url.
Interestingly, I'm in my personal Google Docs site now and I'm trying to figure out why I have several of my classmates' shared work from previous classes listed. I don't remember giving out my personal Google name and I don't remember trying to connect any Docs between personal Google and Wolfmail. I do have my Wolfmail email pushed to my personal one?? Any thoughts?
Wednesday, May 11, 2011
Graphics and Text
I really love working with graphics and if I was going to do things over again I might go into graphic design. I have used and still use high end graphics programs, both vector (drawing with shapes and objects) and raster (painting, image/photo editing). For image editing there are a lot of good online applications available, some that are full featured and many that have a few unique tools for interesting effects. For my assignment, I looked for an online vector graphics editor and found that most are not yet ready for prime time. For now, I'll stick to locally installed applications for both types of graphic editing. Either the tools and features are not there or don't yet work well or the latency (lag time) makes it difficult to work with over the Internet, either because of a slower connection (or a bottle-necking pipeline with 20 students all going crazy on the Internet at the same time) or older computers. Because Inkscape and Gimp among others are free, there is no reason schools cannot install these editing programs on student production computers.
The other side of online graphics are the cool, cute make a picture, story or video websites. I've played around with quite a few of these and know they can have a definite place in schools for the right purpose at the right time. Go for it and use them.One gripe I have with a lot of these websites is that they don't always give you a demo mode to try it out before you sign up. Another gripe is that some really cool create it sites have a lot of inappropriate content for school use/endorsement.
For my graphics assignment, I contrasted an old school text only classroom poster of classroom procedures with a graphic version.
Here is my presentation: Graphics Taiwan
Onto the text of our class. It's been a while since "I done book learning." Up till now, it's been easy for me to play with computer hardware and software and get the work done. Now I have to turn on my brain.
Oh..... the standards, and the documentation and the justification and the .......
My experience in education has mostly been like this. I worked in a large private English language school in Taiwan for about 10 years. Great methodology, great resources, great freedom to do what works for you and your students. No standards to comply with. No governmental red tape. No hassles. The bottom line was this, we (meaning the company, the teachers and the students) were successful. Students learned to speak (and listen to, read and write) English. They kept coming back for more. The company was the largest adult English language school in Taiwan because we were good at what we did. My present experience is in a small private choice school where let's say, (at my particular school - not to say all choice schools are this way) things are a little looser than in a typical public school.
I do understand why we need to learn about and put into practice the ideas and concepts in the book but sometimes it just seems a little bit too much. I'd like a show of hands from those of you that teach and have the time to make the kinds of lesson plans we all see examples of. In writing and formatted: goals, objectives, justification, plan of attack, follow up,extensions, inclusions, standards addressed, assessment, evaluation - and then look back at it and think, what have I missed, how can I make it better?
I know we need to think this way. I just don't know what it's like in the real world in public schools. I've never taught in one. Does anybody really do this?
The other side of online graphics are the cool, cute make a picture, story or video websites. I've played around with quite a few of these and know they can have a definite place in schools for the right purpose at the right time. Go for it and use them.One gripe I have with a lot of these websites is that they don't always give you a demo mode to try it out before you sign up. Another gripe is that some really cool create it sites have a lot of inappropriate content for school use/endorsement.
For my graphics assignment, I contrasted an old school text only classroom poster of classroom procedures with a graphic version.
Here is my presentation: Graphics Taiwan
Onto the text of our class. It's been a while since "I done book learning." Up till now, it's been easy for me to play with computer hardware and software and get the work done. Now I have to turn on my brain.
Oh..... the standards, and the documentation and the justification and the .......
My experience in education has mostly been like this. I worked in a large private English language school in Taiwan for about 10 years. Great methodology, great resources, great freedom to do what works for you and your students. No standards to comply with. No governmental red tape. No hassles. The bottom line was this, we (meaning the company, the teachers and the students) were successful. Students learned to speak (and listen to, read and write) English. They kept coming back for more. The company was the largest adult English language school in Taiwan because we were good at what we did. My present experience is in a small private choice school where let's say, (at my particular school - not to say all choice schools are this way) things are a little looser than in a typical public school.
I do understand why we need to learn about and put into practice the ideas and concepts in the book but sometimes it just seems a little bit too much. I'd like a show of hands from those of you that teach and have the time to make the kinds of lesson plans we all see examples of. In writing and formatted: goals, objectives, justification, plan of attack, follow up,extensions, inclusions, standards addressed, assessment, evaluation - and then look back at it and think, what have I missed, how can I make it better?
I know we need to think this way. I just don't know what it's like in the real world in public schools. I've never taught in one. Does anybody really do this?
Monday, April 11, 2011
Final Reflection: Computer Systems - How They Work
Looking back, I think I learned more in this course than I like to admit. Most of the topics were very familiar to me. Personally, I would have liked to learn more about networking because it is my weakest point in computer knowledge though I know networking is probably beyond the scope of this course and program.
The topic of security and disaster recovery made me think a little more about my personal computing and what I should do. I also learned a lot more about audio processing than I knew before. I wish I had time to get more into hobby recording and digital audio creation so I could use all the nice toys.
I was around when the first PC wars started but too young to pay real attention. I liked the video series a lot. Someday I'll probably be watching History Detectives on PBS and someone will have an old floppy disk that they claim was the first copy made of MS-DOS with Bill Gates' handwriting on the label. I'm sure it would be interesting if it happened.
Trying out some new OSs was fun. I actually tried about 10 or 12 different ones before I decided what to report on. I found a minimal variant of Ubuntu, JoliOS which manged to get the correct screen resolution for my monitor. It's really made for netbooks with a minimal installation and lightweight processing. I might try it out again and see if I can load it up with all the things I need and want for a desktop. I also tried without luck to install variants of BSD operating system. I'll be watching and playing around with the two I reported on, Sugar on a Stick, a desktop of the One Laptop Per Child Program and Haiku, a modern remake of BeOS operating system that is very quick but is still under development.
The part I'm going to like the least is the Building the Perfect Computer part. I settled for less than I desired with my new computer because the money wasn't there. Building my perfect system will just make me cry because It would be very nice to have the system I come up with.
It's been good working with my team, Rob Granger and Lawrence Mala, getting to know them a little better and I look forward to whenever we get new teams to get to know more of my classmates.
*******IDEA******* Here's an invite. I'll throw a BBQ sometime this summer on a Thursday and whoever is here we can do the class together, I've got WiFi and two computers we can sit around for class???
The topic of security and disaster recovery made me think a little more about my personal computing and what I should do. I also learned a lot more about audio processing than I knew before. I wish I had time to get more into hobby recording and digital audio creation so I could use all the nice toys.
I was around when the first PC wars started but too young to pay real attention. I liked the video series a lot. Someday I'll probably be watching History Detectives on PBS and someone will have an old floppy disk that they claim was the first copy made of MS-DOS with Bill Gates' handwriting on the label. I'm sure it would be interesting if it happened.
Trying out some new OSs was fun. I actually tried about 10 or 12 different ones before I decided what to report on. I found a minimal variant of Ubuntu, JoliOS which manged to get the correct screen resolution for my monitor. It's really made for netbooks with a minimal installation and lightweight processing. I might try it out again and see if I can load it up with all the things I need and want for a desktop. I also tried without luck to install variants of BSD operating system. I'll be watching and playing around with the two I reported on, Sugar on a Stick, a desktop of the One Laptop Per Child Program and Haiku, a modern remake of BeOS operating system that is very quick but is still under development.
The part I'm going to like the least is the Building the Perfect Computer part. I settled for less than I desired with my new computer because the money wasn't there. Building my perfect system will just make me cry because It would be very nice to have the system I come up with.
It's been good working with my team, Rob Granger and Lawrence Mala, getting to know them a little better and I look forward to whenever we get new teams to get to know more of my classmates.
*******IDEA******* Here's an invite. I'll throw a BBQ sometime this summer on a Thursday and whoever is here we can do the class together, I've got WiFi and two computers we can sit around for class???
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