Welcome Back

Welcome back to another great school year for the 2008 - 2009 school year. I will be off to a slow start this year with technology integration this year as our district will be finishing off the district wide laptop rollout to all teachers so I will be busy with that till the middle of October so by then, teachers should be ready to start having students work on projects for 2nd quarter and spring semester. I hope to build upon the successful projects of the past and get even more teachers energized about doing tech projects as well.

Veterns Documentary Project

I have recently been working with several teachers at my home school on documentary projects from past wars and how their lives have changed. We have yet to see any of the finished projects but so far the students have really stepped up to the plate when working on these assignments. They video taped their interviews, some did audio recordings, some digitized photos and then combined all of these sources along with their thesis statements of how the person they interviewed story's work in to the bigger picture of the war that they were involved in. The students spent many hours after school putting all of the pieces together to potential create some wonderful documentaries to share with their classmates and with the person they interviewed as well. To learn more about how to create digital stories please visit:

http://ittwiki.northstar.k12.ak.us/5._Classes/Digital_Storytelling_Workshop

I will post more on my observations and potential interviews with the teachers I was working with this past spring.

Skype in the Classroom

Well after taking a short break from blogging due to many unforeseen events, I am back with some fresh concepts that are being accomplished in the Fairbanks North Star Borough School District. Today, I was working with a Language Arts teacher with her class that just got done interviewing the director of movie that will be released soon that is based on a movie “Johnny got his Gun”. After a few technical difficulties, luckily on their end, they finally started the interview process with Rowan Joseph. There was a lot of energy in the room full of 24 students anxious and unsure of what to expect from this process, as most of them were unfamiliar with the process of how Skype works. So to start off, Mrs. Dimmick and myself ran a test in the classroom and some wonderful feedback on the sound as we were sitting two close together. I do enjoy a nice reverb between two computers as it so pleasant on the ears. But once it started, without the video, the students started to perform wonderfully. They were respectful, focused and asked really poignant questions. They probed the director on why they choose to make a movie about this book, what it was like to work with actor, and so on. The students were very engaged in this process, as they had to write down what they thought about Rowan’s answers. With something new, especially for students it takes a while for them to get comfortable, but after about 5 questions some students even started to ask follow up answers. It would be interesting to see what the students thought process was like about their what they were thinking about the this activity before, during and after it was all over. One of the questions was asked about why they choose to use just one actor, Rowan made note of that this a new version of a previous version. Most of today’s students have seen clips of that movie in the music video “One” by Metallica. One of the constant questions revolved on the geopolitical reality of the current events in the Middle East. Rowan put forth a well thought out answer about his views of the war and how it has changed over time. Rowan did read the book in high school and he had a hard time reading the novel as it hit him in the gut and made it hard read. He appreciated the “Hope” of the character later in life on second reading but while in high school was overwhelmed with the physical loss of the his body parts.

ASTE Day 1 ... Afternoon

Well after a box lunch and visit with the rest of ITT’s, I headed off to a Conference entitled “Technology to Enhance Your Curriculum”. After hearing about what the presenters do for the Anchorage School District, I realized they were our counterparts and would talk with them afterwards to look into some sharing of resources and collaborating with them as best we could. I was looking over their list of topics and quickly realized that due to the similarity of jobs I knew about most of the resources they were going to be going over, so I was going to be listening from a different angle during this session. Some of the key thoughts from their talk that struck me were the following:

“Technology is not something on TOP of what you are doing, but it should be something that will ENHANCE your lesson.” (Shelley Szipszky)

As an Instructional Technology Teacher, you should go in lead several lessons while giving the staff member you are working with the chance to observe how the students are interacting with the lesson. Just let the teacher know that you would like them to look past behavior and more towards their engagement in the lesson.

Then they pointed out that they did not harp on music and headphones if the students were using them as long as they were used in an appropriate manner. They noted that it would help many students focus on their work and that they would teach proper use of when to listen to music.

Then they featured a really cool movie using ISTOPMOTION, which is a program that takes still photos that will create a stop motion animation. This is actually a program that I have and I will look forward to trying it out this summer

Next up was a movie using a technique called shadow-puppet storytelling. They also mentioned that there were hundreds of iMovie 06 HD plug – in's that you could download and install. So when I get some time I will go looking for some to see what is out there.

The coolest resource that they did cover was called “Google Lit Trips”, located at www.googlelittrips.org. This site works with KMZ files in Google Earth where they will take a book, create a pathway in Google Earth and then add text and pictures to recap the book as you move from one place to the next. I downloaded the classic book of “Grapes of Wrath” and the KML file started in Oklahoma and traveled west to California. The prospect of how this could enhance an English class was a giant “Aha” moment for me. I cannot wait to share this site with my English teachers.

Finally, their shared an Instructional Technology Teachers worst nightmare that is when your best laid plans go horrible wrong. They showed off this really cool site for K – 6, called www.kerpoof.com where you can create a story or movie with provided characters. Ross had mentioned that he showed it to a teacher and the teacher was using for a couple of days and then the teacher came in the next day only to become frustrated towards technology. The emotion arose from the fact that their school district decided to block the web site. I know that feeling oh to well and know numerous teachers that have felt that same frustration.

Well now that Day 1 is done and after waking up at 4am today, dinner sounds nice and then early to bed as I am bushed. Check back soon for ASTE day 2 installments.

ASTE Day 1...retroactive post

Well if the IRS can impose retroactive taxes, I guess I can write a retroactive post to my new blog. After an intense four days of a fantastic conference on the Integration of Technology into Education. Well my first three hour session from 9am to 12pm I tentatively went to a session on Blogging to see what it was really about. I had heard about blogging for a while, even had signed up for an account on Blogger.com and EduBlog.com, tried creating a blog on both sites, but after both attempts of trying them came away going what was the big deal. I have read a few blogs, seen one or two that might have been worthwhile even subscribing to as an RSS feed but was not seeing why blogs were so popular. But after seeing that blogs have grown and mature over the years to something elegant and graphically appealing to the eye, the ability to easily add pictures, video, and is editable html wise as well as being able to embed widgets, yet even a technophob could create one in under 5 minutes now mean that Blogging truly is ready for "Prime Time". I sat in a session today where two teachers from the BSSD school district basically runs their entire web site using either a Blog or a Wiki as their frame work for their web site.

Here is their home page which is a wiki:

http://wiki.bssd.org/index.php/Main_Page

Here is their home page which is a Blog:

http://www.bssd.org/

Now why are they using both forms as two different home pages, well they are both easy to crate new content in but have different feels and different uses. Most of the teachers are running a blog as their own teacher page. Students are creating content and posting it online and they are seeing exponential growth year over year as the students are creating more content faster and at a high quality of work, usually better than what they would have turned in by hand.

So this is the true birthplace of why I started to blog. Seeing the source of the power that is the driving force behind an entire district of students and teachers thousands of miles away from the nearest mall, they are CREATORS, PUBLISHERS, ARTISTS and most important of all LEARNERS. Students are no longer using their school hallways as their audience, but now they have the entire planet as their audience. That is the true power of the Internet.

So the old saying "The Pen is Mightier than the Sword" needs to be changed, or wikified to "The Internet and Technology is changing the world forever."

How Blogging Can Improve Writting Skills

So how can Blogging improve your students writing skills? Glad you asked. As I was writing my first post online last night and wanting to sound intelligent, I realized that I needed a spell checker, which usually I just use the Firefox, but I just could not figure out how to spell lethargic but just could not figure it out. But then I decided to open up the computer dictionary and typed in the word lazy and then clicked on the thesaurus and quickly found the spelling. Then I noticed that I was using the same adjective a couple of times, so I once again I was using the thesaurus. It was incredible, powerful "Aha" Moment.

More from ASTE to come

ASTE Day 1 thoughts 3 days later...

Well if you don't start a Blog at a Tech conference, when will you start a Blog? So here I am making a return to ASTE 2008 almost 9 years after my first time and am I GLAD to be back. The energy and overall lust for knowledge is incredible as there is so much enthusiasm for how technology can turn students into life long learners. Over and Over we keep hearing how this project or that project turns the most lethargic students into industrious students with talents that teachers were surprised to see in their students. The vibe is incredible, the information is hitting us fast and furious, and I am trying my best not to drown as I am swimming in a large ocean of content of skills, projects and wisdom from around the "Greatest" state in USA. It will take me all week to play catch up on Blogging on what I am learning, thinking, and planning on sharing with teachers back in Fairbanks in the coming months.

Check back tomorrow for more post...