Similarities and Differences...

Classifying

Another frequently employeed approach for identifying similarities and differences is classifying. This strategy requires students to develop rules that govern the sorting of information. Teachers can provide structure for introductory exercises by providing the items to classify and/or designating the categories to be used.

As students learn the craft of classifying information, assignments can progress to more open exercises that require students to create their own categories. Eventually students should also be able to identify the key elements and the categories for sorting the information.

Kidspiration and Inspiration tools are great resources for creating classifying activities. We need to continue to support and encourage the use of these programs.

What if we add other Microsoft Word tools to our training agenda? Tables provide a flexible structure for classifying activities. Shapes tools on the drawing toolbar and diagram options can be used to create a wider variety of organizers.

Add your ideas for supporting the development of classroom activities that enhance learning by having students classifiy information to identify similarities and differences.

Let's rethink the possibilities.

Microsoft’s World Wide Telescope Provides Access “To Infinity & Beyond”

In May of 2008 Microsoft unveiled the World Wide Telescope to the public. This powerful educational tool is a free download. The World Wide Telescope uses terabytes of the best images from the Hubble Space Telescope, the Chandra X-ray Observatory and the Spitzer Infrared Space Telescope and creates high-resolution panoramas of the universe. Users can see planets, moons, constellations, comets, galaxies and many other objects in the universe. Users can move in and out to see at an object. Viewers can choose different perspectives from different locations on Earth to track the precise position of these objects in the sky. A user can look at the universe as it appeared far in the past, or as it will in the future. With the fast forward button you can watch a planet's moons spinning as they orbit the planet. You can view a supernova explosion that happened a thousand years ago. There are guided tours hosted by astronomers and interactive movies explaining these objects out in space. Users can view the universe through different wavelengths of the spectrum to reveal the various mysteries of the universe. The requirements needed to use this program on your Vista (preferred) or Windows XP Service Pack 2 computer are to download World Wide Telescope from http://www.worldwidetelescope.org/. It only runs on a Windows operating system with 2GHz or faster processor, 2GB of RAM, 1-10GB of free disk space, a Graphics card with 128 MB RAM or 256 VRAM.

Similarities and Differences...

Comparing

Identifying similarities and differences is one of the high yield strategies identified in Classroom Instruction that Works (Marzano, Pickering and Pollock) and addressed in Using Technology with Classroom Instruction that Works (Pitler, Hubbell, Kuhn and Malenoski). Two variations of this strategy need to be considered.

Teachers need to begin with very structured tasks to help students understand the approach and assure their ability to use this strategy to extend their knowledge. Teacher-directed activities can incorporate a great deal of discussion and interaction. This approach is useful when there are key facts every student should grasp.

As students become proficient at identifying similarities and differences, the task can evolve to more open ended activities that support divergent thinking and allow students to add independent observations.

At any phase of implementation, graphic organizers are a great way to structure activities where students identify similarities and differences. An internet search will return a long list of sites offering graphic organizers for classroom use. Many textbooks and training manuals offer a variety of organizer choices. These resources provide a variety of basic diagrams. But how can we grow past the basics?

Fortunately, our school system has provided Kidspiration and/or Inspiration licenses for each school. Training for these programs is also available. The challenge is moving these software products from available to utilized.

Here's another challenge. Students don't have Kidspiration or Inspiration on their home computers. Organizers can be created and printed for offline use but computer active tasks have to be completed at school.

What if we add a new tool to our Microsoft Word training agenda? The drawing toolbar in Word offers lots of shapes, lines and connectors that can be used to create graphic organizers. Office clipart collections can also be accessed to include images.

Add your ideas for supporting the development of classroom activities that enhance learning by having students identify similarities and differences.

Let's rethink the possibilities.

Thoughts on 21st Century Learning

In the wake of the NC State Board of Education adopting five goals related to 21st Century Learning, we need to outline what the phrase means. I feel 21st Century Learning is about reassessing what skills and knowledge we want our students and educators to have. The first two goals listed by the NC State Board speaks to this. In order for students to be globally competitive and for educators to be 21st Century professionals, education needs to become more adaptive, forward-thinking and also engage students using the tools and skills that have become commonplace in the workforce and our everyday lives. We must reassess how we are currently teaching and be sure that we are doing our best to most equip our students.

21st Century Learning is about striving to not only create technology-rich learning environments for schools but also assist educators to learn about emerging technologies and how they can best be integrated into their curriculum. Technology in the classroom is inevitable, but the need for support not only for the equipment itself but also for the educators has to be a priority for fostering a 21st Century Learning environment. Educators and students need access to meaningful instruction with technology tools that will prepare young learners for their future workplaces. In 21st Century Learning, technology should be a tool used in every subject and not as a class taught in isolation. Specific skills needed for 21st Century Learners are difficult to define because the changing landscape of 21st Century education and technology. Therefore, I think 21st Century Learning is about committing to being flexible and prepared to continually reflect on and redefine what each 21st Century Learner can become.

Twitter: To Tweet or Not to Tweet

The more I use Twitter, the bigger fan I am becoming. Twitter is a social networking and micro-blogging tool. Users send updates or “Tweets” that can be no more then 140 characters long. Although there is the usual personal banter, someone will “Tweet” something about instructional technology that I am interested to learn more about. For example today I was reading Tweets from Kathy Schock about Google Sites http://sites.google.com/ being launched for gmail users. Being able to make contacts with other educational technology specialists from different parts of the United States has increased my learning about 21st Century skills. What a great networking tool to ask questions and to read what others are doing in instructional technology and also to learn about the new Web 2.0 tools they are using.

Commoncraft, the people behind the “in plain English” series have created a new one for Twitter. View the video to learn more about Twitter and to learn how to create your own Twitter account.

Blue Web'n

Visit Blue Web'n. According to their website, "Blue Web'n, is "an online library" Their website includes a listing of Internet sites." Information about the sites is grouped together by grade level, format, and content area. The resources from this site is a scoring rubric. One great thing about this site, is that the company that manages this website attempt to keep current. In fact they strive to add additional links to the website on a monthly basis.
See: http://www.kn.pacbell.com/wired/bluewebn/contentTable.cfm for more information on this site.

StumbleUpon

Have you ever stumbled upon a website that was really interesting, bordering on great? Not sure what to do with other than add it to your Favorites?

Well, try adding it to your StumbleUpon site.

StumbleUpon is a social bookmarking site that goes a little bit further. You can rate your sites and share them with others. The system will also search for sites according to your personal preferences. You have a menu of topic areas that you can choose from and it will search to locate other sites that match. Each stumble that you rate also posts a small graphic of the page you are showing. Unfortunately if there is flash object on the site, it will not be displayed.
You also get an option to create a blog with your account. The system even will show you a listing of people who are in the immediate area so that if you want to collaborate or share with those users you can.

One thing that is accompanied with this free tool is a toolbar. It is a small download that gives you a thumbs up or down to rate a site and put it onto your StumbleUpon page.

Microsoft Surface

Did you ever imagine that you could sit down on your couch at your dinner table at a restaurant table or coffee table and begin to use it like your computer?

Think of the possibilities....for
families interaction
educational collaboration
social interaction/networking

Think of the implications for that student that is not engaged in your classroom. Maybe this will get them motivated.
What about the student who cannot manipulate a keyboard, the touch capability will allow them to join in and participate in lessons they could not normally be involved in.
How about the web 2.0 possibilities and collaborative learning and social interaction.

Kind of makes you think doesn't it.

Video provided by Microsoft.com/surface

Track The Information You Want With Bloglines

Bloglines.com is a free news aggregator offered in 8 different languages. All you need is your email address and a password to sign-up. The site allows you subscribe and manage news feeds, web blogs and audio. It tracks information you want to hear or read about as it happens and puts it all on your customized web page. Bloglines collects syndicated feeds from tens of millions of online sources and makes it available to you in one location. All you do is put a check next to the feeds you want to add to your web page. You can receive your email newsletter subscriptions through a free blogline email account so it will not affect your current email. You can import your existing list of subscriptions (if they are in the OPML format). Blogline supports RSS 0.91, 1.0, 2.0 and Atom. You can create clippings which are articles (or sections) of a blog so that you can find them at a later date very easily. You can also create clip blogs. These are blogs that you create and share inside of blogline by simply clicking on the clip blog link. You can also track your friend’s blogs inside blogline.

Do They Know the Dangers?

Video is from: http://tcs.cybertipline.com

How and when do we begin to educate students on the dangers of sharing too much information in social networking sites? Sites such as MySpace and Facebook encourage members to fill out their personal information and share with everyone that is interested. Students do not realize that this information is not private. It is digital and is there indefinitely. Educating students on the dangers of posting their personal information can be a difficult task, since they are so knowledgeable. Not all students are tech savvy, but they can all make the same mistakes. Sexual predators are constantly looking for the vulnerable and students are easy prey on the social networking sites.

Educating students about the dangers should start at an early age. They are exploring in territories that their parents and teachers did not have at such a young age. Parents and teachers have to learn what the students already know.

“It takes a community to raise a 21st Century student…”

Here are some excellent sites available to assist in this process.

http://www.ikeepsafe.org/
http://missingkids.com/
http://webwisekids.org/
http://tcs.cybertipline.com/videos.htm

There are many more, but I have found these to be helpful. What approaches have been successfull for you?

Mind Mapping with Mindmeister

Mindmeister allows users to participate in real-time collaboration in global brainstorming sessions on the web. Users can be anywhere and work together anytime; seeing each other's changes as they are made. Skype calls allows the invited participants to discuss new ideas and put them into the mind map at the same time.

As you share your mind maps with friends or colleagues, the invitees will receive an email with a link and will be able to add their own ideas and comments. Old versions of the mind map are saved on the MindMeister server so you can replace the new ideas with a previous version if necessary.

I really like the brainstorming mode (two or more users are in the same mind map at the same time) and you can see every change that is made instantly through color-coded effects. Working offline is an option through Google Gears and when you go back online, just slide the button to online and all the changes will be automatically synched.

Animoto in Education

I have been experimenting with Animoto. This is a web 2.0 tool that you can use to create MTV type videos with 3 easy steps:

1. Get your images,
   
2. Get music (either use yours or theirs)
   
3. Finalize with details.

Now teacher's can give their student free unlimited access with the free education version of Animoto. E-mail Rebecca Brooks at rebecca@animoto.com for school accounts.

Read more about the use of Animoto with students from the Thoughts from a Tech Specialist blog.

Slide shows will never be the same.

Photoshop Tutorials

http://photoshop911.typepad.com/help/ is a great site for free Photoshop tutorials. Photoshop is the best photo editing program on the market. It is the industry standard. However, it is an involved program that can be difficult to use. This website has tutorials on creating animations, buttons, making custom brushes, using colors, drawing, text effects, and many others. Check it out!

Free Federal Resources for Education Excellence

Finding free resources is a great thing. Listed below is information about free federal site. You will find this resource a great tool in your lesson planning and student research. Try using, Free Federal Resources for Educational Excellence – site: http://www.free.ed.gov/ today.

Why change? Why now?

For WSFCS staff, I am aware that YouTube is blocked by our site but this video is worth seeing if you will check it from home.

**This is also being posted on http://divastechnology.blogspot.com

For the past several months, I have been preaching to district and school level technology staff that we must spend a MINIMUM of 15 minutes a day learning new information. This will not keep us ahead of technology and learning but it will help us keep the pace. Each day, I find myself spending more and more time (mostly at home much to my husband's chagrin) and it does get my head "spinning" to quote Carol Grandy.

During my time last night catching up on my Google Reader and my Twitter feeds, I came across the video above on YouTube. Although I have used other videos to discuss change and the 21st century skills, this may be my new favorite. I have now watched it several times, stopped and started it, and written down a few notes...

"Every device turned off is potentially a turned off child."

By school board policies, we ask our children to check their devices at the door. We worry about the cheating and the lack of attention paid to school work. As I read David Warlick's post on AUP dated today May 8, 2008, I found myself cheering for a school who is thinking outside of the box and connecting kids rather than disconnecting kids. Here is what he said...

Then, taking a minute to thumb through the April issue of Technology & Learning Magazine (Welcome Kevin Hogan), I ran across six schools in Brooklyn who have given cell phones to their students — a total of about 2,500. Each phone is preloaded with with 130 minutes of talk time. Students can be rewarded with additional minutes for good behavior, attendance, homework, and test scores.

Kids are living in the "NEARLY NOW" It is not quite synchronous. It is a place to reflect, research, and repeat. It is a great world for learning.

Don't we want this for our students? Don't we want this for us? As educators, we need the time to process the information coming at us and then reflect on what it means to us. If that becomes part of our daily practice, we can model it for our students.

"We have a classroom system when we could have a community system."

No matter what your politics are, we ALL know "it takes a village." Our system is trying to focus on developing Professional Learning Communities. 21st Century Skills call for global awareness. We need to think big not small.

"If I want the students to make global connections, give the tools to the teachers first. Provide them with opportunities [for global connections]."

Our kids are starting to understand global connections. It is time to get our teachers to rethink the possibilities. As I moved from my classroom to a school-level position to a district-level position, my eyes were opened to my community and that allowed me to have a better understanding of my roles and responsibilities. Students and teachers will benefit from connecting with others. It can be the most powerful staff development/learning environment. A great example of this is Twitter. As I began to use Twitter, I quickly was in touch with educators from around the world. Suddenly, I heard about projects and resources being shared by classrooms from different countries, states, and systems.

21st Century Learning is not about memorizing facts. Do you know how to find information, validate it, synthesize it, leverage it, communicate it, collaborate with it, and problem solve it?

This became clear to me a little over a year ago when, at NCaect, Will Richardson spoke and posed the question, "Is it important to memorize the state capitals or know how to find the answer?" Karl Fisch states in his "Did You Know 2.0" video that by 2010 information will be doubling every 72 hours. How can kids memorize information (all new information) every 72 hours? Isn't it more important to teach students how to harness the power of information, evaluate it, and communicate it?

"Teach a man to fish..."

"This is the DEATH OF EDUCATION BUT THE DAWN OF LEARNING."

How exciting! I want to be part of a community that is focused on learning for all. Why change? Why now? Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach says, "Teachers who don't use technology will be replaced by teachers who do." I plan on working for schools for a long time. Hope you'll join me!

What is iCue?

I was reading one of David Warlick's posts this week and came across iCue. It's a learning environment built around NBC news videos. Students can view videos, play games and converse with other students on topics related to US History, US government, and English language/composition.

The site uses Video Cue Cards. Select a card, watch the video, tag the card, color code the card and add the card to your stack. Students can setup a Friends Network and join Discussion Forums. iCue provides a new and exciting way for students to interact with history and politics. iCue was developed by research from MIT. Take the tour and see what you think about iCue.

I think US History and US government teachers would like this site as another way to get high school students motivated to learn. See what you think.

URL - http://www.icue.com/

The UStream Experience!

Watching a UStream presentation by Will Richardson yesterday was amazing. It was as if we were sitting there in the Baltimore session and participating. He discussed many different ways students and teachers can use easy creation and publishing tools to bring the media into the classroom. Using the live chat was as informative as the discussion. One presentation was about how multimedia content creation is increasing at a phenominal speed and it shows no rate of slowing down. Ideas were bouncing back and forth from the audience and the chat group, which included people from all around the world. I was especially impressed that one viewer was a teacher on her break - she had to sign off so she could go pick up her students. Will's blog space has the resources for his workshops and presentations.

I'm looking forward to seeing more presentations from Will Richardson on UStream.