I am conducting a survey of school district policies. My hope with this survey is that if I get a comprehensive look at school and district technology policies and compare them to other demographic data that we might be able to spot trends and correlations. If you work for a school or school district please take a moment to fill out this extremely short survey.
Tech Tip:
A couple years ago, in one of my graduate school classes, I was assigned a paper where we were supposed to find and explain a metaphor for technology. In that paper I said that, "Technology is a Stick." I had in mind the opening scene to 2001 A Space Odyssey where the primitive man touches the monolith then begins using tools. My thinking at the time was that technology was a tool. However, I have been rethinking this lately and have come to a different conclusion.
I have been busy this summer. Our district started to implement a project I put together that teaches technology and technology integration to teachers online. Now, there are products out there like InfoSource that do this but our program is outcome based and follows a method that hopefully will align with what teachers need to do to prepare curriculum, activities, etc. for their practice. Feel free to utilize any or all of these online lessons. You can even participate in our discussion boards. However, some lessons are designed specifically for our district's needs.
Glide Write
Glide Present
In January I posted that Goodhue Public School would be holding a Technology Expo at the end of the month. Due to a makeup day that event had to be postponed. It is now scheduled for February 18th. All are welcome to attend (teachers, administrators, parents, community members, etc.). I extend this invitation to anyone, especially teachers in schools in SE Minnesota. This will be an afternoon for us to share some new things we are doing with technology and a time for reflection. For more information on the sessions click on the links below.
The following is a list of the email subscriptions I wrote about in my last post. It is also the text that appears on my school webpage for teachers to use:
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Notes from Bryan Berg's Podcasting Basics Presentation
Audacity has a program you can download and install on mobile devices.
Acid Xpress - Like Garage Band but for PC
This was a very basic how-to session good for those who have never recorded a podcast before. I was hoping to hear some pedagogical stuff. Application examples were minimal. I would have blogged more but found it unnecessary.
This session started with the Machine is Us/ing Us video by Mike Wesch. Most of those in attendance are tech coordinators from area schools (9 people total), two of us deal specifically with instructional technology.
This was a vendor presentation so some bias definitely present. My thoughts are in italics.
Digital cable comes to your house in MPEG format (i did not know this).
To multi stream in a building you need Windows 2003 Enterprise Server, to stream on the web you just need a standard Windows 2003 Server.
Podcasting is not streaming. Files are transferred from server to client. Users can subscribe through syndication methods (RSS). A streaming server is not necessary, only a web server is needed.
DRM:
Unicast vs. Multicast
LAN vs Internet
Belvidere - kind of like TiVo but on the PC. Connects PC to video monitor and integrates United Streaming.
"Technology does no good if you spend the money on it and no one uses it. "
Contact Mayo clinic and see if I can get a tour of their training simulations.
The reasons these guys are giving for implementing their product seem to stem around two different main ideas: 1. Ease of use and 2. Bandwidth. I can't argue with their first point but is the first point really worth the dollars when there are free services that do the same things and don't eat up bandwidth: YouTube, Ustreamtv, etc. These services allow you to get your message out there, either prerecorded or live, without eating up your own bandwidth. It seems the big issue is ease of use.
Today I am attending the first annual SEMTEC Techspo at Stewartville HS in Stewartville, MN. Today I will be posting 5-6 entries about this event. The following are my notes from the first session I attended on Video Conferencing within SEMNET by Jen Hegna (tech coordinator) from Byron, MN (my own comments in italics):
I spent a little bit of time playing around with this new program today called Edusim3d. It is a virtual world platform that is intended for use in front of a classroom on an interactive whiteboard. I have barely scratched the surface with this tool. According to the website it has only been available for one week. You have to register for a free account to be able to download Edusim3d and I would quantify the download and installation as moderately difficult but once you have it installed it appears pretty easy to navigate and build. The coolest feature I played with is the paint program. It lets you freehand drawings that are turned into 3d objects in the environment. I will definitely be playing around with this tool in the near future. Thank you Jo McLeay for the links in your blog post: The Open Classroom: It really makes you think#links#links#links#links
Our second initiative was a master class notes wiki. For this assignment we set up a free wiki with PBWiki, set up blank pages for each chapter, then assigned students a chapter to record their notes. A second student was assigned the same chapter for revisions, a third student was assigned the chapter for inclusion of hyperlinks to related online content, and a fourth student was assigned the chapter for inclusion of related digital media (pictures, videos, etc.). Each student was assigned each task on at least two different chapters (different than the chapter they were assigned in the podcasting assignment). Students are then assessed on the number and quality of posts on the wiki. This assignment forces students to review their notes, addresses the needs of visual learners, provides a tool for students to use who have to miss a class, encourages them to consult other sources, and forces them again to review their notes, and review their notes, and review their notes. This too is still a work in progress. It can be viewed at: http://aphistorygoodhue.pbwiki.com/.
I just read about this on Will Richardson's blog. I absolutely have to try this out when I have some spare time. If anyone reading this blogpost has tried this please let me know how it worked for you.
Earlier this fall I blogged about Google Street view. Recently I learned they added Minneapolis and St. Paul to the list of cities with this function. Since I first learned of this feature in Google Maps this fall every time revisit the site it seems they have added more cities. I wonder how long before they have captured the whole world.
View from the former 35W bridge.
State Capital in St. PaulAbout a month ago our 5th graders started a collaborative project with a school 100 miles away. They have been taking turns writing a story using 21classes. This is not simply a story though. We have framed this project for the students as a game. Each student is paired with a student from their class. While one student is writing the other is out taking a picture. The student whose turn it is to write has to read all the blog posts in the story and find a way to incorporate the last picture added into the story. When they are finished they post the photo their partner took for the next group to write about. Their photography goal is to find a picture that the next group will struggle with finding a way to incorporate into the story. I predicted that this would force the students to be more creative and ultimately come up with more interesting stories. This project also promotes reading because to do the assignment they have to read the whole story that has been written so far. This project has, from what I observed, increased the engagement level of all students involved at both schools. Seeing that this has been successful in its trial run our next goal is to do this project, perhaps next year, with more than one school and hopefully on a global scale. Such a project could potentially involve as many as ten different schools granted that half are from Europe, Asia, Africa or Australia, and the other half are from the Americas.
