Monday, November 16, 2009
O'Neill hosts Apple LLI event
http://edseminars.apple.com/o'neill
O'Neill High School hosted its second "21st Century Learning Leadership Institute" on November 11-12, 2009 sponsored by Apple. Teams of leaders from over a half-dozen area schools listened to presentations from OHS teachers, administrators, and students and got the opportunity to witness 24/7 Learning in action. Some of the resources from this year's institute are linked to the site below:
http://sites.google.com/site/llinov09/
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Google Squared
Google Squared
A really interesting concept that, to me, seems to have tremendous educational potential!
Read more about Google Squared on this blog post.
Then try it out for yourself. I entered dSLRs to start, tried search engines, and had to try "parts of speech" for my English teaching background as well. Each search provided numerous cells of useful comparison and contrasting information as well as some irrelevant info, too. Column headings can be edited to fit different needs. What a great lesson for students on using ANY search engine! Multiple sources, keywords and categories, and most especially- sifting through the useless to find the useful!
I can see introducing categories of new topics to the classroom using a Google Square and would also envision challenging kids to create their own BEFORE using the Google tool... and then comparing and contrasting what it brings up automatically. The possibilities are endless. Thank you, Google, for another simple but effective educational tool.
Search. Learn. Share.
Monday, April 27, 2009
Iron Teacher - "A Separate Peace"
Tom’s Bionic Teaching blog and my good friend Michelle's blog have inspired me to attempt this first of hopefully many "Iron Teacher" Challenges. This challenge is as follows:
The Audience: 2 classes of 10th grade General Level Literature students.
The Secret Ingredient: The novel “A Separate Peace”
The Challenge (as defined by the teacher): Students are beginning a book discussion of the novel “A Separate Peace.” These particular students struggle to demonstrate understanding of content through writing, but have recently become more motivated to read and respond to literature as their teacher has incorporated audio books and modern literature into the curriculum.
The teacher shares that the class performs better when asked to discuss personal experiences and would like to incorporate the book themes of envy/conformity into the book discussions. These students in particular are not easily motivated to participate in class activities. Their teacher is looking for an original and fun way to have the students discuss and share while demonstrating understanding in a way that goes beyond writing an essay or taking a multiple choice test.
Here’s my submission to the challenge.
BIG IDEA: Sacrifice
Essential Question: How does human sacrifice intensify during times of conflict?
or How does sacrifice affect our world during times of conflict?
When the Devon students return to school in the Fall, they are appalled at the idea of having no housekeeping services, along with many additional changes, due to the war. Sacrifice in "A Separate Peace" ranges from this minor discomfort to Gene's self-deprivation of sports while Finney is away, to the highest sacrifice one can offer: service to one's country during times of war.
Students in the 10th grade literature classes would start by brainstorming the examples of sacrifice in the story, along with the motivation and the result of each. Then, while applying ideas of parallelism, they would be in charge of searching for examples of human sacrifice in the world around them-- either from people's memories of historical conflicts or resulting from current political, cultural, or additional categories of conflict.
Motivate the students with a challenge of their own....
CHALLENGE Statement: Strengthen intergenerational connections by sharing stories of human sacrifice collected from around the world.
To collect and share others' stories of sacrifice during times of conflict.
Students could (in teams or individually) set out to find others' stories of sacrifices and bring them back to the class. The possibilities for collection methods are endless, but here are a few:
- Cell phone calls
- Audio recordings
- Digital cameras - still pictures and/or video
- Written transcripts of conversations
- iSight camera video capture
- Record an iChat or a Skype call
- Emails
- Creating a VoiceThread and collecting comments
A time limit (somewhat short to make it more challenging) should be imposed from the beginning.
This could even be fashioned as a "scavenger hunt" type activity with different point values assigned for varying degrees of complexity, for example...
Bonus pts for:
- Someone from a different state
- Someone from a different country
- Story from more than 40 years ago
- Collection of the story with video, as opposed to just audio or taking notes from a conversation
Once they have captured their examples of sacrifice, there is so much that students or student teams could do to compile the stories. Some ideas I considered include:
- Creating a digital "scrapbook" of sacrifices
- Organizing the stories in a "living timeline"
- Using Glogster to link the stories to one main webpage in a "digital poster" format
- Creating an iMovie video montage, slideshow presentation, or a podcast highlighting the stories
To encourage narrative writing, students could be asked to choose ONE example of sacrifice and turn it into a longer piece of writing. Including references to the historical background of the story, would incorporate research writing skills as well as narrative writing skills for the students.
The Iron Why: What’s the justification for this challenge solution?
Open-endedness and student choice is at the core of my lesson. Students need practice in the interpersonal skills of interviewing, listening, and storytelling. Parallelism as well as compare and contrast comes through when analyzing the idea of sacrifice in the novel as compared to real-life sacrifices. Hopefully empathy is being developed by the students as they search for the stories to bring back to the class in this project.
Teachers' Note:
While fine details and procedural writing are not my forte, I truly enjoy thinking of ideas to engage my students. Working with another teacher to hammer out the smaller details, any challenge of this type could be much improved. No matter what, I did truly enjoy the experience of reading a great new piece of adolescent literature: "A Separate Peace."
Challenge Based Learning... the message is spreading!
Challenge Based Learning
Momentum is gaining for a innovative approach to K-12 education and evidence of its positive effects on learners was witnessed this past weekend in Nebraska. The NETA (Nebraska Educational Technology) 2009 Conference featured keynote speaker Stephanie Hamilton of Apple Computers who predecessed her of Challenge Based Learning with years of research, references, and examples of why change is needed in education. I had the privilege of sharing my involvement in Challenge Based Learning in two breakout sessions. The first, with fellow ADEs Joanna Seymour, Ross Abels, and Therese Laux, overviewed the ACOT2 Initiative and our involvement in the curriculum development team as well as a call to action for schools to begin using the widely scalable CBL framework. In the second, fellow teacher Deb Barelmann co-presented with me to share the story of the CBL pilot at O'Neill Public Schools as our students took on the challenge of apathy in our school community.
Saturday, April 25 was the date for the annual "Digies" Student Media Awards. In addition to promoting excellent student projects from across the state of Nebraska, announcements were made for changes to the contest for next year. Instead of focusing on specific media types (digital photo, informational movie, etc.), the contest will use Challenge Based Learning as a framework for all student projects. Students are encouraged to find a challenge in their school or community, form teams, and work together find an actionable solution to that challenge. Digital Media projects could highlight the process or the solution itself or both! Age divisions will be K-5, 6-8, and 9-12 and up to five smaller film festivals will be held across the state in communities that have the most entries. This exciting announcement for Nebraska education shows the scalability and adaptability of the Challenge Based Learning model and should definitely help promote some positive practices in K-12 education.
Sunday, April 26, 2009
NETA 2009
"Exploring New Territories" was the conference theme of NETA 2009, and the message resonating from the new venue to the sessions couldn't be clearer: We must change our teaching today to prepare our students for their world tomorrow.
In addition to finishing up my three-year term on the NETA Board of Directors, I was honored to be able to present four different sessions at Nebraska's annual Educational Technology Conference.
I've linked to the materials and/or presentations below:
Rising to the Challenge- CBL at O'Neill Public Schools (with Deb Barelmann) (NETA 09)
Enthusiastic and Innovative. This project takes learning to a different level.
iCollaborate Workshop
Katie Morrow's iCollaborate session was absolutely awesome! It was packed full of inventive ideas. In fact, she probably could have spent a couple of days on them. I would love to attend a more in depth session to see exactly how she manages some of her many projects!
Transform your Classroom into a Classroom of Tomorrow (with fellow ADEs: Joanna Seymour, Therese Laux, and Ross Abels) (NETA 09)
They had a great message to share and others should hear it.
iWork: Productivity and Projects Workshop
For a fun "roving reporter" view of NETA 2009 check out Dale Holt's video highlights at "NotYourAverageTeacher.com"
Saturday, April 11, 2009
Student Essay
Starting my learning in Kindergarten and moving through to my fourth grade year, I encountered my first stage of the technology advances dealing with floppy disks and CDs. Initially when I first started using the computer and understanding some of the programs that it contained, my visions of the technology world had widened. In school I did many educational projects on programs such as powerpoint and word processor; however, in order to show my instructors the projects I was required to save them on floppy disks. Floppies were an easy way to keep important things on because they were portable, inexpensive, and simple to use. As the technology wheel kept on turning floppies became less used and out of date. Later another use of saving information was introduced, keeping data on a CD. This allowed people to have more storage capacity than the floppies. As technology kept on taking more steps, I later come upon the next stage of the technology advancement.
The next stage of the technology advances that I seen growing up was during my fifth grade through sixth grade years with the introduction of the handheld Palms and the S.M.A.R.T Boards. To begin with having Mrs. Morrow, a technology equipped teacher, made learning more enjoyable than ever. She had expanded my knowledge in academics with the use of a handheld Palm. Using the Palms to write journals, accomplish DOL, and draw sketches of topics that I was being educated on; made learning an adventure. Next, She even broadened our horizons with the S.M.A.R.T Boards. Having a larger view of a computer screen in front of the classroom made it easier to understand the steps of the procedure that we needed to take on our lab computer, worksheets, group projects, and much more. The frontal projection of the S.M.A.R.T. Board transformed the classroom into a more dynamic learning environment.
The third stage of the technology advances that I come across as I developed into Jr. High was the usage of USB flash drives. The USB flash drives are very convenient to use and allow you to save GB of information on a smaller device. Data can be very quickly written to, or read from, this convenient portable device. USB Flash drives were a very unique way to keep information because many computers today don’t even have floppy drives, and while CDs can be used to exchange data, writing a CDrom can take time and not everyone always has a CD burner.
The fourth and final stage of the technology advances that I have encountered as I came into contact with high school was the use of the MacBooks. Taking a MacBook to every class and interacting with learning on a whole new outlook has made learning more enjoyable than ever. Using a series of programs to fully educate myself on new topics, I have had a different perspective on learning. With so many applications to use there is a wide variety of ways to make projects including imovie, powerpoint, keynote, pages, word, photoshop, and garageband are just a few of the ones that are offered. When unable to attend school because of illness, school activities, or any other reason, assignments are available on Angel, a school assignment webpage. The MacBooks have tremendously enhanced my typing ability by improving my speed and accuracy. I believe that this will help me in years to come in the business world because in many jobs you need to be skilled at typing. Now that I have been in this stage for about a year, Technology is still improving.
Living in the 21st century I have been through many improvements of technology. Technology is progressing at a very fast pace. Each time you start to thoroughly understand how to incorporate a piece of equipment, a new and more advanced device is introduced. Getting involved with technology at a young age will help you to more understand how to use the new developments because of the rapid tempo of the new technology. I will keep trying to stay up with the increase of technology devices because of the impact that they can have on your life. With the pace of improvements that technology has provided for us we won’t be having a dilemma any time soon like the common citizens encountered during the 19th Century.
By Bobbi Walters
Friday, April 10, 2009
Classroom Connectivity in Math and Science
http://ops.esu8.org/groups/teach42morrow/weblog/e4fe3/
Thursday, April 2, 2009
Learn about Challenge Based Learning on 'Always On' Episode 4
If you're ready to move beyond the traditional classroom structure, to one where learning is embedded in real world application, then Challenge Based Learning is a concept to explore. In this episode, we invited Dennis Adamson, Mike Amante, and Bob Lee to join us in a virtual round table discussion on how Challenge Based Learning is providing a new way to engage secondary students.
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Sunday, March 8, 2009
Challenge Based Learning website is live!
Join in the movement to 'Take Action and Make a Difference' through Challenge Based Learning at http://challengebasedlearning.com
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
PhotoJournalism "Multis" and Convergence Media with Bill Frakes
Some of the most interesting and important things that I heard Bill and Laura talk about included:
- The most important quality of a photojournalist is the ability to fall in love with subject - be able to talk to people.
- Everything you do brings exactly to where you are- It is a growth process. (Sometimes he
will go through four days of shooting and production only to throw it all out and focus on a different story.) - Failure is always an important part of the growth process.
- COLLECT INFORMATION!! - no matter how you collect it. Vaccuum cleaner everything-- get all the info you can!
- For the most part still photography gives more power than video, in his opinion.
- The heart, mind, eye, and soul will always be more important than the black box (camera or other technology tools).
- "YOU HAVE TO LEARN TO LOOK FOR THINGS!"
(Growing up in Scottsbluff, NE not a lot of things are going on. But you can find a story anywhere-- if you just learn how to look for it.) - Another piece of advice.. "Take what you have and do the best you can do with it." (His mom's popcorn cake story)
Creightonian's front page story about the event entitled "Apple slices"
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
New Podcast Release!
Whether you’re a teacher just starting out with mobile laptop carts or working in a 1:1 environment, find the tips and techniques you need to succeed when learning goes 24/7. Join Katie Morrow and Michelle Bourgeois as they share ideas and resources for teaching and learning with laptops.
Visit our podcast website here and subscribe today!
http://web.me.com/alwayson/AlwaysOn/Podcast/Podcast.html
Sunday, February 15, 2009
Teachers Connecting
In the past I have mentioned teachersconnecting.com, but this "virtual handshake between teachers" website is definitely worth mentioning again. Those wishing to start collaborative projects, whether large-scale or very simple and small, should sign up for a free account at this website and build their profile. Created by Ben Hazzard of Ontario, Canada, TeachersConnecting.com has been deemed the "eharmony" of collaborative educational projects. In addition to finding "matches" of all levels of connectivity, constructivism, and collaborative comforts, one can also listen to the accompanying Teachers Connecting Podcast hosted by Ben Hazzard and Joan Badger (formally known as the SMART Board Lessons Podcast hosts).
Tune in to Episode 4 to also hear my round-up report of FETC.
Saturday, January 31, 2009
Friday, January 30, 2009
Podcast Planning...
We can't start podcasting without a catchy name!
Would you take the time to offer your advice?
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Build a PLN with Web 2.0 Tools
FETC 2009 Presentation with Michelle Bourgeois and Colleen Glaude.
Accompanying Google site with link to presentation on slideshare.net:
http://budurl.com/buildapln
Archived presentation on ustream.tv:
http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/1081802
Big huge thanks to Bob Lee for moderating the backchannel of viewers during our presentation.
Another thank you to Gordon Shupe for podcasting the session. It will be available soon via the ADE "Conference Connections" podcast.
http://edcommunity.apple.com/ali/item.php?itemID=18692