Monday, January 23, 2012

Teach This! Teaching with lesson plans and ideas that rock #teaching 01/23/2012

Posted by ultralitemp3

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

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Learning about Learning: Research and Edreform News and Views 01/23/2012

Posted by ultralitemp3

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

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Easy Assessment App (I'm giving away 4 copies) made by @mrrobbo #mlearning

Posted by ultralitemp3
 The Easy Assessment App was created by Jarrod Robinson, "Mr. Robbo the PE Geek" a self proclaimed "mobile fanatic" and creator of one of my favorite Youtube Channels for teachers. (See his blog post on this app.)

Demo of Easy Assessment



He's designed this for teacher and coaches to do a quick assessment on the spot. It is $1.99 in the iTunes store but I have 4 copies

How to be selected to receive a free copy
I'm giving away these codes to four lucky people (and am going to ask Jarrod to help me.) I'll pick the winners on Friday. All you have to do is to leave a comment or tweet a link to this post about mobile assessment and your tips and ideas for how you do it or why you think it is important. (Just link back to this post so I can find you.)

Because Jarrod is a helpful person (see below) I'd like to give these 4 promo codes to people who are helpful just like him. So, help people understand mobile assessment through the medium of your choice. Thank you for sharing.

A note about this post
I love my "friends." The people who help out when there is nothing in it "for them." If you blog for a while you'll start getting press releases from companies saying things like:

"I'm now a big fan of your blog." or
"I just started following your blog and am a fan." or
"I am so impressed with you and respect your blog"

And I think to myself,

"Yeah right. You just want me to write about your product. You don't care about me. IN fact, you hired a PR firm and don't even have a real person who is using your product talking to me about your product. I'm a real person and I work with real people."

But when someone I know who loves kids and has always been there for me does something, I know it and want to share it.

Jarrod Robinson, "Mr. Robbo the PE Geek" not only has a great blog, but way back when I was learning about QR codes for ISTE a few years back, I came across his skeleton QR code project (one every PE teacher should check out) and contacted him. I saw what QR codes were but didn't really understand how to explain them. He recorded a quick video for me (complete with kangaroos jumping in the background) for me to show in my cell phone workshop at ISTE.

QR Code Skeleton Project

Then, a few months back, our fifth graders were trying to skype with Govinda Panthy in Nepal and the rain was causing connectivity problems in Nepal. So, all of the students had come in at 7:30 am in the morning to Skype-- ALL OF THEM. (And it was optional.) So, I didn't want them to be disappointed and put out a call on Twitter. Jarrod had just finished watching a sporting event on TV and the family was in bed but he took the time to Skype with the kids and talk about Australia.

That is the kind of person Jarrod is. When you're this kind of person, like Jarrod, the world is your oyster because normal, average educators who now make up the powerful edu-social web will figure out who you are and be a fan and follower.

I don't know about you, but I like real teachers who "get it." There is something different about people who love children - even if they aren't teaching any more. You can feel it.  So, he let me know that he has created an easy assessment app. Above is the review. I didn't want my story to eclipse what he's doing.

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Don't let bad behavior take the cake

Posted by ultralitemp3

Written January 19, 2012. What a day! I've spent two days explaining SOPA. I think schools across the country are now awake to the fact of just how much their students use Wikipedia! After running home to study with my fourth grader and then going to the dentist (yuck) - I jumped in the car to go to a basketball game. But to get the full story, let's back up till 10 am this morning.
Photo Credit: Big Stock

At 10am I was worn out. Tired. Maybe it was the 2.2 miles I ran Tuesday or the fact I was asleep last night by 9pm or the nailbiting game we lost in overtime  by 1 point Tuesday night but by this morning I didn't know how I could teach.

Do you ever have those moments you don't know how you're going to make it? 
How are you going to keep teaching? This morning was one of those moments. so, as I pondered at break how I was going to motivate myself, I heard myself and what I say to my ninth graders to help them set goals,

"You are the greatest motivational speaker ever born to motivate yourself. What you say to yourself, your mind, body, and soul works to fulfill."

It is true. So, I looked at my nutty day and said,
"What can I give myself to look forward to?"

And it was this. The girls game starts at 6:30 pm but my son doesn't play until 7:30 (probably.) The game is an hour away and I go through Albany. So, I decided to go to the only Starbucks between Macon and Tallahassee and YOU became my "prize" to look forward to.

It has been a hard week to write blog posts. I've written 6 recommendations for a very talented class of seniors and have four more to do tomorrow. But I really love to blog. I've been using Mr. Reader (my favorite iPad RSS Reader) on my ipad to keep up with the news and keep you posted on what is happening. I was in the dentist chair waiting and reading about the iBook 2 announcement. Without my glasses on, it took a really big squint at a news article to figure out that the iBooks Creator program couldn't be downloaded onto my iPad because it is a Mac App.

But between getting my teeth cleaned, and this ballgame, I knew if I could run by Starbucks for a skinny-whatever kind of coffee hit my mood that I'd have a boost.

Coffee and an Unexpected Conversation Overhead
When I walked in, I heard them negotiating. At first, I thought it was a woman negotiating for some sort of cake selling business online. That was until the large, older man leaned forward and said:

"3 dollars a slice! I want to see a $3 slice of cake."

Then I knew, they were negotiating for their daughter's wedding cake. This must be their first or only one because they were clueless. The cake maker sat back in her chair with her color coded book and listened and answered questions with a small grin on her face. She knew how this would end.

The daughter knew what she wanted but didn't want to ask for it because she didn't want to spend her parent's money. Her parents wanted her to be happy. Her daddy was sorry that he said that about the $3 cake and there is no price he can put on his baby, you could see it in his glistening eyes. They love each other. Money can't buy that, but sometimes, there are times we confuse money for love. This was one of those times... it is for lots of daddys the world over.

He says,

"If money were no object, what cake would you want."

She says,
"The strawberry, Daddy, I want the strawberry." 

(Yes, she did say strawberry, I thought that odd too but I was trying my best to look like a disinterested person sipping her latte and ignoring the conversation that had me enthralled. I love families and I love daddies and mommies and babies and people. I love them. It was beautiful and priceless and I almost cry even now that they've left 15 minutes a go and I'm writing this blog post.)

Daddy turned to the cake lady with his mind on the prize and asked about the deposit. He said,

"If I pay it all now, will I get a discount?"
"No."
"well, I'm going to pay for the whole thing because then my daughter won't change her mind and she'll know this is OK. I want her to have this cake."

The dad sat there and wrote a thousand some odd dollar check to the cake lady. From the looks of his cufflinks and shined shoes, he could pay for it, although he altogether looked like a man who had worked his way up and worked long and hard. There was no arrogance on this daddy's shoes or his face, just spectacles on the end of his nose, and wrinkles where wrinkles go on a person who looks at financial statements closely and doesn't write checks without thinking about it.

Perhaps he wrote the check because he knew he might change his mind but I saw his wife. I saw her move her foot with her toe just gently resting on his shoe and I saw her look at him with that loving look like he's the greatest man on the planet. And at this moment he is.

I wanted to go over there and tell him myself,

"You are a great daddy."

But I didn't. I think I did a pretty good job of not letting them know just how moved I was.

Who is listening?

So, let me mention something to you. If a stranger in a Starbucks listens in -- how much more are your children listening to you. How much more are your students hearing conversations between staff members? If people-loving people observers like me notice, you bet your three dollar cake the kids are watching everything.

There is no replacement for treating others with respect.

Want to know why so many kids love home schooling? No one is sure, but is it because so many schools have let themselves become a toxic maelstrom of unkindness and fussing. Yes, we have to improve education but if we do it by yelling, screaming, and tangling and have power struggles happening our students are going to know it. They know everything.

Think about the impression you're making.

I think the greatest teachers teach not only with their classroom content but with their social skills, their demeanor, their kindness.

I wrote a recommendation for a young lady today who I love very much. There are Lamborghini students and there are sedans. She's a dependable sedan. She may not get there the fastest but she will get there and she won't wreck. She'll take care of business. Her gentle spirit, unflappable demeaner, and kindness to everyone even when under stress makes me jealous. I want to be like her.

I want to be like that Daddy. He didn't let a misstep set the tone for the entire evening. He backed up and went the right direction.

Sometimes how we do things is more important than what we do anyway.

Think about this when you work towards reforming and improving your school. Don't let your bad behavior take the cake.




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Daily Education and Technology News for Schools 01/23/2012

Posted by ultralitemp3

  • ClassroomWindow - Where The Best Solutions Win

    One of the biggest complaints many of us have about products and services used in education is that we don't really have apps and products that are rated by a neutral 3rd party. Is there such a thing? Well, for me,  knowing what a teacher thinks is important. I've been talking with Kirby from Classroom Window about what they are doing and am very impressed. It is launching public beta today and there is a sweepstakes for joining and rating products. I think that initially the launch will be simple but there is a lot of possibility for a social-media style rating system for software and classroom tools by teachers on a neutral site. I love the idea.

    tags: education news

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

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Saturday, January 21, 2012

Daily Education and Technology News for Schools 01/21/2012

Posted by ultralitemp3

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

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Friday, January 20, 2012

iBooks 2 and iTunes U: A Quick Review from a Teacher #edapp

Posted by ultralitemp3
Chris Lehmann at the Guggenheim at yesterday's
announcement from Apple
The world is buzzing with the Apple announcements about their move into eTextbooks. As I listened to Leo LaPorte and Sarah Lane's podcast about the announcement in the car coming home from the basketball game last night, my son said,

"Mom, don't just listen to what people are saying, but try it out yourself."

Of course, he's right. I haven't had a lot of time but let's rundown the facts as I know them today and as I played with these tools.

Just remember, that there are some great things but there is also a whole lot of commercialism in these new apps and ebooks for education.

iBooks 2
This is an upgrade to the iBooks you already have. Update the app. Here is my live blog of my first experience with an interactive iBook, maybe it will save you some time.

I downloaded the Beatle's Yellow Submarine Interactive book and it took 7 minutes to download. Expect interactive books to take more bandwidth and more time to download.

  • The iBooks I looked at are designed to be shown in portrait mode and do not resize when moving to landscape (I'd like to see a table of contents on the left of some kind appear when I switch orientation.) it isn't usually a problem because it looks like that some are designing the right side of the left page to be included in the other side and vice versa.
A Rocky Start
  • I expected to be able to click on things that moved in the Yellow Submarine book and interact with it. I know it isn't a great example, but I figured that a demo would show off the features of this technology. This is not a game but somehow I expect it to be.
  • You click on a page and then sometimes music will play or it will play just as you flip. It is hard to understand what you're supposed to do at the beginning of the book. I have to wonder if somehow the credits and forward pages may move to the end because you spend the first couple of pages being clueless. It wouldn't hurt to have a "how to use this book" at the beginning of a book.
  • You have to touch the bolded words to hear noise. This pepperland book is supposed to be read by "Dean Lennox Kelly" but I can't figure out how to get Dean to read it to me no matter what I do.
  • About 2 minutes later, I finally figure out that if text is black and bold that when I touch it that it does something. Still can't figure out how to get Dean to read it to me.
  • After 5 minutes, and after looking at the buttons, I've found that there is a button I hadn't noticed before. It looks like a speaker and shown in the following two screenshots. It can read it to me and I can ask to turn the pages manually or automatically. I give it a try.


    Now We're Talking... or Reading

    Now, this is something I can be excited about. As shown  in the video below, it is reading to me and highlighting the words as it reads. This is dual-coding or multisensory learning in practice. We know that seeing and hearing helps improve learning. This one thing is going to have me with my dyslexic son using this to help his reading. Awesome!




    Oh, so, now I get to a page with not one but three videos on it. Oh dear, I have to figure out how to stop the book and I do, it is in the same place in the top right hand corner.



    The video is very simple. I thought that the videos would be triggered when I clicked the text, however, the text plays clips of Beatles songs. You have to click the videos to watch them.

    Just after you click, there is a small button beside the pause button that will take the videos full screen. It takes a moment to figure that out. You can take the full video smaller by clicking the two arrows pointing at each other, or end it and go back to the book by clicking Done.



    Then, I come upon a page and accidentally click a little bird in the corner and it inhales the creatures on the page. I want to film it and can't figure out how to reset the page, but finally see that if I go back to a previous two page set and then return to this page that it is reset and I can play it again. Hmmm. How many of these little hidden things have I missed?


    I need to run to school, so I forward to the end of the book and find on the last page what I suspected, a full link to the Yellow Submarine Album with links to buy the content from iTunes for the songs. (You wouldn't expect this to be done for just goodness.)



     This is the same thing I'm finding in current iTunes U courses and collections, each collection tends to have a lot of apps and items embedded that cost money (even if a free alternative exists or is already installed.)

    Quite a few Common Sense Media courses are in there. I have several PDF annotaters
    installed but it doesn't mention those. Without these, the PDF's that are free
    just open into Safari but I want them in my PDF reader. I would like the ability to
    link to my preferred PDF reader on my iPad.

    The last note on today's journey before I dash off to school is that I did attempt to sign up for iTunes U for my school. K12 institutions can now apply (the Flat Classroom project can't which is a shame b/c we could rock the house with some free content there.)

    The problem with the application is that when I attempted to fill it out on my iPad using Safari, the form got stuck after I entered my zip code, which makes me wonder if Apple's own developers are in the habit of testing their forms on the iPad.

    You can build a course on iTunes using their web interface. This means that not only will universities and schools be able to have courses online but the "free" courses can come packaged with pay-for textbooks, apps, and other items. There are many layers to this and free doesn't always mean free.

    Overall, we know that ePaper is here. It is going to part of student's lives. There is still a place for "real" paper but we need to determine and learn which is appropriate for which activities. Enjoy, play and share so we can learn together.

    I hope you'll share with me in the comments so I can learn what you've experienced. I'd especially like a really good iBook Textbook to review and understand.

    Don't forget that iBooks Author has been released for the Mac so you can make these textbooks yourself for free (if you own a Mac.)


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