johnhendron.net: hendron’s digest - a weblog

Poor McCain’s having to re-think his approach at the Republican convention due to the coming storm–Gustav–towards Louisiana.

At least that’s what I read online. Poor guy.

I feel for the folks who have to evacuate.

Lower Ninth Ward resident Rev. Willie Calhoun looks over his belongings near his Federal Emergency Management Agency trailer before evacuating New Orleans, Louisiana from Hurricane Gustav August 30, 2008.

Can you imagine what Willie is thinking? I mean, it’s gotta include some thoughts in this order:

• Hurricane Katrina comes, wipes out my house.
• I’ve been living in a trailer from the federal government now for some two years…
• Here comes Katrina’s bad brother… and my new house isn’t even yet built.

I feel worse (of course) for the folks who are having to evacuate. For the changes their lives are about to face in the coming weeks, months… and (we can hope not) years. My own McCain jabs aside, I sure hope we don’t botch this recovery like we did the last time.

This is America, and we deserve so much better. I hope both candidates take a good look at what takes place and what can be done to improve the quality of life of the folks affected. And if good ideas come about from either one (as, no doubt, they will both not be able to fight the urge to make something political out of this), I hope the folks in charge now are smart enough to listen.

Today I saw a picture of John McCain and Joe Lieberman and wondered if he had chosen him as his running mate.

I ended up at one of the Republican senator’s websites, and was simply shocked at the poor use of typography I found. Consistency is not a hallmark at JohnMcCain.com.

In purple-red at the top, we have his logo set in Optima. I don’t have an issue with this, but let’s be consistent. That’s the last of Optima we find.

In blue, in the ad, we have Adobe Trajan. It’s poorly kerned, if you ask me.

In the white/light blue of the menu bar, of course, we don’t get to choose our fonts; we have to use some nice “web-safe” fonts. So here we get what looks like Trebuchet Bold. Not bad. But why not use it elsewhere?

Then in the “Biden” section, green and yellow, back to Adobe Myriad. The main title I surrounded in green could have been better done. I would have put the “Fact Center” blurb lower, and spaced it out… more.

In purple under “news” we get yet another sans-serif font! Nothing a like a little Arial to round off the page.

So, in short, McCain’s website suffers in the design department by breaking a basic, cardinal rule in print or web design: don’t use every damn font! You’re better off with a better, overall balance of design by a conservative choice from your font library. While any one of these fonts would have been great for the basic choice, save for Trajan which only has capitals, I would have kept the Optima for the logo, and used a more common web-font for the rest, with an emphasis on consistency between the different areas highlighted on the page.

In case you are wondering, Obama’s site isn’t perfect either, but it does have a more consistent use of Gotham, the font used for his logo throughout the site.

Our Promethean Users Group starts soon, and no sign-up is required. Each meeting will take place in the high school media center.

Participation in the group is also a way to satisfy your integration technology course requirement! Collect 12 PUG bucks by attending meetings and send them in an envelope to me (John Hendron) at the central office. 12 PUG bucks will equal 6 points and your requirement for a technology course.

The meetings will focus on your issues: questions, things to show-off, and tips and tricks. Each meeting will be led by either myself or Mrs. Cantor. We borrowed our little P.U.G. from Flickr.

This past summer I introduced a physical environment called Phun to our principals. We considered ways we could use the environment in the classroom. Now, there’s a game that’s loosely based on the interactive environment. It’s called:

Fantastic Contraption

When I was growing up in the 1980s, a popular television show was MacGyver. It became silly after time, because whatever adventures he got himself into, he always could put together some home-made solution to save the day and “stick it” to the bad guys.

Now, you can see all the tricks up MacGyver’s sleeves through a Wikipedia article. A comprehensive (but not complete, evidently) list of all of his escapes and how he accomplished them.

This is not something you would ever see in a traditional encyclopedia, but I am sure this information has value, nonetheless.

This is why I find myself advocating weblogs as a means of capturing and sharing this side of teaching and learning. Through participation in online communities such as weblog rings, listservs, and a host of other online communities of interest, educators have an opportunity to collectively expand one another’s thinking, investigate and negotiate skills and practices while simultaneously developing repertoires to become more thoughtful, active, and accountable to each other and ultimately with the students with whom they work.

• from a blog post by Chris Sessums

But in order to achieve such equity of opportunity, parents need to be vigilant and take a stand. Parents can go to back-to-school night this fall. If the science lab contains no equipment, they should demand to know why and not wait patiently while the district hopes they forget. If their first grader was excited about going to school, but by the third day cries hysterically and says, “The teacher hates me,” his concerns should be taken seriously. If their kid’s school is test-obsessed, parents should let teachers and administrators know that they expect more of an education. If every parent was vocally fighting for the best public schools for their children—instead of some of the most involved and caring opting out in disgust—the government would be forced to listen.

Gary Stager’s article for Good Magazine is available online. There’s a lot to nod your head at, and for me, it was nostalgic to think about myself and standardized tests. They were a “once a year thing,” a little blip in the school year, when you filled in bubbles and tried your best. It was like an X-ray… no big deal, this is where you’re at, and we’ll keep going.

I just read that from a colleague of mine in another school division this year will be using their computer labs for testing this year… 25% of the time. Let’s put that into perspective. That’s more than a whole day each week devoted to testing. Less instruction, more testing. For as much as I’d like to think we’re getting better at educating, I think we’ve yet to hit a high point when it gets to be just too much.

• Monday: instruction
• Tuesday: instruction
• Wednesday: instruction
• Thursday: instruction and testing
• Friday: testing

Of course, I don’t think that means the same kids get to use the computers for instructional purposes Monday through Thurdsay, now… does it?

I have the same concerns in our own schools. With a new tool designed to test and store the test data, we’re still figuring out logistically how we’re going to pull it off with only a 2:1 ratio (students to a computer). When we do the math, who knows… it might be 25%.

Maybe Stager’s right… parents are the answer.

Interested in using wikis with your classroom? Check out PB Wiki for educators with easy to use, no-e-mail classroom accounts.

Macintosh Shortcuts from Dan Rodney.

This video says a lot about R.I.M. catching up to the iPhone.

Looking to import Goochland e-mails into your OS X address book?

Mrs. Cantor has set up a tutorial on our wiki that details the process.

I’d like to respond to some comments made on the mini-conference evaluations for the technology sessions I led or planned. Surveys are typically communication in one direction, but when you see patterns in what folks are submitting, it’s time for clarification.

iLife ‘08/iWork ‘08

Installing iLife before the session would have been impossible without collecting laptops over the summer. This session was never designed to be a “master it in an hour” type of class. It was intended as an introduction to the new features. The goal? Whet your appetite.

We’ll be offering classes that specifically focus on these new applications in after-school classes. To cover them adequately we know we need more than an hour. Updates to the software will be coordinated with the class sessions. We’ll be advertising technology professional development sessions soon–so the opportunities will be forthcoming for getting iLife and iWork ‘08.

Blogging 2.0

These sessions, as noted, were a little “packed” to be effective as a “follow along” type session. We are still offering three after school sessions next week, up to 2 hours (if it takes us 90 minutes, it will be 90 minutes), for establishing and covering the features of the new blogging system. Since July, we’ve offered all teachers the opportunity to set-up their new blogs on their own. Either way, it does require putting in a little time to learn what it is all about.

• After School Sign-Up
• Follow-Along Blogging Videos

Google Apps

We were fortunate to have Sallie Hill, the ITRT from the Blue Ridge Virtual Governor’s School on hand to help us introduce Google Applications. Yes–there is a lot to be learned–but the learning continues on as you explore these applications and what they can do. I realize it was frustrating that some folks could not log in. We’ll be checking into the reports we’ve received soon. Please remember these accounts were set up last April when everyone had the opportunity to try Google first and we corrected some problems then. If we only heard from you now, we assumed everyone’s account was working!

Remember, our login page for Google is: http://docs.google.com/a/glnd.k12.va.us

Scratch

Will there be more Scratch training? Yes! Like iLife ‘08/iWork ‘08, this was a “whet your whistle” type of introduction to Scratch. But please don’t wait for the after school class! I provided you with resources to investigate Scratch further. Our next session(s) together will be strengthened if you take advantage of the opportunity to read some of the literature and explore some of the Scratch projects students have created at scratch.mit.edu!

Closing Comments

Many folks told us this was a great day (Wednesday, August 20th), and I agree. Everyone that came to my session had enthusiasm for being there, and so many folks found the sessions helpful. We are fortunate to have the level of energy and enthusiasm in this county in our staff. I’m especially proud to work with so many of you, including our 2009 Teacher of the Year, Kamesha Smith. Her “speech” Wednesday morning was a special, unique contribution that took advantage of the types of media we have available to us, the power of music, and the “no fear!” attitude teachers require. She truly made the day special with her creativity and thoughtfulness. Kudos to you, Kamesha!

Today at work we did what we call “All County Day,” where everyone from all schools meets in one location for professional development. Four sessions filled the day, and during the last, a teacher came to talk to me about her individual technology goals.

These are teacher objectives for the integration of technology that I’ve overseen for the past 5 years. This year, we’re switching to a new system. I call it “G21,” and it’s a framework for doing project-based lessons focused upon twenty-first century skills.

What was surreal was that instead of explaining it, another teacher who was already familiar with it whipped out the model we had passed out on paper from his notebook, explaining each portion of the framework in lucid detail. I felt as if my brain and body had become dismembered, or if life was playing out in slow motion. When the teacher looked at me, I just smiled. There was nothing to add.

The strange feeling was I think a very positive one… at least for some, the framework makes a lot of sense. I hope to report more about G21 as time goes on and as we roll the program out this year.

If you’re a Mac nut, or a Mac nut obsessed with security, this whitepaper may lend some tips on keeping things safe and secure.

Scratch is an application for students to develop creativity, logical thinking, and expression, and can be integrated into about any subject area. In fact, it’s an excellent ally in many project-based lessons.

• Download Scratch
• Sowing the Seeds of Creativity
• All I Really Needed to Know (I learned in Kindergarten)
• Scratch Videos
• British Introduction to Scratch
• Scratch Hand Out Guides

What do students learn when they interact with “Scratch?” How about… mathematical and computational ideas, in a meaningful and motivating context? They also learn about the process of design. Scratch is also great for building fluency with digital tools and provides ripe opportunities for developing twenty-first century skills.

For more information, see “Learning with Scratch.“

Welcome! I hope you love your new blog this year. I’ve already posted a number of resources to help you succeed in having the best blog out there.

• Blogging Guide

There are so many places online to find help and activities for covering the Virginia *Standards of Learning*. I recently came across these three PortaPortal sites from Fairfax County, each grouped by Virginia standards.

• K-6 Math
• K-6 Social Studies
• K-6 Science

National Geographic Map of the Day. This would be a great collection to make in a classroom as the school year progresses.

For those of you watching the Olympics on television, it’s always fun to hear a “new” country’s national anthem from time to time, although along with many, I never tire of hearing our own Star-Spangled Banner. 

The NY Times is now offering a list of anthems by title from each gold medal-winning country thus far, complete with audio versions.

I am not sure how I feel about using the word yearbook as a verb, but seeing some results, this could be fun.

Yearbook Yourself is a website that will “show you” what you look like through the ages, by imposing your face into the head and hairstyles of iconic figures through the decades.