johnhendron.net: hendron’s digest - a weblog

A twenty-first century skill identified often in G21 plans I’ve been working on with teachers is one we’re calling “Research 2.0.” I wanted to take the time to specifically outline what this is.

First, it’s a recognition that we today have a variety of digital and non-digital resources available from sources that are both traditionally “viable” or “trustworthy” and those from other authorities. Specifically, today we’re talking about 1:1 communication with experts and friends, read/write sources (blogs, wikis), prosumer media sharing (YouTube), and “invisible” web sources (subscription databases). Never before have students had access to this amount of information, both in depth and breadth.

Second, it’s a model for searching, summarizing, and verifying content. Information found must be verified and cited. And as students approach research projects in high school, they ought to be verifying their sources by looking at who is publishing or owns the content they find online.

Third, it’s a technique for collecting information through copy-paste, summarizing, tagging, and citing digital content. This can be done electronically, or even better, using read/write tools. Keeping information students “mine” through research online can be aided through the use of a blog, a collaborative document, bookmarking sites such as Diigo, or within a course management system such as Moodle.

Lastly, Research 2.0 is focused on building infoseeking fluency. Through the practice of this system, students build their skills at choosing better keywords to begin searches. We believe to be successful in this day and beyond, not only is finding information important, but also what we make of it. This is why time management, problem-solving, and collaborative skills are important yet related twenty-first century skills.

Today I ran across some really engaging art pieces by our high school digital graphics teacher Mrs. Kim Bachmann’s students.

Check out their latest work!

With school now in full swing, teachers can take a well-deserved break from grading papers and creating lesson plans to visit Borders in Richmond for special savings opportunities, in-store events and giveaways during “Educator Appreciation Weekend,” Friday, Oct. 3 through Sunday, Oct. 5. According to a recent study by the National School Supply and Equipment Association (NSSEA), 94 percent of teachers surveyed spend their own money for school supplies, with the average teacher plunking down $395 of his or her own cash on supplies and educational materials for use in the classroom. Borders has created “Educator Appreciation Weekend” to salute educators for their tireless work and commitment to their students by giving them a 25 percent discount off regularly priced books, CDs, DVDs, gifts and stationery and cafe items for use in schools or for their personal enjoyment.

Got this news via our friend Susan Vaughan from RES about this Borders sale for educators.

The Department of Education here in Virginia recently released a new brief on cyberbullying. It’s intended more for school divisions rather than the general public, but it does include a lot of references that might be of interest to parents, teachers, or the general public.

Cyberbullying is a real problem, and involves the purposeful intimidation of others through electronic means. This can include posting to websites, blogs, instant messages, or through e-mail messages designed to intimidate others.

Goochland County Schools currently includes cyberbullying as one of several topics covered in our mandatory program of including Internet safety in our K-12 curriculum.

One of the bionic teachers recently posted about a number of things he sees going wrong in education.

Among my favorites:

Don’t use Comic Sans. His point? Comic Sans doesn’t make magic out of something boring you’ve written. Personally, if it’s something good you’ve written, the sight of Comic Sans simply makes me trust less what you’ve written. It’s a personal choice, and a matter of aesthetics, but I really enjoyed one commenters rationale for the use of this font in elementary school.

To paraphrase: It looks like the letters kids make in school.

Here’s my take: spend some money. Good fonts are expensive. At least, more expensive than what you might expect. A good font costs more than a cheap watch. But if you need to use printing on paper so that kids can trace, recognize, and practice letter forms, for goodness sake, get the font that works, which means you might actually have to pay for it, rather than rummage around free font sites, or look in your font menu for “the best thing.”

Learning to write, even in a digital twenty-first century, is a skill these kids will carry with them for the rest of their lives. It’s a basic, prime skill. Let’s do it right, let’s not use Microsoft’s worst (free) font as the blueprint.

I’ve always been partial to the D’Nealian alphabet that I learned by in the second grade for practicing cursive. They make and sell a font so you can use their letter forms everywhere. There are plenty more. I know our teachers are using fonts that were purchased specifically for this point.

Make the lesson exciting with technology. This is the approach so many folks try. “I added a dash of pixels and light, and the kids still didn’t pay attention.” Yeah, we know. That’s not the fix. Obvious, but I am so glad it was re-articulated again. More people need to understand this.

Labeling I don’t take this so much as a fault. I like labels. They simplify things. But these labels are now being used as excuses. So many people come to talk to me start off with the excuse. Here’s a classic:

Well, you know, I’m not so good with technology.

I cringe. I want to say, “Okay, how are we doing with teaching?” Because, really, any improvement needs to start there. But people I think assume they’ve got teaching down, it’s just the technology that they’re struggling with.

Good, effective use of technology requires a foundation of good, effective pedagogy.

Faking it. I don’t see so much faking. I see out-of-touchness. They’re not trying to “act” in a particular way, they just ignore the culture, understanding, and people (kids) they are serving. I don’t see it so much where I work, but I see it as I’ve had the opportunity to visit other schools, either in person, or though videos, reading, etc. Good teaching starts with teachers getting to know their students, and understanding from where they come. But Tom is right, people faking it is easy to spot.

Just watch an interview on You Tube of Sarah Palin.

Okay, so, landlines are now officially a dead-man-walking technology: Only 1.1% of kids today have one. Meanwhile, Facebook has achieved precisely the opposite: A completely insane level of market penetration, at 98.63%. And Steve Jobs? Your work here is done.

From an interesting read at Collision Detection about technology trends and students at one American institution of higher education.

First, it was a great week for me to meet with so many of the teachers from the middle and high school planning G21 student projects. More than one of the projects inspired this Friday’s note on mind maps.

According to the netizen’s encyclopedia, a mind map is a diagram used to represent words, ideas, tasks, or other items linked to and arranged radially around a central key word or idea. (Wikipedia, 2008)

It also turns out they they make for great advance organizers. Using advance organizers at the start of a lesson has been proven through research to better student success. (Marzano et al., 2001)

The Wikipedia (2008) continues: Mind maps are used to generate, visualize, structure, and classify ideas, and as an aid to study, organization, problem solving, decision making, and writing.

Wow-sounds like a powerful tool you may want to use. Using a Promethean Board, you can design a mind map together with students using Inspiration software. Have students come up, assign images to concepts, re-arrange concepts by grouping or comparisons, and display the mind map through subsequent activities.

Create your own mind map as a scaffold that gets printed and used at students’ desks as they work through problem solving or reading.

Publish Inspiration-created mind maps on your blog as review documents for tests and quizzes.

The bottom line is, mind maps visually represent relationships that may be difficult for students to see using only words and paragraphs. Whether or not you use Inspiration to make you maps is irrelevant: but so many lessons could be improved through the use of webs or diagrams such as a mind map! Creating the maps on a computer has an advantage: it can be used both in the tactile and the digital realm.

For review, reproduce a mind map used at the start of a lesson, and complete the lesson (for closure) by having the students ‘fill in the blanks’ of the map, either by providing missing nodes, or filling in the words already represented by pictures.

In reading Scott McLeod’s old post on the so-called Implementation Dip, it reminded me somewhat of a conversation I had today after another long day of meeting individually with teachers.

We’re implementing something county-wide called G21. It’s a new take on our old technology goals for teachers. We sit together designing a project-based lesson that takes advantage of many twenty-first century skills. We also encourage multiple subject-area collaboration and aim for higher levels of cognition in objectives.

It’s taxing because not everyone comes into the meeting prepared. You have to be very creative in the process of meeting with teachers. And then that curve…

I remember it took several years for technology goal setting to take-off. We moved from goals centered around teacher practices and eventually got many into integrated uses of technology. Now, so little emphasis is being placed on the technology, and instead, on a product/project. The refreshing part is that many teachers automatically are thinking in terms of technologies that support their projects. I don’t care why at this point; it’s simply a good thing.

Scott’s diagram is true, however. I’m always looking for ways to reduce that dip in the curve. What causes the dip? Is it everyone dipping? Or is it a few people in the crowd that create the sag?

What do you think? Should journalism schools restrict live-blogging or Twittering in class as distractions or use them as teaching tools? Should students be required to get permission before writing about what goes on in their classrooms?

Via Assorted Stuff, I just read an article about a college student who was banned from live-blogging from inside her journalism class.

It’s a longer read, but well worth it for any teacher considering allowing access to blogs, IM, tweeting-class tools, or more, in a classroom.

I feel strongly that the students (at the college level) have the right to take notes, record what’s going on… What’s different about live blogging it?

Lawfully, I don’t see an issue. Ethically, I think it would be in the student’s best interest to ask permission. Here’s why.

Legally, I can stand on a street corner and take a picture of you, sitting at a table, at a café with curbside seating. I’m standing on public property. While legally I can do that, it would be polite of me to ask you permission to photograph you. I see “liveblogging” a class very similar. If I give blow-by-blow accounts of what’s going on around me, or streaming video from my phone, and your actions are a part of what’s being “recorded” and “broadcast,” then… I think it would be very fitting for me to ask those being “captured” if it’s okay if I include them. I might change what I say or do if I know I’m being recorded in some manner.

As a professor/teacher, if the use of any technology or behavior was disruptive to the design of instruction I had planned, I’d try and exercise my right to request it not take place. It appears NYU needs a policy (quick) that covers this… giving that “right” to professors. In turn, they ought to use it responsibly.

Several folks told me about this article from Newsweek about interactive whiteboards.

I thought the article, while short, well-summarized what’s needed to make the most of these tools: good quality training that emphasizes good pedagogy.

Take a look at these iPhone cupcake icons. Yum!

Tips for Using Free Podcasts in Class

I was recently inspired by an article Camilla Gagliolo, a contact from Arlington County wrote, alongside Craig Nansen about using science podcasts in the classroom. It appeared in the September/October edition of Leading and Learning with Technology. In fact, they’ve set up a wiki where you can explore some of their recommended podcasts online. These include podcasts for mathematics and science, for a range of age levels.

So… how would I use these?

Great question! I was thinking about the best strategies for using podcasts in and outside of the classroom. Before I give you some of my “tips,” let’s be sure we know what a podcast is.

A podcast is a multimedia file, usually in audio or video format, that is delivered to your computer with the help of an “aggregator.” The best one in my eyes is iTunes. You’ve got that. You’re set.

“John, but I thought podcasts were for iPods?” Yes, you can use iTunes to transfer these free audio or video files to your iPod to listen to away from your computer. But you could just as easily burn them to CD, listen to them on the computer, or link to them on your blog.

So, how might we start??

Tips for Using Podcasts

Background Chatter

Since we have speakers and Promethean boards in the middle school, you could have some select podcasts playing as kids come into the room… you could also have them play during times when you’ve assigned seat work. While some teachers to play the radio during more quiet work time, why not make it curriculum-aligned material?

Use it in lieu of a Reading Assignment

You can assign listening/watching a podcast, with associated questions, instead of a reading assignment. This will differentiate the type of media you use in the room, but can also spark some discussion when used with kids in small groups. You could even use groups to assign different podcasts, and have the groups report-back later about what they heard. And—you might just inspire them to do their own podcasts in groups, later on.

Use Them as Enrichment

Not every student has a multimedia computer at home. But those that do? Casually link to podcast episodes you like on your blog, and let folks know this is “good stuff.” Some kids might just make the connection to the podcasts you play as “background chatter” to the opportunities they have at home.

Show me your iPod!

Be careful with this one—but you might consider asking students to find a subject-related podcast and loading several episodes on their own iPod from home. You don’t want to give credit points or any special reward, but it might be just one way students show you they are self-learners on their own outside of school.

Use Our iPods

The high school and middle school media centers have iPod kits you can borrow. These 10-iPod sets can be loaded with your favorite podcasts and passed out in class to be used. Use these podcasts “on the go” as opportunities for differentiation.

Show a Podcast in your Flipchart

You can embed Quicktime files into Promethean flipcharts, and into Keynote and PowerPoint presentations. Enhance, or break-up a lesson, with multimedia. For best effect, chop up the podcast episode into smaller chunks and use it throughout a longer presentation.

Use Podcasts on Laptops

You don’t need iPods—remember? You can also use laptops to distribute and watch podcast episodes. As students watch, they can draw diagrams to show their comprehension of the episode, they can teach others the concepts covered in the podcasts, and they can apply what the podcast episode communicates through an extension activity.

Listen on your own…

Try burning episodes to compact disc. For homework, students can generate questions the podcasts raise and then you can use these questions in class to lead a class discussion.

Use them as Examples

Watch a podcast together in class and use it as an example, or template, for students making their own in small groups. Keep the expectations high. Define an audience… write-out a script. Collect artifacts for visuals. Practice. Finally, students can record and publish their creations through your blog.

At any rate, teachers and enthusiasts today are sharing podcasts! Check them out to determine how they can help you and your students.

Other Podcasts

You’ll find other great podcasts beyond math and science. Teach secondary English? Check out Grammar Girl. Teach a world language? Find free French and Spanish podcasts. Technology? Current events? Politics? Find hundreds of education podcasts online through iTunes. By clicking on a podcast of interest, you can grab as many episodes as you like, or subscribe to the current and all future episodes.

For older students, consider browsing the section called iTunes University for online college courses, lectures, and more! More? Yes, a new initiative is putting iTunesU in K-12 schools. Check out the growing K-12 resources available!

Ever wonder what it’s like to make crayons?

I went to college and later, in graduate school, earned an education degree. I hadn’t throughly thought about the art and science of teaching until that later experience.

Then I realized so many of the professors I had were poor teachers. Scholars, yes. But many of them were bad teachers. Yet, I survived. I passed. I graduated. I still learned.

Someone asked, I think, “Where do you learn about teaching in professor’s school?” One professor admitted to a one semester class on teaching and learning styles experience. He told us most “never get that.”

So, you go to school, and emulate those who teach you. Yet, while the system works, does anyone ever pick up on anything on how to really engage learners, to help them meet objectives? Measurable outcomes?

I bring all of this up because I have a professor in the family. He recently got done teaching an intensive 6-week course. And while we had talked about the class, I never know much of the particulars.

It came out in the review that many students complained about the PowerPoints he’d post online before class.

“They won’t let us print those 125-slide Power Points in the office, and the university library is closed by the time we get off work… so many times, I couldn’t print the PPTs for the lecture. I just couldn’t take notes at all.”

This type of (paraphrased comment) begs us to task so many questions.

• Does the professor really give out 125 slide presentations/lecture notes?
• Are the notes required for class participation?
• Does the professor lecture for the full 3 hour class?
• Can’t students take notes on regular paper, or a laptop?
• How does the required reading fit into the course?
• What is, exactly, the best format for a 3-hour class that meets only 6-8 times?

I found out some of the answers.

Yes, the class format is 3 full hours of lecture. And another yes: the lecture notes are 120-125 slides each class. That’s a book! Plus, there is a book, with assigned readings.

I started asking questions of my professor, as if I was some learned sage, myself.

• What’s the most elemental content you want these students to walk away with?
• What’s more important–depth of one central idea, or breadth of a field?
• What do they do after they read the book? What’s the plan?
• Can you split up the course into, say, 3 chunks? Lecture/Participation/Lecture?

The details don’t matter: there’s no one right answer, and besides, I’m not giving you enough details to make any concrete suggestions. But what was surprising from this conversation was that pedagogical concerns by in large were never considered. He knew he had three hours, and what do you do? Lecture. No other options crossed his mind.

I’m wondering how many other educators, no matter their position, their station, or their level (preK through graduate school) never stop to think about… the learning experience.

As a K-12 person, I recently began searching for best-in-class blogs of other teachers, and found one by a math teacher. This educator showed such enthusiasm for his calling, it was palpable in a few areas of his writing. But in the descriptions of what took place in class, it was so un-inspiring. The descriptions of homework, classroom assignments, and reminders about what was “important” reminded me of my own math experiences. Could it be? Could math still be so uninspiring?

So many teachers emulate what they experienced as students in their role as a teacher. I’m guilty! I remember giving a quiz the first time, because, well, it “just felt like a good time for a quiz.” I’ve never stopped growing in this profession, between pedagogy, to subject matter, there’s only more to learn and more experiences to reflect upon.

I think in college most of the learning happened because I pushed myself to learn. That likely isn’t new or unfamiliar to many. If you’re reading this, and you are an educator, try putting yourself in your students’ seats every once in awhile. They are different than us, of course, separated by their own inexperience, age, likes and dislikes; but what does it feel like on the other side?

Who likes a 3 hour lecture?

Could their be alternatives?

Last year, for all multimedia, including iWeb sites, we connected to our web server on campus and dragged-over files (JPEG, MOV, etc.). This year, with the new blogs, much of that is unnecessary.

The video screencast linked below is a 20-minute video. The first half shows you how to move the content from our old server to our new server. Please do this if you’d like to keep it. The second half covers how to save new iWeb projects onto the server for sharing with the public.

Today, I downloaded Bean for Mac OS X, a simple, yet elegant rich text processor.

I’ve been a fan of programs like Scrivener, which allow full-screen editing. You just write and write and write, and aren’t bound by scrollbars, windows, and the distractions of text editors, Twitterific, or other things like icons on your desktop.

Bean is simpler than Scrivener (which I used in writing RSS for Educators), but looks like it could very well earn a place in my toolkit. I’m also starting to use TextMate for my web editing, and I’ve used it several times to write plaintext notes, too. Lots of tools can be a great thing… Perhaps I’ll report a month from now on what I’ve solidified in using.

Goochland High School subscribes to a service called Turn it In.com, which allows teachers to provide students with an online space for turning in papers. Papers can be turned in via a variety of formats, from plain text, Word files, or even PDF. It also provides teachers plagiarism checkers and a way to grade and mark-up papers all online.

To get started, check out their user guides for teachers and students. Also of interest will be the videos that cover this new and improved version. Please take a look even if you’ve used Turnitin in the past.

Your contact person for using Turn-it-in is Mrs. Bea  Cantor. Please contact her if you’d like to get set up with using Turn-it-in with your students or need support.

This video is not new, but so many folks I get the opportunity to sit down with have… organizational issues. Icons, folders, documents: they can’t keep up.

Take a look at this video to learn more about organizing things in the OS X Finder.

Organize the OS X Finder from John Hendron on Vimeo.

And–for more video tips, check out Bea’s new podcast series exploring “little known” applications installed on our laptops (MacBooks).

No one likes the idea of a hurricane hitting land. While I’m a part of that camp, I also am fascinated by them, and always enjoy learning more about how they form.

“The Big Picture” blog recently featured some striking photographs of some of the “big names” in hurricanes over the past few years, including Ike. Check them out, I don’t think you’ll be disappointed.

In a so-called “Web 2.0″ world, applications make a magic migration from the /Applications folder to a web browser. What’s a natural choice for editing some photos? iPhoto? Photoshop Elements? Why not go online and try Dr. Pic?

Dr. Pic is a new Javascript-based photo editing tool. Start by uploading a photo off of your computer, and edit-away in your favorite browser.