EduBloggerCon (R)Eflections

I made my way down to the Boston Park Plaza yesterday for my first EduBloggerCon-East (#ebce09 is the free, one-day precursor to #BLC09). I found some amazing resources, met some great new colleagues, and thought it useful to draw some conclusions to synthesize, find patterns, and make my own meaning. I created a mind map using Mind42.



Best Practices in Textured Literacy - Tom Daccord

  • Essentially, Tom suggests that we can no longer focus on traditional student literacy, but we must also consider multi-modal literacy and texts (pictures and text)
  • Use backchannel Today's Meet to assess previous student knowledge
  • Avoiding multi-modal texts in our schools will leave our students marginalized
  • We must add value to traditional and multi-modal writing by making it:
    • meaningful
    • authentic
    • social
  • Consider the Student News Action Network
  • Tom created the The Great Debate of 2008 ning with his own students

New Media Reaching All Learners - Karen Janowski

Scratch from MIT - Liz Davis

  • Scratch from MIT (free download)
  • ScratchEd Educator Forum
  • Scratch Tutorials
  • Potential Purposes:
    • Making meaning
    • Kids need linear thinking
    • Following directions
    • Learning from mistakes
    • Problem-solving
    • Teacher-made game that kids use and practice
    • Alternative for presentation or as assessment
    • Animation

Backchannels - Lisa Thumann

  • Think about purpose for teaching, learning and instruction
  • Potential uses:
    • Record of discussion for current events, news, politics, speeches
    • Moderator status as privilege for 2-3 students
    • Extra help review sessions (after school, evening, weekends, etc.)
    • Weekend institutes for parent instruction (math, etc.)
  • More student engagement, especially with hesitant learners or to increase inclusion in classroom
  • Edmodo
  • Tiny Chat
  • Google Talk
  • Elluminate for Educators
  • Ed Tech Talk
  • Backchanneling should be:1.
  1. able to be moderated
  2. editable
  3. clickable
  4. embeddable
  5. archivable

Web 2.0 Smackdown

  • bubblecomment.com @TeachAKidd
    • video comment
    • video camera needed
    • type in url
    • useful for class website
    • give "new" url to viewers
  • "Show Options" in Google @joycevalenza
    • Search in google.com
    • Click "Show Options"
      • Last 24 hours
      • contextual information filled in
      • Wonder Wheel - mind map
    • Timeline
      • Events by decade
    • More text
    • Images from the page
    • http://www.sdst.org/shs/library
      • Google Squared
      • Side-by-side comparison search by metatag
  • http://edu.glogster.com
    • one page of a website
      • text
      • video
      • music
      • animation
      • graphics
      • no code necessary
    • "graphical" glog
    • register up to 200 students with no contact information
    • glogster.com - very wide open; social network
    • edu.glogster.com - private, secure, your students are in one isolated box
  • Fireshot (Firefox add-on) @TeacherJim
    • Like the old "Print Screen" on PCs
    • Useful for teaching how-to for applications
    • Free and pay version available
    • Annotatable with arrows, lines, numbers
    • Always in your toolbar
    • No audio
  • Socrato! @socrato
    • Assemble worksheets
    • Print online or download
    • Free to use
    • Tag clouds
    • Search pre-made lessons by standard, subject or grade
    • Editable for our own use
    • Students may log-in
      • Assessment
      • Assignment
  • Aardvark @alightlearning
    • Import twitter, facebook, gchat friends
    • Pose question:
      • Question is sent to those that have tagged themselves as knowledgeable
      • Others respond with answers
      • Expand your network/PLN
  • The Live Pen by Livescribe @KarenJan
    • Write one key word
    • Pen will record what is spoken
    • Touch pen to word to hear words associated
    • Notes can be uploaded, along with associated recording
    • Available on eBay, Target, Amazon
  • Instructables @EmilyValenza
    • Upload explanations
    • Pick an experiment and try yourself!
    • Or, assess and improve
  • ImageChef @LParisi
    • Create your own image using words
    • Grab image
    • Send to social networks
    • Get an imbed code
    • Searchable gallery
    • Free!
  • Xtranormal @ lloydcrew
    • Text-to-moviemaker
    • Create a video
    • Enter text
    • Enter characters
    • Customize
    • Add movement, animations, camera angles
    • Use for assessment
  • Stixy @ kelleyc3
    • Virtual post-it note website
    • stixy.com/guest/41971
    • Summer Reading Books
  • Fair Use Guidelines
    • Repurposing
  • YoLink
    • Download
    • Tell YoLink to search links
    • Results will open new toolbar on right with paragraph synopsis
    • Key terms highlighted
    • Clicking on paragraph will open that webpage
    • Social Bookmarking function
  • WolframAlpha @ dkuropatwa
    • Computational Knowledge Engine
      • Power of mathematica in a search engine
      • Taking input - reformat equation
        • Roots
        • Alternate Form
        • Roots
        • Polynomial discriminant
        • Steps to solve equation
    • Changes homework
      • Punch this equation into WolframAlpha
      • Explain why
    • Get charts, languages, statistics
  • Social Technology and Education Conference @lizbdavis
    • August 14th @ Harvard University

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Maslow's Hierarchy of School Needs (Steve Guditus)

Image
The pace of schools today is frantic.  So little time is left in a child's 24 hour-day to play and explore - both in and out of school.  Unintentionally, we may be pushing students to think and learn at high levels when more basic needs are not met.  For a student to be available for learning, basic needs need to be met - in both school and at home.  We need to shift our paradigm from student supports as "extras" and "add-ons" to prerequisites for a student to be available for learning.  I created this Maslow's Hierarchy of School Needs to highlight the need for other pieces to be in place for students to be available to learn (and to learn at high levels, reach their potential, and increase their potential). Any thoughts, feedback, edits, subtractions or additions?
Read more

37 inspirational ideas to kickoff your school year (Steve Guditus @sguditus)

I just participated in a great brainstorming session with some outstanding educational leaders at the MSSAA summer institute , and made note of 37 different ideas to inspire your school and have a successful kickoff to the school year.  The best educators beg, borrow and steal ideas and adapt them to be their own - so I offer this list to be borrowed, stolen and adapted (no need to beg!). Have staff write one fun fact about themselves on a post-it note on their classroom door. Create a scavenger hunt and have folks hunt down items, discover new info about fellow staff members, the school or the community. Create a teacher survival kit: a mini hershey's bar for a pick-me-up, a K-Cup for a jolt of caffeine, some office supplies, etc. Have staff set a personal goal, in addition to their student learning and professional practice goal: make it about personal health, nutrition, work/home balance, family, etc - and have check-ins! Leave a personal note, post-it, memo or quote on ...
Read more

Grades: Understanding, not Obedience

The New York Times got me thinking, in its November 28, 2010 article " No More A's for Good Behavior ."  The Potsdam, NY Public Schools, led by Superintendent Patrick Brady, are right on.  As I concluded in a previous blog post, " Extra Credit: The Downfall of America ?", grades must be a reflection of knowledge learned, information synthesized, skills demonstrated, not a reflection of behavior. I have opened up the following conversation individually with teachers, but have not yet taken it on with the staff of the whole school in which I work - yet.  Grades must not be a reflection of behavior, but of understanding.  This includes the a big piece of student responsibility: homework.  The excuse that "if students do not homework and are not penalized for not completing it, then won't ever learn to do it!" is simply hogwash.  We should be creating homework assignments that are essential, and if it uncomfortably illuminates our own homework polici...
Read more