Yesterday morning I twittered this:
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Sunday, 03 February 08 - 07:13 PM (GMT) By elizabeth he;fant in General |
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- Yesterday morning I twittered this:
And then replied to a few with this
Even as my school moves into what we are calling the 1:1 tablet program, I am realizing that 1:1 is really a thing of the past for many of us. If you consider my trip to the wrestling tournament and the inventory that I took, I had a tablet PC, a Mac and an iPhone all capable of connecting to the internet through a wireless connection, something not typically available in the wrestling gym. My iPhone serves as a backup since it can get to the internet through cellular phone connections. My Kindle can use the cellular phone connection to get a new book if I finish the one I am reading, something that is entirely likely at a wrestling tournament. Wrestling aside I was clearly not living the 1:1 dream, I was 3:1 or more if you count the Kindle.
At first glance, the tendency for many would be to say that I am just a geek extraordinaire and this is not the normal behavior for the majority but take a closer look at the situation from the perspective of the students at my school. My school currently allows students to bring whatever laptop they choose to campus. The students are able to have our student tech group make sure it has proper antivirus protection and register it for the wireless network. The 150 member freshman class, a class that will be part of the tablet program next year, had registered 90+ machines as of mid January. Many of those machines were Macs. The Mac users were the first to express concern that they already had a Mac and for many of them it was a new purchase this school year. You have to credit Mac users with loyalty which they expressed as reluctance to use a tablet. Fortunately it has been relatively easy to explain to them that I too have a Mac and a PC and until I can have the advantages afforded by both in one machine, I need to be 2:1. The sticker on my tablet PC demonstrates my conflicted allegiance to each platform but doesn’t really solve the problem. Until students are adept at typing math homework or until apple creates a tablet, the solution is being 2:1. This does leave the tech leaders with a dilemma that we need to solve. Should we allow students in the tablet program to register their Macs on our network? I’m thinking yes. I’m certainly aware of the educational benefits the Mac and the iLife suite affords. The tablet was our decision because of the inking feature and the potential we see with DyKnow, particularly for our math and science classes. I was forced to choose one over the other but for those who have both, why not let them leverage the benefits of each platform. Let me offer another interesting piece of data to support the 2+:1 concept. After Christmas the students registered 40-50 new wireless devices on our network through the stutech group. We don’t have a rule that says it has to be a laptop and the kids have started bringing in their iTouch and iPhone devices for registration. Over half of the recent wireless devices are not laptops so we clearly have some 2:1 device kids on campus.
Does the cell phone count? The iTouch? Again, I would argue that they do. Maybe they should be weighted at 0.75 since they aren’t quite what a laptop computer is-yet. Our school policy allows phones but requires them to be on vibrate or off in the classroom. We also allow ipods. Yes, I’m lucky. We haven’t really leveraged the phones as educational tools yet although we have used them to take pictures for a few math projects and for some imagery for reflective blogging. (Thanks to Karen Montgomery, we are exploring their use as polling devise in the classroom using http://www.polleverywhere.com. I am looking forward to Karen’s cell phone presentation at METC.) We have used the ipods for educational podcasts but both of these devices are largely used in ways totally directed by the students without faculty involvement. In any event, if you count cell phones, I would bet that every one of our students has one of those. Given that we have a total of 300 laptops registered on campus, we could claim that 300 students abide by the 2:1 ratio. As the students move to the newer iTouch as their ipod of choice, the 2:1 ratio for some of them could go to 3:1.
Much like integrating tech is becoming an outdated notion that is being replaced with embedding technology which needs to be replaced with the simple concept of 21st century curricular revision, the concept of 1:1 is rapidly becoming an outdated notion as this crazy, wired world is driving us to connections whether we are ready for them or not.
Just curious, what’s your ratio?
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An Aside for the Non-Wrestlers
This paragraph is for those of you who have never had the good fortune to attend a wrestling tournament; a brief explanation is probably in order so you understand why I would take so much equipment. Wrestling tournaments are frequently 2 day affairs beginning after school on a Friday and continuing through the day on Saturday. Typically weigh-ins are around 4:30 after which the wrestlers get at least an hour to drink and eat what for many will be the first nourishment they’ve had in 24 hours. Matches may go as late as late as 10:30 on Friday and its back to the gym Sat at 6:30 to weigh in and begin the fun again. Saturdays can go until 5 or 6 in the evening with the larger, sixteen team tournaments. If your son does well, he will have only 4 matches. Each match is a maximum of 6 minutes. If he pins the opponent or gets a buy, it’s even less active watching time. It’s difficult to know time for individual matches so it’s hard to leave and return. During this 16 hour ordeal that involves maybe 24 minutes of wrestling time, you are treated to sweating adolescents in singlet’s. On the heavy weight end, this can be a particularly interesting thing to watch. Other senses are in for a treat as well. The gyms get hot, the boys sweat, use your imagination as to the extravaganza that your nose is treated too. Typically 6 matches at a time so cheering fans, yelling coaches, whistles and clock buzzers entertain your ears. Add a few sets of scantily clad matt maids and you pretty much have it. It adds up to lots of time to work on the computers and use the cell phone to interact with twitter.
Best Web 2.0 Apps for 2007
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Saturday, 22 December 07 - 05:44 PM (GMT) By elizabeth he;fant in General |
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Langwitches tagged me for this. I pretty much agree with her list, and and will add a few others. I am trying to keep an elementary lens on with these. I actually work with 9-12th grade and find the same list works for that age group. In Upper School we have loved google pages and used animoto and a variety of slideshow/image tools to decorate them. Kids like picturetrail, vuvox, and ibloks for that. We have used del.icio.us and diigo for research this year. Voicethread became mainstream much like iMovie did a few years ago. But thats all Upper School stuff.
I frequently talk to the lower school instructional technologist and we share links often. While I second langwitches list, I would add the following.
1. Kerpoof - animation and storytelling
2. Gizmoz or Vokis - talking avatars
3.Toondo - Make comic books or graphic novels
4. Create a Graph - Decide the type of graph and how to format it.
Too new to make the list but interesting to play with
Scriblink - Online whiteboard that only requires the teacher to post a URL so doesn't need email accounts for all the kids. (Upper school has used Vyew.)
JamStudio - a mini garageband throught the browser
Then there is always this
Just kidding!
I'll tag the following:
Brian Crosby
AP Gov Ads
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Monday, 12 November 07 - 03:42 PM (GMT) By elizabeth he;fant in General |
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The 2007-2008 ads are ready for viewing.
| Add AP GOV to your page |
SPlashcast Test
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Sunday, 11 November 07 - 10:30 PM (GMT) By elizabeth he;fant in General |
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This is a voicethread idea
An Opportunity of the Fourth Domain
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Saturday, 20 October 07 - 05:51 PM (GMT) By elizabeth he;fant in General |
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Recently, the department chairs went to Chicago to hear Charlotte Danielson speak. I read the notes and looked through the book that the chairs started reading. As I take part in the k12 Online Conference, it occurs to me that I am attending to Domain 4: Professional Responsibilities (see some descriptors about Domain 4 below) as I attempt to use this online opportunity to "grow and develop professionally"...it also occured to me that this conference might be an opportunity for each of you. The conference lasts for two weeks and each session is recorded and is available for viewing on your computer or on your ipod. There are also some instances of live sessions where participants can use web 2.0 tools to engage in the sessions with people all over the world.
The conference page states :
"The K-12 Online Conference invites participation from educators around the world interested in innovative ways Web 2.0 tools and technologies can be used to improve learning. This FREE conference is run by volunteers and open to everyone. The 2007 conference theme is “Playing with Boundaries”. This year’s conference begins with a pre-conference keynote the week of October 8, 2007. The following two weeks, October 15-19 and October 22-26, forty presentations will be posted online to the conference blog (this website) for participants to download and view. Live Events in the form of three “Fireside Chats” and a culminating “When Night Falls” event will be announced. Everyone is encouraged to participate in both live events during the conference as well as asynchronous conversations. More information about podcast channels and conference web feeds is available!"
If you need help subscribing to a session, let me know. I have some of the sessions on my ipod and listen while I'm driving. These sessions are a way in which teachers can grow and learn in a self-directed way. If you choose to participate in one of the live events, you will find that technology enables you to take part in an online network or community of learners and often leads to collaboration on things.
Note on Danielson
(from - http://www.chss.iup.edu/jrmcdono/ED455-methods/teacher_evaluation_to_enhance_pr.htm)
Domain 4: Professional responsibilities
Reflect on teaching
Maintain accurate records
Communicate with families
Contribute to the school and district
Grow and develop professionally
Show professionalism
The nature of professional learning
Reflection on practice
Collaboration
Self-assessment and self-directed inquiry
A community of learners
Today's Students
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Saturday, 20 October 07 - 03:04 PM (GMT) By elizabeth he;fant in General |
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A second video from the Introduction to Cultural Anthropology class at Kansas State University examines today's students. The class is creating a three part series about education in higher ed but what they are creating is relevant for high school as well. It is worth noting that colleges are on somewhat of a parallel track with high schools in deciding what changed need to prepare students in this day and age.
I'm going to quote from the blog of the Professor who teaches this class, Professor Wesch.
Taken from his blog:
"To my delight, “A Vision of Students Today” is currently the most blogged about video in the blogosphere. I have read nearly every blog and comment posted about the video, and thought I would offer some of my responses here.
First off, it is remarkable to read all of the different interpretations of the video. Some have portrayed me as a luddite who thinks all technology in the classroom should be done away with, while others have suggested that I am a technophile who thinks technology is the answer. Others focus more on the words of the students, and suggest that whatever problems we may have in higher education can be blamed on them, the technology, or both.
To give a little bit more context to the piece, it might be useful to point out that it was originally created as Part 2 of a 3 part series on Higher Ed. Part 1 has been published as Information R/evolution. That piece tracks the way information creation, critique, and distribution has changed, ending with the question “Are we ready?” and the answer: “R U Feeling Lucky?” (altering Google’s I’m feeling lucky button). Placed back to back, this would then lead directly to the door opening to the empty classroom.
Part 3 is planned to be an exploration of different teaching technologies and the ways in which they shape the learning environment for better and for worse. It will begin where this video left off, with a chalkboard (which IS a teaching *technology*, though we often overlook it as such), progressing through PowerPoint, onto the web, SecondLife, etc.
I think many of the misinterpretations of the video are due to my attempts to frame the issues in a way that subtly suggests both luddite and technophile solutions as actual possible solutions.
The conclusion I hoped would be drawn from the video, has been most eloquently stated by Tim Bulkeley at SansBlogue:
More striking and visceral though, for me, was the opening of the video which sets the scene and poses the issue in an empty classroom! The environment in which we teach (onsite classes) is alien and sets up a model of information which is no longer true! Information is no longer scarce, no longer “out there”, no longer even ordered and organised the same way. It is not what we teach, it is how we are teaching that is the problem!
What teaching in the 21st century needs is not “better/more use of technology” - though that would be nice, nor (surely people do not actually believe this!?) students who are “as well educated as we were”, but simply new ways of doing and being. Many of our deep-rooted assumptions are enshrined in material forms, “class” rooms, whiteboards, “lecturers” and the like. So, what do we do to change how we are teaching?"
Bear in mind that this is dialoque occuring among the college professors for whom we are preparing our students. What will they be looking for when our current 9th graders enter college? It is worth keeping up with changed that are occuring in the college classrooms.
Information Today
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Saturday, 20 October 07 - 02:50 PM (GMT) By elizabeth he;fant in General |
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There is no question that information is more plentiful for today's students. The ways in which they interact with and share information have changed. This video created by the Introduction to Cultural Anthropologyclass at Kansas State University does a nice job of showing how things have changed.
The video shows examples of using social bookmarks (see earlier post on this topic) and tags. Social bookmarks and tagging are becoming increasingly important in managing today's information. If you want to know more about this, don't hesitate to email me or one of the librarians.
More on Web 2.0
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Saturday, 20 October 07 - 02:25 PM (GMT) By elizabeth he;fant in General |
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If you want to know more, the video below contains some interesting interviews with the developers of some of the more popular Web 2.0 tools.
Cool!
Pike's Place Market
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Thursday, 27 September 07 - 11:57 PM (GMT) By elizabeth he;fant in General |
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THis is our day.
Trying to Focus
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Sunday, 23 September 07 - 11:47 PM (GMT) By elizabeth he;fant in General |
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I am trying to focus this year and not go overboard or be overbearing with my geekiness. I'm doing better but I still have moments when I need to share more than most of you want to hear. I'm indulging myself tonight.
I just read the results of a survey of educators asking what their top educational tools were. The list of the top 100 is pretty interesting. Check it out and see how many you know. I don' t know all of them so don't let it be overwhelming. Point is that there is lots out there if you just take a minute to investigate and think about the possibilities.
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