sharon's share: Digital Citizens? Who are they?

sharon's share: Digital Citizens? Who are they?

Sharon Betts has some interesting discussion relating to Digital Citizens.  

I agree with her statement, "These are just a few of the questions that go through my mind everyday as I work with teachers trying to move students toward "digital citizenship". It seems that I am not alone. "  

We are in such an interesting place where teachers in the same school may be passionately opposed to youtube, while their colleagues are already passionately using it.

I look forward to the day that all students can have the same rich experiences in all their classroooms.

Web2.0 - ERAC - Learning LInks

This afternoon has been a survey of Web2.0.  It is exciting to listen to people who are using these tools and exploring new ones.  Iron sharpens Iron.  

I should have known better than to try and blog this session.  There are just too many things to try and explain.
Notes from the presentation are located at http://wic.wikispaces.com/Web+2.0

I have made a few notes along the way, but I was exploring myself for much of the time.

Kevin

Consider Blogging - We need to teach students to look into things when reading blogs.  Is the information upto date, do they have expertise, how often do they post, who/ how many are reading the blog

Consider Wikis

Consider Google (everything)
        Docs
        Reader
        Notebook - doing research and annotating notes maintaining links.
        Custom Searches
        Google Maps - create custom journeys - similar to Google Earth but not requiring software download

Consider MashUps
        Individual Photos layered on others, or Google Lit Trips, or iGoogle or ....

Can you keep up? Do you need to?

Again, I was leaving a workshop in a state of awe and with brain overload.  There are so many things to actually know to be 'well-read' or knowledgeable with ICT.  I do believe I am information and media literate, but I  have so much more to learn.  I believe it was stated today that there are over 7000 Web2.0 applications currently available.

There is no way I can even imagine to see all of those tools.  I know many tools, but not as well as I want.  Being literate in terms of Web2.0 likely means that you have found the tools that you need and you can use the ones you need.  While I don't know all the tools, I don't have any needs that aren't being met.  

The ironic part of saying that is I also don't know what I don't know.  I will continue to keep my ears and eyes open to new opportunities, but I don't need to learn every tool that is available.  A favourite site for finding out more about Web2.0 applications is http://www.go2web20.net/

One of the last conversations of the day related to how overwhelming all of this can really be.  The best part was that there is a site that gives you 23 things to try and explore to move into the Web2.0 world.  Check this out http://schoollibrarylearning2.blogspot.com/2007/02/23-things_27.html

Exhausted and Excited - Kevin

ERAC - Learning Links - Digital Expression

ERAC is sponsoring the Learning Links sessions for teachers.  The sessions are being presented by North Vancouver teachers that have created a series of 3 books.  

Today's session is about Digital Expression.  A starting point was sending students as film crews to interview professionals - comic book writer, CBC New Media, Gaming, Musician, and Designer / Publishers.  Some of the videos are on their site at www.learntech44.ca.

The Essential Skills include - Photography, Graphics, Movie Making, Storytelling and Music/Sound.

Using Digital Photos as story starters.  Students take photos and then share them as story starters.  Instead of a teacher giving a lead in like, "It was a dark and stormy night..."  Now a photo of a man walking down a dusty road can be shown on the projector.

The Design Essentials include - Elements of: Line; Shape; Texture; Colour and Value; and Type as well as Principles of: Spaces; Balance; Emphasis and Flow; Repetition and Rhythm; and Unity.

An exciting chapter bringing 21st century reality of Creative Collaboration

Activity - Fun activity showcasing both Word and Appleworks ability to draw.

Stop motion is a way of looking at animating the story.  iStopMotion or FrameThief are two tools that are possible.  There are many curriculum correlations for using stop motion to tell digital stories.

Comic Life by Plasq.  I love this software.  A good recommendation is to plan 1 block to just explore.  Then use the next lesson for applications.  The options for integration are endless - pre-writing, newsletters, book reports, field trip review, storyboarding etc

Podcasting.  A great idea that was shared is how we often look to the written word to assess students.  This always puts students with written output difficulties at a disadvantage.  Podcasting allows students to show their understanding without being disadvantaged by their written output - instead of assessing their writing, we can access their ideas.

Using Garageband(Mac) or Audacity (PC) you can have students create podcasts within 15 minutes for a 1 to 2 minute podcast.  (Remember we are looking at their understanding, not their perfection of using technology)

The morning was a great opportunity to explore hands on.

Now off to lunch and then back for Web2.0 in the afternoon.

Kevin

Perspectives on a Planet - Bob McDonald - Catalyst 2008

Science has changed much since the space age.

In Kelowna we are spinning about 700km per hour
Near the equator, they are moving about 1600 km per hour.  That is why space shuttles launch closer to the equator - more 'free' speed

Time travel.  We are moving 30 km per second around the sun.  In the clap of a hand, the earth has also moved in space.  To travel back in time, you would have to transport the earth back millions of kilometers.

An amazing speaker that shared some interesting anecdotes including how speaking and hearing a speaker involves the vocal cords, air pressure, a microphone with a membrane that moves a crystal that is converted to an electrical impulse, that is transmitted as radio frequency that is received by an antenna that converts back to electrical impulses, to wires to speakers to move a magnet attached to a cone that moves the cone and creates a pressure wave that hits us in the head and hits our ears, moves 3 small bones, to the cochlea to liquid to hairs that create electro chemical pulses that move to the brain to be interpreted and thought.
                That kind of interest is what we want to inspire in our students.

He then showed us a video doing zero-g (and mars / moon g)
It was neat to see the experience of 1/3, 1/6 and 0 G.  Students can also relate to this from going on a roller coaster.

The stories engage.  
Only 24 people have been far enough from the earth to see 'earth rise.'  It allowed
a new perspective that the earth is one entity

The earth is really a big rock with a thin layer "like that of dipping a ball in and out of water" , the land, then a similar layer of atmosphere.  At the top of Mt Everest you can basically walk out of the atmosphere.

A really cool way to explain water crisis to students is fill a glass with water, then pour out the 90% that is salty, the 9% that is frozen, the 0.9 % that is not accessible, and then the 1 drop that is drinkable.  But neat to note that the water we drink has been around since the earth began and been through Romans and dinosaurs.....

The solution - an evolution not a revolution - Revolutions get people excited to change but little happens.  Evolution changes the way things are done.  To listen to Mozart you need to listen live, then came phonographs, record players, CD, MP3, iPod.  You are still listening to music but the method has evolved.

The new Tesla in the US is a fully electric car that has 250 HP using LiOn batteries.  It only has 2 gears - forward and reverse - it is 80% efficient.  It can run 300 km on a charge

The secret to take care of this planet is to help our children have a sense of hope about tomorrow and engineer our way through our crisis.  

Web 2.0 by Chris Rozitis at Catalyst 2008

Chris is on the Executive of CUEBC and the Conference Chair for Horizons 2008 (more info at CUEBC.ca)  He is also an Apple Distinguished Educator.

There are many ways of integrating Web 2.0
He highlighted using Google Docs.  Working with students

Google Reader.  As each student in a class might have a blog, you can set the RSS feed so you know who and how many posts students have made.  

Google has a huge amount of free resources - Google Docs, Calendar, Custom Search Engines, Blogger, Scholarly Articles and so much more.

Wikis
        Having students go in and change wikipedia gives them permission to be considered authors.  Some students have tried creating 'fake' units of measurement.  Wikipedia had it removed by the next day.

        Scheduling meetings with students.  Create a blank table in a wiki and then have them update when they want to meet.

Jing Project.com
        Maximum of 3 minutes but allows screen capture and video capture.  This is free for both PC / Mac

Elluminate
        Contact support@odysseylearn.com for your own room
        To book a single use room - http://www.learnnowbc.ca/educators/educationsite/toolsandresources/elluminateliverooms.aspx


ustream.tv
        Create your own room to broadcast

Del.icio.us/crozitis
        Check out Chris's bookmarks

Blogging - allows commenting of a webpage without changing the original content
        WordPress, Edublogs.org, Blogger.com


More information
        www.rozitis.ca/Web2.0

A fast paced session with lots of real classroom applications.

Kevin

Digital Microscopy - Catalyst 2008

Digital Microscopy


There are some great tools with Motic that allows you to use there microscopes and related software to measure the area, perimeter and distances.  Additional advantages of using the digital microscopes are to bring the images from a single person viewing lens to many students or teachers being able to see the same image and discuss on a laptop screen or on the projector screen


Claymation for Mitosis.  Students were engaged and creative demonstrating their understanding of mitosis.  They used a digital camera and Microsoft Movie Maker.  Students also added labels. 
 

I have used the Bodelin Proscope many times, but extending to multiple objective lenses without having to remove the microscope and then change the lens is an good option.

Podcasting in the Science classroom by Paula Taylor

Paula Taylor – Surrey Science Teacher – Blogs in the Science Classroom
Paula is a teacher that believes ‘I have to keep changing as my students keep changing’
Kids are coming to highschool already publishing to the read/write web.

In starting a blog last summer, in one semester she had 19 000 hits instead of the 800 in a semester with a static web1.0 webpage. There may be 200 posts the day before a test with students helping each other.

I loved how several times Paula talked about how her students and colleagues were a community of learners. The learning doesn’t stop when an assignment is complete.

A way of integrating blogs in the classroom that I have not heard yet is to attach a word document template for students to work on. Then they respond with a blog and attach they work in the comments

Here is here blog with assignments for 4 different classes.
http://web.mac.com/pptaylor/iWeb/home/Blog/Blog.html

Paula also highlighted the changes of being a teacher. It was nice to see the changes that have and are being made listed clearly.

Thank you Paula for sharing exciting teaching with technology from a teacher that admits she knows very little about technology.

Catalyst Conference - Genes in a Bottle

Genes in a Bottle by Bio-Rad


The world of technology is often considered to be "computers."  It is refreshing to see how "analog" technology is still valued.  This session was over-flowing.  Something as "high-tech" as DNA extraction is possible in "low-tech" ways. 
 
It really comes down to using the right tool within the resources available.  While the session was low tech, teaching it and the activity process was greatly supported with a slideshow presentation and digital projector.

Cool Facts I gleaned:

Each cell has 2 meters of DNA inside it

Light will go over DNA if it was laid out because it is so thin.

TLITE - April 19, 2008

I was privileged to attend part of SFU Surrey's TLITE event on April 19, 2008.  Alan November was the Keynote speaker.  I have heard Alan a number of times and the themes continue to be similar.  The two biggest themes are students having authentic experiences and students owning their learning.

While hearing his presentation, I was able to interact with my own wiki and make updates.  It is heartening to know that we are making progress in Surrey.  Many of the examples that Alan was using could have been examples from pockets of users in Surrey.  We do have a long way to go and 70 of our teachers were in attendance.

I had to work with my Masters class as well so I missed the gallery walk and final demonstrations of learning but heard great stories about their success.

I look forward to when all of the examples could be from several Surrey schools ....

Continuing to Continue

My computer died back in January and my iWeb blogging was lost with it.  I have finally had time to recover and repost all of the previous posts.  I have missed being able to blog...

I have moved much more extensively into the world of google.  I resisted having another account to deal with but now I use Google for Docs, GMail, Reader, Scholar, Earth, Custom Search Engine and Blogger.  

I really appreciate the feature of being able to directly email posts to blogger.

Student Showcase of Learning

Jennifer Rossi shared with me after the May 23rd, 2007 meeting an idea about hosting a Student Learning Fair like Science Fair or Speech Meet.
 
I love the idea and have started the creative juices flowing in my own mind.  The questions I have for you:  
    What would it look like?
    Who does it benefit?
    When should we host it?
    What categories should we have?
    How do you select a winner?
 
Here are some of my initial thoughts:
    We could host it at SFU Surrey campus in one or two of the labs.  
 
    The event would be for students much like Science Fair and Speech Meet.  Students could work in their classes on projects and representatives be selected to represent the school.  I say representatives because many projects are class projects or class learning and selecting a ‘best’ doesn’t really get at the learning.
    I realize that the event could easily lose focus on student learning.  We would need to make sure that students get a chance to see what other students are doing and share their ideas at the event and with their class when they return.
 
    I think it could be hosted in the first week of May.  There would have been lots of learning during the year and any project throughout the year could be chosen.
 
    Categories is kind of a leading question.  I would want to use the IML capacities.  The event should be about learning not about the best product.   Having categories would just help to identify how teachers could use the ideas back in their own classrooms.
 
    Selecting a winner is a trick question.  I don’t believe we need to select a winner.  I can see we would have entries in various categories and perhaps provide participation awards / recognition.  I am not sure that you can select winners when we are talking about learning.  I see it more as a celebration style event.  The part of Science Fair I like is having the judges talk to the students and have them explain their learning.  Ribbons are secondary to those conversations.
 
I invite your thoughts.....
If you are interested in helping, please let me know.
 
The more I think about it the better it sounds.  Maybe part would be sharing in a large group and part in ‘poster sessions’ where 30 presentations would be going on at the same time in a large room.