Accessing Moodle on an ipod touch

Today I asked a student to complete his daily warm-up on Moodle using his ipod touch. I was amazed at how quickly he was able to negotiate the links, zoom in and out of the page and use the virtual keyboard to complete his entry faster than many of his classmates.

Create a grade level writing challenge with Google Docs

Google Docs includes a simple tool for checking  the readability score and grade level readability of anything you write.  Students can easily check their readability score and grade level readability and then use revision strategies to raise their readability scores.


This tool can also be used as a UDL strategy.  Paste an article or shorter reading assignment into Google Docs and check the readability score.  Edit difficult vocabulary, remove extraneous sentences or paragraphs, or rewrite sentences to lower the readability score.

Live - from the skatepark! Using technology and "homework" to engage the brain.

One of my goals this year is to support learning tools and technology that fire up our students' brains (and hearts) after school. For argument's sake I'll call this "homework" -(boo!).

I wonder what would happen if students were asked to use their cell phones to explain relationships in an ecosystem by taking pictures of examples from hockey practice, the skate park, or the mall. They could submit the photos to a shared photo site online, and the next day the teacher could project these images for a discussion. Finding examples of geometric shapes, literary devices, or genetic traits might also work. And while they are shooting photos that night we might also send a text message quiz question to reinforce a specific concept. The same assignment could be completed with a digital camera and a web posted quiz question (no cell phone), or with hand drawn examples and a sealed envelope quiz question for students with minimal technology (ok, I'm reaching here). But perhaps the incentive of using a cell phone or having your photos used the next day for discussion would entice our "homework loving" students to learn while they live.

I think learning what we teach while engaged in their personal activities might help to cement the connections and concepts we are trying to teach. And if that doesn't work, I'd try playing the didgeridoo while stiltwalking.

Constituion Day at the ATA

Today our principal, Mr. Spencer, addressed all of our students simultaneously by broadcasting his Constitution Day message using ustream.tv. In the past, Mr. Spencer would spend the day moving from class to class delivering his message a total of 12 different times. By streaming his message live over the internet, he was able to address all of our students with one broadcast.


Several steps were involved in setting up this internet broadcast including the set up our free ustream account. Finding the right combination of Webcam and microphone was a challenge but worth the effort since sound and video were both quite nice for our students. It also required a coordinated effort from our teachers to prepare their rooms to project the broadcast and run audio through our phonic ear speaker system.


I was very impressed with the quality of the presentation and the student's attentiveness. My kudos to everyone involved.

I was really hoping the new ipod touch would have a camera and GPS

Watching ASCD "Teaching the Adolescent Brain"

Going to sit at Canatara beach before work. Why haven't I done this before?

(Updated)

Anyone else using ping.fm for posting? This is my first attempt. http://ping.fm/ETFhf


(updated) My blog has stagnated over the past months as I begin to utilize microblogging tools such as Twitter and FriendFeed. Will Richardson mentioned a similar phenomenon when he was keynoting @ the 21st Century Learning Symposium in Port Huron, MI. So is it fair to use a service like ping.fm to post status updates to my blog? The posts are short and lack the visual pizazz of a multimedia blog post. Is microblogging just noise or does it adequately break the silence?

How to use the Drawing Tool in Google Docs

Here's a quick 2 minute tutorial on using the drawing tool in Google Docs. This is a nice way to add some visual bling to your docs without using a separate drawing tool.

Going Global

Check out this SlideShare Presentation:

Going Global

View more presentations from elemenous.

TI3 – Inquiry, Innovation, and Individualization

Sorry again for the unedited notes from MACUL

Working with a disruptive unmotivated population

Blended classroom

Using moodle – computerized everything he has.

Choosing to teach in the most effective manor regardless of the failed state outcomes

Teaching inquiry based requires some level of intrinsic motivation. His experience is it only works with motivated students.

Today's teacher has to be incredible. Normal won't cut it. Teachers last less than five years

Using a split class environment – computers for half and inquiry for half.

Has 16 computers for his room using a 10,000 dollar grant.

Project goals:

• Every kid 100% engaged. They don't always finish, but they do work.
  
• Inquire, Innovation (split the classs – essentially teaching 2 courses at once), individualization
  
• Using 4 stations of 4 desktop computers
  
• Does a physics demo using a nail bed but it doesn't work to engage.
  
• Enrollement key moodle is course name small letters
  
• Online Moodle assessments
  
• Grade by assessment or portfolio – Demonstrate 70% satisfactory work
  
• Late work is overlooked if it is completed
  

 

Digital Citizenship

Digital Citizenship - Jason Ohler

So I'm throwing my notes out to the ether in raw form.  Apologies for the errors, but I'll never get this blogging thing down if I wait for perfection. 

   Copyright is not the primary issue

• redifining community


• study what we use - with any tech or technique we should look at the impact, the value the cost


• articulate our fears


• write a new story

Every technology connects and disconnects

• we fail to see the disconnect and understand the critical effects of any tech


• What would the warning label be on the tech we adopt, how does it affect us socially, personally, physically.  Shine a flashlight the tools and see the scope of their impact.

Why are we uncomfortable with tech.

• It's ubiquitous


• it's invasive


• it's rapidly changing


• it's resocializing


• sovereignty - who controls whom


• technology is determining human endeavor - if you have the internet you will surf, if you have a car you will drive whether we need to or not.

We can have what we want

• If you can have what we want we can have the school we want
  
  


• It's not about the gear the it's about the story, what is the story we want to tell about our schools.  We have to engage proactively.

What's new

• Disocciated action (place) many activities independent of where we are physcially


• leveraged action (power) we can use a tool without seeing the effect


• generalized action (anyone) ownership rights, copy right, asking the open ended questions about our digital actions

slideshare Jason Ohler

 http://www.slideshare.net/jasonohler

Iste Refresh Digital Citizenship

View more presentations from jasonohler.

What is our mantra?  not our mission statement

Be a de"tech"tive

Ask the questions

investigate, analyze, evaluate, and recommend.

Six hours into MACUL

There's a lot to process when you attend a conference, but a common theme seems to be playing catch up. Schools seem ill prepared to provide just in time learning using relevant technology. Just wondering why.

Alan November at MACUL

This will be an on the fly blogging of Alan's keynote at MACUL.

Most interesting question posed so far is when will your school transition from traditional closed book tests to open sourced tests using questions designed to apply information with no limitations on source of info (computers, cell phones, groups).

Now he's discussing how we can put students to work finding the assignments that will address our most difficult concepts. Shifting control to the students.

All children will become curriculum researchers. It's important to assign roles and tasks to students. The importance of researching other viewpoints. Google search "site: ac.uk "General Gage" to refine search results.

Custom Search in Google. Design a custom search engine for your class. This would be useful for our current renewable energy unit. Must have a Google account to customize. Student designed search engines are "more fun". Collaborative: the work of one students contributes to the benefit of all students.

Screencasting tools for student demonstration. The public context of web publishing makes student work important. A different voice explaining a concept may have a greater impact on learning amongst peer groups than the single voice of the teacher according to research.

Student Jobs: Research design team, search engine design team, tutorial design team.

Adding technology to schools is not enough. Real jobs are what make learning important.

Information and global communication planning versus technology planning. Assume we need equipment and move on to the bigger picture of what information and communication we going to generate.

Apologies for any typos.

RESA Think Tank Sign-in tutorial

We can use ning.com's social networking tools to help members of the RESA Think Tank stay informed about upcoming events, discussion topics, projects, and technology demonstrations. Please watch the tutorial below for help getting started with your RESA Think Tank invitation.

iPod Touch in the Classroom

I have been toying with the idea of iPod touches in the classroom for some time. After meeting my wife's cousin from California at Thanksgiving in Indianapolis I am now even more interested. My wife's cousin works for Apple's education department and she was able to share with me some very exciting applications for the iPod touch.

The two applications that intrigued me most were the graphing/scientific calculator applications and the potential use as a classroom response system. We have been investigating how to replace our aging TI graphing calculators and how we might purchase a classroom response system. Perhaps the iPod touch would satisfy both needs.

I was impressed by the ease in which a 10 year old and even my 18 month old could interact with this device. My wife's Aunt was equally comfortable navigating the applications and using the device. I own a Nokia N810 mobile internet device which has some similar features to the touch, but it is not nearly as user friendly.

Anyone out there using the iPod touch in schools? I've started my quest to explore the potential.

E-mail directly to blogger

A colleague asked me if you can send an e-mail from a cell phone directly to blogger. Yes you can! And it's relatively easy. Here's a link to the step by step instructions. http://help.blogger.com/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=41452

In fact that's exactly how I'm posting now. Minus the cell phone.
--
Kit Hard
Teacher Consultant for Technology Integration
Academic Transional Academy
hard.kit@sccacademy.org
(810) 455-4199

Frog Guts!!!

Students at the ATA are using technology to practice frog disections before they disect an actual frog at http://www.froguts.com/flash_content/index.html. Not all of the content on this website is free, but the free demos are a great way to learn the steps and make mistakes before getting their hands dirty :).

Word 2007 and Universal Design for Learning

I am often asked to read tests aloud to students with I.E.P. and 504 accommodations. I usually find it difficult to find an appropriate pace for a group, and students rarely ask to have questions repeated.

One solution is to use the audio insert feature in Microsoft Word 2007 (the feature is also available in previous versions, but may appear differently). The feature is easy to use once you've set up a shortcut on the "quick access toolbar"

The screencast below walks through the steps for inserting audio in to a document. But why stop at tests? Inserting audio clips into your documents is easy, useful, and a nice alternative to the computer voices used in screen reading programs.

Quizlet

One of my favorite education technology blogs "The Power of Educational Technology" by Liz Davis, recomended the website Quizlet.  This website is chalk full of premade flash cards covering a variety of subject areas, but I was most impressed by the ability for students and teachers to create their own flash cards and to develop study groups around shared flash cards.  There's even an iPhone application.

Check it out and feel free to post classroom uses and examples in the comments section.