A Piece of My Mind

I was fortunate enough this past week to be asked to speak at the Education Service Center in Region 8 in Mount Pleasant, TX. I had a great time with a very receptive audience. One of the attendees was even in my university program during my bachelors. It was great to see her again.

My goal with this day was to show them how White Oak ISD uses our web presence to make our classrooms and district transparent in many ways and allow our community to become a part of the school day. We use blogs from our Wordpress MU server, a redesigned Joomla site, our Apple podcast server, and other web based tools like Delicious to let everyone see just what we are trying to accomplish in our students’ education.

There were a few things that struck me during the day:

• I had several in attendance who told me during breaks that they had not heard of any of the tools I mentioned. While as a presenter that is good for me, it bothers me a bit as an educator. These have been around for awhile, so I thought I might be extending the knowledge on a few of these tools, not introducing them, per se.
• I was struck at the statement made metaphorically by starting with the two videos that I did. While I did not intend it that way, it came across that way to the attendees. The Introduction of the Book showed early issues with lack of knowledge of its use. The latter video of Chris Lehmann’s students discussing, toungue in cheek, the lack of functionality of the book does much the same in a 21st Century context. It was cool to see they got that out of the videos.
• Schools spend a lot of money on commercial tools when many times the opensource versions can provide more even if you have to find paid support. I will be helping one district start to rebuild their wbesite away from a paid, very limited service to Joomla. (Disclosure: I am not getting paid to help them. It is just nice to help when they have a staff member so willing to jump in on his own as well. I will be more of a guide.)
• ESC 8 ROCKS! They either filter a LOT less than other ESCs or they opened up the lab I was in knowing I would be using several resources normally blocked. While they did not block wordpress.com, they did block Edublogs. I bet they get that resolved, though. They are sure to have several school districts requesting it, anyway.

My takeaway from this is that we all still have a lot to share with each other. While I shared tools that some might have even heard of before, several heard new uses for them for their own schools.

You will find below the Google Presentation version of what I presented to them. There are a few videos embedded for a point as well as just for fun. We did some hands-on work at different times, so the presentation might seem abrupt at times. If the embed below acts up, you can find the presentation here: http://docs.google.com/Presentation?id=dcr4kb53_1273jnqdrc4

Feel free to leave your comments as well as questions below. I am more than happy to reply.

Nope. That’s not my title. It is the title of a site by Mark Warner (picked up via Kevin Jarrett). This is a great site to visit when you are trying to find ideas for instruction to engage your students.

Mark has done a nice job of categorizing the ideas by either subject area (core and elective areas) or possible Web 2.0 tool that you are considering using. He has also provided nice, shared Google Presentations to walk you through them. Each slide is an idea. This makes it easy to just keep adding more as they come in.

If you don’t find exactly what you are looking for, there are enough ideas there to inspire something new in your mind. Then you can go back and share your idea with him so it can be added and maybe help the next person looking. That is what the collaborative web is all about.

Visit Ideas to Inspire today. In the meantime, consider these science ideas:

Photo Credit: wstryder

Most schools in our neck of the woods are trying out iPods with their ESL students. We started to do the same. Our teachers worked through the process of learning what they needed to know about them and how to utilize them with kids. Then, the Acer Aspire One came on the scene. We bought a few to try out for our elementary students thinking they might be a nice low cost alternative for our small handed friends in K-5.

While reviewing one of them, I noticed it had an SD card slot on both sides of the machine. Hmmm. Then I noticed one was a card reader and the other a storage bay. Double Hmmmmmm. I got to thinking about how we use Deep Freeze to protect our machines from viruses and vandalism in general and how a USB flash drive can be cumbersome for a kid to carry and pop in and out all the time when changing classes. So, we slid a 4GB SD card into the storage bay, redirected My Documents to the card (which in turn moved the iTunes preferred storage folders with it), and loaded our software of choice (OpenOffice, Skype, Firefox, all of the required web plug-ins, and Deep Freeze), and we had a nice little machine.

The big advantage of the SD card is that if we have a hardware malfunction with the Acer, we pop out the SD card, give the students a new machine, and they are back in business.

One thing we did specific for our ESL students was to use the web based version of Rosetta Stone. We have open wireless throughout our school district (read that as no active directory or other log in needed), so they now have the chance to work independently anytime throughout the school day with the given USB headsets. We are also waiting on Higher Ground’s new case for the 9″ laptops so we can begin sending the machines home with the kids. We know the family will begin to use it which will only serve to improve their fluency as well. It seems to be a win-win.

So as it stands, our secondary ESL students have a netbook to use freely throughout the day to do the following:

• notes in the wordprocessor
• presentations if asked using either OpenOffice or web-based tools
• podcasts in iTunes
• Rosetta Stone
• online language translators for communication
• calculator
• Skype/video conferences
• MovieMaker with built-in webcam & mic to record notes, lectures, or whatever
• Firefox with Scribefire for blogging (when they get to that)
• Firefox for email with Gaggle (with built-in translator)
• Firefox for Internet-based research and web 2.0 tools

Something I still want to find out is how the Deep Freeze and/or swapping of SD cards will effect the subscribed podcasts. There is probably a workaround in backing up the account to the card, but we will know more as we move into the project a bit. I am not concerned about the rest of the project. The kids jumped right into OpenOffice and have not even asked how to do a thing with it. It is just intuitive, which backs up our belief that we do NOT have to have Microsoft Office for them anymore. They just need the productivity suite practice regardless of flavor. We really like OpenOffice 3, and the price is right.

I am sure I am leaving off some of the things they do with that great little computer. It is actually my Windows machine of choice (if there is such a thing). Now I just need to get me an MSI Wind so I can convert it into a Hackintosh to make my life semi-tech complete (for now).

I have the opportunity to co-present with Michael Gras and Miguel Guhlin at Tech Forum Southwest on Friday. Find below the session summary and the slideshow I prepared for the roundtable discussion. It is pretty cool to be asked to present at the same one day conference as David Warlick, Miguel Guhlin, and Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach. Who knows? Maybe the bandwidth will play nice and we can UStream the session.

Miguel Guhlin

• Presentation: open source goes to school
• Visit Miguel’s online book (using code given out at conference)

Scott Floyd and Michael Gras

• Presentation: Opensource Software

Photo Credit: Americo Nunes

I recently got a second generation iPod Touch. While reloading my content and adding a few new apps, I found a new Bible app that interested me. It requires the Internet, but it still is really awesome. You might wonder why I am blogging this on an educational blog. Well, it is because the textbook companies can take some cues from this handy little app. The features are very useful in studying this content, so I know it would benefit students in the classroom.

Some of the cool features I have found in it are:

Text Highlight – Once you find a passage you like, if you hold your fingertip on the passage for a second or so, a box pops up. It gives you several options:

• Email to a Friend or Self – type in the address and it sends it
• Bookmark Verse – just like it says, it bookmarks it
• View Contribution – shows additional information one might find useful to aid in the understanding

Search – Full search of the text; the results are short links with summaries.

Daily Read – This is a daily devotional.

Languages – MANY, MANY languages. For English readers, there are nine translations of the Bible; but you will find 16 other languages with multiple translations available for the reader. This is so useful for our classrooms today. Imagine all of these translations in one easy to switch format. Two finger taps and you can go from any language to one of fifteen additional languages. Our ESL teachers would love it.

Table of Contents – It’s easy to search by Book and then Chapter. It’s even separated into the major sections of the Bible (books of Law, Books of History, Books of Poetry, etc).

Photo Credit: Me

Cool features it could use to be a functional eTextbook:

Daily Read – Turn the daily devotional into daily tips/hints based on the topic currently being studied. Even short Pop Quizzes would be cool.

Portable – It is a must that it be designed with the portable technologies in mind (ie. iPod Touch, iPhone, Smart Phones, PDA’s, Flash Drive).

Read – It should read the text to you. This would help in many situations with students (hearing impaired, ADD/ADHD, dyslexic, etc). Since the Gen 2 Touch has a small speaker built-in, this would be nice.

Graphics – The Bible app does not have any, but it is an easy add-on for the programmers.

Video – Take advantage of the video abilities of the Touch with informational and tutorial videos.

Hyperlinks – Since Safari is built-in to the Touch, as is wireless, this is a no-brainer. Link to outside reliable sources. If the URL’s go dead over time, no biggie. Apps can be updated easily anytime via iTunes. Heck, iTunes even tells you if there is an update available.

Zoom – Take advantage of the touch screen for the visually impaired.

Print – Allow it to wirelessly print important information. One thought here is that the ability to email the important information allows this as well, just with a few more steps.

Quizzes – Practices quizzes would be a really cool addition.

Tests – Links to secure, online, graded tests would be a nice add-on for the teacher. Short answer, multiple choice, and matching are good options.

What else am I missing? What do you think should be a part of real electronic textbooks? Consider all of your needs as an educator and the needs of your diverse student population.

Photo Credit: scragz

My wife and I are very fortunate to have such a wonderful second grade teacher for our son this year. She, Mrs. Richeson,  finds great ways to bring the parents into the classroom via technology. We have had the chance to watch our son retell stories through readers theater video podcasts. Now, she stretches their writing abilities and has them share them with everyone in audio podcasts.

During our parent conference the other day, my wife (a 6th grade language arts teacher) commented how she was not sure how Mrs. Richeson was able to do all of the things she does getting the recordings made and posted. She just smiled and said it was no big deal with the MacBook. As the instructional technologist for the district, it was a good confirmation for me that we are headed in the right direction with the right tools. I taught first grade myself. Everything extra is a big deal. To hear her share how easy she found it was affirming. 

First, a little background to my son’s story. La Cucaracha is “cockroach” in Spanish.  He has loved that Spanish word ever since he heard Phillips, Craig, and Dean in concert in Tyler.  They had a children’s CD that he wanted. Needless to say, the song about the bug is his favorite.  So, according to his teacher, Christian took a long time to write his story. She wondered what was slowing him up, but she also was glad that he was writing. A lot. It wasn’t until the end of the story being recorded that it all made sense. He was writing a story around a song with the internal goal of getting the song into the story as the closing and it make sense.  Pretty high level, if I do say so myself.  Yes, I’m proud of him.  So have a listen to his creation. Make sure you hang in there long enough to hear him sing in the end. About a roach.  

Listen to the podcast of the story “The Rock Boy” by Christian.

Photo Credit: DairDair

Can it be that the pendulum is finally swinging back the other direction?  This just in from Charles at Off the Kuff:

TAKS changes coming

Stepping out of campaign coverage for a second, here’s a look ahead to some TAKS tinkering the Lege will take up next year.

Texas public school students could face less pressure on the TAKS test under a proposal that key lawmakers unveiled Tuesday to overhaul the state’s school accountability system.

Under the plan, elementary and middle school students would no longer have to pass the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills test to advance to the next grade level.

Schools still would be held accountable for low test scores, but they would get credit for improvement — even if students fell short of certain targets.

While several parents and school leaders praised the proposed changes to the school grading system as being more fair, others expressed concern that Texas would be lowering its standards. The Legislature is expected to consider the idea, offered by a special House-Senate committee on school accountability, next year.

“What this proposal does is eliminate the high-stakes testing in elementary schools, and I think that’s a very positive development,” said Spring Branch Superintendent Duncan Klussmann.

[...]

The revamped school grading system, which would require extra help for the struggling students, also would base annual performance ratings on three years of test scores instead of a single year and would give credit for student improvement. Districts would get judged on their financial health, too.

Pasadena ISD Superintendent Kirk Lewis applauded the move to averaging scores, noting that under the current system a school could be stigmatized with a low rating if it barely missed the mark in one subject one year.

“I think it will be helpful in taking some of the pressure off the schools,” Kirk said. “I believe in accountability … but the tweaks they’re making, it appears it would be a positive improvement over what we’ve got.”

Legislative leaders concede weaknesses in the current system — which rates schools on TAKS scores, graduation rates and dropout rates — and they heard complaints from educators and parents during hearings around the state this year.

“We found that the TAKS was the main focus of a lot of our education efforts, and it’s a minimal-skills test,” said House Public Education Chairman Rob Eissler, R-The Woodlands.

Standardized testing has its place, but I think the consensus after ten years of it here in Texas is that it’s become an end rather than a means to an end, and that it’s high time some effort was made to scale it down a little. I think bigger changes than this are ultimately needed, but this is a step in the right direction. Kudos to Rep. Eissler for listening to the feedback from parents and educators.

My comments on this:
This could be good news for those with elementary-aged students who just might not need that kind of pressure. It is also great news for elementary teachers who have been forced to be a part of the pressure-packed system. I can say fairly confidently that this is in large part to the new leadership that the House Public Education Committee has found after the previous chair’s defeat during election time. While I have had the opportunity to testify before the Interim Committee on Accountability, I would not have expected much movement on our suggestions, yet so quickly. Glad to see it was taken serious. Thank you, Chairman Eissler. I look forward to working with you more in the coming session.

My post title comes from a quote by Carl Gustav Jung – “The pendulum of the mind oscillates between sense and nonsense, not between right and wrong”

Most of the school districts in our SUPERNet Consortium use Moodle in-house in addition to the virtual high school Moodle. I try to dabble in Moodle regularly just to keep up with it and see what I can learn as I go along to share with others. As part of this self-directed learning, I follow a blog called The Moodleman Blog. Moodleman, Julian Ridden, does a fine job of sharing his experiences with Moodle and the boys school in Sydney where he works.

Recently, Moodleman shared a post about how he integrates podcasts into the Moodle-based curriculum. Have a go at it (in honor of my UK buds) and just maybe your students will love the newfound media options a tad more engaging.

Check out the rest of Julian’s great Moodle videos on Edublogs.tv.

Not really. In this case, Nova can drive you. Or your curriculum, actually.

PBS Nova Science Now is a nice site to support science teachers with videos, podcasts, current science news, and other teacher resources. Really, really cool stuff here. Check it out and give your kids a new view into the science world.