Feedback to students

I have been trying to figure out an easy simple way to use technology to provide feedback to students about their writing that would not only be valuable, but might save teachers time during class. Here is my first try on doing this and I think it just might work. No special software really needed and it was quick.

I used OneNote and embedded the writing document in as a file printout. I use www.Screenr.com to capture the audio and video.Use the built in microphone on my laptop. I do have access to a Wacom tablet that I used for drawing so that helped and I would provide those to my teachers as I have some spares.

I was thinking that teachers can email the link to students, possibly even providing a copy of the marked up document in email as well.

What struggles will they face? Have you done something like this? If so, how did it work out and what were the pros/cons? Did you find it took more time than was worth?

I would appreciate any feedback and comments you can give.

GPS Photos on cell phones

Picture uploaded from my cell phone. We are playing with GPS enabled photos and trying to view that data. Hopefully this would work for a Prairie Project GPS /Geocaching project we would like to do with several grades this year. 

Ok. Figured out gps data. Check it out now.
Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device from Viaero

Student’s still fighting with backing up?

Still trying to see if you can use the “My dog ate my homework” or the updated version “My computer lost my homework.” excuse and your teachers not accepting it?

If you are still fighting with backing up and saving your documents someplace so you have them if your computer crashes or won’t open them, there is now another solution Google has just come out with. Google Cloud Connect.

Essentially, Google Cloud Connect provides a little menu bar that allows you to sync (uploads to your Google account) the document you are working on. You can set the sync to automatic or manually when you click on the sync button.

It is not perfect, you can read about some limitations it has here.

If you want to install Google Cloud Connect, go to their blog and click on the “download the plugin” link.

Changing Education Paradigms

On Friday, we have a professional development day in our school. We are going to try something different and utilize technology to facilitate a discussion.

I have been a member of the Educators PLN ning for some time now and enjoy the discussions that happen and the ease of use. I thought that it would be a good ‘house’ for our discussion. I also wanted to see it open to other educators to participate in, not just the 18 or so educators from our school having the same debate about the same topics.

So I started this group: Changing Education Paradigms.

I invite you to join the group and be a part of our discussion. The first thing we will be doing with our staff on Friday 2/18 is viewing Sir Ken Robinson’s speech on the topic and reflecting on it.

Here is the email of instructions I will send out to our teaching staff this afternoon.

_____________________________________________________

Please go to the Educator's PLN webpage at http://edupln.ning.com/group/changingeducationparadigms . This is the group that we will be using to discuss some education paradigms and changes.

You will need to sign up for the Educators PLN before you are able to respond or post.

There is a video embedded on the page called Changing Education Paradigms. It is a speech given by Sir Ken Robinson and animated. Please watch the video and respond to the discussion questions presented.

I will be in the small lab first thing in the morning to discuss how to access the site and to sign up, post discussion topics and reply to discussions already there.

Activities:

There are 3 questions in the discussion forum questions that you need to respond to on Friday 2/18, but your participation in the discussion is encourage to extend beyond our professional development day.

1. Reflect on the ideas presented on the history of our educational system…

a. Please respond to the question yourself. Ask questions, rebut what is stated, add to it with additional information, links, content, supporting documentation, but contribute.

b. Read and respond to others comments within this discussion thread throughout the day and later in the week.

2. Agree: Pick a significant statement that Sir Ken Robinson makes in the speech..

a. Respond to the topic

b. Respond to 2-3 others at a minimum

3. Disagree: Sir Ken Robinson provides lots of problems…

a. Respond to the topic

b. Respond to 2-3 others at a minimum

Please feel free to add your own additional discussion topics and to browse and contribute to those made by others.

This discussion forum is open to the world and others will be invited to participate, so please welcome them and encourage your other colleagues to join in by forwarding this message to them. (Tweet it, Facebook it, Email it)

Benefits of this type of discussion:

• Everyone has a voice
• You get to think about your response
• We can engage a worldwide audience
• It can be an ongoing conversation and not one that ends at the allotted time
• Provide additional resources to help educate others and expand horizons
• Discussions are recorded and saved instead of forgotten and lost
• You can participate in the discussion on your own time schedule (home, work, dr. office waiting room)
• This may be how we provide some summer professional development

__________________________________________________

I am excited to introduce this form of discussion to our staff. I am not sure that all of them have participated in an online community in this fashion, but it might give them a chance to explore other professional development opportunities.

Please join in and lend your thoughts to this discussion!

Discovery Education Tech Byte for 2/15

This video is for the Elementary teachers meeting. I will be gone visiting Aaron Sam’s and Jonathan Bergmann’s classroom in Woodland Park, Colorado and checking out how they use vodcasting for a blended learning class.

Here is a video for how to create folders and search for content on Discovery Education.

Connections and Networking

I recently wrote a post about Pictures vs Avatars and explained why I thought using one picture was better than several avatars. This is a follow-up to that challenge for the Edublog Teacher Challenge.

Below I took a few screen shots of various places I have been ‘spotted’ on the web in the last few days. When someone visits any of these places, they may remember my image and make that connection with another location they have seen me at. It builds a level of trust among strangers that they know who  I am and can connect what I have to say with me.

http://paper.li/cspiezioThis was incorporated into Christina Spiezio’s Daily paper.li and you can see my picture below.

Memberships to many online communities.

ISTE Sig TE Book Study participation

Art Education 2.0 reply

Flickr

Edublogs comment

Teacher Vodcasting Network

5 things that are already obsolete for you!

The Huffington post wrote an article predicting  things that will become obsolete this year. You’re Out: 20 Things That Became Obsolete This Decade (with photos)!  There is also a great list of other items on the MoneyTalksNews blog titled 30 things Babies Born in 2011 Will Never Know.

As I was looking through the pictures and reading about what they are predicting will become obsolete, I was thinking about my own life and what already is obsolete in my world. Here is my ‘hit list’ of things I will no longer have to deal with:

• Video Tapes – I don’t own a vhs player. None at my house and there isn’t one in my classroom. If I wanted to show an old movie, I would just pull up Netflix and stream it.
• Separation between Personal Life and Work Life – I have email on my phone and ipad. I see work emails at home and personal emails at work. I deal with both in either place. I get a lot of work done between 9:00 pm - 10:00 pm and 5:30am-6:30 am. That is when I have quite time at home and can work with little interruption. If blending some of my personal life over into work is a problem, my productivity at home (working) will probably be nipped short because I will be forced to take time off to deal during work hours with items in my personal life that need attention or will take that quite productive time and turn it into personal time. More and more this is an issue and kids today will have to learn how to walk this fine balancing act in their careers and personal lives.
• Forgetting – I recently got an invite to a beta site called MemoLane. I was playing around with it and wow.. talk about interesting. It aggregates your Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, Picasa, and many other sites into a timeline. I went back to the beginning of the time line which took me back to 2003 and displayed some of YouTube videos I have watched and incorporated in my class at that time. This is a screen capture of Feb 9th and 10th and shows a video I uploaded for a personal blog, an image I uploaded for my class’s 33 Day Photo Challenge and 2 Facebook status updates for my Senior Class’s trip we are planning.

It reminds me of the movie with Robin William’s  called Final Cut. He edits people’s lives.

• Watches – I haven’t worn a watch for several years now. I don’t need one unless I am going to Jury Duty which forces you to leave your cell phone in the car via a body search.
• Paper Maps – I was cleaning out my vehicle the other day and remember debating if I should keep a paper map of Denver, Co. I opted to throw it out. My choice was based on the fact I now have GPS Navigation on my iPad with an app from GPS Drive by MotionX along with my gps location on my Blackberry. If my husband needs to travel someplace, I can just loan him my iPad (with written instructions and a threat of course).

There are so many others in the list that I could write a ton about, but I would like to see what you have in your life that has become obsolete and replaced with technology.

A Challenge: please write a comment leaving a similar description of the items you found obsolete in your life and what you replaced them with. If not a comment, then please write a blog post of your own and comment back here with a link so I can read it.