Peetz Technology Chatter

Feedback to students

2011-03-03T11:22:00.001-07:00

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

2011-03-02T16:47:00.002-07:00

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?

2011-02-28T11:09:00.001-07:00

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

2011-02-17T09:58:00.001-07:00

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

2011-02-11T11:38:00.001-07:00

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

2011-02-10T15:07:00.001-07:00

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/cspiezio This 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!

2011-02-10T10:07:00.001-07:00

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.

Making the most of your class website

2011-02-07T21:13:00.002-07:00

I just finished reading an article out of Educational Leadership (which I stole and admitted to from my superintendent’s desk!) titled Making the Most of Your Class Website by Lemoyne S. Dunn.
The article was well written and had specific examples of what a website would look like at levels 1 – 5. So being an organized (yeah right) person, I decided to create a rubric from the levels. Essentially Level 1 just disseminates static information that probably wouldn’t change much from one year to the next. Contact information, maybe a teacher picture, class supply list, rules, etc. Level 5 was student ownership of content and could be a classroom log of what was learned.
I am guilty of letting my webpages for my classroom fall into Level 1 categories at times with static information that hasn’t been updated. I think that mostly I tend to operate in the Level 3 or 4 with my student’s online presence in many different places and not just my school webpage. We have blogs, flickr, creating google sites, threaded discussion boards, and twitter that I incorporate weekly. I would like to make it more consistent though.
I am thoroughly guilty of Level 1 webpages on most of our school’s website though and need to have a better plan about what content needs to be placed on pages and responsibilities of updating those.
If you have a chance to get your hands on a copy, I encourage you to do so. I think I will pass this along to my teachers and have them grade their own class webpages to see where they rank. Many of them will fall in the Level 1 category and I think we should be striving for at least Level 3 which encourages 2 way communication avenues.
I have written an email to the article’s author for authorization to include the rubric in this blog. If you would like to see a copy, please comment with your request and I will notify you of Lemoyne Dunn’s response when I receive it.
Update 2/8/11: I emailed Mr. Dunn last night to ask if I could include the rubric. He replied very rapidly and provided a visual that really brings things together for anyone wishing to see where they rank and what they should strive for in effective websites. Thank you Mr. Dunn for the permission to include the following.

Notes from ISTE book study on Social Learning

2011-02-07T15:26:00.001-07:00

Today is the start of a book study led by Randy Hansen on ISTE’s SIGTE. We are reading Tony Bingham’s book The New Social Learning – A guide to transforming organizations through Social Media. I was interested in this topic for 2 reasons. I would like to see how I can help my school and my classes incorporate and effectively use social media to connect students, parents, teachers, administrators and myself for the sake of learning. Second, I really wanted to participate with a group in a book study as a student and learn ways that I could incorporate those types of learning avenues into professional development here in our district and area.

Discussion is also on Twitter at #ISTENewSL

I am reading the book on my iPad using the Kindle app. Through that, I have the ability to highlight key passages and make notes, then view them on one webpage. (This post tells you more about that process.)

Why Social Learning?

From there, my own reflection on chapter 1 is documented below.

Notes (in yellow) are what I wrote while reading the passages.
Highlights (in grey) are excerpts from the book that I found interesting and wanted to reflect on at a later time.
Thoughts (in blue) are my reflections from today on the notes and highlights that I made previously.

_______________________________________________________

NOTES and HIGHLIGHTS and my thoughts after reading the chapter.

the deepest, most enduring impact of social media might be on learning.Read more at location 156 How is this going to change our learning? I think it will have a grassroots spread as more teachers see there is value in learning themselves through this type of avenue.

For instance, this new, technology-enabled approach can supplement instruction with collaboration and co-creation and, in so doing, blur the boundary between the instructor and the instructed and enhance the experience of all. Students need to know that they can learn from each other as much as from the teacher. Education shouldn’t be about the recall of individual facts and regurgitation, but about learning together. There was a reference to how learning is about building networks and connections and that is so true. You have to build on what you know.

“Once you move away from the push of information to the pull of learning, you liberate creative Read more at location 171 This is probably the hardest thing for teachers to get comfortable with, but once you do, it is much more fun in class. I think it is easier to teach this way in some situations. It is all about comfort zones though.

By bringing together people who share interests, no matter their location or time zone, social media has the potential to transform the workplace into an environment where learning is as natural asRead more at location 188 By bringing students together, we tear down the walls of the classroom as well. Social media can be very powerful.

The NEW Social Learning Playground Rules….Read more at location 247 Note: What would a set of classroom participation rules look like if we created them in this model and the students were involved with the creation of them?

“It means you’re not alone. If you have a problem, if you need help, if you need to learn something new, there’s a team of people you can call on at any time.”Read more at location 272

People need to learn fast, as part of the ebb and flow of their jobs, not just on the rare occasion they are in a class.Read more at location 291

Social learning is what it sounds like—learning with and from others. It has been around for a long time and naturally occurs at conferences, in groups, and among old friends in a café as easily as it does in classroom exercises or among colleagues online who have never met in person. We experience it when we go down the hall to ask a question and when we post that same question on Twitter anticipating that someone will respond. While social media is technology used to engage three or more people and social learning is participating with others to make sense of new ideas, what’s new is how powerfully they work together. new ideas, what’s new is how powerfully they work together. SocialRead more at location 316 It is amazing the power of twitter chat sessions that educators are involved with. Imagine a large round table with hundreds of people sitting around it and having a conversation. That is #edchat. Maybe there are multiple conversations, but they all have value and they are all RECORDED so you can go back and review them, take your time in participating and respond and converse with one or many.

Note: Social learning is what I find on twitter to be the most enticing part about connecting with others . Edit this note

Prior to the Internet, the last technology that had any real effect on the way people sat down and talked together was the table.Read more at location 330

It acknowledges that learning happens with and through other people, as a matter of participating in a community, not just by acquiring knowledge.Read more at location 333

Note: How many times do we in a normal class setting allow children to learn things through someone other than the teacher? Edit this note

Social learning happens using social media tools and through extended access and conversations with all our connections—in our workplaces, our communities, and online. It happens when we keep the conversation going on a blog rich with comments, through coaching and mentoring, or even during a workout at the gym.Read more at location 334

Note: Social learning should extended beyond the constraints of the classroom walls and the time clock of the school day Edit this note

Training often gives people solutions to problems already solved. Collaboration addresses challenges no one has overcome before.Read more at location 347 How can we do more project based learning using collaboration with students around the world?

Note: Teacher grainy on tech should focus instead on solving the problems of the class not just introducing a new toy. Edit this note

It’s not at odds with formal education.Read more at location 368 So many people view social networking as an evil platform. In reality it is so much more than the 10 minutes of fame it gets on 20/20 for the evil people that use it for manipulative and devious deeds. It can enhance the classroom with so much more but some teachers are resistant to change the way they have done things. How can you fight the argument – “Our test scores are good, so why change?”

Teachers can also use social media before and after classes to capture and share everyone’s ideas.Read more at location 369 Backchannels can be used effectively for the shy kids to speak up in class and to ask questions and provide input. It can also be valuable for continuing the conversation outside the time and location constraints given in our days. Yes, face to face discussions and skills are valuable, but so can this type of extended learning.

Note: Anne Smith has done this effectively in her class by allowing kids to use it for discussions. Edit this note

Note: We need to model more social learning for our classes. Maybe more teachers need to learn social learning first and get out of the me in front of the class theory. Edit this note

Active participation is the keyRead more at location 405 We must include ways to engage students in their own learning. Too many students these days are passive about their learning and what they are interested in.

Note: This describe my use of twitter al lot of the time. But more important is gather, sort, organize and distribute. Skills kids need to know how to do. Edit this note

The 21st century mind is a collective mind where we access what we know in our friends’ and colleagues’ brains. Together we can be smarter and can address ever more challenging problems. What we store in our heads may not be as important as all that we can tap in our networks. Together we are better.Read more at location 417 How does this reshape the old formal traditional textbook driven classroom?

Communication and collaboration reached a tipping point with email and online forums, then instant messaging,Read more at location 439 If this was the tipping point socially, it doesn’t seem like it has reached education world fast enough. Some teachers still struggle with how to send email’s and to use it for basic communication. Does it take ‘required by law’ to be posted after it to ensure it happens?

Regardless of generation or gender, most employees no longer have someone staying at home to handle personal matters while they are at work. To take care of ourselves, we divide our energy and focus between work and home. Organizations that prohibit this through policy or technology controls become poor guardians of their employees and limit their capacity to attend to small items that mayRead more at location 498

Note: Think about a lockdown in terms of teachers if we require them to only think about school at school, does it then in turn make them think about only home at home? Somber students can't do this, but it might be required to be efficient and be able to work from anywhere. What if production is based on output instead of time. Would that be like standards based? Or apex. Do what you need to do to get the job done. Edit this note This is a shift in thinking to a new workforce that needs to be able to work anywhere, anytime. How many teachers use time at home to work? I work when waiting for doctor’s appointments, I work at night before bed, I work in the morning when I get up. If that lockdown mentality were in place at my school, I would be less likely to do that. And inhibited because of technology restrictions as well. I even get calls to my school phone forwarded to my cell phone when off site for the day.

“In many cases you aren’t giving up control—you are shifting it to someone else that you have confidence in,”Read more at location 553

Note: Shifting control to someone else you have confidence in- how many teachers place trust in their students? It is a dialogue that we need. What does the job force skills these days say about trust? Do we place trust in teachers to help raise our kids? We must if we want them in an education system. Edit this note

We are leading and influencing people and organizations.Read more at location 560

Note: We are becoming leaders. We need to emphasize that when talking to kids about their digital footprints. They will be a leader and a follower online. Twitter shows you who you are leading and who you are following. Who do you follow? Who do you lead? Why is it important to recognize those groups of people online? What can we do to reflect on our influences on those people and groups? Edit this note

Learning can easily occur anytime, anywhere, and in a variety of formats. It always has, but now it’s codified and easy for others to see.Read more at location 562

Note: How can we document our learning journey Edit this note And would it be beneficial to do so?

We define learning as the transformative process of taking in information that, when internalized and mixed with what we have experienced, changes what we know and builds on what we can do. It’s based on input, process, and reflection. It is what changes us.Read more at location 567 I love this definition of learning and have placed it on the door of my room.

To help see learning in a broader way, think of five people you communicate with and then identify at least three things you learned from each.Read more at location 579 This would be a great learning activity to do with students throughout the year.

when we connect with people, the exchange sticks with us. That engagement calls up something from within us or connects with an emotion, and that mental dance leaves a footprint we can walk in again.Read more at location 581 This was something I saw this weekend. KFC now has reusable plastic containers for their side dishes. Talk about “sticking” for a marking campaign. I think about them every time I see it when I use that container for storage. That exchange has stuck and I will think about that next time I drive by KFC.

Knowledge acquired but never put to use is usually forgotten.Read more at location 607 So true. Kids in my study hall ask about Chemistry and algebra and because I have not used them in my life, I have forgotten just about everything I learned in those classes.

heard a story of someone doing something that scares them.Read more at location 621 So many of our parents are afraid of the term social media or social networking because of what they hear on tv. There are parents who say they don’t want their teachers and children to be ‘friends’ on Facebook. I don’t understand that. You leave your kid alone with them in a classroom and things said and done in that room are not reordered. How can associating on Facebook be worse? How can you trust someone face to face with your child, but when it comes to bits and bytes that are stored and can be recovered and documented, you are afraid of that situation?

If someone puts inappropriate content on the office door, you don’t remove the door. If someone makes a tasteless joke over the telephone, you don’t take away the phone. Social tools are often held to higher standards than traditional business tools because they are new, and bad stories circulate—go viral—quickly.Read more at location 633

Note: This is what we need to tell parents about social media in school Rather than ban the use of social tools, educate people how to use them effectively for work. They are the future of collaboration and learning at work, so the more you prepare people for how to use the tools respectfully and how to apply good social practices, the better.Read more at location 635

OneNote and Saving from a Web Page

2011-02-07T09:37:00.001-07:00

I often find articles, pictures, lesson plans and various other tidbits that I need to save for future reference. I use Microsoft OneNote to keep my files organized. It is my file cabinet on wheels – ok..more of my file cabinet in cyber-space. I can access it anywhere I have an internet connection and it is invaluable in keeping my life together and my classes on task.

Recently a colleague sent me a hyperlink to an article she thought I could use in one of my classes and she was right! I wanted to save that for use in my Graphics Arts class when we talk about design, colors and printing.

So, here is 2 ways I can save that.

Google Reader

2011-02-01T17:24:00.001-07:00

Part of the 4th challenge from Edublogs Teacher Challenge was to set up a Google Reader account. This I have already done, but I think it would be valuable share on my part of how I use Google Reader in my daily life.

I started really using Google Reader about 3 years ago. Since that time I have added and deleted blogs that I find valuable. I use it for personal learning, reading for enjoyment, inspiration, professional learning and lesson plan inspiration for my classes.

I have categorized a lot of the blogs I follow into areas of interest using folders. The numbers next to the folders represent the number of posts in the category that I have not read. At first, that used to make me nervous and I tried to make sure that I was reading everything, but found out that isn’t really what blogs are about.

Blog reading isn’t like reading a book from the start to the finish and linear in fashion. For me, it is more about using my spare time or wait time to gather knowledge. There are a few blogs that I faithfully read most every day or at least when I log into Google Reader, but I only have about 2-3 of those.

I have Google Reader buttons set up on both my home laptop and work computer by using the bookmark bars.

On my iPad, I have Reeder application and a saved bookmark for the online Google Reader site. I have some issues with the viewing Google Reader on the iPad though, so tend to use the Reeder app more. This is the Reeder App showing my folders. And this is how you read the blog posts. I haven’t figured out all the bells and whistles on it yet though.

Google Reader is invaluable to my professional development. I learn so much about technology in education that I couldn’t possibly learn from books. Who publishes that much knowledge freely? What about timing issues? I stay abreast of important topics, relative information to my classroom, co-workers, job and school. I can participate in important conversations and connect with others

For my classroom:

I learn about new teaching strategies and techniques
Bring in creative and innovative projects that I have found online
Connect my class to other classes and professionals in the area of web design and graphic arts
Keep on top of relevant topics, new trends and help plan for the future

For my Co-Workers

Find relevant information to pass along to them about topics they teach or discuss in their content areas
Pass on relevant research to Principal and Superintendent for their planning and innovation

For my job and school

Participate in global conversations regarding technology in education
Plan for the future of our school through things I gather and learn in blogs that others are discussing and writing about in other schools
Bring new training to students, teachers, parents and the community that are relevant to many areas

Personally

I keep in touch with family members
Read other family, faith and food blogs to help my family
Learn from other photographers about techniques, cameras, software, marketing techniques, etc
Help my daughter learn through crafts and activities I hear about from other mom blogs

There are probably so many other ways that I use my blog reader that I can’t think of right now. It is usually the way I start my day and the way that I end my day. It has changed how I read and how I learn.

Google Reader Shared Items

Oh..and I can’t forget. My daughter has a favorite blog she requests to visit every now and then to see pictures of a little girl her age named Harper.

Pictures vs Avatars

2011-01-31T21:14:00.001-07:00

This is the 4th challenge from Edublogs Teacher Challenge for blogging. It is supposed to be a challenge about creating an avatar for my webpage, but I honestly don’t believe in using an avatar for myself. An avatar is a graphical representation of a user. It is usually some small drawing or icon instead of a picture of a person.

Over the past 10 years or so, I have developed an online presence that is me. It isn’t an alter ego or someone different. I don’t behave differently online and therefore am not going to create an ‘alias’. I want people to be able to connect me through whatever site they are on. If they are on Flickr, Twitter, Voicethread or other various online communities that I am a part (see some in the sidebar), I want everyone to know that is me and an easy way to do that is ‘brand’ me with an image. One image.

The following pictures are the pictures that I have used for my profile with the first picture being the one I use most often for my online presence.

If you look at my blogs, twitter, professional teacher pages at school and any profiles that I create within online communities, you will find one picture. I feel that using that one picture of me will help build that ‘brand’ of who I am for people. If you see my tweet, you will usually remember the picture associated with it. I always pick out Cybraryman’s picture or BudtheTeacher’s picture from the vast list of tweets daily. Why? Because of their ‘branding’. They have one picture and don’t change it.

Now with that said, I don’t advise that for my students. They are not at the point in their lives yet where they understand the impact of developing that one brand online is. I do think that by the time students are juniors or seniors, they should start developing their online presence. They need to start creating a positive digital footprint that colleges, scholarship committees and future employers can ‘Google’. A statistic from “Digital Footprints – Your New First Impression” states that while in 2008 only 22% of future employers were using social media to research job candidates, that potentially close to 100% would be doing so this year. Whether that is ethical or legal is debatable.

I am lucky that there is only one of me online and I don’t have a common name. I guess that could go both ways too. If my online presence is not a good one, I would want to hide it, but the only real way to hide a horrible online presence is to bury it with more good stuff so that it would be harder to find.

This is a picture that I use for my other professional picture in my 2nd job of photographer.

Drive Time 2

2011-01-31T17:04:00.001-07:00

This is a follow up post to the original Drive Time and Drive Time Followup.

Previously I talked about how I used my new Drive Time commitment in my Web Design class. For Graphic Arts, I use the students to teach the class to their peers and me.

Back on the 20th, the students received an assignment which asked them to go and find a tutorial using iTunes podcasts. From that tutorial, they were responsible for teaching the rest of the class what they learned. I love doing this lesson style with students in Graphic Arts class. The students find some unique things to teach and I learn so much from every student.

Each time the teacher simply plugs in their computer to the projector and they control the screen. They place files others will need in a shared folder on our network and the instruction begins.

Built in the lesson, they are asked to schedule the time they will be teaching using the calendar feature in Outlook. They have to send a request for time and the attendees need to approve the time. We schedule 2 sessions a day, but then have to be flexible when students are missing or projects take a bit longer. Students also become familiar with iTunes and various types of tutorials available.

Here, teacher Krista helping her student catch up on where everyone is in the lesson. After each presentation, I like to have everyone give the teacher feedback on what to do different next time they are teaching. Feedback could be slow down, speak up, help when we are stuck, go over things again, explain things a little bit better, etc. I also ask the teacher to give the students feedback and that usually consists of “pay attention”. Typical stuff that I usually say, but when they see it happening, they acknowledge it from a different perspective. I also like to address the teacher and touch on a few of the things that I have learned from their lesson and how the students could possibly apply this to another project or area.

When the students are finished with their lesson we have been loading them to our group Flickr account for display. Here are a few examples of the tutorials students have taught other students.

I would like to implement this several times a year in my classes. I think it is a valuable lesson that students learn to be teachers.

Outlook Calendar for keeping organized with events

2011-01-28T09:24:00.002-07:00

Just a quick video (2:57min) to show you how to keep track of events for your lesson planning.

To view the video about how to get the school calendar from the web page into your outlook, visit here

Drive Time Implemented

2011-01-28T08:45:00.003-07:00

Back on Jan 27th, I wrote about Drive Time and the reflection on how I use my classroom effectively with students. This last week I have found several ways to let the students drive the classroom. They are not completely driving the content and curriculum, but they are allowed choices in activities and helping get me up and away from the computer.

In my old classroom which was a large computer lab, the computer and projector were located in the front of the room and I hated the setup. I couldn’t be where I needed to be to view what the kids were doing on their computers without leaving the projector and having to run back up there to show them something else. Over the summer of 2010, my lab and the library switched rooms. Yes, this used to be a k-12 library. Amazingly small. So, I set up this room with a little more thought about what we would need.

Some of the things I needed:

To be able to see the computer screens of the kids while they were working.
They could easily see the projector, but it is valuable for them to turn to see it so I know when they are paying attention
I wanted room to arrange things or move things if we needed it to set up green screens and other large sets for special projects.

I think we achieved what I wanted. I have plenty of storage with the shelving on the walls and while it still needs cleaning and organizing, it is mostly how I envisioned my room. EXCEPT…the kids are using their laptops more than I thought. Crazy I know. So we have more tables set up in the center of the room.

We were able to purchase a site license of Adobe CS5 so all of the students have that available on their laptops. I didn't think the Acer’s would be able to handle some of the things we do in class, but amazingly they have handled most everything surprisingly well.

Now that the kids usually set at the tables, I find that I don’t see what is on their screens unless I am up walking around which leaves the projector idle. Not a bad thing, but ideally, I would like to be able to control it from anywhere or have someone else there.

This week I have done 2 things to help the students feel more in the driver seat.

Web Design: Currently the students are finishing up final touches on a website they are creating for a client. (Running of the Weiners) In doing so, they each have pieces they are responsible for. While at times, it is useful for me to have control of the screen so I can individually show them what they need to fix or how to do something, there are times when I need to turn over the control. So in planning our video screen casts that needed to be created for the client, I pulled up Bubbl.us on the screen and connected my personal iPad to the projector computer using an application called Splashtop Remote.

There is a small app that runs on the iPad and a small program that runs on the desktop and it connects via ip addresses. By doing that, I can easily pass the iPad around the room and the kids learned several things about Bubbl.us and typing and using the iPad.

They ended up creating a flow chart of the job duties and videos they were going to provide to the client.

The videos will be the training piece to show the client how to access the site as an administrator, login, edit pages, upload photos, embed slide shows, insert hyperlinks and all the other functions she will need to know as the site administrator. This will be their ‘final test’ and overview of everything we have done setting up this website.

Coming up next in this class we will be creating a website for the track team at a nearby school. For this project, I think I will have the kids pass around the projector cord and each day they will be the ones in charge of helping solve problems and demonstrating what needs to be done. Initially we have created another Bubbl.us flow chart for the site layout and design and the students will divided up the pages and work so they each have different job duties.

We also need to finish up our usability studies on the Running of the Weiners website. If you would like to be a part of that study, please contact me (or @raffelsol on twitter). We need input from outsiders on design, navigation and any tips on what we could add to make it more user friendly.

Since I don’t have pictures of my next class, I will save that for the next post and will tell you what we are doing in that class and how the students are in the drivers seat there. Their assignment is here. And here is a quick preview of one of their projects.

The Blue Devil by Zach Wood

Book Reports

2011-01-26T12:55:00.002-07:00

Photo courtesy of hamptonm.

This picture was part of a photo assignment in my Graphic Arts class. It got me to thinking. With 1:1, how has it changed our standard book reports? Students previously were required to type all their reports for English. No longer do they have to schedule that time to get in the lab before or after school. They don’t have to fight with different versions of Office or Works at home and school. They can’t say their printer ran out of ink or their dog ate it. They can use the excuse that the computer just lost it, but our reply is “Too bad. Should have made a back up or uploaded it to Google Docs.”

Our HS English teacher, Mrs. Roberts, has long since changed her practice of standard book reports requirements. (View her Book Log activities: Handouts – book log)

The students get to choose which tasks they complete. I would like to point out #16 – Partner up with someone who’s reading the same book. Provide a detailed transcript of your MSN conversation”. While she hasn’t updated the “msn conversation” students are updating how they do this and using Facebook chat sessions or status posts.

They are also doing a lot of paperless activities. They are turning their assignments into class folders on the network. Next year maybe I can convince them to use a class folder in Google Docs so that Mrs. Roberts can view them from home or school.

She likes to grade with pen in hand, adding feedback, comments and correcting mistakes as she reads through their work. I do wonder what could be added with video feedback while you grade? Would you be able to expand on your explanation of what you see in the writing? Would students absorb your comments better than the written notes on the papers handed back?

What are some of your English teachers doing to engage students with technology and social media?

Spring Cleaning in the back office

2011-01-25T14:22:00.003-07:00

Edublogs Teacher blog Challenge #3: Add Some Muscle to your Blog

This is the 3rd activity in the Teacher Challenge and I realized that I didn’t have any personalized information other than the generic “About Me” link on the side of my blog which was displaying my Google Profile. This was a perfect time to tidy things up and get my online presence a face lift.

I found it hard to put a ‘brag’ page on my blog, but realize the value to my readers. It provides a background and might result in further connections and opportunities. Over the years I have been involved with a lot of special events and I don’t have a list or record of those. I should! My About Me page should be my portfolio page and a record and reflection on my learning. It would be fun to look back 15-20 years and see all the learning I have done and remember my journey.

I created my About Me page, now I need to go clean out that file cabinet in the back office that contains all the little slips of papers and notes on presentations and get them added to my About Me page. That might take me some time, but off I go to gather them up.

Effective blog posts

2011-01-21T21:02:00.001-07:00

Edublogs Teacher blog Challenge #2: Effective blogs

This challenge is about effective writing and blog posts. What are they? For me, they must convey information and keep a readers attention long enough to get information to the reader.

I think that Wesley Fryer does a great job at explaining techie things to people who may not understand tech stuff easily. This post : HeyTell: Use Your iPhone or Android Phone like a Walkie Talkie #edapps is a great example.

He provides hyperlinked text to relevant information
Pictures provide more information to support the text
It is short and to the point
Everything on the blog is tagged and easily searchable
There is an engagement invitation at the end that asks the user to take action with the information

Now there are many many different opinions on what makes a good blog post, but I believe that if you think of your content and your audience, you can start to narrow those down. I chose the ones above because I hope that I can tailor more posts in the future to help people learn about technology and integration into learning.

1st Semester of 1:1

2011-01-21T07:59:00.002-07:00

We recently had a visit from another school who wanted to see how we were doing with our 1:1 program. I was nervous. I wasn’t sure we would have ‘showcase’ stuff worthy. I was wrong. I asked teachers if they would be willing to sit and discuss with the team that visited what they were doing in their classes and made sure that my class knew they would be involved with the discussion.

The visitors started out talking to a class of Juniors and Seniors and asking them questions about their days with laptops and how they use them. I find it so frustrating and interesting that I always feel like I don’t get great ‘data’ from students, but then I stop and realize that they don’t know really what the other side of the coin is. They are not living without technology and never have, so to ask them questions about the difference really isn’t valuable. They were able to provide some good feedback and were probably more talkative than the visitors anticipated. At least that is what I would like to believe.

Update from 1st quarter:

Crash!: Yup.. our computers had crashing issues the first quarter, then our server decided to have an issue as well. It was just because I had sat at my desk and thought to myself “Wow..things are going great!”. Then bam..we had problems. That forced us to upgrade our server earlier than we anticipated. It was on the block for reviewing and upgrading possibly this summer. It caused us to be down and without computers for about a week and a half. Nice thing it was right before Thanksgiving break and the tech gurus from New Age were able to have an extra day on the Friday we were off to get things back up and running. We outsource our network and server service.

Learning Curves: While the first semester was mostly about passwords and small tech glitches, I feel that now the majority of students have a sense for how to fix and install something's on their own or are comfortable asking for help from classmates. I see teachers asking for more help with outside things they are bringing into their classrooms and just need help with the techy side – the small tweeks to make it more efficient or work for what they want. One teacher said that planning for lessons has changed because she was trying to bring in things from outside the books and handouts to help engage kids. I love hearing that. THere are so many possibilities out there to get kids more engaged in the learning process. She was using the internet more in her planning and finding alternative ways to do things. Teachers are finding Glogsters, Voki’s, Youtube, Blogs and Vlogs valuable in the teaching process. Another teacher’s comments were that OneNote was helping keep him organized and had reduced his lesson planning time and made things more efficient in the classroom. (More about that to come)

We are still struggling with making sure that kids don’t leave their laptops unattended, but since we haven’t had an incident of theft, I think it isn’t fresh in their minds. (I need to knock on wood now though since I said that.) They don’t think that anyone will touch their computers when they sit them in their unlocked lockers or leave them in a classroom when the teacher isn’t there. That will probably be an ongoing reminder we need to really enforce.

Everyone has learned that they need to keep track of their passwords, make good backups and remember their usernames. I won’t do that for them! Although I had one student today who didn’t know what she logged into the computer with. That tells me that they don’t log out much either!

Filtering: At the start of the year we had the filter very open and were only locking down things required by CIPA. Students had access to facebook, chatting, email, etc. If I could go back and do something different, I would spend some time really talking with specific students who appeared to be spending inappropriate amounts of time on distracting websites. I didn’t have a couple of hours a day to gather that data and meet with those students. As it is, we surveyed our parents, staff and students about facebook and social media sites being open during the day. The majority felt like it should not be available, so it is now closed. Some students report that they like that, but I find myself trying to find alternative ways to contact students. They live in Facebook with instant messages showing up in red and flags that they have a new message. Email just doesn’t get to them as quickly. I liked being able to send an announcement to a class about a meeting, or a reminder of an assignment. We will have these discussions about opening the filter back up maybe next year. That can be a whole blog on it’s own though.

For now, Facebook is blocked during school hours and then open after 3:45. We do not shut down the internet at any time. I know that some schools turn it off at say 10:00 and back on at 6:00 am.

Internet: There were a handful of kids at the start of the year that did not have internet connections at home. I believe now there may only be one or two that don’t have it available at home, but do at a relatives house close by. I thought that was interesting.

On our internet bandwidth, we are still slow and suffering most days.

Breakage and Use: As of the last report, I only have a couple of other minor things that happened to computers. Those were little pieces of the cases breaking around the power cords or other plug ins and we have had a couple of other battery cables that seemed to go bad.

I have been really proud of how the kids here have taken care of the laptops. We expected that though, so that sets a standard.

The Future: Now is the time to start planning for next fall. What changes need to be made? What efficiencies can we make? What will the purchasing plan look like? Summer maintenance? Will students keep their laptops for the summer? We we let them ‘lease’ them over the summer? What upgrades do we need? Are iPads what we need to be looking at next? How can we improve teachers skills and comfort teaching with students who have the internet at their fingertips? What PD do we need?

I have lots on my plate. I still want to gather some good quantifiable data that we can use on how this year went, but I am not sure how to go about doing that. How can you look at numbers and say this plan worked or didn’t when there are so many other factors that could be the cause?

10 Questions to a Better Blog

2011-01-20T19:47:00.003-07:00

I realize that I have been lax in keeping things posted. It is a challenge to me. I think it makes me do a better job when I post things that are happening in our school. It gives me a chance to reflect on happenings and maybe review what I think needs to be done in the future.

I have decided to participate in a blogging challenge to help me. Edublogs has a great challenge, so here goes.

First challenge: Ten questions

When did I first start blogging?

Probably back in June 2008. I think the first blog that I created was a personal one for the journey I was taking in becoming a parent. I started a blog to document that journey so my family could follow it from across the country. I have kept it up as a scrapbook and baby book for my daughter. I hope that one day she won’t be embarrassed by her ‘digital footprint’.

Why blog?

I have many different reasons. I have a few blogs that have different purposes.

Lil Raffelson is personal as stated above and created for family.
Peetz Creative Technology is the class blog for my Graphic Design class. We showcase what students are doing and allow students to comment on things I post as well as post their own items.
www.LeslieRaffelson.com is the blog for my photography business which has suffered from ‘child syndrome’. Meaning that since I have a 2 year old, it has taken a backseat to a lot of other things.
Web Design Class was started to let students comment on blog posts. It has evolved into a shared blog where students have the ability to post and share their knowledge. I have high hopes to use it more effectively like Anne Smith from Littleton Public Schools or other effective blogging teachers, but am not quite there yet.
Peetz Tech Chatter was started in December 09. “Every day I come across things that I want to share with teacher, students and community members. Useful things and fun things. Things that can make a difference in their education and knowledge. So…this blog was born. I hope that many people will find it useful and that I can help them integrate technology into their lives.” That was my first post was and I have remained pretty true to that statement. I have struggled with the audience of this blog though. Is it local or global? I sometimes post for one or the other, but not always both.

Why do I have so many blogs?

I have different audiences for each of them. I have thought about combining everything under one name, but have not gotten to that point in my life yet.

What are some of the challenges I face blogging?

First is finding the time. It is always a challenge. It isn’t really a part of my job description and necessary, but I find that blogging lets me reflect and it provides the students with other avenues to interact and learn about living online. Another big factor is that I never feel like I have something good to say or can say it well enough. I can’t just leave it for someone else to do though. That is one reason I am doing this challenge – to be a better blogger and essentially a better communicator and have more transparency in what happens in school.

What do I enjoy about blogging?

I like being able to learn more about what I do. How does that happen? Through reflecting on what I have done in the past and planning what I will do in the future. I also enjoy connecting with others.

Where does it fit in the education system?

I think that blogging can help teachers communicate with parents about what is happening with their children. It can provide a much needed link to parents at home. I also feel that students can have a global audience beyond the one teacher reading what they are doing in their classrooms. I think writing papers for the sake of writing is not very effective. If you give them an audience, they have someone they know will be reading. Not only that, you have to have a network of people to be commenting and not just the ‘atta boy’ comments, but really helping the students grow and stretch. It is a eutopia, but I can still dream. I think kids these days have a lot to say and they communicate easily in the digital world, we should take advantage of that.

What are the my biggest hurdles to jump?

Finding time to create the content of blogs that I would like to put out and keeping my notes organized enough to find them when I want them.

Where do I get inspiration?

From reading lots of other people’s blogs and from Twitter chat sessions and people I am connected to there. I regularly read Wesley Fryer’s Moving at the Speed of Creativity, Karl Fisch’s The Fisch Bowl, Lisa Nielson’s The Innovative Educator, Scott McLeod’s Dangerously Irrelevant, Bud Hunt’s blog, Vicki Davis
Cool Cat Teacher Blog, and many many others on my Google reader.

Who do I think reads this blog?

Um…probably no one. Stats at this point say that I have 1741 hits and there are 40 posts to this blog dating back to 2009. I Just hope that anyone who reads something here will find something useful.

What do I hope others get from reading this?

It is stated in my original post here.

Up Next…Activity 2 – Effective Posts

Kindle “Notes”

2011-01-17T20:35:00.004-07:00

These are my notes currently from my reading on Rewired: Understanding the iGeneration and the Way They Learn by Larry D. Rosen Ph.D.

I am reading this book on my iPad with the Kindle. Amazon has thought about the process of reading and how a lot of us like to read with pen in hand and make notes to ourselves and others in the margins. From my iPad, I can highlight and add notes throughout the text. By logging into my Amazon account, I can see a summary of those links in all my books. That is awesome. Now..how to share? I would love a feed of some kind. You do have the ability to see what others have highlighted, but only about 25 or so. It isn’t like picking up their highlighted hard copy and flipping through to see al their notes. I would love to see what Will Richardson or Kyle B. Pace or Wesley Fryer had to say in the margins. I hope Amazon builds that into future versions.

---------------------------------------------------------

(copied from Amazon Kindle Beta)

You have 7 highlighted passages

You have 6 notes

Last annotated on January 18, 2011

our parents. Yet today’s students use computers, mobile telephones, and otherRead more at location 51

Note: Use for the teachers to reiterate how important technology is. What in their classroom looks different than when they were in school? Use this for a blog post. Edit this note

eight and a half hours a day for 16- to 18-year-olds.Read more at location 463

Note: Wow much of their lives are spent communicating, but not in the styles that their teachers find important. How can we harness that and transform it into deeper thinking? Edit this note

caution against allowing young children to ensconce themselves in bedroom “TechnoCocoons”Read more at location 469

Note: Use this word Edit this note

developing and sharing content. They design web pages, blog, make videosRead more at location 657

Note: Students are content creators right now..but most is not deep content. Edit this note

content creators whom they refer to as “multichannel teens.”Read more at location 661

• Delete this highlight

Add a note

Students may not be reading original sources or reading deeply as much as teachers would like, but they are writing in all new modalities.Read more at location 663

• Delete this highlight

Add a note

They want to be appreciated and told what a great job they are doing (reinforced) often.Read more at location 711

• Delete this highlight

Add a note

Confidence makes for eager learners, as long as the learning environment is stimulating and interesting.Read more at location 725

• Delete this highlight

Add a note

Although teachers may not be as ready for a changing educational environment, their students are ready and excited and crave newness.Read more at location 730

• Delete this highlight

Add a note

click on the link and comment back ASAP. All the new technologies scream at them to respond now. Text messages rarely sit for more than a few minutes before a quick note is jotted back. And they are moving so quickly that words are shortened, apostrophes left out, and acronyms are used to enable a swift response.Read more at location 742

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the Internet, text message, tweet, and send and receive email. TheseRead more at location 958

Note: Note Edit this note

The research does demonstrate rather convincingly that students who communicate during a learning experience perform equally well as those who read the material and have no outside communication—itRead more at location 1004

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Note: Back channeling and communicating what they learn via twitter would be a good way to do this Edit this note

Drive Time

2011-01-17T15:46:00.004-07:00

Reflections on today.

Sitting in class asking students to help develop something for user testing in web design, I realized that I ‘drive’ too much. I am in control of the big screen a more often than not. I would much rather be up wandering around and letting students drive. I think that I am going to have to unplug my desktop and let kids do the driving a bit more.

What is that going to look like? My class is set up in a U with the projector in the center of the room. I will just pass the end of the cable around. Maybe I will steal another projector and have a dual setup. I would love a flip switch box so that I could flip between several computers with where I want the screen at any given time.

If I let my kids drive more, I think they will feel more ownership on what they are designing and creating. I hope that it will free up their tight lips when input is needed.

Backing up OneNote to SkyDrive

2010-12-10T10:57:00.001-07:00

OneNote is a great application. There is a downfall. Once you have so much data in one place, what happens when your computer crashes? Backups have been a huge deal here since we started our 1:1 program and had some issues with computers crashing all over the place. This is a tutorial showing how you share your notebooks with yourself online so that there is always a backup.

You must have a Hotmail, Live or MSN account in order to access this.

Teachers – if you missed the Tech Topic on December 9th in the morning, you can access the information presented and the recorded session from our Tech Bootcamp website. If you would like to review the training from this summer’s camp, here is the OneNote page from that time.

1st Quarter with 1:1 program

2010-10-20T11:38:00.001-06:00

The first quarter has flown by here. We have had some turbulence on takeoff, but I think we are finally settling in to our cruising altitude. Hopefully we won’t have to deviate from our flight plans too much the rest of the year. (1 to 1 Rollout post from 8/28/2010)

Here is a brief overview of some of the things we have run into:

Computer’s Crashing: During the first few days of school, we ran in to a HAL.DLL error on the netbooks and it took time to figure out what was causing the error. It seems that something in our remote filter application was deleting a critical file and would not allow the computer to start up. We spent many hours reimaging net books and students lost data. The downside was students and teachers learned not to trust computers. The upside, students learned how to back up their data and why that was important – and they only lost a couple of days worth of data and not an entire semester’s worth. I was most disappointed with the lack of trust in technology at the onset of our 1:1 program and the frustration that teachers and students felt when they lost their data. The imaging solution works well and restores the computers to a working state in a reasonable amount of time with little labor. Windows 7 computers will be an issue though, I can’t yet rebuild them from an image.

Learning Curves: Students had a steep learning curve when they were handed the laptops. Many of these students only had used a computer for just one class or just a few times during school last year. It seemed that the 7th graders had an easier time than the 12th graders for some reason. Maybe the older students were patterned to the process after so many years and had their procedures and workflow down in many classes. The Junior High students who moved up from elementary were starting a whole new year and it was just easier to adapt because everything was different. I was impressed with how students helped each other and when I would teach one in the class how to do something needed, they would take over the teaching of the rest of the class. That was so nice to see.

Some of the learning curve hurdles were just passwords. We added lots of new logins this year for students to deal with – computer, network, internet, grade book, school website, blogs, Google apps, Apex Learning and many others in the individual classes. It is a fact of life though that we all have to figure out how to manage our logins and passwords and keeping them secure. Everyone has had to find their own way to do this. In hindsight, I would have created a procedure for them to document and keep confidential their logins and passwords. Maybe a password protected file or just a piece of paper. It has required a lot of my time resetting passwords and helping kids manage that.

The hallways here changed this year. We have never seen padlocks on the student lockers before. That changed because we warned students to never leave their computers unattended. It took some getting used to. Many were fearful of forgetting their combinations and some just didn’t understand that placing a computer in a classroom was leaving it unattended and providing an opportunity for theft or damage. As of this time, I have only seen just a handful of computers left and only one was referred to the office that I know of. I have been impressed by the responsibility that our students have taken over their computers.

Teachers have also had some learning curves. One of the largest might have been just general classroom management. It changes the face of what you have kids do and how you have them do it. One critical skill is just the standard that students have in the ISTE NETS Standards for students. It states “6. Technology Operations and Concepts – Students demonstrate a sound understanding of technology concepts, systems and operations. Students (b) select and use applications effectively and productively.” Unless you know what programs, websites and software do and have a frame of reference regarding that, it is hard to determine which one will be more productive over another. Example: Will using a OneNote notebook be easier to create and use for students to compile notes in or using MS Word or Google Apps? There are many factors you have to weigh when making those decisions and sometimes they are all unknown factors until you do it the first time. I think many teachers get turned off on technology because of the time it takes to learn those and overcome so that the technology can become productive. Teachers have also had to hurdle the password/login hill and figure out the best way to manage all their different logins.

Web Presence: New this year was the ability of teachers to maintain their own web pages with our Schoolwires hosted web site. If you haven’t had a chance to check out some of our teacher pages, please do so at www.PeetzSchool.org. Our teachers have really embraced the new technology and have been using it more than I anticipated. I think that the ease of communicating the assignments and distributing data has won them over some. It still takes time, but I think they are settling into a workflow that works for each teacher. Mrs. Roberts is an example of how one teacher is using assignment pages for students. Previously, she had kept all her assignments written on the board in her room. Now students know they can access her assignment pages from home or study hall and see what they have due along with details. They have access to rubrics used through her handouts pages. Some of our teachers have not fallen into a rhythm of keeping assignment pages up to date and I hope to see Schoolwires incorporate some quicker methods of adding assignments. (Note: we do not require our teachers to do anything other than provide contact information on their pages) I would like to see a method of emailing an assignment to an address that would post it – much like blogger allows posting through email. That would be quick and easy and we could allow a student or teacher’s assistant to manage this.

Breakage and Theft: I am so proud of the way our students have taken care of their technology and stepped up and proven they are responsible. There have only been a few minor problems. Here is a rundown:

1 computer dropped and case damaged, but repaired fairly easily
1 computer screen needed replaced (covered under warranty)
3 batteries won’t keep a charge
1 power cord won’t charge the computer
1 key missing from a keyboard

I am sure there are some things that I don’t know of yet, but for now, those are minor and fixable. The students here have proven that the research is right in regards to students caring about their technology. They want the technology and will take care of it.

Bandwidth: Prior to school, I was asked to project how much bandwidth we would like to see in the future. To me, that was like asking how many toothpicks could be placed end to end from here to Denver – and using no math to find the answer. We have 3mbs currently available and it is not enough at certain times of the day. If we closed our filter and didn’t allow students on any type of streaming websites (music, videos, games, etc) it might remedy the situation, but that would really limit the access that students to sites they may need for learning. Hopefully there will be some progress made in accessing more bandwidth in the future for a reasonable rate.

Appropriate use lessons: This is an ongoing topic that every parent, teacher and student needs to be discussing. We need to teach kids when to use certain tools and when not to. It has always been a part of the classroom. Little Suzie doesn’t need to bring the toy to class and play with it during math. Little Jonny doesn’t need to be on facebook during science. It is the same principal, just different characteristics and approaches to dealing with the problem. I have had discussions with certain students that I have noticed with issues that become flagged in the filter monitoring portal. I think the best approach is always a discussion and not just a flat out ‘take away the option’ solution. Kids this year have had to deal with the issue of prioritizing their tasks with a few more distractions added to the equation. I don’t think that is a terrible thing. It is an important and critical skill to have in life. Multitasking is a fact of life, but learning when to do it is probably the most important key to doing it well.

I am looking forward to our 2nd quarter in our 1:1 program and to see what changes it brings in our school.

Related posts that might be of interest:
1 to 1 Rollout at Peetz (8/28/2010)
Professional Development post (8/30/2010)

Overdrive

2010-10-14T11:34:00.001-06:00

We have access through Sterling Public Library (if you have a library card) to download and listen to audiobooks. I love this because I can multi-task in my car and listen to books while I drive. I usually am listening to podcasts, but I would prefer some books every now an then. Now I can.

Here is a tutorial for those wanting to install the Overdrive Media Console on their computers.

My first download will be “Drive” by Daniel Pink. I think he has some wonderful insight into motivation that I hope to bring into my classroom and to our school.

Screen Clipping feature

2010-09-09T09:25:00.002-06:00

In Office 2010, they have built in a nice feature called screen clipping. This is useful for capturing things from the internet that won’t print correctly. You can screen clip them to MS Word or OneNote and then print them or save them for later.

Importing Calendar Events from Webpage to Outlook

2010-09-08T10:27:00.001-06:00

Are you having problems keeping up with everything on the school’s calendars plus your own calendar? This tutorial will show you how to export information from the school’s calendar’s to view it in Outlook. I exported the school lunch menu so that I could see that with one check in my Outlook rather than going to the internet and looking at the lunch menu calendar each day. Another calendar I wanted to have for planning was the sports calendar. I loaded that in my Outlook so that I can schedule my activities around the Peetz sporting events.

RSS Feeds to Outlook

2010-09-08T10:03:00.001-06:00

An easy way to keep track of when you have a new item added to a calendar or assignment in your classes is to subscribe for a feed to that particular spot on our website. Anything that has the RSS Feed button will provide you with a notification of an update. This will help you keep organized and on top of new items.

Google Chrome

2010-09-07T15:39:00.003-06:00

I have been a fan of Google Chrome for sometime now. My favorite feature of Chrome has been the maximum amount of screen ‘real estate’ I have when I am browsing the internet. In Internet Explorer, it seems like the top is always cluttered with navigation and bookmark bars. Google Chromes tabs are nice and neat and the search bar is all included in your URL bar.
Google Chrome extensions are options that add features and functions to your browser. One add on that you might consider is a button for the Google Bookmark feature. https://www.google.com/bookmarks/l is a service Google offers for sharing and storing bookmarks online. Ever been at home and wanted the bookmarks you had on your work computer? Ever been in the computer lab and wanted to save a bookmark and use it later for homework? This is a resource for just those situations.
Another extension that is a nice feature for those that have Blogger accounts is the blogger button that allows quick postings. I could see this being a nice feature for students who are using blogs for their journals. You could read the newspaper sports section and then click on blog and create a nice quick blog post about your thoughts on it.
https://chrome.google.com/extensions is the link for Google Extensions search feature.

OneNote Password Protection

2010-09-03T12:14:00.001-06:00

We have been using OneNote at school this year and if you would like to password protect a section and use it for storing passwords or other confidential information, please visit this post.

OneNote Help Password-protect your notes

Professional Development

2010-08-30T16:02:00.001-06:00

$28,000 was spent on professional development stipends for teachers during the summer here at Peetz. WOW!!! That is a bunch.

Teachers are using technology. It isn’t just because the students now have a laptop. Yes, that is part of it, but we are not forcing teachers to use technology. They can ask students to close their computers when they walk into their class. They have that option. It might not be a popular one, but it is there.

We felt that part of our 1:1 program planning should incorporate a healthy dose of professional development so that teachers could start to become familiar with what is available to them and their students. Teachers also needed to start practicing with some of the new technology if they were going to use it. There were several options that teachers had and most of our teachers took advantage of all of the opportunities.

In June, 10 of us went to ISTE to kick off our technology summer. We had great sessions and it was all a bit overwhelming. I was even overwhelmed at the scope, breadth and depth of the content I was given throughout the event. I had to take down time just to soak it all in and digest some of the information. I am sure the new to technology folk were even more overwhelmed!

We also signed up for SimpleK12 resources and did 3 courses for teachers that they could do at home when they wanted. It was Professional Development in their PJ’s and I was surprised at the number of people who took advantage of it. We had some staff members spend almost 30 hours soaking in technology information about the internet, office and integration tips.

The 3rd options we provided was a Technology Bootcamp. I have to credit Jeff Whipple with giving me the idea. I met up with him at ISTE and he had some wonderful tips and suggestions for me to implement this year and I thank him so much for sharing his knowledge. The teachers and I spent 4 days that were pretty intense. We talked about 4 different technologies a day and I think we all were a bit frazzled at the end. Guess I was a drill sergeant some, but we got through the week smarter (and a bit more savvy) than we started. Teachers are now taking those ideas and using them in their classrooms.

I see Jr High students responding to blog posts. I see freshman creating blogs. Ag and science students using OneNote. Emails being used to send messages to teachers, students and staff. Students sharing, creating, and collaborating.

While we have a long way to go to meet our ultimate goal of successful lifelong learners, I think we are heading in the right direction and off to a good start.

…now if I could just make all those computers quit giving those hal.dll errors, I would be overjoyed!

Top 20 Websites no Teacher Should Start the year without

2010-08-30T15:49:00.001-06:00

I just read a wonderful blog from Making Teachers Nerdy about a pocketful of resources that are wonderful for teachers. I consider them excellent resources for students as well.

The blogger gave wonderful descriptions of each one, so please check it out when you have a moment and pick up some that will be useful to you.

1 to 1 Rollout at Peetz

2010-08-28T12:29:00.000-06:00

The first 3 days of the new school year are over.

2010-2011 marks a new era in Peetz Jr-Sr High School. Every student in grade 7-12 is now carrying a netbook supplied by the school district. Thanks to a generous donation from a local foundation, we were able to purchase enough netbooks to start our 1:1 program. Now each year, the district will replace 2 grade levels a year so that no student will use technology older than 3 years. The plan is that students will receive new computers as 7th graders and 10th graders.

There was a lot of planning involved with the roll out of the netbooks to students. Although, the best laid plans are not always implemented exactly the way we would like. Initially, we planned on handing out the netbooks during our student registration nights the week before school. The registration night included training for parents and students along with signing of the agreement forms. The first night was a bit hectic, but went well. We changed things up for the second night. One of the big changes to the plan was that we encountered an unexpected error on the computers that forced us to hold on to the rest of the computers until we could re-image the machines and hopefully fix the error. It took us several days to do the re-imaging, so the computers were not passed out to the remaining students until the first day of school.

At that point, I thought the 2nd image was ok and had fixed the hal.dll error. Unfortunately, as the first day went on, more computers kept coming to me with this error, so we knew that it was not fixed. I scrambled and passed out all the spare computers I had on hand, but a few students had to go without.

A couple of days with many phone calls and conversations about how to fix this error, and we have a couple of things to try. No solid solutions though. My panic button has been pressed and I have been pretty stressed about this roll out not going as planned.

There will be many hurdles throughout this school year and many will be unforeseen. My biggest fear is that teachers will become scared of using the technology because their first tastes of using it in their classroom in an 1:1 situation is peppered with glitches, bugs and alternative lesson plans because some students don't have the technology they need to complete the first plan they had developed. In another post I will show some of the new ways teachers are using technology in the class that is exciting and engaging for students.

It takes a lot of effort to teach a new way and I have been so proud of our staff at Peetz for stepping into this year with a grand amount of confidence in their teaching ability. While we all have our reservations, fears and some worst nightmares...we are taking small steps toward the vision of allowing students to become self directed learners in the 21st Century.

Customer experience

2010-07-29T07:20:00.001-06:00

Have you ever been to an apple store? Not me. We don't have any close. I had iPad envy since they came out. I have only owned an iPod video that i bought about 4 years ago and had to replace because the battery would no longer stay charged. I replaced that with an touch and loved it, but felt frustrated when I didn't have Internet concoction. I wanted the iPad. I couldn't find one in denver when I was there for iste, so I out it on the back burner. When I landed in Washington dc, I already had googles the nearest apple store and had their number in my phone. I called after the first day I was here and they only had one model...the one that I wanted, so we planned to drive an hour to go buy it.

When I walked in the store, I felt a bit in shock. It was like NO other store I had been in. There wasn't a checkout counter. Ther were PEOPLE EVERYWHERE and lots of them. They were all engrossed in their own versions of apple technological experiences. Some on Mac books, some on iPods, most checking out the ipads. I headed to the back of the store and was confronted with video screens that showed customers names on a waiting list. Great I thought. I have to wait in line...and a long one at that...to buy my new toy. Yet there was no line to stand in. Or even a semblence of where to go to get on that list. So I headed back to the front of the store to find one of those guys dressed in blue with a headphone on.

A young man greeted me at the entrance and did an entertaining little dance for me. He then asked what I wanted. I told him and he radioed back to see if they were in stock. Yup! Yeah. Another young man who had answered his radio call came up front to take care of me with my ipad in hand. He led me back to the accessory area for the ipads and was getting ready to give me the low down on what I might want. I already knew from my online research and conversations with people at iste that I wanted the wedge shaped case that you could prop up in different positions along with the car charger and camera adapter. They didn't have the camera adapter, but that wasn't necessary at the moment. He picked up the items I wanted and laid them down on the closest counter. I expected to go to the checkout counter someplace. He whipped out his little iPhone and started ringing me up. Asked for my name and email and pulled up my apple account and had all my other info. Swipped my card into his phone, I signed it with my bare finger and he emailed me the receipt. Which I got immediately on my phone blackberry phone- still a wish it was an iPhone! He packed all my goodies up in a backpack styled bag, which I will probably keep so it is good advertising, and sent me on my way.

When I left the store, I was in awe of the little experience. I know. Easily entertained, but what was nice was the personalization and seamless integration of technology into the experience. I noticed the technology because it was new, not because it was apparent. More and more our lives are becoming intertwined with technology interfaces. Some seamless and easy to operate with intuitive interactions and others with steps that make us struggle, think and wish for the yonder years of non technical gadgets. I am excited to see more of this in our future. Just like united airlines taking electronic tickets to the next level whee they will scan the icon on your cell phone for your ticket. I saw a few passengers trying this out on my travel to the east.

Oh ...and on a side note...my 18 month old daughter already understands how to navigate the photo app on the iPad because it is made with an intuitive navigation easy enough for a baby...just flick the picture for the next one and tap it to go back to the album. Cool stuff. Wonder what she will be amazed by in 20 years.

Sent from my iPad

Tech Tips For Teachers: Free, Easy and Useful Creation Tools - The Learning Network Blog - NYTimes.com

2010-07-10T07:32:00.001-06:00

http://learning.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/07/09/tech-tips-for-teachers-free-easy-and-useful-creation-tools/

This looks like a great list of tools for teaching.

Sent from my iPad

Blue Bear

2010-06-26T19:14:00.001-06:00

Leadership Bootcamp 2010 (#lbc10)

2010-06-26T19:03:00.001-06:00

What an amazing day. I am so glad that I was able to participate in this event here at ISTE. There were great sessions and I need time to decompress and really soak in all that I heard about today.

One of the things that spurred me into a thought train was the talk about how Social Networks are not new. We associate the term “Social Networking” with technology instead of what it really is. Wikipedia essentially defines ‘Social Networking’ as: A social network is a social structure made of individuals (or organizations) which are tied (connected) by things such as friendship, kinship, common interest, dislike, or relationships of beliefs, knowledge or prestige.

So in rethinking social networking, my grandfather was a huge social networker. And along with that, I remember my father complaining about it all the time because when he was on his HAM RADIO it really messed with our television reception. Yes. He was a social networker.

As I rethink social networking, there are lots of social networks that happen in our small town. The morning coffee that happens down at the Hot Spot is a social network. The PEO group is a social network. The Peetz Lions Club is a social network.

Our students are social. They like to spend time interacting with others. When I was growing up the social thing to do was cruise the main drag in Glenwood Springs and stop and chat with others in the parking lots. Today, kids hang out and socialize in different ways. Face to face socializing is important, but we also need to encourage and foster the socializing that happens using technology.

In speaking about this topic with a small group today at #LBC10, I commented in the huge disservice we do for our students in telling them to be anonymous online. In not teaching them to celebrate who they are and what they do. I think there is a link between telling students to create usernames and screen names that are fictitious and the cyber bullying that happens. It also doesn’t allow students to have a larger positive online reputation or digital footprint. When they leave high school or college and enter into the workforce, they miss out on the advantage of building a positive footprint with the guidance of teachers and mentors.

Techucators

2010-06-25T21:13:00.001-06:00

I am now immersed in the technology/education world at ISTE2010 in Denver. I am surrounded by people who want the best of both of of those worlds for their students and communities. Tonight, I attended a social hour with some of the top educators in the technology field and was able to smooze a bit. Tech Geeks do a social hours just a bit different and it was tons of fun. We did a ‘Speed Geek’ round with prizes of 2 Nano’s and an iTouch. Each of the attendees received paper with 30 technology tasks and we needed to find one person who had completed each of those task. So, off and running, I managed to meet 30 new people tonight. I met people from Oregon, Washington, Chuy from Hawaii, Norway, Florida, Wyoming, New Mexico, Kansas, Minnesota and Colorado. It was nice trading twitter names, emails and stories on how we use technology and rise above the challenges it presents in classrooms. Tomorrow will be a long day of more networking and I hope to come away from the Leadership Bootcamp with some solid plans and directions we can head with the technology we have at Peetz.

Video Training Podcast and Our Facelift

2010-06-10T13:35:00.001-06:00

I have started using our new Schoolwires hosted website to post some video's for training purposes using one of ther podcast pages. I might consider cross posting them here, but for now, they will remain on that website. I love the quick RSS feed button along with the iTunes feed button that allows for quick subscriptions to my page. This should allow teachers and students to be presented with any new content that I post to those training topics.

I am hoping that our community will embrace our new web presence facelift to our school website. The transparency of the classroom's that will happen over the next year will be an interesting process to watch unfold in our district. Will the teacher's embrace the delivery and connectedness they can have with their students, parents, administration and community through the use of their personal pages or will it frighten them? Will they have time to really use this tool effectively? Probably not. I personally hope that they can find one or two pieces of it useful enough to use and use regularly.

Website Facelift

2010-06-09T13:35:00.000-06:00

This summer we are undergoing a lot...and I mean A LOT of technology changes here in Peetz. The first that most people know about is our 1:1 program going into effect for our 7-12th graders in the fall. That program has a lot of processes, procedures and trainings to think about along with hardware and software configurations. That has been in the papers and talked a lot about.

The change that people notice when they walk in my office is the new server configuration with racks and nice neat organization. When people call, they will hear a new voice on the phone system and be routed through a voice over IP system. When they walk into our computer lab, they will see new designs, paint, carpet, furniture, and a new face because our big lab is being taken over by our Library and Sandi Roelle. When they go to our website after July 1st, they will SEE our new facelift on the web.

Yup.. lots of things in store and they are all exciting and scary. The underlying reason for change is efficiency, usefulness and using the proper tools to get to the place we want to be - AN EXCELLENT SCHOOL.

I am excited about the new website becuase it will allow our internet presence to no longer be static and unchanged for months at a time. It will be fluid and a living document. The community will have access to up to date information and no longer have to rely on the old way of doing things. The 'Weekender' will not be delivered to their postal boxes every Saturday for them to throw away or hang on the fridge. There will be drawbacks. Like in the morning, I can't glance over and see what is for lunch. I can however grab my iTouch and look it up. I can RSS feed that info to my email address. Or if I want, I can print out that info and still hang it on my fridge. It will allow me to choose and customize the process to the way I live.

It will also mean that when I am out of town, I can look at the district calendar and plan for events. Parents can simply go to our website and schedule that family vacation around activities. Teachers can distribute a document to students by simply posting it to their page. They can create assignment due dates with attached instructions, links, documents, contact info and notes. Parents can see those events and help their children plan and complete tasks. Classroom walls and time constraints can possible be taken down if the system is used effectively and to its fullest potential. Teachers have the option though and are not being required to do any more than figure out how to update their page. I think though that they will find it will be easier to update their page with assignments so that all students could view the updates at any time than to write it on the board and then tell every kid about the change if it happened outside of class.

There will be learning curves, speed bumps and pot holes along our technology laden road. I think that in the end it will be road worth taken for our students.

The 5th Wall

2010-06-02T20:20:00.001-06:00

Soon (July 1st) we will roll out a new design on our school’s homepage. In addition to a new website, we will also be changing our domain name from www.plateau.k12.co.us to www.peetzschool.org. This new website will allow teachers the ability to publish and update their own web pages. They can create their own class calendars, assignments pages, file libraries, podcast pages and they will all have RSS feeds so anyone can subscribe to receive emails when they are updated.

This is exciting.

Used effectively, this website can become the 5th wall in our classrooms. It can be an extension to the class where students can look at the stuff on our classroom walls when they are at home. That stuff can be the posters, class rules, notes we write on the whiteboards, showcases of student work, art projects, links to further extend our classroom learning and so much more.

At the least this 5th wall is just where you can find teacher contact info, but maybe, just maybe, it will be so much more. I truly hope that teachers will embrace their 5th wall and that students will benefit from it.

Open Exam

2010-05-14T20:48:00.000-06:00

We each have a different concept in mind when I say "Open Exam." Some teachers may envision an open book exam, some an open note exam. During my travels yesterday, I listened to a podcast by Rodd Lucier over at The Clever Sheep. It was very interesting and purposed the concept of an open exam as just that. Open to everything available at your disposal to help solve the problem, question, equation, task, etc. I think I just might challenge myself to do this next year. What if I told my kids in all of my classes that for every exam I gave them, they could come to my class with anything they wanted. They could bring in books, calculators, cell phones, iTouches, computers and could even phone a friend. How would that challenge me as a teacher to really make the tests I give relevant and real. Authentic to the world. I also know that it would help push me to expand on one of my weak areas of questioning and writing questions that are deeper and require more critical thinking skills.

When a student leaves our classes and enters the working world, they are not told "No, don't use that resource to help solve the problem." Why do we do it in school? Why do we not encourage students to seek the help of others to solve things?

I know that open exams would cause a ruckus in some content areas. How do you give a math test to the class and tell them they can phone a friend. Wouldn't you all just phone the smart one in the class? I would. But that doesn't test my knowledge, only my skills at answer and solving a problem presented to me and not from reciting steps and facts and figures. That throws a kink in our education system, testing, grades, and concept of knowledge.

Anyway, it is an interesting topic and I will challenge myself to push towards this type of environment. I encourage others to look at this and maybe try it once and see what happens.

Learning Management Systems

2010-04-07T17:50:00.001-06:00

Wouldn’t it be great if we could get a prescription to ‘fix’ what we don’t know? If we could test out of having to do assignments for things we ALREADY know?

Technology is allowing that to be more of a reality with LMS systems. Hopefully next year we will be using a system for our technology learning that students can take a pre-test targeted towards the standards. The areas that they don’t know will be compiled in a personalized prescriptive course just for them. They will be able to work at their own pace and take the assessments when they complete a unit.

Think about the benefits?

You wouldn’t have to sit through lectures over topics you already know
You can advance as fast or as slow as you need/can for your ability
Student centered and not teacher led curriculum
Curriculum and assessments meet standards

I am excited to start using these types of systems and think there are some great applications for them in other content areas. This could be a direction education is headed for students who can be self directed learners. Is it for everyone, no, but it certainly opens doors for a lot of different learning options.

Passion

2010-03-30T11:25:00.001-06:00

“Teachers must also take note when students show passion towards something. Make a list of your students' passions. #edchat” from TELF via Twitter.

Recently I ran across this quote and thought about the students I have in my classes. Do I know what their passions are? While I know most of my students, I can’t say that I know all of them well and their passions.

Would it make me a better teacher if I did? Yes, I believe it would. It would make a personal connection between me and that student. I don’t think you can be a GREAT teacher without building those personal connections with students.

The recent law that was passed in Louisiana about student/teacher relationships has me pondering if I would be breaking their law by ‘chatting’ on Facebook with my students. By becoming their ‘friend’ in cyber space. If I didn’t document each time I had contact with a student via txt message or email, each time I posted to a student’s wall or commented on their status. Yes, I would be breaking a law in that state. Sad to say, I can use those technology tools for GOOD. I can build connections to students and learn about their passions.

Just this morning, I commented on a student’s picture on Facebook they created with Photobooth. They were being creative, using technology and having fun. It is something that student enjoys and my comment gives us a topic of discussion, a connection. A relationship. And that word isn’t used in a negative way. Students and teachers should have relationships. A student/teacher relationship. They should be able to get to know one another. I believe so many kids slip through large schools without ever having a conversation with a teacher about something other than answering questions in class. That is sad.

So, my mission is to find out about my student’s passion. To commit to learning about each student’s interests. To actively seek out information about their passions. Then to use that connection and build upon it. And yes…I will use technology to do that. I will ‘friend’ my students.

Online Courses and Blended Learning Environments

2010-03-22T10:22:00.000-06:00

Last week Mr. Dutton and I attended the Colorado Summit on Blended Learning. Blended Learning is gaining in popularity and extended classes outside of the 45 minutes you see students and into their homes. It combines face to face instruction with online hosting of assignments, worksheets, link and other applications.

I would like to know how many of our teachers have taken online courses and experienced that setting. I find it very valuable and it is a situation that suits my learning style very well because it has so many options and components.

Next year, you will have an option of extending your class with a blended learning environment with our new SchoolWires hosted classrooms. Don’t panic. You can implement at your own pace, with what you find valuable in your classroom and with applications to your content area. Studies have shown that student engagement using blended learning environments was higher, so please keep an open mind to it.

Please respond by Friday March 26th.

Create your own sms poll at Poll Everywhere

Twitter Day

2010-03-04T08:18:00.001-07:00

If you were at the class, please take the time to respond. You may respond more than once so if you have more than one choice, vote again.

Thanks

Get a free sms student response system at Poll Everywhere

Outlook Calendar and Reminders

2010-01-26T08:39:00.001-07:00

Most of you don’t know that you have this option available through your MS Outlook. I know that at first, I just checked my mail and didn’t explore other options. You can keep track of your calendar and set reminders that pop up and let you know when things are coming up. The video is a short 2 1/2 minutes.

How to schedule events and reminders in MS Outlook.

How to Put Paper in the 9040 Printer

2010-01-25T13:47:00.001-07:00

Here is a short tutorial with a video on how to load paper in the new 9040 printer that is in the large lab. Thanks to Rayce for creating this video and ‘How To’ site.

For step by step instructions go here.

Large Posters made Easy!

2010-01-06T11:18:00.001-07:00

www.BlockPosters.com is a great website for creating large posters easily. Although we do have a poster printer, it is finicky and will only print nice posters from Photoshop. I have yet in all the years we have had it been able to make a nice big print from a program like Word. And since Photoshop is a hard program, it limits those who can print to it.

So…a nice solution is www.BlockPosters.com. It is very easy to use and doesn’t take a lot of know how.

Here is what you do.

First select the image you want and figure out where you are going to put it so you know the rough size (feet/inches) that you need.

I selected an image from Flickr and saved it to my computer.

Here is the original image

I knew I wanted to put this up on my bulletin board to see how large I could make it, so my goal was to make it about 6 feet wide.

After saving the image, go to www.BlockPoster.com and click on Step 1 to upload your image.

Click on Choose File and go pick the one you saved, then click Continue.

On the next screen you will adjust how many pages wide you would like your poster to be. I choose 6 and then landscape and it made the poster approximately 6 foot 9 inches wide and 2 foot 5 inches tall. It also shows you a preview of what will be printed on each page.

Click Continue to move on to step 3

On Step 3, you click on the download link for the PDF file that was created.

Save the file by Right Clicking on the link and choosing Save Link As. Open the file when it is done downloading. It will be in the Adobe Acrobat Reader file and my poster turned out to be 27 pages. Print the file to the color or black and white printer.

Here is the final “poster” hung up on the bulletin board.

I did not trim any of the pages so that you could see how it would print. If it were a solid picture, I would have wanted to trim about 1/2 inch off the top of the pages so they fit together better.

When you stand close, you can really see this image is pixilated, but from a vantage point of standing back a bit, you really don’t see the pixilation.

Free, Simple and Easy way to cover a bulletin board or to make a larger image for a wall.

What other ideas can you use this for? Post a comment if you would like to share.

Gradebooks

2010-01-04T09:37:00.001-07:00

Here is a quick how to on setting up the second semester gradebooks.

Snipping & Clipping Tools

2009-12-11T11:41:00.001-07:00

Have you ever wanted to save something from the internet or show a picture of what you see on your computer and share it with someone else?

I do. All the time. I want to save a picture that won’t let me. I want to just take a part of something and show that to my class. Or just document a series of steps on how to do something. Even just clipping a neat graphic for an idea that I could use down the road.

There are several ways you can do this. One is simple a screen shot. Using the Shift and the Print-screen buttons on your keyboard will take a picture of what you see on your computer at the moment. To show a certain area and not the whole screen, you have to use a photo editing software like Photoshop and crop the picture and resave it.

Over the last several years, I have used Microsoft OneNote to do that and store my screen shots. Windows 7 has a great snipping tool that even automatically pastes a link if I clipped it from the internet. One drawback however is it won’t allow me to copy the picture I just clipped and paste it to my email or blog post.

(I also use MS OneNote to organize all my lesson plans for classes, etc. But more on that later. )

Another free program I have been using is called Evernote. I love the clipping feature and use it frequently to take a snapshot of something and then copy and paste it into my email.

I love the online synchronizing that Evernote allows. I can synch all my data and be able to view it at any time. OneNote doesn’t have that feature as far as I can tell and that is a huge drawback when someone uses multiple computers. It also interferes when I am doing lesson plans or surfing the internet for ideas at home.

Windows 7 just came out with this feature – Yeah for them. It still isn’t as easy as Evernote I don't think, but if you have Windows 7, check out the Snipping Tool.

All of these snipping & clipping tools are awesome, but I still favor Evernote. Try it out. It is free and simple. You do need to download the program in order for the clipping tool to be available. It is not available from the online version.

**To see my journey on discovering EverNote – check out the Peetz Webbies blog (Peetz Web Design class). Thanks to Will Richardson for wanting the same things that I did in a synch feature on OneNote and to the people who commented on EverNote.

Website of the Day

2009-12-04T11:56:00.001-07:00

Mindmaps are great for us in brainstorming, planning and just a visual organizer. Text2MindMap is a fabulous website for creating quick mind maps from outlines. Here is a really quick example.

Google Docs Rocks

2009-12-04T11:20:00.001-07:00

This year I have been using Google Docs personally, professionally and in my classroom and it really rocks. I love it. Best part –

Its Free!

Take 3 minutes of your time and watch the short video below. It is “Google Docs in Plain English” and really shows you the power of collaboration and the cloud computing concept of document storage.

So, just a couple of examples of how I am using it.
Personally – Since I pay all my bills online now, I like to keep a spreadsheet of what I pay each month. I always have had this on my home computer and found that I needed that information for something during the day at school. Now I have the spreadsheet in Google Docs and can access it from either location at any time.

Professionally – I use twitter to talk with a lot of other educators about technology. I connect with those through a shared document that EVERYONE on my PLN (Personal Learning Network – more on that soon) OWNS. There are hundreds of people that can get in and check out information. I also have access to a document called “28 Interesting Ways to us Audio in Your Classroom”. It is a presentation document with examples of how people are using Audio for instruction and learning. The great thing about this document is that it keeps changing. I didn’t create it. No one person did. It is a group effort of a bunch of educators and it keeps growing and changing when someone new discovers a new technology tool or use. I can collaborate on a specific topic with hundreds of other educators in one location.

Classroom Use – I will share just one use. In my Web Design class, I have students listen to a weekly podcast from CourseCast’s Ken Baldauf. He talks about technology topics. I used to have the kids print out the question sheet, type up the answers, print that out and hand it in. When I got ready to grade, I would have to find the question sheet, print it out and check each paper individually (and I always forgot the questions and had to reread them). NOW what we do is I create a form in Google Docs and each student answers the questions online as they listen to the podcast. When they submit the answers, I can view them in a spreadsheet and can look at everyone’s answers in one column and just mark them right or wrong. I can share the final document with them so they can see the results as well.

It just blows my mind to think of how far we have come with technology in just a few short years and where we will go in the next 10 years.

Are you using Google Docs? I would love to hear about how you are using it in your life, work and classrooms.

Distribution Lists in MS Outlook

2009-12-03T15:55:00.001-07:00

Several times a year I get the question about sending emails to multiple people at once. There is a feature in MS Outlook called “Distribution Lists”. It is handy. I created a short screen cast using a free software called Jing.

To ask a question, you can leave a comment or email me.

Peetz Technology Chatter blog is born

2009-12-03T15:49:00.001-07:00

Every day I come across things that I want to share with teacher, students and community members. Useful things and fun things. Things that can make a difference in their education and knowledge. So…this blog was born. I hope that many people will find it useful and that I can help them integrate technology into their lives.