Tuesday, February 16, 2010

T and T Feb 16 - 17, 2010

Note A35 - come to class but then we will go to FGMB to do some soundboard training.

A16 and A18
will be in room 222 (behind the cafeteria area) for a guest presentation

Presentations -
A13 - Kristen Harley, Jenny Z, Lindsay D.
A14 - Amos, Ben

Important Ideas - 10 + 11

Video as Essay - UNESCO examples

Literacy With ICT
  • at what level of the Cognitive Domain are we being creative? [Knows&Comprehends, Analyzes&Applies, Synthesizes&Evaluates]
  • is it possible to be creative in the affective domain? [Responsibility & Ethics, Social Implications, Collaboration, Motivation & Confidence]
  • how can ICT assist in extending critical and creative thinking?


Fresh Brain
iPhone music - U of Michigan (thanks Steph)

Video/Mashups - the new essay?
    - samples from REC UNESCO projects

Thanks Amanda for this:
Steven Cameron, in his article, "Technology in the Creative Classroom", provides another point of view on creativity in Digital Natives. He points that creativity is an individual artistic quality that lies in those willing to take the time to pay close attention to detail. As a professor of creative technology classes, his trained eye can see a clear difference between those students who took the "short cut" in quickly cutting and pasting their projects together and those who actually spent time in manipulating their work into creative masterpieces.

While Cameron's skepticism of creativity may be of greater importance in his university classrooms, it is also a valid point for senior years teachers to keep in mind when seeking creativity from their students. Has the student quickly slapped Proxy-Connection: keep-alive
Cache-Control: max-age=0

gether their 'creative' project, or is there something more, something fresh and original such as Palfrey and Gasser are alluding to, coming out of their digital work? This question is for the classroom teacher to decide when assessing their students' digital work.


(Thanks to Kim for this)



Sprenger (2009) offers seven strategies to help achieve this balance between the digital world and the real world:

1) Provide time for reflection
  • assign journals allowing students to think about their thinking and learning experience
2) Disarm them
  • take away gadgets and explain to students how face-to-face communication is impaired when one or both parties are communicating electronically with others
  • practice attentive listening

3) Let them teach
  • encourage students to teach each other digital skills

4) Use interactive white boards
  • allow you to project computer onto a large interactive screen

5) Build emotional literacy
  • students need to take time to examine how others are feeling
  • guide students on how to deal with complicated situations through role playing and discussions

6) Teach mindfulness
  • students need to focus on themselves and be aware of their own thinking
  • teach them how to calm themselves and stay focused
  • breathing exercises and meditation can help acheive this

7) Encourage storytelling
  • storytelling is an effective tool to engage the digital brains of youth
  • make story relevant to topic and students' lives

Thursday, February 11, 2010

T and T Feb 11-12, 2010

Class

Presentations

A13 - Lyndsay, Melissa, Jen
A14 - Trisha, Jacynthe, vicky, Amber /// Margaret, Amberley
A35 - Kristina
A16 - Trista, Vibhu, Melissa
A18 - chantille patrick armynn - *movie making*

Lab

Garageband
AcidXpress-sample PC version of loop based music creation
Audacity- free sound editing software - download
Sumopaint.com - free online paint and image editing.

Animoto - create cool videos from video and pictures
Doink - simple drawing and animation
Glogster - create posters


Social Impact Games- a listing and links to a variety of useable games

Science
http://learningscience.org
http://learningscience.org/google_science_gadgets.htm

Today is the official "Launch"   They've written over 120 pieces of content in total for the 7 sites so far and will be updating daily during the Games.   Just click on any of the links below.
 
 

Monday, February 8, 2010

Feb 9-10, 2010

Presentations

A13 - Becki Lyndsey Dan
A14 - Rob, Nathan, Isaya
A16 - Chris Burns & Chris Fredrickson & Jonathan Cullen /// Adam K. & Andrew W.
A18 - izzy,rebecca, Andrew - "Google Earth (tours)"

Important Ideas - 9

Summary of Digital Games and Learning

Creativity, Problem Solving, Copying and Remixing
  • what is needed to be creative?
  • is everyone creative?
  • why is creativity hard?
  • what is the difference between copying, remixing and stealing?

Jeff Han - TED talks - new interface

Literacy With ICT
  • at what level of the Cognitive Domain are we being creative? [Knows&Comprehends, Analyzes & Applies, Synthesizes and Evaluates]]
  • is it possible to be creative in the affective domain? [Responsibility & Ethics, Social Implications, Collaboration, Motivation & Confidence]
  • how can ICT assist in extending critical and creative thinking?
Fresh Brain - thanks Amanda
iPhone music - U of Michigan (thanks Steph)

Video/Mashups - the new essay?
    - samples from REC UNESCO projects

Completely Optional - Some free books in PDF format from MIT on Digital Natives


If I gave you the exam questions next week, would that make your life better or worse?


Thanks Amanda for this:
Steven Cameron, in his article, "Technology in the Creative Classroom", provides another point of view on creativity in Digital Natives. He points that creativity is an individual artistic quality that lies in those willing to take the time to pay close attention to detail. As a professor of creative technology classes, his trained eye can see a clear difference between those students who took the "short cut" in quickly cutting and pasting their projects together and those who actually spent time in manipulating their work into creative masterpieces.

While Cameron's skepticism of creativity may be of greater importance in his university classrooms, it is also a valid point for senior years teachers to keep in mind when seeking creativity from their students. Has the student quickly slapped together their 'creative' project, or is there something more, something fresh and original such as Palfrey and Gasser are alluding to, coming out of their digital work? This question is for the classroom teacher to decide when assessing their students' digital work.

.

Wednesday, February 3, 2010

T and T Feb. 4-5, 2010

Class

A13 - Jenna, Courtney, Jennifer Y (Skype in the classroom)
A14 - Dale and Tanna

Important Idea - 8

Lab

Mid-Course survey - A13, A14, A16, A18, A35

Free online Concept Mapping - Gliffy.com, bubbl.us

Photostory (PC only) = free simple slide/movie creation - get some sample images Haiti, or Winnipeg Chinatown, or  REC VG Volleyball.

When Youtube is blocked (eight ways around it)

Safeshare - get only the video and not all the ads, and yo can crop the video to show only what you want

Kickyoutube downloads video well. Get the yourube video you want and then add kick in front of youtube in the address bar. Choose a format (usually mp4), click on Go and then right click on download and choose Save Source.
savevid.com works very well, but it does show the most recently downloaded videos and some may be inappropriate for the classroom.

Download and use VLC, a cross-platform media player to view almost anything!! Mac, PC or Linux

A video to help students deal with hate sites like MLK.org (Thanks Alena!)

Here are some plagiarism checkers on the web: (Thanks Matt!!!)

 
http://www.dustball.com/cs/plagiarism.checker/
http://www.plagiarismchecker.com/
http://www.articlechecker.com/
http://www.plagiarismdetect.com/
http://turnitin.com/static/index.html
http://www.duplichecker.com/
http://www.plagiarismsearch.com/
http://www.checkforplagiarism.net/
http://www.plagium.com/

Monday, February 1, 2010

T and T Feb 2 - 3

The Medium is the Message
Betty - Dec 30, 2009


Education Endowment Fund

A13 - Chris H. and Jonathan B. and Kristjan H.
A18 - Carmen, Nazifa, Sara, and Margret

Games in Education

Gamers talk to their group - what are the educational aspects of games?


From The Psych Files

Really Good Games..Really Good Teachers…

  • have win states to give us a feeling of accomplishment
  • employ conflict/competition/challenge to up our adrenaline
  • use dramatic problems
  • use otherworldly stories and characters to stir the emotions
  • require problem solving
  • encourage interaction to solve challenges
  • are unpredictable
  • provide a sense of urgency
  • have rules to give play structure and help put us inside the game world
  • have goals to provide motivation and let us measure ourselves against something
  • are interactive to keep us doing things
  • are situated in an interesting place or time
  • have outcomes and immediate feedback from which we learn
  • adapt their difficulty to our skills to keep us in flow
  • are “hard fun



.
  • Have goals for their lessons
  • Draw on “Motivation to Learn” strategies which engage students through the use of puzzles, questions, mysteries, apparent conflicts (Here is the link to episode 29 which explains the Motivation to Learn concept.
  • Provide immediate feedback to students on how they’re doing
  • Help students summarize what they’ve learned
  • Help students reflect on their experience
  • Help students draw on prior knowledge
  • Encourage students to use metacognitive strategies (“Did I understand what I just heard/read?”)
  • Provide students with appropriate challenge to optimize the potential for “flow
  • Provide a context for the material to be learned (i.e., instruction is “anchored” to a setting)
  • Encourage active exploration among students (not focused on right and wrong answers)
  • Provide opportunities for safe practice

Important Idea - 7

iBrain - starting with Shallowtasking (except A13 and 14)

Steve Jobs and the iPad - from 9:00 on for a bit if you are interested.

Jeopardy game on Games in ed?

Michael Britt - The Psych Files and Games in Education

Thursday, January 28, 2010

T and T Jan 28-29

Class

Important Idea - 6

Presentation - A13 - Robin N Laura F. Trisha

iBrain overview

Lab

Top educational wikis on Wikispaces



Info Gathering - RSS (Google and Netvibes), Teacher Tube, Slideshare


Better Searching - Google help, country codes, Web Quest, LessonPlanet, teacherTap, Google Cheat Sheet
Searching beyond google = U o fMinnesota

Alan November - Info Literacy (understanding a web site - checking validity)

Free online Concept Mapping - Gliffy.com, bubbl.us

Google Sketch-up - free 3D drawing program useable in many content areas (and instead of playing games)

Work on wikis?


When Youtube is blocked (eight ways around it)

Kickyoutube downloads video well. Get the yourube video you want and then add kick in front of youtube in the address bar. Choose a format (usually mp4), click on Go and then right click on download and choose Save Source.
savevid.com works very well, but it does show the most recently downloaded videos and some may be inappropriate for the classroom.

Download and use VLC, a cross-platform media player to view almost anything!! Mac, PC or Linux

Here are some plagiarism checkers on the web: (Thanks Matt!!!)

 
http://www.dustball.com/cs/plagiarism.checker/
http://www.plagiarismchecker.com/
http://www.articlechecker.com/
http://www.plagiarismdetect.com/
http://turnitin.com/static/index.html
http://www.duplichecker.com/
http://www.plagiarismsearch.com/
http://www.checkforplagiarism.net/
http://www.plagium.com/


A long list of Web 2 tools for you and your students from SolutionWatch

Note: File sharing is possible at getdropbox.com (PC, Mac or Linux) if you don't want to use Google Docs or other alternatives.