Give out an oral report assignment on how the body works or have students write a paper on anatomy and you may hear some groans...even from teachers and grading them. But allow students to write lyrics to a song incorporating the content learned and you may have an interesting assignment with students putting more effort into it. Even if they don't use GarageBand to create their own melody, this video shows that a couple of my former students singing accapella can produce an entertaining and catchy video, which was recorded in the wee hours of the night.
During an ADE Korea meetup, Darren Price posed a question, "Which Apple Distinguished Educator's value do you best identify with and wish to employ? After reviewing the various posters around the room that displayed each of the values, I chose Authentic Authors.
These days I am investing much time and effort into my Digital Footprint dissertation and trying to contribute original ideas to the topic. Also challenging my students to embark on their own digital footprint journey and be an author on the web: Yum Listens.
This image that I took in Melbourne while I was presenting at a technology conference reminds me to think and be creative above our current situations. Sometimes we go day by day with our heads down, we forget to elevate, look at our situation, and press on as authentic authors in the right direction.
The university that I attend online for my PhD decided to create a Facebook page and run a campain offering free school shirts to those who contributed their perspective of the school with a photo. I thought it was a practical and creative way to get school exposure on the web...something I don't see a lot of schools doing. Jeff Utecht wrote an interesting article about schools communicating to others through Facebook. Full Article
In this culture you have to be creative and use the web to get your name out for future jobs. This guy gets it.
Currently I'm teaching my students PowerPoint and since most already know the program I teach more of the advanced features. Here are some very helpful tools in PowerPoint you may want to familiarize yourself with:
- Slide Master -"One slide that controls them all"
- Custom Narrations - Record your voice and animations then export as a movie
- Custom Animation - Add specific directions and locations to the text and object animations [Student Example]
During our professional development day at school yesterday I was given a break from presenting and was able to attend Kate Johnston's presentation on Digital Portfolios. I have presented on the topic before but enjoyed the fresh perspective Kate brought from a 7th grade teacher. She emphasized the use of Wikispaces (user friendly) but preferred GoogleSites due to their ability to customize. I liked how she used Diigo to add sticky notes to student portfolios when grading after they join her Diigo group.
Many times as a tech teacher I focus too much on the technology and design side of things and cut corners or forget the learning process. For example, she did a great job in providing clear detailed rubrics, specifically aligned the assignment with the appropriate standards, and even had students give a narrative reflection & rate their own portfolio.
After I finished my Master's in Technology & Business education, I spent the last five years taking courses in my PhD track. What a journey! I have just completed the first semester of the dissertation phase and my topic on the digital footprint has taken on the recent mold summary. I still feel my topic is broad and looking for ways to cut it down to something even more specific within the whole:
The VISUAL history of social media, from the first email sent in '71 to the present dominance of Twitter & Facebook:
As we transition to include high school in the 1:1 program next year, we are trying to motivate teachers to increase their technology skills while exploring ways to integrate their students' laptop tools into their classroom.
One method is to mandate teacher training which may result in a negative response from the teachers and thus a poor start to the program. The other way is to motivate the teachers to attend training seminars on their own free will. One method guarantees all teachers will receive training while the other focuses on self initiative and teacher driven. Our school is using the teacher driven method at this point and our principal put together an incentive program to start: