Summer is here and now I turn my attention to the ADE conference in Cork that I will be attending in July. The area of focus is iPads and online publishing as authors. I am looking forward to collaborating with fellow ADEs from all over the world and hope to gain fresh ideas I can integrate for next school year.
In computer class, last quarter we learned photography and this quarter we are exploring graphic design. Today's assignment was to create a package design for a new product each student has been developing. I want to also have the students learn design marketing while making an advertisment for a product.
One of my students made a light tent for under $5 that greatly enhanced product photos. It worked great. Here are a variety of photos with the light source being moved around. The photo without the shadows is when I turned the light off and lowered the shutter speed.
In class I'm teaching students the process of creating a short film. We learned story structure and the required elements needed in Acts I, II, and III. Then they wrote their story in script format, which they found challenging. Last night they sketched their storyboards in preparation for filming. I have about 75 students creating a video and to give individual feedback on all of them would take too much class time.
So today, to be efficient in getting students feedback, I had each student share Act I of their storyboards. I told them that Act I was the most important part of their film and if you don't engage and connect with the audience, you won't have an audience for Act II & III.
This is how we gave feedback today in class while each student took about three minutes to explain Act I. With 24 students per class and 80 minutes of time, students were able to present and get effective feedback :
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I am in the third year as the high school technology and digital media teacher and I feel I am finally seeing visual progress in my computer lab. There was nothing related to any video equipment for filming when I arrived and I have had to plan out a strategy for building one in the back corner with the purpose of motivating my students in photography and film.
Lighting is the most important in filming and photography so a makeshift studio with good three-point lighting was key. As my students helped me assemble the two soft boxes today of the main lights, I couldn't help reflecting back over the progress those students have come who were in this same room with me two years ago without any of it. Looking forward to teaching my students how to use the equipment and see how they apply it to their videos for the film festival.]]>A project that I am working on with some other ADEs here in Korea for this year is a project that will benefit our schools in Seoul and our hope is to provide a framework and valuable information to publish online to share with ADEs around the globe.The project centers around helping principals in practicing 21st century technology skills to accomplish their job's tasks.
The first step we accomplished was polling our principals (including vice principals) to find out what forms of technology they are already using. We then met with and emailed principals to discuss the results and to find out what areas they wanted to improve on or simply explore. We shared with our principals some best practices that other principals were using that increase efficiency and productivity.
Currently we are in the stage of setting up a customized technology program with principals that gives objectives and desirable outcomes and then meet with the principals individually face-to-face or online to discuss the progress, answer questions, and share ideas.
So far it is going very well and I hope to attend the ADE conference in Ireland this summer to share the results along with my dissertation results from the effects of a positive digital footprint among students in applying for jobs.
]]>After finishing semester exams I fly out of the hustle and bustle of Seoul with my family back to Hawaii to enjoy a break. During this time I received an email from one of my students saying he had made a Christmas song with GarageBand and wanted to share it with me. I was not only impressed with the quality of his song but the fact that he is applying what he is learning in my class to what interests him outside of the classroom. I also caught a couple of my students making Christmas cards in Photoshop since we just finished learning the program.
So go ahead and have a listen to the Christmas song.Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! 2012]]>
I remember at my previous school in 2008 I was a student council advisor with my wife and we transitioned the election speeches to videos rather than formal speeches in front of the student body. The change was sparked partly because the students did not know how to give a good public speech with the whole high school body peering and juding them and the other reason was because of a couple inappropirate words and gestures in the speeches.
Forcing students to record videos of the message of their cpeech forced them to be more concise with a limited amount of time (instead of rambling at times) while allowing their speeches to go viral beyond the mere student body. Check out this year's student speeches:
]]>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.
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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:
As you may know I have a YouTube channel, http://www.youtube.com/mouseflip, where I post lessons from when I teach students in class. The obvious reasons I post them is for students who miss class or need to review them again. So far I'm almost at 200 videos and over 40,000 views. A little intimidating when I step back and think about how many people that really is and I have no idea who is watching. Although, it encourages me to read this message I received from one of those 40,000 viewers while my website was under maintenance.
-I use the alarm to wake me up at 5am on Wed and Fri with a siren to play basketball; all other days I wake up to a soft harp beckoning me at 6:15am.
-On the bus to school I read Proverbs or listen to a Francis Chan podcast. -While we play basketball I play a mix I put together in iTunes or we jam to my radio station back in Hawaii. -At teacher meetings I use Awesome Note to take notes which is automatically synced with my Google Docs and I add appointment reminders to my calendar to keep me organized. If I am given a handout, I snap a picture of it and PDFreader converts it into a nice PDF to read...I then recycle. -As I start teaching class and use it to control the mouse to my computer with AirMouse -In class we use Twitter and I use it to tweet what we are learning -During break I'm tempted to play Angry Birds but I resist and check my RSS Feeds to stay updated on the latest technology. -After school if I'm coaching, I use it to view the stats from the last game or to draw up new plays to run. -After I'll check to see if my Dallas Mavericks won that day and how my fantasy football team is looking and make any lineup changes. -If I walk to the bus stop or Itaewon to eat, I'll snap some photos on my way and upload them directly to Facebook. While riding the bus I'll read a book with the Kindle app or watch my favorite TV show. -When I get home Mika usually steals it and plays with all sorts of apps for children that I loaded on there for her.]]>
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On the first day of school, teachers usually pass out and go over the course syllabus. Therefore, after the classroom environment and the appearance of the teacher, the syllabus is one of the first impressions that students use to formulate their first impressions of the class. Of course we spend time making our classroom (or computer lab in my case) look professional as well as our personal appearace but how often do we spend time making our syllabus look good? Students don't want to just see pages of text about the class...they want to see visual representations to assist the test. Therefore, this year I spent extra time on my four page syllabus which I sent to them and had them print out and bring to class. Most printed in color which saved my printing cost.
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