March 2008 Blog Posts (19)

Tuning In to Learning

Miguel Guhlin wrote a great article about an emerging practice in conferences-- encouraging off-site participation. These same technologies could easily be applied to a classroom situation to allow anyone from anywhere to virtually participate in the learning experience.

Miguel writes, "What if you could broadcast learning at will via the Internet to a world of learners? How would that change your conception of learning? What if you could… Continue

Added by Demetri Orlando on March 21, 2008 at 10:00am — No Comments

Poetic Soundscapes (NAIS Follow-Up)

At the recent NAIS conference, Larry Kahn and I presented a basic introduction to Web 2.0 in the Classrooms of the Future on "Where the Jobs Are, Where the Kids Are, Schools in the Middle." My part of the presentation included reference to a Garageband soundscape project that could be shared on the Internet as a podcast. At the request of some who attended the session, I've included more information on the project below.

Overview:

For the past two years, my English II… Continue

Added by Susan Davis on March 20, 2008 at 3:00pm — No Comments

Charter School Teachers List

Charter School Connections

This is an unofficial and informal listserv for people interested in or working in charter schools across the US. The inspiration for this is the wonderful ISED listserv (http://www.milton.edu/ISED-L/). Charter school people need an online niche, too!

The purpose of this list is to facilitate conversation and the sharing of resources. This list is not limited to just tech talk.… Continue

Added by Lucy Gray on March 16, 2008 at 5:00pm — No Comments

Dropping the students at the door...

I am interested in how other schools handle the technology "special" class. At our school, this class is considered a "special". This means the technology teacher comes to the classroom with the mobile lab. The classroom teacher leaves the class for a planning period, etc. and returns after the class is over.

At many of the conferences that I have recently attended I have learned that some schools are setup with the classroom teacher remaining in the classroom during "technology".… Continue

Added by Kathy Hartsell on March 13, 2008 at 4:40pm — 4 Comments

Lenovo Briefing

I'm at a "Public Sector Multi-Customer" briefing at Lenovo's facility in Raleigh. We just heard from Charlie Prestia, Executive Director of all Public Sector sales in the US. He told us a little about how Lenovo is structured. My big take aways:

60% of their public sector sales are in education. We're an important sector.

Their goal is four days from order to delivery. Currently they are at 10 days. Should be at 8 days in the next 4 months. That sounds interesting to… Continue

Added by Sarah Hanawald on March 12, 2008 at 10:12am — 3 Comments

"But I don't have time to become a better teacher...waaaaa!"

Back on the soapbox.

I don't know how many times I've heard over the years "I don't have time to learn how to do this. Why can't it be part of in-service? We should have time put into our schedules to learn [insert whatever here]."

Professionals learn on their own. They don't wait for their company, business, school, etc. to hand them the information they need to get better at what they do. They make a personal commitment, sacrifice some of their valuable time, and make… Continue

Added by Art Gelwicks on March 12, 2008 at 9:00am — 4 Comments

Prove to me you need a Smartboard

This is my rant to all the educators out there clamoring, "I need a Smartboard! I need a Smartboard!"

PROVE IT.

Show me how you have far exceeded your teaching capabilities and can no longer continue without one. Show me the in-depth multimedia presentations that engage your students but are missing the chance to go up and poke the screen. Show me how your students' educations are suffering because you don't have one hanging on your wall to use as a big movie projector.… Continue

Added by Art Gelwicks on March 11, 2008 at 8:42pm — 14 Comments

Why is homework "top secret" information??????

Recently, a teacher at our school asked me some questions about other schools and their expectations of teachers regarding homework pages and posting assignments. I went to several independent school websites and tried to peruse the middle school homework pages. I ended up really frustrated. Almost all the pages required a logged in account on that school's system. (Whipple Hill?)

Why? Does your school require this? Why is homework protected? From whom? Is this a deliberate decision… Continue

Added by Sarah Hanawald on March 11, 2008 at 10:10am — 11 Comments

"Must read" articles on student social networking?

We are seeking articles to help us better understand why students spend so much time on social network sites and other socially connective technologies such as IM and multiplayer games. Can you recommend good reading on this topic? I know of one really excellent article: danah boyd in response to the… Continue

Added by Richard Kassissieh on March 11, 2008 at 1:30am — 4 Comments

More to Do and More to Reflect On

In my prior entry, I wrote of the need to create contexts to foster and sustain educational innovativeness and described a particular project we've undertaken at Phoenix Country Day. I prefer the word contexts because it can help us to move beyond narrow notions of professional development. It enables us to more easily take the step of seeing every situation as an opportunity for growth. (Trite as that may sound, imagine the entire faculty and administration of your school practicing it… Continue

Added by Eric Neufer on March 9, 2008 at 4:38pm — No Comments

The Millennial and The Friend

There is some benefit to having that constant connectedness. The fact that I have my AOL IM on my phone or that in one day I can have a text messaging marathon. Quickly and efficiently, I can get my thoughts out to multiple people with a click of a few buttons.

Let me introduce briefly Camille. I have known Camille for the last ten or so years, she was the one who introduced me to speed skating and who I still to this day enjoy pie with on most Wednesdays. She is also the one who on… Continue

Added by Lisa Sjogren on March 8, 2008 at 9:00pm — 1 Comment

Need Your Help - Linux Desktop Likes and Gripes

I am very excited. I was invited by the Linux Foundation to attend their Collaboration Summit in Austin, TX April 8-10. I will serve on a panel providing end user feedback to the leaders of most of the major development teams in Open Source. I know there are a handful of you out there using Linux Desktop. I started a discussion thread in the Open Source Group on this topic. It would be great if you… Continue

Added by Alex Inman on March 7, 2008 at 2:43pm — No Comments

Smartboard Woes

So one of the issues I have with our smartboards is the general patina of ink that they build up, leading to general unusability after several years. A few days ago we had an incident and got a lot of ball point ink on one, adding a few of those years all at once. So I'm launching into finding a way to clean/resurface these beasts. I've got the usual suspects as far as chemicals go to start with. I know about the Dryerase marker trick. I'm debating using car polishing compound to strip a bit of… Continue

Added by Chris Jones on March 6, 2008 at 2:46pm — 1 Comment

The Idea of Global Contribution

Cross posted from my blog

In February, St. Raphael's Catholic School hosted their annual State of the School. As I was assisting the teachers on their presentations and talking about various topics regarding educational technology, a nagging thought kept coming into my mind, "What is Global Contribution?" We talk as educators that we want our students to contribute to the community, but is today's community larger than our local… Continue

Added by Lisa Sjogren on March 5, 2008 at 4:30pm — No Comments

Creating Contexts for Innovativeness

We’re suffering from too many good ideas.

- An anonymous school head, as quoted by Robert Evans

It is not realistic to ask teachers to do all that they do and add yet another new thing without thinking differently about the old things.

- Alan Bain

Mastery of new concepts, materials, and methods, though typically the unique focus of staff development efforts, is actually the last stage of a complex cognitive and affective process.

- Robert… Continue

Added by Eric Neufer on March 5, 2008 at 4:03pm — 1 Comment

Laptop Survey Results In

I've posted the results of the laptop survey on my blog.
Thanks to all who participated. I hope you'll find the information as useful as I have.

Added by Tami Brass on March 5, 2008 at 3:50pm — No Comments

Laptop Survey Results In

I've posted the results of the laptop survey on my blog.
Thanks to all who participated. I hope you'll find the information as useful as I have.

Added by Tami Brass on March 5, 2008 at 3:50pm — No Comments

Defining Great.

This past weekend I spent time with people who are from the Greatest Generation and I listened to them complain that nothing is made in the Great United States of America anymore. They went on to say that maybe our country is not so great anymore. This made me reflect on a few things.

* First, is the number of products made in the USA a benchmark for defining great?

* Second, if it is not products what defines great?

These are two very tough questions and I… Continue

Added by Dorothy Bialke on March 4, 2008 at 11:49am — No Comments

Buckets of Cold Water

Once in a while things are going good. I'm sitting in my lair planning Summer projects or smiting(figuratively) students... And then I get the phone call. And I find out that something that I thought was working well enough to be a point of pride just isn't.

It's like a bucket of cold water getting tossed on me.

Off to the front lines.

Added by Chris Jones on March 4, 2008 at 8:54am — 3 Comments