Category Archives: The Teachers

TCEA 2008 Let’s Go on a Writing Safari! Paula Alsup and Missi Downs

I didn’t get to attend this presentation – it was one of those time-slots when I needed a few clones to attend several sessions at the same time. Through the magic of technology I can still hear and “see” the presentation! After “attending” online I am very excited about the real event!

If you will go to Mrs. Alsup’s web presence there is a link on the sidebar to 2008 TCEA Presentation which will let you download the entire PowerPoint. You can view the PowerPoint and listen to the presentation at the same time -there is also a Podcast online – just click this link and put on your headphones – the Podcast lasts about 40 minutes. Writing Safari Podcast

Three Words

This post has two purposes. I am trying out a plugin that lets me finally embed youtube videos here. I also want to share this video as a great idea for a class project. It could be themed according to any subject and filmed in pieces at different times and then put together later.

Three Words
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qO0jovLVPA8&feature=related

If you do a YouTube search on Three Words you will find many versions and each as some very creative and powerful segments.

thanks to Mark Ghosh for the embedify plugin that allowed me to finally embed the video!!

Developing an Exemplary Writing Program with Digital Storytelling 8740

Presenter Shaunna Buck

The best parts of this session for me were the student presentation examples. It was truly exciting to see the quality.

7th grade writing program meant to grow beyond writing well enough to pass
Develop writing portfolio
Folders for
Rough drafts
Final drafts
Favorites
Reflective place – higher order thinking

“Be yourself. Above all, let who you are, what you are, what you believe, shine through every sentence you write, every piece you finish.” John Jakes

Collections and reflections
Organizational pattern akin to true writer’s notebook
Student’s papers that received a “4” were blown up poster size, a picture sometimes added, laminated and put up on the hall wall
Student’s goal became creating a “wall worthy” paper
Slowed the traffic pattern in the hall but it was kind of hard to get on to a student who was slow moving when the reason was that they were reading.
Reaction “ so and so’s up there?? How did they get a paper up there??”
Students no longer convinced that their first draft is their best work”
Motivation through competition

Students recorded reading their papers using audacity then uploaded as podcast

Incorporated Photostory 3 video to create digital stories enhanced the program
“Photostory like PowerPoint on speed”
Easy to learn and use
Students were motivated to rewrite

“Revision no longer a dirty word”
“Public recognition key”

Public presentation skills – students who were not comfortable getting up in front of class presenting had success in a room alone recording.

Save ppt slides as jpeg and import into Photostory, add music and audio – insert
Reading students used their class novel
Project – two word sentences – subject,verb – subject verb
Great for inclusion kids

Student went to district – made people cry
Photostory presentation about mom being killed in a car wreck – not true just a story but made me cry anyway
“if you make people cry you almost always get a 4!”

Think about their writing visually

Project – study origin of their name – not just definition but what it means to them, who they are.
Beyond thinking literally

Planning
Digital camera to make their own pictures , google images, scans
discussion about copyright
template for storyboard (looks like filmstrip)
require storyboard and script

Note what images go where
Import pictures into photostory
They used the headphones with mic attached
Pairs – one to talk, the other to click buttons, then they switch places
Photostory has a lot of built in music clips
Resource : freeplaymusic.com

Suggested book “Mechanically Inclined” Jeff Anderson

TCEA 2008 Crispen’s Guide to What’s New and What’s Next 8934

Patrick Crispen takes a sneak peak at what’s just over the horizon. Site: http://www.netsquirrel.com

Thanks to my guest Paris ISD teacher Nancy Bratteli for these notes on the session! This presentation was lightening fast and fun – I was scribbling so fast I could barely read my writing!
Polaroid Zink printer – zero ink – thermal, permanent, $149, about 30cents/print, available 12/08

new hard drives; SSD SATA 5000 1.8” 72GB; uses about 5% of the power of old drives; in 5 years, all will be this way; no spinning platters, less hard drive crash

USB3 is on the way; uses fiber optic cable, ridiculously fast (10X faster than 2)

Wireless USB (short range – speed relative to distance); Belkin has one now;
connects device to device

Eye-Fi SD memory card 2GB for camera; available now for $99; card transfers pics wirelessly to computer, filesharing sites, automatically

802.11n – (IEEE—guys who set global standards) new version of wireless coming April 2008; 540 megabits/sec; look for DRAFT 2.0 (some products out too early)

WiMax (802.16) metro area network – 70 mb/s;
it will be everywhere like cell phone service?

RFID – now in all U.S. passports (concerning?), toll tags, etc.; in 5 yrs. will replace bar codes

LEDs – last so long they will replace light bulbs in 10 yrs.

OLED see how stuff works for explanation – organic light-emitting diodes; bright, thin displays on electronic devices using less power

Recordable media – as of January, Blu-Ray has won, HD is gone

AACS – Advanced Access Content System – if signal is broken anywhere (hacked), may not play HD in the future

Distributed Computing – e.g., PS3 folding at home

508v2 and WCAG 2.0 – Web Content for Accessibility (504s)

IPv6 – new system large enough to assign an address for every atom in the body of every person on earth

Presentations 2.0 – Crispen used today; cleaner alternative to PPT

TV – original color standard set in the 1950s; showed great diagram of difference between interlaced and progressive signals; 1080p is gold standard, but nobody does it; digital-to-digital connections: cables aren’t important, so get cheap ones (good cheap source: monoprice.com) (get converter box vouchers for schools!)

Also posted at PHS computer Project Lab

Dynamic Powerpoint – Beyond Basics By Cindy Cohen 8035

This was a good session that gave some basic common sense tips on using PowerPoint.

Why would we want to use it (well)?
• This generation has little tolerance for delays or mistakes in delivery of information
• It’s an easy way to get information across in a short time period

Caution:

  • Too much information – on each slide
  • Color choices (may depend on lighting in presentation location)
  • Can be “eye catching or eye watering”
  • Presentation often not test driven to catch problems

If well used can be extremely engaging

Tips:

  • Proof read
  • Don’t include all information
  • Practice test run
  • Don’t over-use the software in the classroom

Key – Keep the focus on the presenter

Start with the basics

  • Know your information
  • What are the key points or concepts
  • Make an outline (enter basic information on blank slides)
  • Order is important
  • Add relevant materials (diagrams, images, audio, video)

Consider approaches for presenting

  • How is the slide being used?
  • Ask a question on the slide (stop for discussion)
  • Break up with a related activity (stop presentation, do short activity, go back to presentation)

Adjust style elements (easy place to waste time)

  • Visual interest is key but remember to keep focus on the presenter
  • You can use WordArt to make notes on each slide to remind you of details, changes, and additions – what needs to be done to each slide
  • Do test run
  • Prepare your oral presentation (this is the part that many people omit!)
  • To prepare you can take your original outline and print it out or print slide handouts.
  • 3 slides to a page and you can have lines on the right side for notes

Presentations without a presenter

  • Podcast presentation
  • Save each slide as a jpeg
  • Insert into MovieMaker
  • Create audio voiceover using Audacity put together audio and movie – Podcast

*They did a Distance Learning Day at Good Shepherd. They submitted lesson plans, students stayed home and did assignments via internet. This type of podcast presentation was part of her lesson.

Keeping Up with the Googlebots: What’s New at Google (Patrick Crispen) 8940

If you go to TCEA 2008 and click on Sessions and Workshops, list free sessions you will see the entire list and the session I attend will have the session number in the post as well.  You will be able to look for handouts there in a few weeks.

I like Patrick Crispen’s presenting style.  He starts on time, tells you what he will cover, moves through the presentation like an east Texas wind.  Before you know it he is saying we have to hurry because there are only three minutes left, ties is all up and sends you out as the next group comes in.  He must have an incredible amount of energy or sleep for a week after a conference like this.

His website is NetSquirrel and if you go there and click on PowerPoint Presentations on the side you will have access to all his handouts.  They are licensed under Creative Commons (he was the first person I heard even mention Creative Commons yesterday) so you are free to download his material. The presentation for this session will be udated in a few days.
Some new things I learned yesterday:

  • Google free business directory assistance 1 – 800 – 466 – 4411
    • Voice, directions, maps on your cell phone.  Google wants to do voice search – this is there start at getting voices saying words
  • Google Notebook now datestamps your entries
  • Google.com/educators has added discovery videos

This morning I found a new little snippet in my reader about Google docs – they have added a new little tool. When you share a spreadsheet you now have three choices – collaborator, viewer, and now “to fill out a form”. You can create a form in Google spreadsheets, share it with people and as they respond to the form, the data is automatically added to your spreadsheet.

Arrival In Austin

We have arrived in Austin after a deluge near Sulphur Springs. We made a potty and Starbucks stop and ate supper at Freebird’s.

We got to the Omni and there was a mistake so they didn’t have a double occupancy room and they ended up putting us in a suite. suite This room is a smoking room so there is a bit of a smell (the ex-smoker said a bit sarcastically) but it has two full bedrooms, three baths, two walk-in closets, a spa tub, a kitchen, two balconies, a bar, and three tv’s. We had to use our room key just to get on the right elevator. Not too shabby for a couple of country girls. They are supposed to move us tomorrow but we wouldn’t complain if they just left us alone.
view from 17th floorWe took a walk down on Sixth Street just to see what it’s like on Fat Tuesday. We found Mardi Gras beads, tons of people, a group of drummers in a circle playing in the street, music pouring out of the doorways and children dressed like grown-ups. There were grown-ups acting like children, a street artist using spray paint to create fantasy spacescapes, an Irish pub where a man was playing and singing country music, police on foot, horseback, and bicycle and an atmosphere of friendly fun. I don’t know if that atmosphere remained later in the night because we headed back up to our hotel to rest up for our first morning at the conference.

sixth streetAddendum – First day was fun – I learned a lot and as soon as I get notes typed I will start adding them to the blog so keep checking back!!

TCEA 2008

tcea08.jpgNext week I am planning on attending TCEA 2008 in Austin. Dale is doing well and I will be a cell phone call away. I am looking forward to learning some new things and meeting some folks that I have till now known only through blogging.

I plan, as I did last year, to blog my notes. If you do not blog and are going to be attending this year from PISD, I would love to have you as a “guest blogger”! Just let me know if you are interested and we can arrange for your notes/reflections on the conference to appear as a guest post by you to share with the rest of the district.

If you are a blogger I have a few tips for you. Take good notes making sure you have the session name, presenter name, and school district if applicable. Check out HitchHikr – a site that will aggregate posts that are tagged for specific conferences. There is no tag yet so you might want to check back – it will be something like TCEA08. If you tag our post with the HitchHikr tag it will make it easier for people who didn’t attend the same sessions to find your notes. As conference attendees start posting and tagging, the posts will show up on the HitchHikr site and there will be an RSS link so you can subscribe if you like and read other posts. This is a great way for all of us to get the most out of the conference and share the information with folks in the district who couldn’t attend.

There is a great post at Lunch Over IP on tips for conference blogging with links to other articles if you are interested in reading more about this. They have even created a PDF booklet you can download. There are two versions and I have included one here.

conferenceblogging_zuckerman-giussani_A4_color_booklet.pdf

Stop by Lunch Over IP blog and leave a thank you comment if you find this useful. I’m excited about the conference and can’t wait to tell you all about it!

Also posted at My school blog – PHS Computer Project Lab

Teachers Make Technology Work For Them

I love Google Earth – to me it has this magic carpet feel to it. I can visit anywhere on earth in moments and often when I get there I will find that someone has taken photos of interesting sites there or I can add overlays that tell me everything there is to know about the area. I’m a Google fan anyway.

Right now a friend of mine and I are making some slides for a praise service using Google docs. I type or copy and paste lyrics onto slides and then “share” with him (which sends him an email with a click-able link to the presentation) which he then adds a background to and maybe tweaks the text a bit. When he is through he shares it back with me. We can work on it at different times, in different places and even add collaborators if we want. The slides can be downloaded and used in Powerpoint, Keynote, OpenOffice Impress, and even SlideShare.

I have not been so in love with Twitter. Twitter is an application that lets you constantly add a few words about what you are doing at the moment. I see how it might have it’s uses (sort of) for people who have a shared interest but mine would bore people to tears. Maybe I could make it a paid subscription for insomniacs? I signed up for a free account trying to see if I could “get it”. I have even subscribed via RSS to several of my favorite education/technology/blogger “tweets”

This morning I read how several teachers are using it and was once again reminded of how creative and resourceful teachers are.

Langwitches have started a Teachable Moments Shoutout Twitter account that you can that you can subscribe to and if you have a Twitter account you can join in. You can help other teachers with teachable moment ideas or get help yourself. If you are not familiar with Twitter, this does not mean a huge lesson plan with rubrics and worksheets – these are short messages. You can even subscribe via cell phone and get “tweets” as text messages. If you are curious you can find out more on the Twitter FAQ page or the Twitter Lingo/Help page.

This Shoutout idea was inspired by Tom Barrett and his use of Google Earth and Twitter. Tom got his Twitter network people to participate in his students’ Google Earth lesson. The students had to find these people based on a few clues on Twitter.

I asked my network to challenge the children to find them in Google Earth, to search and discover their location from a few scraps of info via Twitter. Well the challenges rolled in and in a couple of hours we had 25 different people to track down.

Some of the Tweets were longitude and latitude. Others were addresses or well-known geographical sites. As the students found the locations the sent back messages via twitter to let them know they had been found. The students got experience searching and using the different layers and even the three-D buildings feature. Because they had a real purpose the focus of the class became finding real people in real places and the technology became the tool instead of the lesson.

When I was in elementary school I had a Japanese PenPal. That was our Web 2.0.

Weekend Report

Friday Dale had a great report – his labs looked fine and the new medicine is wonderful – no stomach cramps! He goes back next week just for labs, will see the doc the week after and then he will go on an every other week schedule so he has graduated to a new level!

We managed to get back from Dallas by lunch and I went back to work for the afternoon. We both felt so good about the day and it had been a long time of worrying and not feeling good at all!

It has been a busy weekend so far and as usual I am trying to catch up with laundry in between working the tab room at my son’s debate meet, getting ready for but then not actually attending the UIL Computer Apps event because my only student got the flu, and attending the concert for the band clinic in Mt Pleasant.

I didn’t have to do as much in the tab room as I have in the past – they have a new helper learning the ropes since I won’t have a debater there next year. I mainly kept paper organized. I will more than likely still help next year just because it is fun!

Dale just threw some more wood on the fire and I am heading for my book and blanket. Stay warm everyone!

Good To Be Back At Work

Dale just kind of piddled around the house and stayed warm today. I think he enjoyed having some peace and quiet with all of us gone. My first day back was wonderful. I missed the place and the FOLKS! There were hugs and laughter and everything was just as I left it. I had emails about fixing some minor problems and in general just felt like I was back home.

Overheard in the hall today:

He said: something…

She said: “Your New Years Resolution should have been to stop acting so immature.”

Yes – it’s good to be back!

complab.jpg

Resources For Storytelling – Digital or Non

Cross posted at PHS Computer Project Lab
I started out searching for how writing is taught so that in the future I might be a better commenter. I found some wonderful resources and I’m going to share them here before they disappear into bookmark oblivion.

The first is from the Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory and is called 6+ 1 Trait Writing.

The 6+1 Trait Writing framework is a powerful way to learn and use a common language to refer to characteristics of writing as well as create a common vision of what ‘good’ writing looks like. Teachers and students can use the 6+1 Trait model to pinpoint areas of strength and weakness as they continue to focus on improved writing.

There are lesson plans, assessment, prompts and more. There is more on this at The Writing Fix and at eMints which has a huge list of links that even include classroom posters you can print out.

The next treasure is The Scribe Initiative which is a wiki of the San Antonio School system dedicated to digital storytelling. There is an incredible wealth of resources here including links to open source software for editing audio, tutorials for using MovieMaker and PhotoStory, sources for images and sounds and much more. If you want to take your student’s writing digital this is a great place to start.

writertee.jpg

“How do I know what I think until I see what I say? ”
E. M. Forster

Opening Office 2007 Files and Open Office files

7-large.jpgWe have no computers running Vista at school, but a few students have it on home computers. I learned I can open documents created on Vista machines with Pages on my Mac.

Just yesterday I downloaded the latest OpenOffice and burned it to a cd for a student to install on their home computer. The student created a presentation and brought it to school on her jump drive. It wouldn’t open with PowerPoint on a PC or Mac and I finally had to just open it in OpenOffice on my Mac and let the teacher view and grade it on my machine. I’m not sure it was because it was a new version of OpenOffice or if it was because the student had not saved it as a PowerPoint when she created it. I will download and install it on my PC to check it out.

It is always a challenge to deal with the issues that crop up as the public sometimes moves on to new technology before the school can completely catch up. Newer printers can only be hooked to the computer via usb and older computers like Windows 98 machines may have usb ports but they don’t seem to be able to use them. Unfortunately, printers tend to give out before computers do so this is getting to be more of an issue.

I also read a “just for fun” tip on A New Mac Tip Everyday. This is how to change your login screen background. If you are like me you don’t see that screen too often but you might want to put a picture as a background even there. Here is how:

1. Make a copy of the background you want and rename it to “DefaultDesktop.jpg”.

2. Go to /System/Library/CoreServices and find the file DefaultDesktop.jpg.
3. Store the file somewhere on your hard drive in case you want to go back to the original default background.
4. Place your new background called “DefaultDesktop.jpg” in the folder /System/Library/CoreServices.
This won’t actually affect your productivity but then if you use a Mac to work you are already productive!

New Bloggers!

We have some students who are blogging and I have started visiting their blogs to leave comments and encourage them. This is so exciting to see! I know that this is not a new thing in some districts but for us it is brand new and I feel like I have had a tiny bit of influence here. I don’t teach these students – I’m not even on the same campus. I was one of the first bloggers in our district and I have been an advocate so I feel a little like a proud mama or at least great aunt. I hope they find a new way to express themselves, a new way to communicate with each other, and new ways to find the common ground that connects us to each other as members of the human race. Then again, maybe all that will happen is their grammar and spelling will improve because they realize other people are reading what they write. I’m betting on the former.

Books and Tips For Windows and Word

I love Amazon’s used books. I got a box of paperbacks for Dale today. He has decided he wants to go back and start reading all of Sue Grafton‘s books in order. He has read A through F and I got an entire box in the mail today – G through N. For those of you who do not read mysteries Sue Grafton’s books have titles like “M is for Murder” and “I is for Innocence”. The main character is a girl private detective named Kinsey Milhone. These books should last him through the transplant process.

I got a copy of PowerPoint For Teachers by Ellen Finkelstein and Pavel Samsonov which looks pretty good. It walks you through creation of presentations to use in the classroom and I hope to learn some new techniques that I can post here. I am making a little collection of things to read and learn and blog about during Dale’s hospitalization and this will be part of that.

Part of my job is supporting teachers in their use of technology and I forget sometimes that while I get excited about Web 2.0 tools and blogging and wikis and skype, I forget that most people just want to know little tricks that make their job easier. Today I showed one person keyboard shortcuts – Windows/E for opening Windows Explorer and Windows/L for locking their computer and being able to log back in and have all their programs still open. Another person just wanted the steps for creating a folder on their desktop and instructions on how to save documents directly to it. Two people were made happy by something that took me just a few moments.

To make a new folder by the way – you right click on a blank space whether it be on your desktop or within another folder. Choose new and then choose folder. Rename your folder and then when you create a document you want to save in that folder click on File/Save As and using the drop down box navigate to the folder you just created. Voila!
I also learned you can link text boxes in Word. A class project entails some students creating a magazine type article that I mentioned in the previous post. While the Word column function doesn’t do exactly what they need another way to go is putting everything in text boxes and then “linking” them so that text will flow from one to the next if there is more text that will fit in the box.

1. Hover the mouse pointer over the border of the first text box. The pointer shape changes to the Move shape (looks like a plus sign with arrows at the ends of the lines)

2. Right click and choose Create Text Box Link

3. The mouse pointer will change to a “pitcher” shape.

4. Click in the box you wish to link to – the text will now “pour” from the first text box into the second.

5. You can link more than one text box but you must always link forward – you cannot link backwards.

This is still not an ideal answer but it gives you a some control and another option.

I love technology but I like making people happy too! New books, happy people – it was a good day!

catsmile.jpg

Microsoft Word Column Limits

A class was trying to do a project today and the idea was to use Word in three column format to create a magazine style article. The problem was that they needed to be able to insert a picture and the teacher wanted that picture to be able to span several columns and have the text wrap around it but still stay in column format. Microsoft Office 2000 and 2003 were being used. I tried to figure out a way to make it work and created a text box to use as the container for the picture. On my MacBook it worked like a charm. Unfortunately the text wrapping part didn’t work so well when I tried it on the PC.
Microsoft Word worked better on my MacBook than on the PC? That is just weird.

bwbabybars.jpg

Creating A StoryMap Lesson

I love maps. I love pretty colored maps, antique world maps, globes that light up, all of them are just cool eye candy to me. Here is a great project idea for using google maps. “Find a Story… Map a Story… Tell a Story…”

You will find an example of a story map, a rubric, and step by step instructions.

map.jpg
Notice the little markers. You can hover on them and get a title or click them and get more information:

mapinfo.jpg

There are links to tutorials for CommunityWalk , GoogleMaps and Wayfaring

“In the description area of the marker, write your memory of that location. Hint: It would be helpful to write your memory on a Word document first so that you can check for spelling. Remember- this is a story so your description should be more than “This is the park in my neighborhood“. Tell your readers what happened at the park- this step is the most important part of the project. Without interesting vignettes, the project will just be a about pictures and markers.”

You will want to have pictures of real places on the map to upload for your markers. This could be the actual neighborhood your students live in. You could make maps with markers for the travels of a character in a story or any historically significant area. Students could use a database to map the spread of a disease or they could map their family tree.