Category Archives: TCEA

TCEA 2012 Tammy Worcester “Beyond Cut and Paste”

Tammy Worcester Beyond Cut and Paste

Design Projects that require students to do more than just paste information (sometimes without even reading it!)

Use a Building Block Model
1.Collect Blocks
(gather information)

2. Organize Blocks
(critical thinking)

3.Build New Structure
(product / presentation)

Collect Blocks

I go to google daily but I learned a new trick in this session!

Go to google and type something into the search box. I chose George Washington
www.google.com
You can refine your search to show items categorized by reading level.  Scroll down and look at the left side. Click on More Search Tools.

You will see another list of ways to refine your search but for today we are interested in reading levels.

Click Reading Level

Google divides search results into three reading levels. Below you can see the reading levels in grey text.

~~~~~

Another search site that I have not used
Wolfram Alpha
– www.wolframalpha.com

Instead of listing websites related to your search query, Wolfram Alpha actually displays answers.

to get a better feel for the site you can go here and choose different types of examples:

http://www.wolframalpha.com/examples/?src=input

here is an example:

generate a world map colored according to a given statistic. You will get more than just this image:

Here is an example of using Wolfram Alpha for math:

Cool site but use with care. I wish they had this when I was struggling with algebra!

~~~~~

Another way to gather information for your building blocks is Qwiki

Qwiki
www.qwiki.com

same George Washington search but now I can click for related items, there is multimedia, and you have the option of having it read to you.

So now you have several tools for gathering information (or collecting the blocks)

The next section gives you a couple of options for handling sources :

Organize Blocks

BibMe
–http://www.bibme.org/

Easy Bib
– http://www.easybib.com/

Build New Structure

PowerPoint or Google Presentation
-Acrostic (great idea – younger students required to find several facts about their subject and then they can use a power point slide to display their facts, older students required to use the entire alphabet and could even require that the facts be listed in not only alphabetical order but chronological as well. (For x her example just required that the first word contain an x rather than start with it)
-Post Card (create a template in word or two text boxes on a powerpoint slide. Add a photo, a smaller photo for a stamp, write a short note to someone as a historical or literary character)
-Children’s Story Map
-What Am I?

Web Tools
-Drawzit
www.drawzit.com
-Scribble Maps
www.scribblemaps.com
-iFake Text
www.ifaketext.com

iPad Apps
-ShowMe
-Educreations
-Sock Puppets

 

TCEA 2012

It is that time of year again. I am in Austin for TCEA so bewatching for posts on sessions.

Was able to meet an old friend for supper last night and we had a great meal and did a lot of catching up! Shout out to Bettie! It was wonderful to sit and talk!

Ten Ways To Use Twitter

I do not use the Foursquare app so I do not check in and let everyone know where I am. For one thing, it would be boring.  The majority of my location tweets would read:  “Home reading or writing on my laptop”  repeatedly, well…obviously not much fun to read.  I don’t tweet a lot period.  My blog is set up so that a tweet appears when I post something new so if you lead as boring a lifestyle as I do, you can “follow” me and be alerted whenever there is a now post.

I use Twitter more as a headline perusal source.  Just this morning I found two new books I want to read,three articles on writing that I have bookmarked to read later today,  and a couple of writing prompts to help get the juices flowing for a new poem or story,  I also found a link to a Google docs template for creating a faux Facebook page for a famous person in history.  What a great way to use Facebook in education. Choose a literary character for English.  Insert a picture of your person, list four people they would have “friended”, make up two Facebook groups they would have joined.  Make up some wall posts they would have made.

My favorite session at TCEA was Four:Forty:140: Four Themes, Forty Ideas, 140 Characters with David Jakes and the biggest takeaway from the session has been rattling around in my brain (More on this later) – don’t let the tools drive education – ask your teachers what kinds of learning experiences they want their students to have and find the tools that will best serve that purpose.  I am a person who loves new and shiny, but this resonated with me and I will be looking at technology through that lens in the future.  Using Twitter and Facebook in education are examples of teacher-thinking and technology.  We forget that technology in education SHOULD exist to support the teacher – not the other way around.  I got off topic here, I know.  Twitter however, fits into my thinking.  It is a way to discover and to listen.  How often have you attended a staff development session where the predominant conversations were negative.  “Why do we have to do this?  I could be using this time to work on grades or lesson plans.  I don’t have time to fit this technology into my lesson.”

What if we could leverage the small bites that twitter puts out and do mini staff development by adding links, videos, short tips, news about what others are doing and how it is working?

Here are some reasons to use twitter.

1. Twitter is searchable.  Like any other search engine, you need to know what you are searching for and how to drill down to get it to tell you specifically what you are looking for.

2. Twitter is customizable – through the use of hashtags (#) you can either search for tweets that  involve a current subject or post a tweet that you wish to be included in a current subject to be found by others.  There is a decent article gives you a beginning understanding of the use of hashtags here

3. Twitter is fast.  Get in – get out.  Don’t have time to read long blog articles?  You can go down your twitter feed list and read quick blurbs and discover articles to read later, recommended by people you choose to follow. Twitter posts are limited to 140 characters and as you type, you will see a count.  When you pass the 140 count, it will show as a negative number.  Links can be shortened by going to websites like TinyUrl and then added without using your entire character limit. Just copy the URL of the link you wish to share.  go to TinyUrl and paste it into the long URL box.  Click Make TinyURL and copy the resulting short link to add to your post.  At a dinner one evening at TCEA a teacher was talking about elementary students coming to the computer lab and their teacher sending a link she wanted them to use.  Getting that long URL typed in correctly took up a large chunk or their lab time.  She is planning on utilizing TinyURL to help students get to preferred links faster and more easily. Simple solution to a problem that I might not have thought about had it not been for this random snippet of conversation. (Like a Tweet, only in the real world)

4. Twitter can be sent to your phone.  You can choose to have specific feeds sent to your phone.  I subscribe to a Twitter feed that comes from our media person at school so I get the results of sports events and emergency notifications.  Helpful for times when I am not online. The user determines which tweets they follow are sent to their phone and you can always choose to stop that piece so you are not locked in to having thousands of texts beeping at you every few seconds.

5. Twitter can be timely – you can search hast-tags and follow twitters temporarily that are specific to a current even or interest.  When you are no longer interested you can Choose to “unfollow” This morning as I scanned through my Twitter feed I found all kinds of tweets about TCEA and was able to get a hint of some of what I missed.  You can’t go to everything but you can hear about it later. (and before – I now wish I had been following a little closer before and during the conference.

6. Twitter gives you the power.  Like everything else on the web, there is spam.  You can get alerts when someone chooses to follow you and you can block and/or report spam.  I have had a few of these but it has not been a huge issue.  I think twitter followers are quick to deal with those folks.

7. Twitter is communal.  As you navigate the Twitter ocean, you join discussions and become part of a community that allows you to skim the surface or become more deeply involved according to your interests.  On your sidebar you will see a list of Twitter trends and suggestions of “Who to Follow”  You can pop in and “eavesdrop” on the conversations or you can participate by clicking “favorite” which will save it as a favorite post.  You can “Retweet” which passes on something you find interesting to people who are following you.  You can “Reply” and start a dialogue”

8. Twitter can improve your writing skills.  If you are like me and tend to be wordy – Twitter becomes an exercise in brevity.  There are some groups on twitter that post flash fiction.  Can you tell a story in 140 characters?

9. You can play games.  Here are links to a few but you can do a Google search and find more.

Twivia -  trivia questions via Twitter.  Twivia asks a question and the first person to @reply the answer gets points, specified in every Tweet. Twivia tweets the correct answers after someone gets it correct. You can even suggest questions to Twivia.

BeatMyTweet – sends out word scrambles every hour.

10.   Twitter can keep you up on local news and weather.  More and more news sources have added share on Twitter buttons and you can “follow” to hear the latest weather alerts, traffic updates, and news headlines.

I hope you will share some ways that you have found to use Twitter.

Quick addition – I found a drag and drop “Share on Twitter” button.  Just drag the button from this web page to the bookmark bar in Firefox and you can quickly share a link to any web page, even if they don’t have a Share button of their own.  Just click the button when you are on a web page you want to share and it will create a short URl and add it as a twitter post.

Another quick addition – Great article!  15 Twitter Tips for Beginners

Expresso Book Machine

Teleread has an article about the Expresso Book Machine here

Everyone knows I love my kindle but before the kindle I loved books. I mean LOVE books – I still have a set of three bookshelves in my office that are overflowing and books stashed in various places around the house. Our bedroom has a set of bookshelves that frames our window (built by my creative husband) that is just for paperbacks we read for fun.

I love the idea of print on demand books and I can see it going a step further. In a generation of re-mix why not create your own book? You can already create your own reference “book” from Wikipedia. I have an article on how to do that here .

I can envision taking all the snippets and articles that I clip and bookmark around the web put together in a way that makes sense to me and plugging in my jump drive or SD card to one of these “self-print” book machines and printing out a book I can place on my shelf or carry with me to read later. You can already do this with your ereader by creating a pdf of them and then dragging the document to your kindle.

Then go a step further. Ala Carte Text books. Will we see a day when instead of just the ubiquitous copy machine that resides in school offices and teacher work rooms, a machine that allows teachers to print out copies of text books tailored to specific classes or units?

One of the sessions I attended at TCEA was on Opensource Education or just open education if you will. MIT Opencourseware is a website with over 2000 courses online and free for the self directed learner. Combine this kind of thinking with the ability to print your own text book and you see an interesting future.

TCEA 2011

Yes it is that time of year again so if the next few posts are confusing because they are about technology in education – well…that’s just what I will be thinking about.  Hopefully I can squeeze a little creativity in too.  Mostly I am looking forward to attending a bunch of sessions that will tell me how to use Web 2.o free stuff (yes you DO detect a little sarcasm…doesn’t anyone know how to google??) and maybe even actually learn a little bit somewhere in there.

Hoping for not to terrible weather, seeing some friends, learning some new stuff, and eating a lot…and bringing home something…anything…that I can present when I return home…full, flat-footed, sore shouldered (from toting the ubiquitous backpack around the conference hall all day) and shaken out of my present doldrums…

(queue Sheryl Crow singing “A change will do you good”)

TCEA 2010 Eno Board Demo

I watched a demo on the Eno board which is what we are going to have at the high school next year.  You can use them with your computer, with easy touch software, you can use dry erase markers.  The presenter even wrote on it with a sharpie and the later traced the writing with a dry erase marker (said you can use anything alcohol based) and wiped the sharpie off.

The board is also magnetic and there is a magnetic icon strip you can affix to the board.  You can use the pen that comes with it to access the functions and also draw or write on whatever you are projecting on the board.

They say they are not at all locked down, that the are just drivers and so the board is open to use with anything.  I don’t completely understand that but according to their website:

The eno board application runs on an open platform that works with existing software/operating systems, meaning education and business systems that have previous investments in software can still utilize applications

Here is a video demonstration

Here is a link to software that can be used with it.
http://www.techedu.com/main_software.asp

Revitalizing Old Hardware Using Gnu\Linux and LTSP

revitalizing old hardware using Gnu\Linux and LTSP

linuxltsptcea2010.pbworks.org

http://linuxltsptcea2010.pbworks.com/

rom-o-matic cds

over my head but interesting LOL

thin client

can’t afford a computer lab?
doesn’t have 1:1 student ratio
need to use old and obsolete hardware

linux is a kernal basically some device drivers to run your computer
finland linux torvalds wrote it
richard stallman created free software – fsf.org
gpl gnu public license (virus of licenses – anything that is a derivative of this code has t be shared
reverse copyright

community of professional programmers contributing out of love, arrogance, helpfulness. financial motivation

the number 1337 – means ?

community

If you have a computer running linux you have access to all linux software – software repository

no licensing fees
no copyright infringement
better use of ram
no hidden TSR (terminate and stay resident)
strong control over user network and program permissions

os is more than just the desktop

ltsp
linux terminal server project
1 fairly new computer then a group of older computers
server with nics
network interface cards
thin clients
fat clients
ssh-x
1 card getting connection to internet
one connection to the other computers

on average need at least 1 gb ram for each 10 thin clients
min requirements for thin clients
pentium II with 48 mg ram and 2 mg display card

attendee said he likes slackware – that it runs on old machines efficiently
slackware users install slackware once and then no changes
not a good system for beginners

distrowatch.com

aww the presenter has his mom running ubuntu 🙂

Linux is secure
permissions are read write or execute priveleges

setting up ltsp
older computers go into bios
boot menu
boot from server?
some don’t have that option
rom-o-matic
thin client – no hard drive to speak up – server actually running the programs
fat clients can be configured to run some programs
edubuntu easiest to get running
k12 linux as well 0 install on a usb drive and try it out
can run windows terminal sessions
can use with active directory
samba shares
can use with windows shares

TCEA 2010 Gimping It Up

gimp
beth phinny
big spring high school
leslie ferris
lubbock cooper high school

GNU image manipulation program

up to version 2.6

www.gimp.org

alien project
picture of person
select what part (face)
click on rectangular select
draw square around upper body
crop to selection
that gets rid of excess
distort Iwarp
opens a window
grow option
deform radius – choose between 25-35 kind of play with it
click on forehead and kind of click out to pull it out bigger
if you don’t like it you can click reset
when ready – click okay
filter distort iwarp again
grow the eyes – little horizontal lines slowly
shrink chin same process only shrink instead of grow
to colorize
click on color, colorize choose numbers to get hue and saturation

selective colorization
6 steps
layer
duplicate layer
click on background copy
make it b and w – desaturate sure whatever
turn off eyeball on background copy
click on erasure get size you can work with – brackets change size
erase the black and white part you want to end up in color

warp
new image
choose size
click ok
foreground and background color
fill
click on paintbrush tool
click on top, hold down shift, drag it down and click on bottom and it will create a straight line
make ten of these across the image (vertical lines)
use filter – distort, polar coordinates
make sure that checkmark is on 2 polar
gaussian blur

links
gimpology.com
gimptalk.com
tutorialized.com
gimpusers.com/tutorials.php

TxTechnoGeeksRUs.com

TCEA 2010 Jing

TCEA

Creating Video Tutorials with Jing
fort sam houston school district
Dr. Rios
what is jing
upgrades
image capture
video capture
screencast.com
other freebies
free techsmith program
storage for videos is free

presi.com used to make their presentation – free web based
http://todaysmeet.com/UsingJing online chat during presentation
up to five minutes swf video
save to screencast.com (free account)
for mac and windows
www.jingproject.com
snag pic of screen
record vid of onscreen action
share instantly on web
free 2 gb storage
2 gb monthly bandwidth
click and drag
or select a window
capture image
manip preview
add text
add arrows
boxes, and highlighting
save or copy to clipboard or send to screencast

records audio too
3 sec countdown
record up to five minutes

(follow fshisd on twitter)
pro upgrade lets you go to youtube and itunes own camera and 14.95 a year

screencast pro account 25 gb storage
snagit and camtasia
200 gb or bandwidth – $10 per month or 100 a year

jing sun icon resides on your desktop
options features capture hotkey settings
free format is swf but pro does mpeg4
establish free screencast account
you can use other video there besides jing
sun icon can be hidden and reside in your programs toolbar

click capture button on sun
highlight what you want to capture or video
options on left toolbar -arrows, text, draw box around things, highlight sections,
keeps history on hard drive in jing

video tutorial how to
3 sec countdown then mic turns on
talk and do whatever then click stop
video is created

once on screencast you can grab the html code and embed it on blog or webpage

jing does not resize so set size to smallest
camtasia will resize and fit the window

vid tuts hints
anything where teachers will see desktop – make sure your desktop is clean
www.fshisd.net/blogs/irrios
screencast page (They have a bunch of comic life tuts)

embedded on blog – hits count on your bandwidth
jing pro or camtasia lets you use with a webcam
you can also save to hard drive as flash video
free jing is only five minutes
break information into chunks
online lectures camtasia relay
voice recording will pick up internal mic or you can use headset
tell jing which mic you are going to use

celtx.com  screenwriting
livestream procaster
format factory
dimdim web meetings
edmodo free private social networks for teachers
xtranormal.com – if you can type you can create 3d movies
freeplaymusic.com
presi.com

TCEA 2010 Session 3 Blogging Basics and Beyond

cross posted at PHS Technology

Session 3

blogging basics and beyond
Tammy Worcester
www.tammyworcester.com
walk through on creating a blog on blogger
name, address
check address availability
enter the captcha letters
choose theme or template
can always change it later
continue
blog has been created – you can start blogging
add a post and then you can view the blog

different ways you can post to the blog
you see the tools, pencil and the new post button – only the blog owner sees those
you can remove parts like some of what is on the sidebar.

igoogle – search for blogger
add gadget that allows you to post to blogger right from igoogle

go to customize
you can set up a scheduled post like all your spelling words or a tech tip per week
go to link for email and mobile
ignor send address  (you can have it email people every time you post here)
scroll down to posting options
create “a mail to” email address
you can send a blog post from any email account

can set it up to require word verification and if it should email you when you get a comment and you have to approve it – moderated

some new blogger settings
you can now create pages of static information (up to ten static)

jump break
lets you just show partial posts

vocaroo.com
lets you record your voice, listen and if you are happy with it click post on the internet
you will get some embed code to paste into your blog.

more embeddables:

youtube video
delicious tags
flickr slide shows
issuu upload a pdf and makes an ebook
chat room meebo
polldaddy
voki

teacher ideas
weekly newsletter
sharing student work
spelling lists
teaching tips
a blog of widgets
resources for parents
feedback from parents
lesson plans
absent student info

teacher and student blog ideas
reading response journal
gathering data
photo essays
younger students – post pic of something green for example

Takeaway:

The best “new” information here was that you can now set up the email address in blogger that you want posts emailed to.  If you are using blogger with your class your students will not have to log in to the actual blog.  They just email their posts in.  You then set it to notify you whenever a post comes in and you can moderate what appears in the blog.  Much easier and better control.

TCEA 2010 session 1 Language Arts Activities using Office

cross posted at http://blogs.parisisd.net/dmartin

TCEA session 1
Karen Ferrel
Language Arts Activities using Microsoft Office

Word
1. sentence elaboration
copy and paste
e.g.
The dog ran.
to elaborate – see wherer they started and where they ended up for complete concrete visual of improvement
copy and paste sentence – add an adjective
The spotted dog ran.
How did the dog run?
Swiftly
The spotted dog ran swiftly.
more descriptive what breed?
The spotted dalmation ran swiftly.
The spotted dalmation swiftly trotted.
some language arts skills
teach open word, copy and paste,

Passive Verbs
Find and replace
given a prepared sentence or paragraph
use find and replace to find passive verbs like is
and replace with is but click more
format – replace unhighlighted is with highlighted is
replace is replace all
student can quickly see that they have a lot of is in there
or
vary sentence structure
find The (capital The space) check match case
this highlights all the sentences that start with The
you can change the colors of highlight

Parts of Speech
formatting and or highlighting
prepared paragraph
or their own writing
have them go through and highlight or bold all the verbs or different font
or underline
can use format painter
find all the nouns?
select noun, highlight
double click format painter
it will now stay active
now click off painter and click maybe the verbs
change format and click on format painter

Excel

sentence generator
tools addins box tool pack – click first tow little check boxes

has spread sheet of words click f9 and it generates a new sentence
uses a combination of an if statement
function =if randbetween
www.karenferrell.net
can highlight the list and format font to white so kids don’t see the words
file available online

Access
Madlib
design the sentences
create table
ID student name adjective noun 1 noun 2 adverb past tense verb
add data for each field

she used label wizard type in what sentence might look like
student name
the space adjective space noun space verb to the noun.
it will put them in there for you
detailed instructions online

Powerpoint
drawn objects with text
triggers

click on the ? could be noun?  whatever you want them to click on
create text box, type in sentence, enlarge font
create buttons to tell student if they clicked right or wrong
can create prompts 1n wordart
e.g. try again, you are right, maybe a star that says correct!
if they click anywhere on the sentence besides the noun we want it to say try again
custom animation
add effect to try again
enter, dissolve?
attach animation to (right click timing box comes up click triggers
first everything will be try again
create boxes over nouns for exceptions
make  fill transparent so word will show (and no outline)
add animation effect for correct and again right click timing trigger and choose rectangle number (whatever is correct)

Error eraser
use this for finding an error in a sentence (taks)
(this one is in book – gamewise for Language arts
matching game
booth 935 and 2479
conference price for book 27.00

Short Break

I am packed and ready to leave for Austin tomorrow for TCEA (Texas Computer Education Association) 2010.  I will be posting notes from the sessions here and on my school blog so for my writer friends, if you see the tag TCEA you can skip it.  Hopefully I will get a little time for writing as well.

A Milestone!

Sometime during TCEA I passed the 400 post mark.  It is hard for me to believe that I have found that much to write about but according to WordPress this will be post 406.  It’s kind of appropriate that I would reach this milestone here at a technology conference.  Here is a list of somethings I have learned at this conference (not technology)

1. Photoshop sessions are very popular.  I nearly didn’t get in one that I wanted to see today.

2. Don’t bother going to a session in a room that you want to stay in for the next session.  Volunteers have the dubious pleasure of making you exit and get in line with the rest of the folks ( a pet peeve of mine – immature, I know )

3. Whatever session you want to attend next will be at the opposite end of the conference center than the previous one.

4.  The little freebie backpacks do NOT have padded straps and will move from annoying to painful before the day is over.

5.  Roll around carts are easy to trip over.  I now HATE them.  I can see why they are banned from some conferences.

6.  The slowness of the people in front of you will be in direct proportion to how late you are for the next session you want to attend.

7. Take snacks just in case – nothing at the conference center will be cheap

That is all I have for now.  Tomorrow we will be heading home and after what I hope is a restful weekend it will be back to work.

Using Google Earth to Drive Your Lessons to Victory Lane TCEA09 Notes

Susan Anderson and Jim Holland Arlington isd
http://googleearthlessons.wetpaint.com
www.curriculummagic.com

the students would have two kmz files and a powerpoint
there would already be some basic prerequisite skills
lesson called Lost
geographic labeling of the earth
based on reinforcing that skill
a little on time zones

an alien has landed on earth and really doesn’t know where they are but will give you as the students, clues to help discover their location

this lesson probably targets 4th or 5th grade

TEKS come from grades 2,3 and 5

technical difficulties – they are trying to get to google earth

they have folded cards with abcd and yes, no, false, true for the “student” participants to hold up to answer questions (this would be great with writeon wipe off boards too

Asking geography questions as students hold up answer cards about hemisphere and latitude, longitude

Showing Australia – this country is not A continent, B Country, C island, D isthmus
Teacher asks why this place is not

What line of longitude is opposite of the international dateline a equator, b rime meridian, c tropic of cancer, and d tropic of capricorn

when it is summer in the western hemisphere, it is winter in the eastern hemisphere true/false

In order to navigate around the earth I can grab it with the hand or double click on the earth and it will turn. zoom in, push it around with the hand, use the rotaion
can turn off automatic tilt while zooming if you like

version 5 released Sunday

to add a placemark
click on pushpin choose add placemark
give it a name and type info into description
now if you click on the placemark the info in the description will be displayed
you can change the icon from the yellow placemark
right click on placemark to edit it choose properties
add custom icons – any jpg pr gif
right click and save place as
native extension is kmz so it will be whatever name you gave it.kmz
kmz files are very small so easy to share

all about me in the handout is a great way to intro google earth

a teaching tip with google earth – have students turn their mouse upside down (it’s hard to sneak quietly

around the world are placemarks – many with question marks

eliminate placemarks that do not have alien clues
rightclick and turn off
so now only placemarks you need to see will be displayed

Lost has a list of cities in one column and the other column is for students to write why that city was eliminated

eg if a clue said it’s a place where penguins live then you might want to eliminate Mexico city

first one done together for guided practice

first slide
students will double click on the Lost kmz file which will automatically launch google earth for you

Hi my name is Nan I’m from the planet ning I think I’m lost can you help. I’ve got a few clues to help – I am not on an island

you can password protect a ppt file
save, choose where and under tools on 07 and 03 – choose general options on 07 security options makes you enter a password
his would be useful for a ppt you want students to use so they couldn’t modify it
password can be needed to open or just to modify

can go to view menu and choose grid to see the gridlines

online tools available on their wiki
online stopwatch – you can give students specific amount of time for an activity
www.online-stopwatch.com
can be embedded into a blog or wiki

ctrl mouse properties
pointer options
show location of mouse pointer when I press the control key

also on the wiki is the random name picker (or random vocab word
classtools
random name/word picker

kml files – things like timezones can be contained in kml files
you can turn on and turn off some of these overlays if you only want it on long enough to do a task
some of the overlays make it hard to see anything else.

At this point I had to move on to the next session but most of what you would need is on their wiki

Web 2.0 Panel – What’s Next TCEA09 Notes

So far this has been disappointing.  I even verbalized the question (that is actually the TITLE of the session) and no one is going there.  My question was, if it takes us a certain amount of time in education to move from the point of learning the mechanics of something new in technology primarily because we are being required to, to the point of it being second nature and totally infused in teaching – and if we are in transition with this Web 2.0 stuff; by the time it has actually become a total buy in, the technology will have moved on.  It’s fluid.  What will the technology look like at that point?  I was hoping the panel had some idea of where is was going.

So far it has mainly been explaining what it IS repeatedly, in more than one way, but still – a definition.

Some people have done the expected griping because they have so much blocked in their district.  One panel member is Bradley Kessler – Whyville.  He is knowledeable but also he is selling the concept of whyville (not in terms of money because it is free – though maybe he is angling for it to be officially adopted by school systems) which is not objectionable in itself.  It just isn’t what the title of the session makes you think it will be.

Patricia Schnee, Lead Trainer and Curriculum Coordinator, University of Texas Professional Development Center is also very knowledgeable and seems to be very forward thinking but is mainly concerned with how all this relates to business and employment.

How do we teach kids to be prepared for a world that doesn’t yet exist is my question.

Here are my notes – sorry for the editorial.

Web20panelwheredowegofromhere
patricai schnee
research – looking at web 2.0 in terms of what it means in the corporate world
bradleykessler
whyville put it in the classroom?
kids want a place – they want to create the structure
avatar based virtual world
using a pick your nose faciltiy in whyville make your own face
a week after launch they had a message from a kid that said their face parts were dumb
now there is a place where kids make the face parts and sell them
they run companies where they have employees who do marketing, graphic design – all around creating faceparts

Bill Jule? Jason Project
marco polo

patricia stats
confucious center
367 million are under the age of 18 – larger than pop of us
200 million student s between the age of 14 and 25
our tech and engineering superiority is in jeopardy
define web 2.0?
definition kessler
web 1 was largely a push operation = taking media and putting it on the web and pushing it to the users
web 2.0 is pull – rather that standing up in front of a classroom and pushing info – actually understanding classroom management and engaging students in such a way that they are pulling the info to them – teacheres now also managers, directors
learning styles change on evolution scale not generation scale
we finally have a tech device that will let us better match our learning process that we run as humans, because we can handle 2 prob – scalabiltiy – small group can influence large group
engagement
social piece – they can socialize, interact, create their own structures and media

audience – trying to get Spore integrated into curriculum – what is panel opinion of this progression

What about web 3.0 – by the time school adopt new technology the technolgy has usually moved on – where do you see us moving on to?

merck had some chemical probs and put it online 7% of the solutions came from people who didn’t have degrees – some from out of the country
now merck is disguising the problems so that they will be intriguing but not know what the whole problem is (gave too much info to competitors)

to teach science you need to be a process expert, not content expert

web 1.0 content – web 2.0 process
companies (media and textbook) have a problem with this because they are content pushers

printing press and university structure last major changes
that’s all that has been available

Gatekeeper, Tear Down Those Walls! TCEA09 Notes

Mr. Gatekeeper, Tear Down Those Walls!
Mary Bell
Sam Houston State University
http://forwhomthebelltold.pbwiki.com/
filtering
librarians and tech specialists need to be working together
Introduced Nancy Pearl librarian action filter
the original person one book one city
has amazing shush ability
cipa
children should be protected from pornography
does not say we should have any reflection of political views
or that students should be denied the right to search independently
high interest like games and sports – cipa does not say block or shopping
does not say teachers should be blocked from things administrators might not want them to do
passing the law was contingent upon ready and simple override capability

Survey using listserves and twitter
over 400 participates broken down by states
79 % understand web 2.0
aware of web 2.0 resources being used 59%
satisfied with access to internet and web 2.0 39%
some of the problems people comments about were bandwidth issues

Block using specific word lists
true 73%

reasons for blocking and filtering
student safety 81%
ebsco and other databases somethings blocked true 28%
filters apply equally to all levels true (and teachers
Who can override – IT most common answer
Reading blogs at school – 52% but the people who don’t know number has grown
create and particpate in blogs 38%
students and faculty having access to wikis
encouraged to use wikis 39%
access to social bookmarking 31%
access to wikipedia 97%
students are often discouraged even though they have access
google docs 63%  don’t know 36%
Blocked search tools – images
youtube not blocked 52%
Course management systems 38% used
students have access to email
access to second life at school
access to educational game sites allowed
acceptable use policy up to date and addresses web 2.0
true 27% false 49% no idea 24%
district admin are tech savvy and encourage tech and web 2.0
trues 31%
http://hweimar.wikispaces.com
http://forwhomthebelltold.pbwiki.com/

Addendum

Mary Bell was king enough to send me a link to information about CIPA so if you are interested in finding out more about what this law says you will find what you need here:

http://www.ala.org/aaslTemplate.cfm?Section=cipaandschoollib

Race Into Production TCEA09 Notes

Race Into Production
Jodi Andoe and Abby Rogers PISD
http://t4.jordandistirct.org/payattention
www whatever whenever wherever
teachers moving from dog and pony show to full fledged three ring circus with the teacher – not as the main act, but as the ringmaster
kids love to be center stage
ipods cameras phones
friend or foe?
combining what students have and what teachers have and making it work in the classroom
combine student interests and content for curriculum
provide students with info on available tools for multimedia
student engagement
reflection for deep learning
project based learning
effective integration of technology into instruction
differentiated instruction
centers, tiered lesson plans
advances photography and multimedia all the way down to basic ppt
works with all levels
critical thinking skills
technology TEKS
engages students
their minds wrapped around out content in a way they want to think about it
improved test scores
letting the students touch the learning
gather ideas – don’t re-invent the wheel
take tried and true projects and add a multimedia option to it
determine student needs and find their resources and skills
set timetable for completion
gather resources and hardware
what do you get when you mix CSCOPE Performance indicator’
students had a psp player, iPod, science closet, audacity, photostory movie maker and wax – made a rap video on global warming

used rubric that was in cscope and applied to multimedia project
what is the concept you want them to learn
rubric attributes
point of view
content
resources
curriculum alignment
organization
student cooperation
camera and images
titles and credits
sound
language
pacing and narrative
transitions and effects

make sure criteria is set beforehand and use the ribric
should be expressed in terms of observable product characteristics
scoring rubrics should be written in specific and clear language
statement of criteria must be fair and free from bias

green screen – green sheet from walmart taped to classroom wall
let kids teach you

audacity, wax 2.0 blender freeplaymusic photostory animoto
wax works with moviemaker and others
freeplaymusic – if burned to dvd becomes a copyright issue
animoto free 30 second video creation – can subscribe 19.00 year and get longer time and more options
handout includes cheatsheet of useful web 2.0 sites and free or opensource software

handouts will be available later on the TCEA site – I will post the link when it becomes available

Ten Photoshop Lessons TCEA09 Notes

10 Fun Photoshop lessons
cs3 used
Daniel O’Kilen
http://divshare.com/download/6467229-584
all lessons handouts on website
create a miniature environment

lesson plan
TEKS objectives step by step procedure and extension lessons

rubrik contains list of tools student learned during that assignment – final product does not have to look like the teachers
10 lessons
creating miniature environment
taking ordinary photograph and use gradient tool and selection creation and quickmask to choose central portion of image
use lens blur, inverted, hue and saturation, tweaking colors makes it look like made out of plastic
His example was taj mahal but students can find their own image

winterizing an image
take photo and using quickmask – creating selection from it – selected grass in photo and manipulated hue and saturation, channel and lighten in channel mixer to create snow-like effect

creating a silhouette vase
start with profile photo quickmask select duplicate and flip – makes a vase effect
tweak pattern, shadow

Building a photo montage
take photo and use pattern to fill the image
select out part of image to use, crop using width and height settings
using other photos make tiny thumbnail – create pattern, adjust and desaturate to use colors from original image to make a fill
apply to original photo as overlay or softlight

Creating Old Movie Effect
can create animation in photoshop
using old photo, apply grain filter, stretched out vertically
create several layers using different grains to get different line patterns
in animation you use the frames you created
animation timeline
can clone out a person adn clone stamp character back in to make it look like character is walking across the screen
creates avi or gif

Creating a Planet
longer lesson
using satellite photo
select part, sphere it
emboss gives more texture
apply vivid light blending mode
create clouds, difference clouds
using brush, paint shadow on planet
inner glow for atmosphere reflection
place on starfield background

Colorize Black and White Photo
Selection and lasso tools
Magic Wand and quickmask
point of lesson was the three main ways to select
magic wand used for areas with strong contrast – learn about tolerance settings
fine tune selection with lasso – excellent detail work practice
magnetic lasso tool
drag color slider to get colors you want
can use same process to colorize a part of a photo for emphasis

Creating a Stone Texture From Nothing
render some clouds, add noise
work with channels
add fade
lighting effects
tweak brightness and contrast, then students learn to create a layer and emboss to carve their name into the rock

Creating an Underwater City
Use photo of a city
Covers most of the tools including paths with pen tool
use pen tool to select sky
edit gradient tool to make sky look like water – add hue and saturation, noise, particulate matter
took brush and added moss and plants on buildings
use smudge tool to add plants to the roof
they create a fish brush from photo to add fish to the image
add white lines and blur to make some ripples
grass brush to make seaweed – use flipping layers and warp tool
Shear tool
make bubbles, zoom in to add bubbles, make bubble, add shark from photo

Creating an alien
using photo of person
select circle, bloat
distorts the face
use pucker tool
bloat eyes
warp tool – liquify window
drag parts of face around
select using quickmask – edit hue and sat to turn him green
select eyes – up contrast, down brightness
marquis tool and shear to make a tail