Long time; no blog . . .
So I have been offline for a few days -- not away from the computer, just not 'taking calls'. I had to get a unit on Weather ready for a student who is progressing through Earth Science 11 faster than I can produce good stuff for him. Given the pressure of 1.25 jobs, temporarily living without my partner (he's in Edmonton working on a job that's bringing in nearly $2000 a week!), and getting ready for ILC 2008 in San Jose, I have had to ignore the pile of e-mails, subscriptions, and posts from various groups I've joined that I knew was collecting in my various email boxes in order to put my fingers to the keyboard and churn out engaging material about everyone's favourite topic.
Braving the weather makes us strong. Talking about the weather gives us something in common. When I lived in a different city from my family, my Dad used to call me long distance and we would chat about the weather. When they're done, my students should know what makes the wind blow, what kind a front brings the kind of wind that is threatening to topple the over-heavy trees in my yard as I write, and how the rain forms. When their own kids ask "Why is the sky blue, Daddy?" if they can't recall the answer, they should be able to look it up with their kids and understand the explanation. If they catch from me a sense of how interesting the science of weather can be and look at the world with a little more understanding, I'll retire happy.
All my students work on individual learning packages, and even in this high pressure week, I didn't have the heart to hand out the 'copy-memorize-dump out on the test' stuff that makes up most of the learning packages that we use. Weather I had to rewrite! I finished it a few hours ago, and then let the deluge of emails flow out of the ether & onto my desktop. It was kind of like watching the scene in Miracle on 34th Street when the bags of letters to Santa are dumped out on the judge's bench. The most important items -- mostly education blogs and lists about tools and interesting initiatives -- have been sorted and filed. Family and friends have been replied to. The rest can wait.
In the meantime, the most interesting tools I came across today are listed below. Remember to click the pics.
GLOGSTER wants us to 'poster ourselves' -- a 'dumb' slogan but a great looking result.
Free video help for homework and test prep -- even for math -- but nothing on weather (boohoo!). Some of these videos are a little young for my 15-17 year olds, but they're worth a look.
WEBINSIPIRATION is a visual thinking tool that makes it easy to collaborate on and share documents by inviting others to contribute, post comments, and view changes.
For the budding composers in my class and new users can sign up free -- the drawback is that you have to subscribe ($$) to get a fully functioning version.
THE ART ZONE -- interactive art that you can make online from the National Gallery of Art
I'm looking for a new way to communicate with my students -- especially when I have to be away from school or when I have new tools to share -- so I'm considering 2 possibilities:
I want to thank shareski for his Interesting Quotes series in Flickr. I have to say I really don't get Twitter. I can't imagine (a) having the time or (b) really caring enough to wonder what strangers are doing 24/7, but this poster and Angela Maiers' blogpost on the subject have me curious -- which is a big step. Twitter's in my November 'to do' lineup.
Last spring when I was first looking for free, downloadable software that I could use to build interesting learning packages for the kids, I came across Freepath -- a multimedia packaging tool. I can collect all the materials I use -- text files, PDF's, videos, sound files, and Powerpoints, and more -- and sequence them in a single playlist for a lesson or a presentation. I managed to get my school district to allow my school to download Freepath to the our computer on a trial basis -- and now I'm in the process of working out how I can take the last step away from textbook-based learning into developing learning packages that will look something like this.
By storing my playlist files online at myFreepath, I can make them available to the students who will be able to download them at home or bring their thumbdrives to school to be loaded. I'll be able to invite other teachers to share my files and collaborate to improve them or build new ones.
When I sign off here, I have to work on a list of questions sent by Dave of myFreepath. The list reads a little like the final exams I took back when I was in 'teacher training' some 35 years ago. Many years ago a friend and co-department member at the time, Nancy Demwell, told me that she believed all teachers ought to be able to articulate the fundamental principles upon which their work was built. Few of us ever have to unless we're interviewing for a new job or want to move up the ladder into administration.
I think Nancy felt teachers fell into 2 groups: those whose work is infused with a well-articulated vision and those who fly by the seat of their pants. The latter will certainly keep up with content requirements, familiarize themselves with new trends, and discipline as they saw fit at the time, but their work lacks a greater coherence and meaning and has little lasting impact on the lives of their students. She believed that answers to questions such as "Why are you a teacher?" reveal a lot about whether the individual was a deeper thinker or "was good with people and wanted to good things for kids" -- a vague kind of response she thought was particularly flakey.
So with Nancy on my mind, I am going to tackle Dave's questions. It's an interesting exercise especially given that I'm a year or 18 months at most away from retirement. I suspect with all this new passion for my work bubbling up again, my colleagues may be taking bets on whether I'll really going to leave or not.
Take a look at these and see what you come up with. Please send me your responses.
QUESTIONS (courtesy Dave at myFreepath & edited a little by me):
(1) What is the core of your perception of the integration of new tools into the classroom?
(2) How do you balance the need for "leading edge" tools with the normal time requirements of your program?
(3) In your blog, you discuss the idea of 'blended learning'; what does this teaching model look like?
(4) How do you see social media impacting students in the 21st century? How does it impact teachers and where do you see the intersection?
(5) How might Freepath fit into your classroom?
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