Small Changes; BIG RETURNS

Business first: let me introduce you to Adam.

(click the pic)

I have been looking for a way to embed Teacher's Domain videos into Earth Science course materials and they have actually offered to write the embed code for me!!!!! It might actually work. I’ll be trying this over the holidays. I think these guys may be from my global neighbourhood because there's a reference to Vancouver Island. I'm wondering if one could integrate Glogster posters with Adam's pop-up functions? It might make a nice mash-up. (Is that today's euphemism for 'marriage'?)

(click the pic)

If you have Freepath installed, there's been an update to some of the features. You can click the picture below for 4 short information videos or sign into myFreepath import the playlist entitled Freepath December Update which is on the main page. These links can also be found in my profile at the right.

What I really like is that Dave is working on ways to mash different free applications together with Freepath which will make me less dependent on online streaming. That's a real problem at our school where we suffer from strangulation by limited bandwidth. I need resources I can store on thumbdrives so I can avoid the internet altogether when the computers are sluggish and non-responsive. (Hmmmm . . . that sounds like many of our students especially after a weekend or a holiday . . . )

What I have to do this weekend:

(1)  finish a video Christmas Card of the students to be shown at the school's annual Christmas Dinner on Monday night

(2) get enough of my new "fossils no more -- surrey's 23 things" blog finished so that I can issue an invitation to Surrey staff to work on the program with me starting in January

(3) write proposals for 2 different conferences: Learn BC which is for the e-learning world and our own STA convention day

(4) figure out who might want my services enough o give me a contract!!! I want to buy some new equipment -- a flip camera, a tablet, and possible a new computer -- and would love to be able to write them off against income!!!

What I'd like to be doing this weekend:

(1) buying a new flip cam -- but that will have to wait until Boxing Day just in case Best Buy puts them on sale

(2) working on a Voicethread for Christmas

(3) taking Thelma, the wonder dog, for a walk at the dike at Boundary Bay to watch the sandpipers dip and flash as they swoop by and to see if the snowy owls are back

(4) watcing the Geminid meteor shower

I was supposed to be snowbound this weekend which would have made the first list much easier to 'plough' through. Instead it has cleared and I have been shooting pictures this morning from my ice-coated deck.  A full moon is setting into the trees in the northwest. Due north across about 30km across the Lower Mainland and the Fraser Valley are the pink, dawn-lit Coast Mountains fully laden with snow after yesterday's high elevation dump (I had rain!). My computer faces southeast where the sun has just cleared the cloud tops and is hitting me full in the eyes as I work.

In the spirit of Canadian Christmas, I offer 4 links:
(a) a haunting First Nations version of Canada's Huron Carol written by Jean Brébeuf a Jesuit priest who worked with various tribes in Canada in the 1600's; (b) a page written about the song and the priest; (c) an account of Brébeuf's time in Canada which reads just like the 'history of heroism' I was taught as a kid in Winnipeg, Manitoba (late 1950' & early 1960's). Written on 'History's Homepage' by an organization called AmericanHeritage.com, this is a terribly skewed version of events, but it offers enough geographical references than one can follow the progress of the priest's voyage from France all the way to where the Huron settlement would have been on what we now call Georgian Bay close to Point A on (d) this map.

CANADIAN CHRISTMAS GALLERY

(1 & 2)  Illustrations of the Huron Carol

(3,4,5) Lake Huron in winter -- not far from the location of the native settlement Brébeuf visited

(6,7,8) South Coast Christmas images: *Raven eating the Sun (our school's spirit image is the raven);  *Blue heron carrying the sun across the sky (see how low in the sky the sun is, and herons are a common sight here in the winter);  *Santa riding Rudolf over a mountain that reminds me of the glacier covered peak of Mount Baker

ONE WEEK TO GO!!!!

[UPDATE: I had to repost this blog entry because the first one had too many non-working parts. Thanks to the patience of Sachin and Gary, the 2 fellows behind the scenes at Posterous, I have finally discovered that I was making a very simple process complicated and broken. In the meantime the clouds and snow and gusty cold winds have come to my area so there will be no meteor shower viewing for me.]

Filed under  //   Adam   Brebeuf   Christmas   Freepath   Geminids   Huron Carol   meteor shower   myFreepath  

Some questions are coming up about how to download materials from the bigreturns group collection of educational resources in myFreepath so I thought I'd write up some instructions to help clarify matters.  In Freepath, foldersof resources are known as 'playlists' and the individual frames in any playlist are called 'cues'.

First you have to register with Freepath and download the program from the website. If you're using XP, you'll need to also install Microsoft .NET Framework 3.0 or higher. There is a link on the FP site. If you're a Mac person, you'll have to work on the Windows side to use Freepath and access these files.

Once you have done that and have this Freepath 2.0 Beta icon on your desktop (the sea anemone is part of my new desktop background!),

you will have to register with myFreepath. Please try to use an easily identifiable screen name. At last count there were several Patricia's, Julie's, Bob's, and John's in the members list. Take a moment to put a little information into your profile --eg. city and country, what you teach and which grades, what you might be using Freepath for. It will help me know who has joined the group and what your particular interests are.

You can now join the the bigreturns group in myFreepath.

There you will find 5 playlists: 2 with Ocean Resources from NOAA loaded by Lou at FP, and 3 provided by my workshop partner, Debra, and me.

Click this box 

  beside the playlsit that most interests you. They don't have online viewing yet, so you will have to download the file. A download notice of some sort will appear

When prompted to either 'Open' or 'Save' the playlist, select OPEN. When the download has finished, the playlist title should appear in your Library list after you open FP. When you close FP, the all the playlists in the Library are maintained. If you want to save a copy of any individual playlist to an external hard drive or thumbdrive, use the Export function in the File menu.

If you happened to use 'Save' instead of 'Open' at the beginning of this process, a copy of the individual playlist will come up on your desktop. If you click that, it will open FP and should add the list to your Library.

To view a playlist, single click on the one you want in the Library list and the cues will fill with the files that have been stored there. The cues take up the middle window, and there is a small prep screen on the far right. Double click on any of the cues and that screen will fill. If you want to view all the cues in order, use the arrows at the top of the prep screen.

If you click a PowerPoint an additional panel comes up to show you all the slides in that presentation. (Your screen may go to gray for a moment.) Use the arrows at the top of that panel to click your way through the slides. 

There are 3 ways to view FP playlists:

(1) prep screen (shown above) which is where you are taken automatically

(2) full screen with control arrows and screen options at the bottom

(3) dual display if you have your projector hooked up or have 2 monitors on your computer like I do.

If you have any technical issues or questions, I'll be happy to try to help. You can reach me through the email link shown in my blog, or by leaving messages for me at myFreepath.  However, your best bet might be to contact Lou and Dave, the FP people directly. Both are members of the bigreturns group so you can send them messages by clicking their names in the group list. This will bring up their profile page and you can use the 'Send Message' link.

Please tell them "Sue sent you" and where you saw our presentation or heard about Freepath (which will help me a bit). They are very good at getting back to people quickly, where it might take me a few days to respond. I work a 1.25 contract each week, so my school days are packed, and it can take me a while to get to myFreepath business.

Enjoy the files we've posted, and try one of your own. My suggestion is to keep your playlists on the short side (1 or 2 lessons rather than a whole unit) if you're going to upload to my FP. Bulky playlists can take a while to upload.

You get 100MB of your own space free, but if you are willing to share with others in the bigreturns group, we have loads more. You don't have to save online, but it's a nice way to share with colleagues and students who have Freepath on their computers.

I look forward to seeing new members in the bigreturns group. My hope is that it will turn into a learning community of people interested in incorporating new tools and resources into old lessons as a way to give them a makeover and then will share their ideas and experiences with this group.

QUESTION:  I want to upload the Peace video I made of the students' Powerpoint for Peace projects to YouTube, but I'm afraid that when I compress it, the quality will suffer. Their images already took a hit when I had to convert twice so I could get a format that Adobe Premier Elements would 'read'. Any suggestions? Please help!

 

Filed under  //   big returns   bigreturns group   Freepath   myFreepath   playlists   teaching resources  

I have set up 3 playlists for the bigreturns group (just my profile is available here as of tonight)  at myFreepath . When you download Freepath and sign up for myFP at the same time, ask to be invited to my group and you'll be able to see a comprehensive tools list (with homepages and student work if we've used them already); a sample unit in Social Studies 10 showing how leading edge tools can be integrated, and a general pot of other stuff I thought would be of interest to people at the conference.

QUESTION: What are your beliefs about of the integration of new tools into your work in the classroom?

In our Learning Centre all students work individually on a variety of subjects in a large classroom area. Debra and I share this large storefront-type open room with all the distractions of two different classes going on simultaneously.

When there are fewer than 10 kids in our groups, keeping the kids on task is fairly straight forward.  However, we both can have upwards of 17-20 on our lists. Debra tends to get a younger group -- mostly grade 10’s -- many of whom have been recently ejected by their mainstream schools because they are difficult to manage. I teach math and science -- the 2 subjects that students find the most difficult to work on without constant help.

When our kids can’t work independently, we turn to better-crafted instructional packages to keep them interested and engaged.  It’s a matter of day-to-day survival for us. Therefore, we believe that keeping the students engaged, on task, and working independently requires us to put enough actual instruction into the packages so that they can understand the concepts without continual teacher input. This way they’ll be interested in and capable of working on their own for longer periods.

“Why everything old is new again, but better” (borrowed from Caroline Gray; see references below) is the banner we’re working under. We have no time or interest really in throwing out everything we’ve always done and starting over -- not after the more than 30 years it took to get good at what we do!

What really interests us is that there are a lot of smart young people out there developing easy-to-use tools to make tech-challenged people like us look good.  With such tools we can get students to perform tasks on the computer that we’ve always had them do by hand -- draw idea diagrams, work out time lines, collect research, make posters, build bibliographies, work through lesson packages. These tools enable our kids to produce work they can be proud of and that they can share with the world.  Such tools eliminate a lot of the struggle they used to endure to get the job done.  They can concentrate on the message rather than on the construction.

We want students to unplug their headphones, logoff Facebook, and get out of MySpace for a while. As shown in the affective domain model diagram above, no learning can occur until students are (a) receiving us and (b) have a willingness to give us their attention. We want students to give more of their 'brainspace' to schoolwork -- not just the bit left unfilled by loud music and text messaging. However, the 2 pre-requisites for engagement in learning -- i.e. receiving and willingness to pay attention -- are seldom elicited by our just insisting that the students turn off their devices when they pass through our doors.

To take them where we want them to go, teachers have to start from where they are -- but not just in the academic sense.

Students learn more from teachers they know care enough to forge a connection. We need to be willing to make ourselves vulnerable by taking some steps into their technological world and then guide them confidently into our world from a place at their side.

You must have flash to see this embedded document.

Filed under  //   blended learning   Bloom   Caroline Gray   enhance learning   Freepath   ILC 2008   model of engagement   myFreepath   San Jose   tools   using technology  

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:

 

    Grou.ps  -- where I can create a community site by choosing the modules I want -- it sounds a bit like Squidoo but with interactive capabilities.

 

   Offers me microblogging for education -- my students & I can share notes, links, and files to foster communication inside and outside of the classroom.

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? 

Filed under  //   Angela Maiers   Art Zone   Edmodo   Freepath   Glogster   Grou.ps   ILC 2008   Interesting Quotes   Jam Studio   myFreepath   San Jose   shareski   Studio4Learning   weather   Webinspiration