A Measure of Success

It's the first day of summer vacation! Ahhh! It feels good to have a bit more time on my hands. I still have work on my online courses, but no big deadlines around the corner and no 1st graders to meet at 10:45 each day.

With a great deal of cooperation from my fellow teachers I was able to complete a small piece of both my 1st grade and 3rd grade projects.

3rd Grade Wiki
Ms. W's class, the chatty bunch struck silent by the introduction of the Wiki, were the farthest ahead and were able to publish some answers to their key questions in the Wiki. Next time I will have them compose in Word and then copy and paste into the Wiki. We lost a lot of time waiting for the Wiki to be available to edit. There was one student who was so excited about the Wiki that she came to talk to me outside class about how I set it up. Made my day!

1st Grade Publishing
Ms. J is a very tech savvy teacher and very accommodating. So I asked her if I could work with her students outside of their regular computer time. I learned from a second grader how to make recordings directly in KidPix. So we made a KidPix slideshow out of it. It didn't turn out as polished as I would have liked, but the kids were thrilled to see their work! Ms. J brought them to the lab to see it on the last day of school and she is planning to create a slideshow next year.

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Joselyn Todd - Web 2.0 Classroom

Web 2.0 Let’s Make Learning a Group Effort

Joselyn Todd
Sam Morris

Nice to see specific classroom application of technology. Gave me opportunity to think of ways to implement in my classroom. Practical implementation of Warlick philosophy.

http://cagroupeffort.pbwiki.com PW: group

Asked a participant to take notes and post them to the wiki (This is an example of what Alan November suggested in his session later in the day.)

Applications that are Web-centric

• GoogleDocs
• Amazon
• CNN – commentary on CNN reporters

The long tail

http://www.judybrown.com/tools.html

http://www.go2web20.net/

web 2.0 awards

Wiki has replaced PowerPoint in Joselyn's class

wikipedia – 9 million pages in 6 years

Ø What if I had the students put their presentations re: pilgrims onto a wiki instead of presenting to the class? Then their parents could see the results and it would be stored for future reference.

Can document who did what in the Wiki history.

Suggestion from the audience – assign a color to each student so you can easily see who contributed.

Joselyn’s wiki about robotics.

Wiki hosts
wetpaint
pbwiki
wikispaces

Let students develop content. Have students develop content about their interests related to the subject area.

Wikis can be moderated.

Blog vs wiki -the most powerful person on a wiki is the LAST person on the wiki. Everyone is on an equal playing field. On blog there is one person who has a higher status. All the others respond to the author.

anne.teachsme.com blogs re: blogging

jmccullers.edublogs.org 3^rd grade

wordpress – students don’t need an email account to create a wordpress blog, can host on your own server and make it available only within the WAN

have students create a screencast to teach each other things.

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Are You Up to the Challenge?

It is June. There are two days left of school. You have a classroom full of 12 and 13 year olds. Can you get them to beg for more time in science class?

Joselyn Todd can.

Students arrive, get their assignment from the class blog and go to work on their tablet PCs. Each of the five team has a Lego NXT robot to program. The students quickly assign themselves tasks - wiki documenter, programmer, photographer, robot assembler. The classroom buzzes with excited chat about 45 degree turns, touch sensors, and measurements. "Do you want some music?" Ms. Todd asks. The majority of the students raise their hands so Ms. Todd launches a playlist in iTunes on her tablet.

As the class period ticks away students dash from their tables to the obstacle course for each new trial with their robots, 80's music beating in the background. The din quiets for one group to create video documentation of their programming efforts, then quickly restarts. Ms. Todd oversees the whole scene encouraging one reluctant student to be more involved with her group, cheering on successful attempts and offering advice when robots wander off the course.

When she announces that it is time to pack away the robots one team begs, "Please can we try just one more time." "Okay," replies Ms. Todd "but I am not giving out late passes."

What a way to end the year!

You can visit their wiki and see the student work first hand. Team 4B has a video interview from the obstacle course challenge.

Dear Secretary Spellings

The US Secretary of Education, Margaret Spellings, is asking for your input on the role of technology in education. I have chosen to focus my comments (at least my first contribution) on the area of Web 2.0 and global competition. Let the Secretary hear from you too, by clicking here.

In what ways can technology help us prepare our children for global competition and reach our goals of eliminating achievement gaps and having all students read and do math on grade level by 2014?

Dear Secretary Spellings,

I believe that technology in the hands of innovative teachers uniquely addresses global competition in education. Web 2.0 technology such as blogs, wikis, and moderated social networks can expose students to global content in an authentic way. Here is one example, The Flat Classroom Project.

In international online projects, American students interact with students and teachers from other parts of the world. They learn about cultural differences and similarities. They share content learning between the two groups and make it relevant to their personal experience. Teachers see first hand the differences in education between the United States and other nations, giving them the opportunity to adapt their own practice. Educational leaders at the local, state, and national level must highlight best practices in the area of global connectedness to encourage innovation.

Sincerely,

Laura B. Fogle

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MEGA Showcase

The MEGA showcase happens every spring. It features innovative technology project from schools across the piedmont of North Carolina. It is like a free mini conference and also features an impressive keynote speaker (more on the speaker in another post).

The highlights of what I saw at yesterday's showcase:

Wikis

• Middle school students are collecting data about blue birds using boxes on the school property and posting them to a wiki. West Lee Middle School, Lee County Schools
  

• Fourth grade students using wikis to write for a large audience in language arts from W G Pearson, Durham Public Schools

Podcasting/Vodcasting

• Middle school students podcast interviews with family members about their experience with heart disease and/or high blood pressure. The teacher, Joselyn Todd, also creates vodcasts with the students describing why they chose that particular family member. Cary Academy

Multimedia

• 1st through fifth graders writing their own books based on a particular author's style. Then creating illustrations for their books using Scholastic Keys. Finally the illusltration s are put together using MovieMaker and the student records a narration. This is awesome and could be done easily in almost any classroom! Olive Chapel Elementary School Wake County Schools
• EC middle school teacher video conferencing with pre-service teachers at NC State West Lee Middle School, Lee County Schools
• Elementary math teacher and her student creating math raps. They got a grant to buy a special software to make their videos very professional with animated backgrouds, etc. Some of them are posted on TeacherTube. Deep River Elementary School, Lee County schools
  
• Elementary students using a virtual environment where they create their own avatar. Quest Atlantis is the program and is tied to the Standard Course of Study. Williford Elementary School, Nash-Rocky Mount Schools
  

Wow! Great work going on!

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