Ed Tech: The Blog

GaETC Final Thoughts

The conference was it's usual high quality.  The network was much more robust this year (thank you!!!!) and I had no problem connecting in any session.  The loss of Andy Carvin as a speaker left quite a hole in the program, but it couldn't be helped.  I missed David Warlick.  He's someone I hope he is brought back next year, along with Andy Carvin.  Will Richardson's sessions were the highlight for me.  I think that the people who listened really got him, which I expect they did, from listening to comments.  I hope they don't get filtered or blocked from utilizing some of the collaborative pieces he talked about by their network admins.

Hope my posts have been helpful to you!

Digital Camera Activities for the K-5 Classroom

Elementary teachers, this one is for you!  What a great presentation!  Her resources are terrific:
http://www.rockdale.k12.ga.us/personal/mholbrook/dig_photos/default.aspx

There are tons and tons of project ideas, as well as resources to do them.

One of her points was that you don't have to have a camera- search for images for them to use.  Her biggest point was that creating projects with digital camera's beats the heck out of those same old worksheets!  I'd imagine the kids feel the same way.

A Web of Connections: Why the Read/Write Web Changes Everything

Yes, I'm back visiting with Will Richardson.  He really gets all the aspects of social networking.  We did a quick visit with MySpace, which was enlightening.  He feels that knowledge is not hard, it's soft!  Wikipedia is a great example.  Think Wikipedia is not as accurate as Britannica?  Which one do you think has the correct number of planets at this moment?  Shouldn't knowledge be edited as it changes?  Will thinks we should be editors of knowledge, not just readers.  Being a reader is not just enough!

He shared several sites:  The Martin Luther Kind site done by Storm Front, the site to ban DHMO, and the site to save the NorthWestern Tree Octopus.

If you haven't looked at these, do a search, and take a critical look at them.

He talked about Google bombing;  people posting a set of links on a topic to make it's ranking rise in Google.  He also mentioned politicians editing each others Wikipedia entries.

Point being, learning is messy.  These technologies are also messy.  Eventually it'll clean up.

His blog on the Secret Life of Bees created quite the stir.  It was #1 on Google when you searched for the book.  He also had a parent book study.  Parents commented that this was the first time they had anything in common with their kids to talk about from school.

The possibility of using a blog to connect our kids with teachers who can go far beyond what we can do ourselves in our classroom.  (Imagine a book author commenting on your students posts on their book.)

A note for science teachers:  scienceblogs.com

Get Plugged in- Music Technology

Music Teachers, this one is for you.  Gincy Moon, from Rockdale County, told us about technology in music.  Here are some resource she mentioned:

1. http://www.finalemusic.com/notepad/
2. There is a music font apparently available for download
3. Music Education Technology Magazine
4. New York Philharmonic
5. dsokids.org
6. pbs has a nice jazz link
7. Music Ace, for students using recorders
8. Midisaurus
9. Super Dooper Music Looper
10. MicroMemo microphone for video iPod
11. pod util for restoring music from an iPod to a crashed computer

She shared with us a MIKI keyboard:  Creative Prodikey.

She uses an LCD in her classroom many different ways.  One way is using BoomWhackers with notes in different colors corresponding to their BoomWhacker color.

Digital photography is also a bit part of her classroom.  She combines it with music into stories.  Imagine doing that very easily in iPhoto!

One special resource mentioned was CDBaby.com.  It'll make 5 CD's, send them to you, & be available for online order.

Her resources are at:  http://www.rockdale.k12.ga.us/personal/vmoon/workshop

She promised she would keep adding to them.

Will Richardson and blogs

His links are at:  http://weblogged.wikispaces.com/Weblogs+in+Schools

Will is talking about the connections that blogs allow us to make.  One issue for us in ed is that there is not hard research showing the effects of any of the web 2.0 tools.  He feels blogs help reading, writing, and collaboration.  There are pro's and con's.

Most of current usage is not pushing the potential of the tool.  Best practices are hard to find.

He likes to manage his reading on Bloglines.com.  He feels blogging is a reading exercise, requiring critical reading before the act of writing occurs.  The site above points you to 3 places for free blogs.

One of the questions he answered was how to make the connections with the appropriate people was simply research and serendipity.  For example, if you're working on a blog about American Indians, how do you find an authority?  You research, contact journalists, and you ask!

Finally, Will pointed us to a page on a school's blog policy.  I strongly suggest going to the link above!

RSS: What Does It Mean for the Classroom Teacher?

Stephen Rahn, from the Kennesaw State University Educational Technology Training Center, spoke on the same topic I'm presenting on in the morning.  You can see that presentation on my podcast, at http://edtech.typepad.com/.  Stephen started with a bit of technical info for background.  A good resource is atomenabled.org if you are a developer & need help.  There are two important parts to know about:  Feeds & Aggregators.  Feeds are the content.  Aggregators let's you read the content.

Advantages include reading multiple websites from one location, no spam, no pop ups, keeping up with blogs, and of course organization of feeds.

He agrees with me, in that services that utilize email are just not good solutions.  If you need to create feeds for websites built in DreamWeaver, there is a product out there.  He recommended http://www.feedforall.com for creating RSS feeds.

Educational uses include sites for government stats, news from the Department of Education, a class calendar (http://www.rsscalendar.com), quote of the day, government announcements, science news, keeping up with student blogs and wiki's, research journals, current news, media reviews, sharing resources, and keeping up with teacher blogs.

Free Software for Class Websites

Freeland Abbott, Georgia Tech Research Institute, presented on free server software for creating a variety of different types of websites.  Everything he talked about required access to a server.  I can't help but wonder how many people in the audience have that kind of access?  At least they'll know what could be done if they had that kind of access.  Here's some of the things he talked about:

1. Moodle.org
2. Drupal.org
3. Apache web server
4. www.php.net
5. mysql.com
6. mediawiki.org

He's over my head, but this is something that I think people who do what I do will look at next.

Googlebots with Patrick Crispen

Keeping up with the Googlebots is Patrick Crispen's usual great presentation, but on what's new with Google, as of this week.  Patrick is a great source!  Visit his web page at:  http://www.netsquirrel.com/

He mentioned the calculator, unit conversion, and weather features.  For the most part, type what you'd expect in the search bar & it helps you out.  As an example, I typed 9 x 9.  The first return was 81.

Google music was kind of neat.  Just put in music xyz in the search box.  Music teachers?

Google books was pretty neat.  Seems you can see at least a bit of a book.  Some things are full text, mostly in the public domain. The search is books.google.com.  If a book is in copyright, it'll point you to places to purchase or check out the book.

If you missed it, Google bought YouTube- does that make them GooTube?  Sorry, couldn't resist.

Google also has a custom search engine!  You can set up a personal search engine.  That's worth a look.  Appears you can set up the search so it only reveals sites you want students to see.  You have to set up a Google account, but it's at:
http://google.com/coop/cse/

All that's needed is the url of the search you set up!

Google Maps also has maps for cell with traffic!  Go to google.com/gmm in your web enabled cell phone and download the ap.

SearchMash.com is a new search engine.  Take a look.  Patrick feels it's the next Google beta.

Google classroom tools!  Google notebook is something that I need to investigate.  It's a free plugin for FireFox, but PC only.  Rats.  Looks like they may do Safari and Opera in the future.

Google.com/educators is a website that introduces most of Google's classroom tools.  Certainly warrants exploration!

Here's one for Social Studies teachers:  Google News.  You can search for news from a particular time span!

Google docs and spreadsheets will allow sharing of docs live as you are working on them.  It saves in a doc format, in other words, Word.  In other words, we can work together, across the web, on a document.

BlueTooth with Stephen Rahn

Stephen did a great job giving us the techie part of BlueTooth as well as sharing what can be done in the classroom.  He was kind enough to put his presentation on the web for everyone:  http://stephen.ksuettc.org/bluetooth.pdf

One of the many things he shared that I had not really paid attention to was the 6 device limit.

Blog You: The Law & Electronic Misconduct

Mike Dishman & Dan Murphy from Kennesaw State University presented.  First, they made me glad I'm not a lawyer.  Since they are talking abou matters of the law, please don't take my interpretation of their presentation as legal advice. 

They began with an example from a student website.  The first event took place over a time span of a week.  It took 3 years to work out legally.  Problem:  technology moves at the speed of light.  Law moves at glacial speed.  The prime question with student sites is whether speech is protected, as student's rights don't stop at the schoolroom door.  They spent a bit of time explaining when speech could be restricted.

Another issue dealt with student threats.  Is the threat hyperbole or real?  Is it conditional? directly communicated?  is there a history of threats?  Did the recipient believe the speaker have a violent propensity?

If the speech in question is on a school owned site, the school pretty much has control. If the conduct is brought onto the school campus, it then not protected and can be dealt with by the school.  Another test has to do with whether the speech materially affects what is supposed to go on at school.  Is there a disruption?  Is a threat real?

Some lessons they shared-  don't overreact, be sure you have evicence, determine whether the website was on or off campus.  Keep in mind that there are other remedies for off campus conduct.  A lawsuit can be filed for defamation.

Staff speaking out on blogs or websites are a bit different.  Is the matter of public concern?  If so, then it may be protected.

Again-  I'm glad I'm not a lawyer!