Video in the classroom

I think the use of video in the classroom is a wonderful resource that hasn't been fully integrated into technology. Much online content must be viewed and previewed before it can be shown to students in a classroom. And, much of the video is not the best quality. However, kids like tv and movies and video games. They enjoy the visual appeal beyond what we generation X folks could ever have imagined. We just need to tap into what we know works for kids and make it a teachable moment. If we can show a video clip in class and have students write about it or draw a picture to help them focus on the theme of a story or a particular character, haven't we transformed a "likeable" activity into a learnable one?

I know that my school district has purchased a subscription for video use. I understand that it has been a time saver for me. I teach 6 grade levels and often need to find different material for all six levels. Having a search engine that will narrow my topic is very time efficient and helpful to me. Yes, I know there are other materials out there. However, I value what the current subscription offers. And, I need to make use of it before the district decides it's not economically efficient enough to keep. When I can, I go out and search other material. And, I share this information with my staff so that they have additional resources as well.

As these teachers learn to take something like a simple video clip and make it a learning experience, I believe video/multimedia usage will increase in the traditional classroom.

AG

We have to stop meeting like this

Hello to all...it appears it is another late night for me. After much review, I determined a major disadvantage to the use of web 2.0 tools in my school district. My students don't have email accounts and many of the free resources available...my topic this week was podcasting...require you to create an account using an email address. What frustration! For students to be able to utilize the wonderful tools that are out there, school systems would need to provide all students with email accounts. Unfortunately, many school districts have not finalized plans that ensure student use in a "safe" environment. Unless students have personal email accounts they can use, many will not be able to take advantage of these tools. There are some renegade teachers...such as myself...who will probably find a way around this until the school board can catch up with our tech savvy world. Until then, I suspect teachers will do what they can to provide or imitate the real world tech environment our students should have access to.

Anyone have any great ideas of how they have addressed this issue?

Good night for now.

AG

Screencasts: Are they useful in the educational community?

After my experience creating a screencast this week, my opinion has significantly changed about their usefulness. I first believed that they were just fancy tutorials and thought that I would probably benefit more from having a hard copy document to work from. However, I truly believe that having a visual guide to compliment step by step directions is of great benefit to my school community. Not only can my staff use this type of tool for application trainings (to learn the tool) but also, to assist students as they implement technology use in the classroom.

Good teaching practices tell us to focus on designing materials that can meet the needs of varied (audio, visual, kinesthetic) learners and a screencast offers the opportunity to do both. One thing that I would caution teachers about. Screencasts should not replace direct instruction provided by the teacher. These materials should be supplemental materials to support the continued growth and mastery of a particular topic.

In regards to design, I believe there should be some type of overview provided. As I've stated previously, I think of it like a good movie sequel. You want the viewer to be able to enjoy/learn from the material, even if they are starting from the middle. or, if they haven't had the opportunity to see the original movie. I believe the materials should also use a conversational tone where pacing is the focus. There isn't need to focus on two much at once. Chunk the material and make sure that a completed product can be produced with each screencast. This will ensure that the tool is applicable and that the students have a real life example to walk away from.

With all of this end mind...I believe I would choose to always use a screencasts vs. text instructions because of the interactive perspective it offers.

What are your thoughts, comments or suggestions?

AG

MSTA Leadership Retreat- St. Michael's, MD

Just wanted to say that I had a wonderful time learning about some leadership strategies to help build our union at the building level. I am truly looking forward to implementing the information I learned and look forward to part two next summer.

I've never visited St. Michael's before...I wanted to share some of the wonderful views I didn't have much time to enjoy. Perhaps I can afford to return again sometime soon for some R&R.

Please enjoy the slide show of pics....

AG

Web authoring

I believe this week will provide an opportunity to see the best of both worlds. What I mean by this is that I recently had the opportunity to work on the redevelopment of my school's webpage. (Send me an email if you'd like to see what the new site looks like. It went active just a week ago.) We used the webpage program available in our CLC to create and upload each page to an established website. I've found the program to be very user friendly and I've also learned some tips about formatting. On the flip side, I look forward to using a program, new to me, to learn a different approach. I anticipate it may be similar to the format I used previously to create my personal webpage. A resource I used in the past was Webpages for Dummies and I found it to be very helpful. I uploaded my pages using a CuteFTP server and Microsoft Front Page. Again, this was a while ago, but I found it to be very user friendly. I look forward to what this new experience will bring. You can click on my picture to take a look at my previous webpage. I like the format and road map that the site provides. I would definitely try to incorporate some recent knowledge of image manipulation, etc. to make it more interactive and engaging.

What do you think?

5:55am..I can't believe it

I can't believe that I've worked all night getting this image "thing" together. I didn't give up, but I had no idea that I would work through the night trying to get it together. After an hour or so of reading and looking for free tools online, I realized that I have Gimp on my computer already! So, I find a great tutorial and start my adventure. How was I to know that the visual aids they provided would be a stumbling block for the next several hours. It wasn't until I just gave up and moved to the next step that I realized that the visual aid didn't actually correspond with that step. And, I could have been done hours ago! Anyway, I have something created and I think after all of my attempts and restarts, I am familiar enough to try it again...hopefully not for a while though. Talk about CLT? I'm totally brain dead now...but will take the opportunity to find a drive through DD and treat myself to breakfast with Hot Chocolate.

Good night...or should I say good morning??????

How Much is Too Much?

This is a question that really racked my brain tonight (or early morning). I was experimenting with adding an image to my header. I have lot's of pics of family and friends...but how much information is too much? Although I love my nieces, nephews other relatives and friends, I don't know if I want to share my pictures on the web. Additionally, as I try to protect my right to privacy, do I really want my personal pictures posted? I don't know the answer to this. I like the idea of blogging and believe that I could actually begin to journal here. However, a what point is your personal life private when you work in the field of "public education". I know this is probably the million dollar question and if I had the answer, I could sell it to many companies, including local school districts, because it would solve all of the problems they foresee with giving students access to the "big, bad" Internet. (smiles) Wouldn't that be a life altering event if I could solve that problem.

Either way, I decided to share a little bit of myself and the person who makes me smile (on most days). You've heard the name often and now you have a face to attach to it. As you can see, I'm all smiles. We were celebrating our birthdays together in this picture, surrounded with family, friends, good food and drinks. I can't think of a better place to be.

Good night to all.

AG

The Other Side of Heaven

As much time as I spend working on my computer, I received a small taste of heaven today. I spent the morning in a hardware store getting materials to help my boyfriend's sister (and friend) clean out her flower bed. She recently moved into a new home and although the old residents planted some bulbs that return each year, the weeds were taking over. So, with some music blaring from the car stereo, we (along with my best friend) began the task of digging, pulling, and moving materials around the front of the house. There was joyous conversation and laughter and a feeling of relief. We discussed life and how manual labor really takes your mind off of the everyday stress we all had! We all received quite a work-out and after laying the weed barrier and mulch, we enjoyed a beverage on the front step as we admired our work. I was actually so exhausted, that when I came into the house to cool off, I actually laid down for a much needed nap. Afterwards, we began the preparation for dinner tomorrow. On a side note, I am anxiously awaiting the ribs, chicken, other grilled meat, sweet potatoes, potato salad, corn on the cob (from the grill), cabbage and other treats. And, of course a few mojitos around the pool to top the evening off. I'll be surrounded by family and friends and I will selfishly restrain from opening my computer all day tomorrow. Even though I may have a few aches tomorrow and even the day after, it was WELL WORTH IT! And, I realize that I may need to do this a little more often.
I just wanted to share my "other side of heaven".

Happy 4th of July!

AG

Desktop Publishing: a tool from the past?

I know there are many options available for the development of valuable and effective materials. However, as this applies to public education, I believe that there will still be a place for the older tools as well. Education tends to be less on the cutting edge of what's new and more towards what is affordable yet sufficient. I believe that these tools as we know it may undergo a face lift to become more user friendly, but the fundamentals of the software will remain the same....if only for our generation's use. I understand the desire to include the new and flashy, yet, studies show that this is not the most effective way to present information. And for this reason, educators, still charged with the task of presenting materials for educational purposes, will still need affordable tools to accomplish this task. And, I believe that we will see more need for these materials in several years to come. Companies that produce DTP will see the value in producing materials for larger corporations like public education districts and will begin to incorporate the components of newer tools into what is already available. They have to play the marketing game. And, unfortunately, many large contracts (government, public agencies, etc.) just don't have the funding to purchase the more expensive software.

Although free tools are available for use, there is still so much red tape in order to make these available for student use on a regular basis. Until school systems develop a strong acceptable use policy that will support the use of the internet and the tools available, they will continue to struggle with keeping up with current technology trends. However, some exposure to these tools will prepare our children for success when they begin training course for new jobs.

Having a conversation really works!

I was scheduled to present at HC summer institute yesterday. My presentation focused on utilizing iMovie to assist with behavior management programs in the schools. After I presented my idea, my plan was to have the participants actually spend some time creating an iMovie with me. Well, I found out the night before that computers were not available for me to use...so I would have to present without that component. Well, I really got nervous! How was I going to talk for 75 minutes and not bore the participants to death!!! Luckily, our previous week showed a great example of how to just have a conversation. So, that's what I did. I talked about how the idea came up, what we decided to do and I used my presentation as supplemental information to what I was saying. They didn't have to even really look at the screen. And, when they did, they were easily re-directed to my conversation. Needless to say, things went over great. I even had to stop myself for going OVER the time limit. What a wonderful lesson and great application of the concept to boot.

It works...and, I definitely plan to implement this concept in all future presentations.

Marketing the product: true technology integration

Marketing the product...what exactly does this mean. I've spent a lot of time thinking about what I'm learning about technology integration and how this really applies to the school system I work in. Unfortunately, I don't believe "the product", technology integration, is really being marketed well. I understand the struggle with budgeting concerns. However, when are the school systems going to really look at what the research is saying about the digital natives and how it is imperative to begin technology integration at all levels to ensure the success of our children? I also thought about how there are many school administrators who say they support the technology initiative and yet do very little to support it's integration into every classroom.

Perhaps, technology educators need to spend more time "marketing the product". We have to be the voice that local government members hear when they are proposing budget cuts that impact school technology programs. Perhaps we need to be the voice that administrators hear in the lunch rooms discussing all of the great ways we are integrating technology and how it truly impacts our students. And, what is needed to fully integrate technology programs. Perhaps we need to be the voice at the PTA meetings that presents a united effort (Parents, Teachers and Administrators) in providing the tools that our children need in order to be more successful in a technology infused society.

Perhaps we need to think of a new marketing plan that shares research, documentation and ideas of how we can effectively integrate technology into every classroom, before it's too late.

Coming Out of the Clouds

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but I believe the task of sharing CLT with my staff will definitely bring some heads out of the clouds. I've witnessed really "tech savvy" staff with what they consider wonderful multimedia presentations that I would never have admitted that I created. Although these teachers are excellent teachers, I don't believe they are applying their prior knowledge about good teaching practices to materials that are created with technology. I too am guilty of doing this. I wanted to use technology so badly that I created busy and overwhelming materials that in retrospect weren't necessarily great teaching materials. And then, I took an online class at a university about creating powerful presentations without excess. This changed my entire perspective and I was reminded of these components when we discussed Cognitive Learning Theory this week. My approach to my staff? I'm thinking I would show them a presentation that was full of fluff. And then, ask them what the content was. I'm not sure how much they would get from it, but, I would hope to expand the discussion to what would they change about the presentation so that they could better understand the content. I would then introduce the components of CLT and ask the staff to establish some criteria for representations using the fundamentals of CLT. I believe this approach would be well received by my staff. I know there would need to be follow-up as teachers begin to apply what they learned in their classroom, however I believe it'd be a great start.

And, coming out of the clouds...well, let's just say it's all in efforts to view a bright new day.

Getting Started- blog post 1

Well, this is my first official post and it's been tiresome getting to this point. In selecting a tool, I was looking for a great beginner tool that I could learn the basics so that I have something to take back to school in the fall. With this in mind,I took some time this week to review the different options that were available on blogger. Blogger was recommended by a colleague as being a great place to start blogging. I enjoyed testing out the different functions, but got caught up in some of the settings that delayed my actual posting. But, I finally made it!

For the most part, I stuck with this tool because it is very beginner friendly. If I had stuck with the defaults on most options, I'm sure I would be blogging away by now. Although I now have to get the hang of this tagging thing. One of the most important features that I like on blogger is the ability to moderate all posts. Because this is such a taboo area in the school system, I had to tread very carefully in it's use. So I like the ability to review any information that is submitted prior to it's actual posting on the web. This will be a safety feature that I will need to enable for anything my students will use. I like the ease of being able to comment to posts and also the ability to link to my "future" website. I wasn't as happy with the graphics side of the site...but perhaps when I'm more html knowledgeable, I'll be able to change that around as well.

I haven't decided to 100% stick with this tool, but I'll need a little more time to investigate different tools as I become more familiar with the general idea of blogs and tags.

Any suggestions or feedback about the process are welcome.

Gannon-test

Hi guys...this is my first post. I'm trying to test this thing out.