Planning a training session

My colleague and I have had disagreements on how long our teachers might need to learn to do this website training.  He believes it can be done during a 90 min. planning session during the school day. He also believes if they don’t finish we can pick it up at another 90 min session.  I strongly believe that we need a 2hr after-school session (or longer).  After reading Brent’s article on transformative learning I am more convinced then ever that our teachers need to see a finished product before they leave the training in order for us to see the fruits of labor.  After spending a session on creating a website i would want to see my website in all of its glory, even if it is skeletal and might need more work later.  Kinda like when  I created a Blog.  I was so happy when I saw it on line, even though I knew it was not perfect.

Response to Brent’s article on Transformative Learning

As I read this article I started thinking about the plans we have at our school for teaching our teachers how to create their websites using sharepoint.  I am helping to train our teachers and I know there will be several different types of learners coming to the trainings.  The spectrum of computer experience will be vast.  Some teachers will not want to learn yet another thing that they have to “keep up with”.  How then do i begin to use the some of the ideas on transformative learning to accommodate and excite most or all of the learners coming to this training.  The directions for using sharepoint are pretty simple for a computer savvy person, but will be overwhelming for those who are not.  I might be able to stretch the mythic perspective by convincing teachers that this website will serve the needs of our parent community, they can be a “hero” for our community.  I think the aesthetic piece is worth looking at.  Pacing and scaffolding become very important for both the slow and fast learner.  I think it would be worth letting our teachers know that there will be cycles of tension and resolution within this learning module but that you will end with a working website.  knowing the end product and creating one is a real accomplishment.

Rich media and the impact on education

I found some great websites that have some good animations that teach about body systems. There is a fun game for each of the body systems.  You have to put the body system back together to win.  Animations. You can also see some grat examples of rich media on our Trends project. 

Tech head vs instructional technolgist

It is funny that Brent was talking about what our role might be in our place of work.  I recently told some collegues about my graduate program and since then I have staff coming to me to help them troubleshoot their computers.  When i expalin that I don’t really know that mcuh about how to troubleshoot, they are confused about my program. And then at that point there is no more time to talk about what I would like to do/learn while doing this program

More on Video Games

Here is another article on video games.  This one talks about how hard it is to market games to educators, one of the last institutions willing to to teach with games.  The article does mention that games do need to be aligned to standards and they have suggestions to evaluate these games. It is a good article and is helping me feel better about the decision I made to use SimCity in my tech. class.  Go to Video Games eSchool News

Cell Phones and Privacy at Monarch Highschool

In this week’s Daily CAmera there have been several articles about Admin at Monarch Highschool confiscating students cell phones and then reading thier text messages.  Parents of those students called the ACLU to get involved in this issue.  It seems the principal took the cell phones  wrote down the text messages and then used the student phones under cover of those students to send messages and gain information about drugs.  As I read, it seems that Admin at schools do have a lot more leadway to search lockers and such than normal.  Students have less privacy than the general public.  But, there are no hardfast rules about taking and cell phones and looking and recording text.  It is a very sticky situation and I think Boulder Valley will be in court over this one. 

Again the issue of how to deal with information and the “new” technology that students have access to. Is it okay to read someones elses text messages if it getes in the way of safety for students.  I am curious as to how the law will play out on this.  In the meantime, I won’t read a student’s messages. 

Daily Camera-Boulder

The Digital Divide

This is a new phrase to me but have experienced the idea over and over at my school.  It is the haves and the have nots of computers and access to the internet.  This is one of the opportunities I am going to write about in my OPOverview since it affects the school I teach at.  We have a little over 40% of our students on free and reduced lunches and the digital divide is wide in our school.  We are making some progress at our school with classes for those who don’t know how to access the IC, the software that parents can use to access grades etc, for their students, but it still does not solve the problem of having access outside of a public place.  On my delicious site I have bookmarked 2 sites that are worth reading, I have them tagged, the Digital Divide.  One article shows the  statistics behind the haves and the havenots. This report comes from the U.S. Commerce Department.  They did a study called Falling through the Net.    It is shocking to see the difference between the Hispanic population and the white population. The other article talks about possible solutions to the problem.  By the way, this is a problem that has been identified since the mid 1990’s and isn’t going to go away by simply throwing money at the problem. 

Why is it so important for all ethinicity groups to have access to the internet and computers?  Both articles address this issue.  My own opinion:  it is a matter of having access to a good education or a superior one.  When parents cannnot communicate with teachers they are out of the loop.  As educators we all know how important it is for parents to be involved in thier kids education. 

More on video games

I have been reading more about bringing video games into the classroom and I think it deserves a lot more consideration.  Using video games in the classroom does not have to be an all or nothing project.  If you are a good facilitator of learning and of student time you can do both traditional teaching and the “newer” gaming in the classroom. I say newer in quotes because we have to remember who this is new for.  Our students, in k-12, know nothing but a digital world.  Texting, emailing, games are how they communicate in the world.  Why not grab them or spark them with what they like to do and learn while they do it.  As I read, I am also convinced that students can benifet from using video games in the classroom.  A good game can help with skills like relating cause and effect,  learning to negotiate , detecting  bias and analizing data.It is hard to measure some of these skills in tne kind of way that eductors are used to. 

Yes, video games for learning need to start aligning their games with standards so they teachers can measure and track learning and progress.  Most of the articles I have read  are talking of this issue and know that they need to include these measurements before educators can use video games in the classroom. Muzzy Lane is a company that is producing video games for educators that build- in ways for teachers to track progress, generate reports and use the scoring guides that go with the program.  Big companies realize the potential for lots of $$$ in the educator world and they will not  let a little thing like alignment and measurement stand in their way.   That being said, it is still our resonsibiltiy to preview and select the games that best fit our curriculum. 

 Go to    eSchoolNews.type in video games in the classroom, there are enough articles on this topic to keep you busy for days.   

Video Games and Real Learning

I am starting a new unit with my technology kids.  We are going to use the SimCity 3000 game to build a future city and then compete in a Future City Engineering Competition.  All of this being said, I decided to start searching for articles about using video games in the classroom.  I am a bit sceptical to use in my classroom and I want to get over this obstacle.  The article, “Getting it Wrong: Slaying Myths About Video Games( Part 1)” in the on-line TechLearning magazine was a good place for me to start.  In this article Lee Wilson a education business consultant begins to dispel the myths many people and educators believe about video games in the classroom.  I now realize how behind the times I am about the new generation of video games.  I still think of pac-man, that only uses the high or fast twitch muscles, as the kind of video games that students will use in my class.  I am worried that if someone walks into my room they will perceive my students as only “playing a game.”  Video games that can be used in the classroom actually help students use higher order thinking skills to solve real world problems. Well designed educational games draw knowledge from many different disciplines including reading,math, social studies, science etc.

Another myth that I hold is the idea that most video games are all about sex and violence.  Lee Wilson points out that yes there are those games out there and they grab the attention of a lot of people.  We as educators can use our discretion to pick the well designed games.  There are many out there. 

I was also happy to find that through a group called The Serious Game Initiative,a group of educators and developers, are building video games for educational, social military and medical environments.  Thier recent games are tackling issues such as war, global warming and “gerrymandering.”(Hm, from the text I know what this means but I don’t think I have ever heard of this word.  Has anyone?) I hope to use some of the games this group is producing. 

I need to read more articles on using video games in my classroom but I did learn  a lot about from this short article.  I would like to read some articles on tips and problems that might arise when using SimCity in particular.  Anyone out there use this in the classroom? Any tips or ideas for me? 

US Government and Technology

As I did yet another google on education and technology I came upon the US department of Education site.  At first I thought, “How boring could this be” but then I stumbled upon an article titled, “Visions 2020, Transforming Education and Training Through Advanced Technology”.   Approximately 15 experts in the field of technology education were asked to respond this scenario: “Look into the future and describe what the learning experiences and technologies would be like”.

  Teacher training and attitude, student access, parent involvement and  technology departments that are willing and able to communicate with educators are some of the very real obstacles we must overcome before we can ever meet these experts futuristic ideals.

One expert creates a scenario where she is talking with a teacher living half way around the world via virtual classrooms with a type of podcast.  They share teaching strategies and have insight into each others students because their students interact with each other while learning the same content.

Another expert creates several vignettes that explore the possibility of a robot that helps to facility the teacher in the classroom.

The articles are fascinating and I can not wait to read more of them. It does give us something to dream about!! I have the link on my blogroll but will put it here as well.  Vision 2020