Rounding the Turn

I am beginning to formulate ideas for 2007-08 school year. Last year was my first year in the system and overall I think it went very well. I am thinking of four major strategies as we approach the year:

1. Publish. Lots of blog work, weebly work and I hope to publish either one really good book or a series of shorter ones using Lulu.
2. Lots of interaction between the levels. Our program has doubled in size and we are expanding the offerings for 2008-09. Creating the scope and sequence for this will involve lots of students. Students will work hard on wiki and other tools to help create connections between the different web classes.
3. Be ready for new stuff. I really think we can do a lot more with mobile and video. Lets see how much we can convince the powers that be.
4. Interaction with the community. Teachers, students, parents, senior citizens can benefit from our students knowledge and we hope to create regular opportunities for this interaction.

Ideas? Please email me or comment.

Technorati Tags: lulu weebly webdesign Seymour k12 education

Thursday

The weeks are going by real fast.....

The next few days will be crazy. Many of you have prom obligations, we have 8th grade orientation, track meets, and I have curriculum work on Wednesday. I won't see some of you for one week.

But the deadline still looms. Having other obligations is not a reason to produce shoddy work. I expect your best work.

I hope this is not blocked: weebly.com. Making a professional website is getting incredibly easy and free. Of course this impacts this class. If software is becoming online, free, and incredibly easy we may value the coding aspect of design less. The value of being a good writer and visual communicator will become more and more important. The value of being able to write in three dimensions is definitely becoming more important.

OK>>>>We have been playing with weebly all day. Our presenting group (web 2.0, video, etc..) will definitely use this. See me for questions.

Now a lot of programmers hate programs like this. It doesn't code completely correctly. There are trade-offs as the software becomes more user-friendly. Will this become the industry standard? I doubt it. Something even easier will debut before we teach this class again next September.

Don't fall behind. The world is moving VERY fast.

I did a quick flash thing from the VA tech victims and put it in UDrive. Use it if you want.

And finally, here is the link to Mrs. Deming's page about her breast cancer walk. Read this before you write up her questions. In addition she has been answering questions on students blogs (Christina, Jackie, etc..).

Technorati Tags: weebly k12 education

OLPC

Great video by Brianna. I think the music really helps the video. Have you noticed on teachertube how many views your videos have gotten?

Some of you have submitted the files incorrectly. You must save the movie file (not the movie project) to the UDrive. If you go to the UDrive and you see a icon that looks like a movie reel you did it wrong.

We have read often about the one laptop per child program (OLPC). Read this post by Will Richardson and observe the photograph. Can you connect this to our readings about Darfur? If the children of Darfur all had a laptop, many would be reading your blogs and vice versa. Would there still have been genocide?

Can you see the hope in their faces?

Now, imagine if we did the same here at Bungay Elementary. Could we change the world here in Seymour as well? A science textbook costs $80. This laptop costs $100.

Technorati Tags: olpc willrichardson

Ethics and Appropriate Use

We have talked and written many times this year about responsible use. We have reflected that many things have been restricted from you because some people have acted badly. Water bottles, phones, iPods, video on websites, etc.....

So what would an acceptable use policy look like? Check this one out that covers student publishing. Also read that flickr.com has community guidelines.

But sometimes we are searching for information, images, or ideas and we come across inappropriate content. For example, flickr.com has community guidelines, but sometimes people don't follow the rules and post objectionable photos.

We need guidelines of what to do if we come across "bad stuff". I feel strongly that the "bad stuff" should not come into the classroom and I am sure you agree. Some feel since that there is a chance this will happen we should not be able to use these tools. I feel if students behave responsibly and we have discussions about what to do and how to act that we should be able to use these tools.

Assignment:
1. What community guidelines should we use for SHS? How should we "act responsibly" in viewing, searching, and collecting information? This should be specific: "A student should use search terms responsibly, for example, don't search for "Nudes" or "If a student encounters objectionable content the student should flag the content and immediately remove themselves from the page".
2. Use the flickr.com guidelines as your template. I think it is a good format. Notice it is NOT one run-on paragraph.
3. Title your blog entry "SHS Appropriate Use Guidelines".

Technorati Tags: appropriateuse k12 education SeymourWebDesign blog flickr

New Age

During Web1 I had several battles with students who felt that Web Design was only HTML based programming. Video, wikis, blogs, etc...were "extras". I think I convinced most that "web design" is a moving target. It is quickly adapting to a mobile, collaborative form.

Further evidence continues to arrive. Read this post about the growth of wikis and blogs in the workplace. Experts predict that 50% of companies will use wiki technology by the year 2009. A few notes about that:

1. If half the companies are using wiki/blogs I hypothesize that it is the better performing companies. Companies that do not use technology are probably "old school" in many other areas as well and risk falling behind in our global marketplace.
2. Our SHS freshman will graduate college no earlier than 2014. Will wikis and blogs be essential by then? The article speaks about companies replacing their traditional web sites with the wikis and blogs. Will Dreamweaver/HTML disappear by the time our freshman leave high school? I think so. But the communication skills (summarizing, analyzing, editing, etc...) will become even more important.

I think this has extreme implications for our modern student. If the workplace of 2009 will be largely wiki and blog based how should that shape your work at SHS? I think there is a lot of work to be done.

This is your future. Demand an education that prepares you for it. Find new technology and embrace it.

I will be formatting your projects very soon. But let me be clear---I will allow you to work on almost anything you want while you are in this class as long as you fulfill our objectives (see blogmeister). If you have an alternate assignment for any of our objectives please offer them. If there is something you want to pursue--do it!!

Technorati Tags: wikis webdesign Seymour Schneider k12 technology

Extra Credit

Extra Credit:

Watch a talk from the TED conference. Jeff Han was a TED talk. I just watched the talk by Hans Rosling which was fascinating. I write about it on my technology blog. I hope all of you take the time to watch Jennifer Lin. What an amazing 14 year old. And how she talks in front of the audience is almost as impressive as her music.

After watching do a summary on your blog. Be sure to link to the talk and any important related sites. Find other bloggers (using technorati) that are talking about the information. Use technorati tags. Anyway, its extra credit so just have fun with it.

Some of these talks are VERY well done.

Technorati Tags: TED HansRosling

Time Article

There is an interesting cover story in Time Magazine about schools in the 21st century. It covers much of the material we have talked about in our readings. It is a longer article, but I think it is valuable reading for you. If you comment in your blogmeister, be sure to leave a link to the article.

If you were running the mile for me on my track team and you walked off the track after three of the four laps and said "That's all I am going to do" and "That should be good enough for you". Or "We had to run FOUR laps?? Nobody ever told me THAT!!". Or my favorite, "I don't feel like finishing the race today, I'm going to do it at home". I don't think you would expect your team or your coach to be satisfied with your performance.

On the same note, if you turn in an assignment where you have only done three out of four "laps", please don't be shocked when I find that unacceptable. Do your best and finish every race. I have coached dozens of All-Americans and kids who literally were blind and had to be led around the track. Everyone has their own limits. I will not accept work that is less than your best effort.

Today you will work on the second part of the sample exam project. The project is posted on the wikispace. While no part of this project is especially difficult you can easily run into problems if you do not plan effectively. I urge you to write out your plan on paper so you can visualize it BEFORE you start coding. Also, look through your past work to see if there are ideas you can use (I promise that there is code you can "steal").

I hope the SHS Winter Concert went well last night. If you participated please let us know about it in your blog. My nieces fifth grade concert last night was exceptional. Monique plays clarinet and I was very impressed by the whole group. I wish I could have made both shows.

Finally, I hope Tania will post her Lewis and Clark video so we can all watch it. It is very impressive. Its worth the time to watch it.

Web Design

In the dark ages, back when I was in high school, the "cool" thing to have was an electric typewriter. It would display 3-4 words at a time and you could add and subtract text before it typed. I wasn't that cool, so I typed my papers on a regular typewriter with a ribbon.

When I went to Oberlin for my BA I used an Apple for my composing. I actually used the same program I use today (I use a much newer version now). There was some email, but it was only between colleges.

When I got my masters at Syracuse I had a laptop that could do basic things (no email). But it could print, use MS Word and Excel, and do statistics programs that I needed.

The rate of technology acceleration is incredible. Only ten years ago it would be common not to even own a computer. Now there can be 2-3 in a house. Anyone can publish their thoughts. ANYONE can blog or publish from ANYWHERE at ANYTIME using a mobile phone. That is how we get a free exchange of information. And information is power.

I am trying in this class to give you the opportunity to use these tools to accumulate information and thus power. If you can use these tools effectively you can have a much stronger voice in the world. These tools are changing constantly. But the obvious truth is that barriers are coming down. ANYONE can type and save and publish (how many of you were surprised how easy the wikispaces were?). It has never been easier.

So, only ten years ago email was "odd". What will the new "must have" technology be? Will you be ready for it? Now that you CAN have a voice and DO have a voice, will you use it??