Sunday, February 27, 2011

Links of interest 02/27/2011

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Saturday, February 26, 2011

Links of interest 02/26/2011

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Friday, February 25, 2011

Links of interest 02/25/2011

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Thursday, February 24, 2011

Links of interest 02/24/2011

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Links of interest 02/23/2011

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Tuesday, February 22, 2011

Links of interest 02/22/2011

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Monday, February 21, 2011

Personal Learning Environments for Inquiry in K12 Week 2 #plek12

Topic of Inquiry:
A few years ago I was asked to come help in a science classroom. It was the end of the quarter. All around the room were huge posters. The teacher had assigned a project where students took photos of various plants showing growth over time. The photos were pasted on big pieces of poster board and a description written next to each picture. When I walked in, kids were ripping the posters off the wall and tearing them to shreds. The project was over, time to move on.  I was struck by how sad this was. All that work and for what?
I often hear students say at the end of the year they don't need any of their work. It's done and over with. We have some great projects going on, but for some reason, it's hard to collect and share them publicly. We have so many options for storing work: web space, Google Apps for Ed, E-mail, blogs, wikis, Nings, the list goes on and on.

My questions:
  • Is it too hard to collect digital projects?  
  • Is it that teachers don't know how to share or is it just a part of teaching culture that as soon as we are done with one project we must quickly move on the the next topic? 
  • Are teachers uncomfortable sharing student work? 
  • Does it take too long to organize student work to be shared?
  • Can students help in the process?
I intend to find out how difficult it is to collect work. Using some of the tools we'll be exploring in class, I aim to take a look at this practice and see if I can develop ways to help teachers and students show and celebrate student work.  

Personal Learning Environments for Inquiry in K12 Week 1 #plek12

Always late to the party, I am weeks behind in posting my assignments. Never mind, I am really trying to commit to something for myself. I am taking the MOOC Massively Open Online Course, Personal Learning Environments for Inquiry K12 from the University of Florida. It's taught by Wendy Drexler and Christopher Sessums.

I have been in a high school one to one laptop environment for eight years. In the last three years, things have really ramped up. Technology really is ubiquitous in our district. We have also been working on rewriting our beliefs, and it's clear that everyone understands that we are committed to Digital Age Learning. We understand that as learners, we must all create, communicate, connect and collaborate. We are focusing on better ways of teaching and learning. I guess we are really trying "New Things in New Ways".

The questions for the course are:

1) What are your learning goals for this course?
  • I have never learned well online. I really need practice at writing and learning in this environment. If we expect students to participate in online learning, then I feel I want to have the same experience.
  • Practice writing and blogging. I just don't reflect enough.
  • I would like to look at this as a model for our school professional development. For as long as we have had technology and for the amount of reflection we do in our practice, it's very difficult to push others to see the value of blogging and sharing online, particularly among colleagues.
2) In what ways are you hoping to connect what you learn here with your own practice?
  • Experience being part of an online course. I work in a high school. We offer a three credit course each year. We have always had an online component, but now we are thinking about making the entire course online in the summer.
  • We are very lucky to have a great deal of professional development built in to our schedule. We each do a yearly portfolio based around the collaborative inquiry model. I would like to be able to give teachers more online options.
  • Model for teachers what Open online learning is all about.
  • My two colleagues and I already use an inquiry type model for working with teachers on learning technology skills. They must design something that has purpose for their students. I am anxious to learn more about the inquiry process, especially online.
Week 1 Class Page

    Links of interest 02/21/2011

    Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

    Saturday, February 19, 2011

    Seedlings Season 3 Show #17

    John "Pathfinder" Lester and the Virtual Maine Group, Mary, Kern, and Paul join us to unveil the news about their work on Reaction Grid with students. It's very exciting that Kern's school will be buying an island so that students can learn more about virtual worlds in a safe environment.

    Virtual Maine
    Reaction Grid
    Geek of the Week links
    Chat and Podcast

    Friday, February 18, 2011

    Tuesday, February 15, 2011

    Links of interest 02/15/2011

    Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

    Monday, February 14, 2011

    Links of interest 02/14/2011

    Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

    Sunday, February 13, 2011

    SEEDlings Season 3 Show# 16

    Priya and Maya Ganesan from TEDxRedmond joined us for a conversation about creativity in schools and ideas around being perfect. Both are students and met Bob at the conference. After some technical difficulties, we managed to have a great discussion!
    Geek of the Week Links
    Podcast and Chat

    Links of interest 02/13/2011

    Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.