It's Midterm - Are You Caught Up?

As of 11/09/09 the following assignments are overdue:

  • All- Technology PUZZLES
  • 8- Digital FOOTPRINT DRAFT
  • All- VOCABULARY TEXT 2 MIND MAPS
  • 8- GOOGLE DOCS ACCOUNT CREATED
  • 8- GOOGLE DOCS INVITE SENT TO ME
  • 7- Digital CITIZENSHIP DRAFT
  • All- E-mail
  • All- SPEED1
  • All- PermSlip
  • All- Memory Stick
  • All- Excel1 Up To Date for Week 4

Quarter 2 - Writing Projects 1

6th Grade:  You will make an electronic poster at Glogster.Edu. Here is the planning handout.   Here are the detailed directions in a .wmv file but you can also get them in a PowerPoint on my teacher drive.

7th Grade:  You will be doing research on Digital Citizenship and writing about it.  Here are the directions in a .wmv file but you can also get them in a PowerPoint on my teacher drive.

8th Grade:  You will do research on Digital Footprints, write in Google Docs, and make a bibliography at NoodleBib.  Here are the directions in a .wmv file but you can also get them in a PowerPoint on my teacher drive.

Autumn Poetry Project

8th Graders will make a VoiceThread, illustrated, narrated and put to music. You will use They will make a bibliography using NoodleTools. 

7th Graders will make a VoiceThread, illustrated, narrated and put to music. 

6th Graders will make an Animoto, illustrated, narrated and put to music.  

You will all be allowed to use http://www.rhymer.com/ and http://rhyme.poetry.com/.  You will comment online on each others' VoiceThread Poetry when they are finished. You will use exclusively Creative Commons images from Flickr and  Google Advanced Search.

Parameters for the poems:

  • 8 Lines
  • Rhyming
  • Any topic relating to Fall or Autumn. For instance: Back-To-School, pumpkins, Jewish New Year, Veteran's Day, Columbus Day, Thanksgiving, Halloween, changing seasons, weather, trees, feelings about Fall, sports we play in Fall, etc.
  • Save every URL for every photo you save unless it belongs to you.

More details to follow.

ThinkQuest Web Sites

Instructions for your Home Page:

Post your 3 introductory Haikus on top and post all your writing assignments below them:

  • Write 1 - Digital Citizenship
  • Write 2 - Letter to the Future
  • Write 5 - Outbursts RAPP
  • Write 6 - Cell Phone Dangers?

We will post the following as images. See me if you want to scan anything:

  • Write 3 - Digital Footprints Inspiration Graphic
  • Write 4 - Animation Storyboard

Instructions for your Second Page: Set this page up for ISTE Standards 1 and 2. All you need right now is text boxes.

Instructions for your Third Page:  Set this page up for ISTE Standards 3 and 4. All you need right now is text boxes.

Instructions for your Fourth Page:  Set this page up for ISTE Standards 3 and 4. All you need right now is text boxes.

Instructions for your 5 through 25th Pages:  Set these pages up for your personal use. Just remember, keep it educational, follow the Mann 5, and keep it clean. Remember your User Agreement promises.

How Can I Reach Thee? Let Me Count The Ways.

As usual we rushed headlong into a great new year. However, I now realize I have not done enough to let parents know the myriad ways they can connect with me.  My apologies for the delay. Here you are:

 

 

  1. You can email me at school: SHANKLS@d11.org.

  2. Visit and subscribe to our classroom Ed Tech News blog. You can leave a comment there if you wish.

  3. You can call my Google Voice number from any phone: 7122NoFear (712-266-3327). I forward that number to whichever phone I am using so it will ring through to me.  You can also leave a voice mail or text message.  (Follow this link to find out more about Google Voice and get a number for yourself. It's pretty handy.)

  4. You can follow me on Twitter. My classroom teaching username is @MsShanksClass.  My tweets are protected because we are conversing with and about minors.  Just send a request to view my tweets and I'll get the message.  I will try to get in the habit of tweeting news and announcements as soon as I have some followers. You are welcome to Direct Message me  @MsShanksClass if you don't want all my followers to see your tweet(s).  I would like to follow you, too, so I get to know you and your family better!

  5. I hope to get a classroom Facebook page up and running soon.  It will be called Ms. Shanks' Class and we will want all of you to friend us! (If there is anyone with some time to set this up in the near future, I would gladly accept your help.)

  6. This next note will not make much sense on the surface, but perhaps you will sympathize after I explain:  I would encourage you to please try not to rely on calling my classroom phone as it seems it is becoming harder and harder for me to answer it -- especially when I am teaching 6 classes with about 30 students during the day.  I can answer the previous types of communications much faster than a voice mail on the classroom phone.  I am almost always near my cell, my laptop, or my desktop computer but I am rarely near the classroom phone.  I only make this request because I would like to be as responsive to you as quickly as possible.

Hopefully you will find that one or all of these ways to reach me will meet your needs. I'd like to keep you informed, included, and encouraged about Digital Technology classes.

 

How Can I Reach Thee? Let Me Count The Ways.

 

As usual we rushed headlong into a great new year. However, I now realize I have not done enough to let parents know the myriad ways they can connect with me.  My apologies for the delay. Here you are:

 

  1. You can email me at school: SHANKLS@d11.org.

  2. Visit and subscribe to our classroom Ed Tech News blog. You can leave a comment there if you wish.

  3. You can call my Google Voice number from any phone: 7122NoFear (712-266-3327). I forward that number to whichever phone I am using so it will ring through to me.  You can also leave a voice mail or text message.  (Follow this link to find out more about Google Voice and get a number for yourself. It's pretty handy.)

  4. You can follow me on Twitter. My classroom teaching username is @MsShanksClass.  My tweets are protected because we are conversing with and about minors.  Just send a request to view my tweets and I'll get the message.  I will try to get in the habit of tweeting news and announcements as soon as I have some followers. You are welcome to Direct Message me  @MsShanksClass if you don't want all my followers to see your tweet(s).  I would like to follow you, too, so I get to know you and your family better!

  5. I hope to get a classroom Facebook page up and running soon.  It will be called Ms. Shanks' Class and we will want all of you to friend us! (If there is anyone with some time to set this up in the near future, I would gladly accept your help.)

  6. This next note will not make much sense on the surface, but perhaps you will sympathize after I explain:  I would encourage you to please try not to rely on calling my classroom phone as it seems it is becoming harder and harder for me to answer it -- especially when I am teaching 6 classes with about 30 students during the day.  I can answer the previous types of communications much faster than a voice mail on the classroom phone.  I am almost always near my cell, my laptop, or my desktop computer but I am rarely near the classroom phone.  I only make this request because I would like to be as responsive to you as quickly as possible.

Hopefully you will find that one or all of these ways to reach me will meet your needs. I'd like to keep you informed, included, and encouraged about Digital Technology classes.

TechByte: Collaborative Online Editing

Greetings! This is a primer on collaborative online editing tools for group documents.  If you already know about these resources, please forward this TechByte to someone you know who might benefit from it. If you want to know more, please ask.

First, would your team ever need to collaborate on documents like these?

-     a spreadsheet of common data;
-     a common calendar of meeting dates or deadlines;
-     a multi-author report;
-     a budget proposal by your department;
-     a training  slide show for your students or teammates;
-     a word processing document like a newsletter; 
-     a curriculum map or lesson plans? 

Second, you already know now to email attachments, carry jump drives to team meetings, and store files on the school server. You already know how to take students to a lab or have them meet after school to work together on a group project. So why would you need to collaborate on a single file, document, spreadsheet, web site, or slide presentation in some new way?

The answer is that there are better, easier solutions. If we share documents on the web:

A. The team gets to pick who can see the document and who cannot.
B. Members can see the progress of the file in real time.
C. Members of the team can work on the file at their own convenience.
D. No one has to keep track of which attachment to which email is the most current.
E. We don't end up with multiple versions.
F. We can review the history of a document and who made which changes.
G. We can even revert to an earlier version when necessary.
H. Team members can work from home, school, mobile devices, or anywhere else they have web access.
I. It doesn't matter if some people are on Macs while others are using PC's.
J. It doesn't require common software or compatible versions of software.

You have lots of options if you have a group working on a common file; these are just three of them. 

1.  GoogleApps for Education.  GoogleApps include a word processor, a spreadsheet maker, a slideshow maker, a web site maker, and more. Most files can be imported/exported to and from other familiar programs or web sites.  GoogleApps works no matter which operating system or software you have. With documents and sites hosted in the cloud (on the web), everyone can edit and view the same document. Features:

   a. Easily import or export traditional file formats into Google Apps:
      - Import a document
      - Export a document
   b. View your documents on the go with your web-enabled mobile device.
   c. Publish files to the web for everywhere access.

   To share a document:

   d. Set privacy levels to restrict who can edit or view documents;
   e. Build internal or external web sites collaboratively, unifying documents from Google Apps; and
   f. Embed your Google documents anywhere on the web with Google Web Elements.


2. Wikis. Wikispaces and PBWorks. A wiki is a web site that anyone can edit, depending on the privacy settings your team chooses. The most famous wiki of all is Wikipedia but anyone can make one. (A wiki differs from a blog in that blogs are online journals generally produced by just one person with others only having commenting privileges.)

Your wiki group is not limited to choosing whether your files must be word processing, spreadsheets or slideshows. With a wiki can have all of them. You can embed charts, tables, multimedia, and more.  Simple instructions:

    a. Open your wiki.
    b. Decide who will be allowed to edit it.
    c. Invite the members of your group to join.
    d. Everyone who is a member can work on the wiki's pages.
    e. Your results are immediately published and available on the web.

3. Microsoft Live Workspaces. (Designed to work with Microsoft Office--not as versatile as the others above.) Live Workspaces gives you a place online where your team can store notes, calendar events, a final report, etc. without having to merge separate documents. It’s easy:

     a. Create your group workspace - Start from scratch, or use the project or study group workspace templates.

     b. Add your files - Install the Office Live Update to save documents to your workspace directly from Word, Excel, and PowerPoint.

     c. Share the workspace with your group - Let them view and edit the files—so everyone is always working on the latest version. Remember, you can revert to a previous version if necessary.

I hope this introduction is helpful to you and your groups.

 

Web Design for Teachers

I will be giving a little class in web design for about 8 of our teachers and principals in a couple of weeks. Before we meet I am giving them this Planning Sheet to help prepare them. I will blog later about Part Two.

WEB DESIGN FOR TEACHERS

Part One – Planning


THESE ARE SOME QUESTIONS TO ASK YOURSELF AS YOU PLAN YOUR SITE -- Jot some notes on this planning sheet before we begin.


1. What is My Purpose in Making A Site . . . With Each Level of Complexity I Get More Benefits Yet More Time/Money/Learning Curves Are Involved.

a. Who Am I Trying to Reach or, Who Is My Audience?

           i. Kids, Parents, Colleagues, Content Area Team, Grade Level Team, Cluster Members?
          ii. Is it Just For Classroom News, Homework, etc.
         iii. A Professional Site To Represent Me, Share Professional Resources, etc.

      b. Classroom/Teaching/Learning Site for Kids to Pick Up Resources, Announcements, Files, Assignments, etc.?

      c. A Blog (online journal/diary with entries posted most-recent-first)? With Comments Allowed or Disallowed?

      d. Something Else? All of The Above?

2. How Much Time Do I Want To Spend Per Day or Week On Updating and Maintenance?

3. How Tech Savvy Am I About This or How Tech Savvy Do I Want to Become?

4. Do I Want It Hosted on D-11 / Mann’s Server or Somewhere Else?

5. Do I Have a Specific Color, Design, or Theme in Mind?

     a. Do I Want a Simple, Clean Look or Something Fancier?

     b. What Flavor/Mood/Impression Am I Aiming For in the Aesthetics of My Site?

6. Do I Want to Invite Participation by Students or Anyone Else? For example, others would also be writing, editing and commenting with you.

7. Will I Be Having Students Doing Any of the Updating / Maintenance?

8. Do I Want Security Features Like Logins and Passwords For Anyone Besides Myself?

9. Have I Made A Rough Site Map / Flow Chart / Outline of my Site’s Pages? Have I Decided Which Pages Should Be Linked? See below.*

10. Do I Want To Spend Any Money on My Site Name or Site Storage (Hosting)? Either way, Heather will be making a link on the Mann site that leads to your site.

11. Do I Want My Own Specific Address / My Own Domain Name? (www.Mr.Smith.com) or is a Sub-Domain Fine (www.Mr.Smith.teachersfirst.com)? What is that name? **

12. How Important Is It To Me That The Web Address Be Easy to Remember?

Notes

* SAMPLE FLOWCHARTS/PLANNING SHEETS/OUTLINES

 

  1.   

 

** DOMAIN NAMES: You Have 3 Choices:


1. You Can Register and Purchase A New Domain Name - pick your own (i.e. www.yourname.com or www.mannlancers.org, etc. You have to find out if the name is available, then pay a small fee to reserve it. I pay around $10 for mine.

2. You Can Use A Free Sub-Domain – get a custom sub-domain on someone else’s server via the service you pick (i.e. www.teachnology.yourname.com or www.mannlancers.schoolnotes.com ). This will happen automatically if you use one of the many free services on the web.

3. You Can Re-Direct A Domain Name You Already Have – Point the custom domain name you already own to a host server (i.e. I have pointed a couple of my domain names to a sub-domain on www.squarespace.com but you only have to type in www.2020nexus.org instead of www.2020nexus.squarespace.com ).

Site Maps:

  1. http://pbil.univ-lyon1.fr/RTKdb/rtkdb_SiteMap.php
  2. http://www.uvsc.edu/disted/decourses/dgm/2740/IN/steinja/lessons/02/images/site_map_sketch.jpg
  3. http://www.soe.vt.edu/oero/images/oero_site_map.gif

U.S. Department of Education Study Finds that Good Teaching can be Enhanced with New Technology

The U.S. Department of Education has released an analysis of former studies comparing online and face-to-face instruction, technology use in the classroom, using technology to monitor student data, and the like. 

To summarize, the analysis re-affirmed the effectiveness of online learning and "blended learning," which is teaching face-to-face which incorporates some elements of online learning. The best results seem to come from blended learning, but it's interesting to note that if researchers compared purely face-to-face teaching with purely online teaching, the online students showed higher achievement.

US Secretary of Arne Duncan has some things to say about the results:

 

“This new report reinforces that effective teachers need to incorporate digital content into everyday classes and consider open-source learning management systems, which have proven cost effective in school districts and colleges nationwide,” said U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan. “We must take advantage of this historic opportunity to use American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funds to bring broadband access and online learning to more communities.

“To avoid being caught short when stimulus money runs out, school officials should use the short-term federal funding to make immediate upgrades to technology to enhance classroom instruction and to improve the tracking of student data,” Duncan added. “Technology presents a huge opportunity that can be leveraged in rural communities and inner-city urban settings, particularly in subjects where there is a shortage of highly qualified teachers. At the same time, good teachers can utilize new technology to accelerate learning and provide extended learning opportunities for students.”

The press release stresses that most of the studies were performed at the college level and that there are few studies comparing online learning to classroom learning in the K-12 arena, so we should not be too quick to take the results of this meta-analysis as gospel.

Original Source: http://www.ed.gov/news/pressreleases/2009/06/06262009.html

The full report can be found at http://www.ed.gov/about/offices/list/opepd/ppss/reports.html#edtech.