NCTIES 2011 Session 6 March 4, 2011
Posted by lionirons42 in : Uncategorized , add a commentToday I sat in with Patrick Crispen again, but today his focus was on Prezi. I had looked at Prezi a while ago but had some trouble figuring it out. I decided that my students were tech-savvy enough that I could give them the username and password and have them play with it for a class period and they would be okay with it. After a couple of days, I found that I was wrong. They were more lost than I was and I had not used it for more than about 5 minutes. After sitting in this session, I have decided that when I need to talk about stuff to my class, this is how I need to present it. It is much more fun and interactive than PowerPoint and there are less options for me to worry about and play with. As long as I am organized with the information I want to present, it will all work out just fine.
The tools are really quite simple. There is a tool wheel in the upper left corner of your canvas where EVERYTHING can be found. In order to zoom in and zoom out, there is a + and – sign on the right side of the canvas. In order to write, all you have to do is click and type. Once you type, if you click on another spot in the canvas, it stops the typing. You can continue typing in another spot or even the same spot, but now you can choose some other things to do. If you click once on the text you have created a zebra-like circle appears. The inside of the circle, when you click and hold, you can move the text around. The middle circle allows you to grow and shrink your text. And the outside circle allows you rotate the text. It’s really as simple as that. As far as fonts and themes, there are only about 10 different ones. These can be found under Colors and Fonts. Unlike PowerPoint, you don’t have to select the text you want to change. You just click the theme you want and everything changes. Under the insert tab you can insert pictures that you have files of or YouTube videos (you just need the URL, there is no search feature). Frames allow you to section off different parts of your presentation. These sections can help when you are ready to set up the paths for the presentation. Each frame can become a different part of the presentation and there is even an invisible frame so that you don’t have an actual frame around the section but you can set it as a separate path or zoom in to a part of a picture. The last part of Prezi is setting up a path. The path tells the project how to navigate through.
And that is really all there is to it. I haven’t used the program yet but I know this is what I am going to start using when I need a PowerPoint presentation. It seems like it will take me a while to get used to it and make it easy to follow. This program just seems to be more fun and engaging. Isn’t that why we are all here? Trying to find more ways to engage students? Now I just need to find out how to get my kids to have their own e-mails that would work with this program. My county allows for the kids to have e-mails but the filter is so strong that it does not allow for kids to sign up for something that requires verification of the e-mail. Maybe gmail? or gaggle? Any ideas please leave a comment.
NCTIES 2011 Session 3 March 4, 2011
Posted by lionirons42 in : Uncategorized , add a commentJust sat with Patrick Crispen for State of the Craft. Education is really going to be changing very soon. Paper and pencil are going to disappear and the way we use our computers is going to change.
Google has done a great job of putting things in the cloud but I have been so focused on everything else going on that I have missed the boat. After being in this presentation I know I need to jump on this NOW! I need to figure out a way to set up all my students with a Google account so we can do collaborative work through docs. We have been working on Literature Circles for most of the quarter and docs would be a great way for the kids in each group to collaborate at home or at school and keep all of their work together! No more individual papers to check, each group could get one doc and I would only have 5 or 6 papers to read through!
Microsoft is also working on a FULL online version! No more purchasing updates to your Microsoft Office and downloading to your computer! Everything would be online, written online, saved online, read online, EVERYTHING ONLINE! Supposedly this will be launched sometime this year. It will cost something each month and the cost has not been set, but supposedly the education price is going to be GOOD! Really looking forward to this one!
Since I ran out of time to write yesterday, I can’t remember half of the things Patrick Crispen talked about in this session, but our world is definitely going to be changing. Don’t know how soon the change will happen, but look out world, it’s going to happen.
NCTIES 2011 Session 2 March 3, 2011
Posted by lionirons42 in : Uncategorized , add a commentHad trouble making up my mind about this one. We just got class sets of iPods of each 5th grade class at my school and there were a couple of sessions that seemed relevant to what I am trying to do right now. So, it was either “A Teacher For Every Student” or “1:1 Toolbox.” My goal with the iPods is to make it so that I do less direct teaching and more supporting of students that aren’t sure of what they need to be doing. The iPods would allow for me to do this, I’m just not sure what all I need to be doing.
I chose “A Teacher for Every Student” being led by teachers from Scurlock Elementary School. They have teacher created materials on their iPods to direct instruction and allow students to self-pace their learning. They say this allows them time to meet with each student multiple times each day because they are finishing at different times. I don’t know how well this will work with 26 kids in my class, but I would be able to meet with more small groups, and that really is my goal. This also allows for students who are absent to be able to go back and hear the lessons that they missed while being out. I won’t have to take time out of my busy day to reteach.
Now the question is, how do I accomplish this? I know there are videos out there on YouTube and TeacherTube that I can use, but how do I get them into iTunes and put them on my iPods? One way to get videos is through “Download Helper,” although I would have to have Firefox in order to use it. “Download Helper” allows for you to bring in the YouTube videos that are blocked when you try to use them in another fashion. The free version puts a balloon in the corner of the video, if you want it to be free of this you have to pay for the program. There are multiple choices of how to download the videos (flv format is for SMART Notebook player).
Creating lessons can be done in multiple ways. One of the teachers takes home her SMART Slate to write on the screen, but it is possible to record using the mouse. These teachers have found that SMART Recorder does not convert well to the iPods so they use CamStudio, a free screen recording program. CamStudio does not allow recording in multiple formats, but Camtasia, the paid version, does. CamStudio also does not allow you to erase your mistakes while Camtasia does. Being a new Mac user, this program won’t work for me, it’s PC only. Once the video is recorded, you need AnyVideoConverter to convert your video to m4v/mp4 for the iPods. Sounds simple, guess I’ll just have to try it and see what happens.
Since I’m using a Mac, they say it’s much easier. In quicktime player I choose New Screen Recording under file. Click start recording and the recorder will jump to the tool bar at the top of the screen where it will allow you stop the recording. You can then share it directly to iTunes. I think I will use this method instead, much easier!
Time for lunch! Rushton Hurley will be speaking, don’t really know who he is or what he will talk about, but I’m looking forward to it. Hoping he won’t stand on any tables like Ron Clark did last year! 
Edmodo and The Real World March 3, 2011
Posted by lionirons42 in : Uncategorized , add a commentIt’s official, the flu has hit my class! There have been at least 7 kids who have missed an entire week of school so far this quarter and we still have 4 weeks left until we track out. Of course, they all decide to get sick while we are working on our first literature circle of the quarter and the project that goes with it. Good thing we have Edmodo!
We started using Edmodo towards around the beginning of December and I really didn’t know what it should be used for. I was struggling to figure out exactly what this thing was and what I should do with it, let alone what my students should do with it. I posted a couple of assignments and added our Science Fair packet so the kids could have easy access to it at home. Other than that, I really wasn’t sure what I was going to do. Then as I was planning out my literature circles for the third quarter I decided I would try to have the kids all do their assigned jobs on Edmodo and hold their literature circle discussions through the website. Fortunately, we were getting iPod touches for each 5th grade classroom and the kids would have easy access to their work and not need a regular computer.
So, we began our literature circles, reading books that centered around the American Revolution and then the flu hit. Everyone eventually finished their books and all was well. Until it was time to put the projects together. We were working on creating skits that were based on the books that covered some of the objectives we had already discussed in class (conflict and lesson/theme/message). They were supposed to create five short skits that showed they were able to find these things in their books. One of my groups had four members and two were out sick. One of the sick members took the initiative to be on Edmodo the entire week to talk to his group and get his share of the work done. They carried on their group meetings all week on Edmodo and got the work done. At the beginning of the week one of the students was crying because she was so worried that she wouldn’t get the work done and that is not like her, she gets everything done without worry. And come Friday, when they had everything done, she was excited that they were ready for presentations.
I shared this experience with some folks that were visiting the school on Friday and my principal and they said that this is how the real world works. There is no way to be sick and just sit at home any more, you have to be connected. Our schools need to be headed this way, kids should be able to be sick and still held accountable for their work without being hit with loads of make-up work when they return to class. It would make their lives, and ours, so much easier.
NCTIES Session 1 March 3, 2011
Posted by lionirons42 in : Uncategorized , add a commentSession 1 today is Social Learning Networks with Kevin Honeycutt. I’ve been using Edmodo in my classroom for a few months now and figured this would be a good place to start whether or not he talks about Edmodo. Kids today are much more social than I remember being when I was in 5th grade. We really should be teaching socially, not locally.
Our responsibility is to teach kids responsibility, not to block everything. We block everything and then send them home to an unfiltered environment. Kids can change their lives, good or bad, with one click. These mistakes are permanent because they are online and can be googled. Parent should be learning beside their children. Television is a “push” technology. Today’s technology is a “push-pull” technology that requires time and teaching. Kids need to be taught how to analyze their choices and post only the things they want to be found later on. Kids need to be challenged to the things they are proud of out there. It’s okay to be social, but they need to show their creativity and brilliance more often.
So, the point is, what is better, a mind by itself that is mensa-smart or a mind that doesn’t know everything but goes out to the eduverse when a question/problem is posed? Which one would you hire? It’s great to be smart but if you aren’t out there networking with the rest of the world, bringing back information, then you aren’t going to be able to solve all the problems that come up. However, you have to be smart with your networking. It’s about working smarter not harder. It you tweet it, it should go to facebook and all the other networks you are apart of it. Networks connect you to thousands of people people, not just the ones you can see face to face.
Kids are the same. They have both kinds of relationships, personal and digital. It’s up to us to teach them to bring it all together. If we don’t teach them correctly, the embarrassing stuff that happens during puberty will be the only things found later on. Kids should be learning that a larger mind is out there. But they need to be careful. They should only say things that they would not be embarrassed about if their mom saw it. We need to be teaching them in a traditional way that helps them to think about what they are saying. One school has a paper Twitter that kids and teachers post about different topics once in a while and it gets posted at the front of the building for everyone to see as they enter or leave the building. Kevin Honeycutt says, why can’t this be done in the classroom? The elementary classroom gives students laminated name tags, why not leave that name tag blank and let the kids write what they are feeling each morning, it would be DeskTwitter. We can take this and build towards the internet and public networks. This is where the world is headed, the kids need to be taught to use it appropriately.
NCTIES Tomorrow! March 2, 2011
Posted by lionirons42 in : Uncategorized , add a commentI can’t believe it’s already been a year since I attended NCTIES for the first time. Since attending last year, I have become an avid Twitter follower, don’t post much but I am always reading through posts and checking out new things. I have had my students on Glogster, Xtranormal, and various other websites for project based learning. Each of the 5th grade classrooms at my school has a class set of iPod touches and a few Macbooks. Plus I have jumped on the Edmodo train. I have never really had a fear of trying new things but NCTIES gave me more confidence to go out there and just try it out.
I have browsed through all of the sessions on the NCTIES Wiki page and am thoroughly impressed with the amount of information I could receive, if there were about 50 of me. So I have narrowed it down to about 3 per session. Don’t know right now which sessions are going to win out, I just know I am going to be taking back more to my classroom than I have time to use in the last quarter and a half of the school year. Definitely looking forward to another great year.
My principal was telling me that he thought my team should put together a presentation for this year, it was too late by the time we started putting our heads together so we decided that next year would be the year. My principal and I had the same discussion last year after I got my students blogging on My Class Blog, but again it was a little too late to make a proposal. Being a Cubs fan, I feel a little redundant, there’s always next year. But after having browsed through everything it looks like we would definitely fit in. So, look for me next year. Don’t know what I’ll be talking about yet, but I’m sure it will be interesting.
Xtranormal … Digital Storytelling March 25, 2010
Posted by lionirons42 in : Uncategorized , 4 commentsI gave my students a project last week to wrap up the quarter. We have been doing a lot of literature circles this quarter and they had to select a book they read to present to the class. They got to choose any presentation method they wanted as long as they followed the rubric they were given. Some students chose to use Glogster, another student chose to use PowerPoint, but most students chose to use Xtranormal.
For those of you who have never used Xtranormal or may not have heard of it, it is a text-to-movie site. “If you can type, you can make a movie,” so they say. The kids have been having a great time creating their movies, however, everyone has been using my user name and password. This has caused MANY problems with the site. The first problem we have experienced is too many movies. After just days of work, there were 6 pages of published movies! As the kids continued to remix their movies, I deleted the previous videos and as a result deleted some unfinished work. The program is unreliable when more than one person is using it at a time. Some projects will publish, some won’t. It has been quite a struggle to get everything published and ready for presentations.
I tried downloading State for another project I was helping a student with. This worked great, however there was only one scene available and 2 characters to use. The rest of the scenes would have cost about $10 to purchase. There was also an scene with teddy bears dressed in leather for an x-rated movie, definitely not something I would want my students utilizing. Fortunately that was something that you would have to purchase in order to be available for use. We also struggled to get the program to export the movie into an mpeg format. After about an hour we got it working and uploaded it to teacher tube and burned it to a cd.
This site has a lot of potential, but there is no educational version and there are a lot of problems with the site. All of the students that have used the site have really enjoyed using it but have been very frustrated by the issues with saving. A few students had to start over completely, and some of those students decided to give up and do the project in a different format.
As the projects are finished I will post them here.
1. The Clay Marble (7th Grade Language Arts Project)
2. Student #3 – The BFG
3. Student #12 – The BFG
4. Student #11 – Numbering All The Bones
5. Student #13 – Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH
6. Student #22 – The Watsons Go To Birmingham-1963
Good Day! March 11, 2010
Posted by lionirons42 in : Uncategorized , add a commentToday’s Going To Be A Good Day! That about sums it up. This was such a cool video I had to pass it on. You may have seen it on Oprah already but it never gets old. A teacher at my school does the dance with her students on Friday afternoons sometimes, they love it! Hope you enjoy it!
NCTIES Final Remarks March 6, 2010
Posted by lionirons42 in : Uncategorized , 2 commentsWow, what a couple of days. I knew there was a lot of stuff out there technology-wise, but I didn’t realize how many people are really into it with their students everyday. I know I wrote about some of the things I learned on Thursday, but now that I have had some time to let things sink in I’ll go back to the beginning and start with the session I sat in on. You can find out more through the NCTIES wiki page.
First session was about iPod Touches in the classroom. This session was called “Advanced Technology: Using the iPod Touch in the 3-8 Classroom” and was run by second-year teacher Craig Lawson from Cape Fear Middle School. I knew the iTouch would be a powerful tool if I could get my hands on one, now I know I have to get my hands on not just one, but a whole class set. Check out his website, iPod Games for Learning, for many of his grea ideas. He told us about many of the applications that he uses including Math Drills, Word Fu, the Sims and many others. I had never considered the Sims to be a learning game. I couldn’t believe the possibilities for writing that this game held. He had his students develop characters that were completely opposite from themselves. Boys had to be girls, they had to choose a different race, if they were rather lazy they had to extra busy, if they were shy they had to be outgoing and had to develop their character based on these requirements. In 5th grade in Wake County one of our literacy objectives has to do with character development, what a powerful tool to accomplish this. For more great ideas from Craig Lawson check out his website or follow him on Twitter (midlawsondle).
Second session of the day was with Gail Lovely. This session was called “Books Are Not Dead … Use Technology to Enliven Your Literacy Program”. You can check out Gail’s website or check out her presentations at NCTIES. She began by quoting an article from the National Association of Independent Schools, “Yet textbooks typically fail to provide the most basic conditions for readerly engagement. They are great vehicles for generating corporate profits, but poor ones for creating readers. They fail young readers on four dimensions of reading – authorship, form, venue, and duration.” Gail’s whole presentation focused on going beyond the textbook and adding Web 2.0 tools to everyday lessons. Her first site was Storynory, a great site for audio stories. I haven’t had a lot of time to explore yet, but it definitely looks like one that would be worth the time, especially since I have a struggling reader in my class. The next site was Field Support, a site where Legends and Folktales are located on a map in their country of origin. Notice how the United States doesn’t have any. Her next focus was Google Lit Trips, if you haven’t seen this site and teach higher education, you need to check this out. It plots the story on Google Earth and the students can take a look at the places in the story. It includes photos and historic documents that may be in the story. Stories such as Johnny Tremain, The Grapes of Wrath, and My Brother Sam Is Dead are included in this site. I have browsed the story selection here but have not had a chance to give it a try yet. I have had a literature circle read My Brother Sam is Dead but did not remember the LitTrip, maybe I will have another group read it in the fourth quarter and go through the LitTrip with the book. Her next site was through Scholastic and is called Myths Brainstorming Machine. In 5th grade we read myths but we don’t typically write them. However, with this site we might try it next year. Another site she gave us was StoryLine by the Screen Actor’s Guild. This site contains streaming video of SAG members (ie James Earl Jones, etc.) reading children’s books. Right now there are 22 stories on this site and according to Gail Lovely they are continuing to add new stories quite often. Another tool she gave us was quite interesting. This one came from Scholastic as well and is called Word Wizard. This site will help students to create dictionaries or the teacher can create a dictionary for different areas of study or novel studies. These were the ones I thought were the best, however there were tons of other sites in Gail’s presentation, you can explore those on your own through Gail Lovely At NCTIES. Gail also presented on Friday but I was unable to attend the second session, however her presentation can be found through the previous link as well.
During lunch Ron Clark spoke. If you have never had the chance to hear him speak, it’s quite a trip. He’s very energetic and has some great stories to tell. His main message was that we, as teachers need to do a better job of bringing learning to life for today’s kids or they won’t care about what we are trying to tell them. The old ways of teaching are just that, OLD! We can no longer stand in front of a class of students and expect that they pay attention. We have to try new things. We have to look at the things this generation is doing at home and try to bring as much of it into the classroom as we can. That pretty much brought my Thursday to a close. I attended part of a another session “10 Web 2.0 Tools to Engage Your Students on a SMARTBoard” but after three tools that I had already heard of and have stuck in my Diigo links, I decided to head out and check out the vendors. Lots of great technology is available, you just have to find the funds for it.
Friday was FANTASTIC! I have been on Twitter for about a year now but never really used it much. In the last six months I started connecting with educators and getting links and articles to read from them. Other than that, I didn’t really know anything about Twitter, so I attended a session with Emory Maiden (@evmainden on Twitter) all about how to use Twitter. Within the firs 15 minutes I had learned a ton of tips and tricks, although I still couldn’t figure out how people were getting their comments out so quickly. I had already taken the first steps on Twitter by associating myself with educators and anyone that I thought would help me get new ideas. However, I didn’t know that I could have been sitting in sessions on Thursday with my Twitter open and follow everything that was going on just by using “#NCTIES” in my search. As if my head wasn’t already full, I could have been totally overloaded! As I looked around the room in this session and the other sessions I attended throughout the day on Friday I noticed people using something called TweetDeck. I just signed up for this application this morning. HOLY COW is about all I have to say! I would have been so much more on top of things had I known this existed before now. I’m sure there will be something new next year, but I will definitely be on TweetDeck next year for this conference! If you would like to check out all of the Tweets from NCTIES they can be found on TwapperKeeper, be careful there are THOUSANDS of them, lots of great info though. I think Emory summed up Twitter very well when he said, “Twitter is like a stream and you just dip your cup into it when you can. There is no need to get every little piece of information that comes through,” and when he quoted Kevin Honeycutt, “I’m smart but my network is brilliant.”
After Emory Maiden I went to the Apple Showcase for a presentation by Apple Distinguished Educator Jessica Swearengin called “Why Didn’t They Teach Classes Like That When I Was In School?”. Since I don’t have a Mac, this course didn’t help me out a whole lot but it did give me a few ideas. The main thing was that if the kids are challenged, they will respond and will respond in big ways. Challenges need to be issued before you start teaching and each day the kids need to have time to work on their challenge. I don’t know how well this would work for my class since we only have 4 computers in my classroom. One day this will be the way I teach and that will happen when I either have iTouches for each student or a laptop for each student. With school budgets the way they are here in North Carolina, that may never happen. A lot can be accomplished when each student has access to a computer at all times.
Last I sat in with Hall Davidson from Discovery Education. His presentation was very scattered but he had a lot to say, unfortunately for those of us in his session he only had an hour. I would bet he could have spoke for 2 or 3 hours on his topic. He suggested, for those of us who do not have access to iTouches or computers for every kid, to let the kids bring in their technology once a week and let them turn it on for 30 minutes or so. What an opportunity this would be! They would have to report about what they learned, obviously, but it shakes things up a little and gives the kids a chance to explore on their own. After this session, and the previous session, I realized I ought to get a Mac at some point. It is just way easier to do many projects if you have a Mac, too bad on my salary I can’t afford the switch right now.
Overall, this being my first experience with NCTIES, I feel like I am on the right path to educating my students. I’m not there by a long shot, but I’m headed in the right direction. We need to be using as much interactive technology as we can fit into our curriculum and letting the kids do the exploring. Digital Natives are made, not born is such a true statement. These kids today are born into a digital age and if we don’t promote that in our classrooms and our homes, our children will be unable to participate in the world they will be leading. We have to keep pushing the envelope, we have to keep on our toes, we need to make technology available to every student every day. We are preparing a generation for a future that we can’t imagine and for jobs that haven’t been created.
“Why do we read things that are bound, shouldn’t education be boundless?” -Hall Davidson
NCTIES March 4, 2010
Posted by lionirons42 in : Uncategorized , add a commentI am attending the North Carolina Technolog in Education Seminar today. First session was about iPod touches in the classroom. What an amazing tool! I now know I have to get at least one to try out in my classroom. There are just too many things available to even think about discussing now. Check out http://ipodgamesforlearning.pbworks.com for more information from the man behind the magic at the Tech Conference.
Now I’m listening to Gail Lovely (http://lovelyatncties.yolasite.com/) discuss digital media and reading connections. Wonderful information, check out the website above. Her presentation is at the bottom of the page with ALL of the links. Again, just unbelievable things you can do with reading and the Internet.
More to come later, lunch with Ron Clark and another couple of sessions at the end of the day.
