Ken Burns's "The National Parks: America's Best Idea" Classroom 2.0

Since I didn’t get a chance to see Edtech Weekly live this week I thought I would try and find a webcast on digital storytelling. What I came across was a neat resource for teachers to use when teaching about “Place” (one of the five themes of geography) using National Parks as the foundation for the lesson. During this webinar, the presenters Kathryn Keranen and Lyn Malone demonstrated the use of ArcGIS, a downloadable, presentation tool. It’s a 3D Power Point type program with links to the National Parks. We also watched clips from the Ken Burns film. The lesson plans section on the National Park site is a helpful resource for teachers. I really liked the live webcams at the national parks. Leslie Rule, a producer at KQED in San Francisco presented a very brief place-based digital storytelling lessons. She spoke about creating content using Google Earth and Google Maps. So while this webcast wasn't a homerun for digital storytelling, it is well worth your time - check it out.

Classroom 2.0

I had a chance to catch the October 17th Classroom 2.0 live with Kim Caise, Lorna Costantini and Peggy George. I used Elluminate and was able to see the desktop and hear the conversations taking place about how to use informational databases etc... – way cool. I also went on Peggy George’s blog and read about a program called Tikatok which is an on line book publishing program – she used it with her grandson to create a book that he wrote. I also liked the site she referenced called Compfight which provides images that can be freely used with Creative Commons licensing with attribution. Great images on that site. Not sure about how the copyrights stuff works or how to site it. I’m looking forward to talking about that in class.

The need to evaluate websites for use in the classroom

If teachers are going to allow students to do self-exploration and self-learning using the Internet, then they must be diligent in their preparation. I like the way Marc Prensky defines the role of today’s teacher in Educational Technology, The Role of Technology in teaching and the classroom: “The teacher’s role should not be a technological one, but an intellectual one – to provide the students with context, quality assurance, and individualized help”. Teachers need to be flexible and open to new ideas and views that students may discover, but using a list of trusted sites or links to the sites is a way to help minimize the surprises. There are so many resources available, but it’s important that the students know the source of the information. We as teachers can provide a list of sites or use a web page with links that students are expected to site in their work.

How can we, as teachers, provide equal access to the digital world to all students

From the 6th grade teacher point of view:
We as teacher can’t provide equal access to all students – unless we want to limit those who have greater access than the less affluent students. Just like a child who is exposed to a sport at an early age - he will have a distinct advantage over the others who only have what the school can offer. I actually coached a boy in Little League who had a former MLB player working with him to develop his batting and pitching skills outside of the regular practice time and he also had a personal trainer for agility training to help him to be quicker. Should I have discouraged his parents from paying for these extra services? Of course not, the same goes for the classroom.

I can’t expect a student to partake in a wiki if he can’t access the Internet at home, so I may have to use class time if I expect all students to collaborate on a group project. But, if some student wants to produce a multimedia object using Garageband, Sony Vegas or Hyperstudio for a class presentation I wouldn’t want to limit what they can use to just the Open Office suite. All the free software is a big help to level the playing field, but the situations at home make it a difficult to keep all students in the same game. We can’t expect a student to produce a varsity presentation with jayvee resources.

Chap 7 “Making a Contribution” and Chap 11 “Learning at Your Service”

The Internet is such an incredible resource for learning, but I often wonder where do these people get the time to make all these videos or post these blogs. Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad the information is out there, but I work two jobs while I’m attending grad school and I have my two teenage boys to taxi around or coach their youth teams. All the stats about how many videos etc are out there, what about the hours it takes to produce and upload these things?

I’m always trying to save a buck so here are a few of my latest You Tube adventures: I recently made a rain barrel for my wife’s garden – got the step by step how-to from a HGTV video posted on You Tube. I bought an Iphone on ebay and was able to unlock it (so I could use it with our T-mobile family plan) by reading a few postings and watching a couple You Tube videos. I have also explored the possibility of providing electricity to my barn by placing solar panels on its roof. I also researched converting a Toyota Tercel from gas to electric. Some guy in Maine has a site with step-by-step videos of his conversion of the same car I received this spring from a friend (a 94 Tercel) … amazing!

I have never been a big social network person, but I do like the idea of using wikis to have students collaborate. I saw the wiki camping video at a tech workshop last year – It’s worth showing in class.
Another part of me is concerned how much time my oldest son spends updating his facebook page. I did hear on a podcast last week that the University of Tennessee football coach Les Miles shuts down his Twitter account during the season because it became too much of a distraction. I may have to limit my sons’ time on Facebook once his basketball season starts. Charles Barkley had this to say during the Dan Patrick Show about people who follow celebrities on Twitter “…"People who sit around and worry about what some celebrity is doing ... that's just ignorant to me,"

I’m just not in front of a computer enough during the day nor do I plan on paying the extra money for a data plan for my phone anytime soon. Heck, I just finally broke down and got a cell phone this summer. So at this time I don’t see myself using Twitter very often. I do realize that Twitter can come in handy with recruiting student athletes to SNHU and someone on the coaching staff should tweet on a regular basis to recruits – that’s of course if it’s not an NCAA violation.

The World is Open - Reflection
Since I consider myself to be current with the latest technology in the classroom I wasn’t expecting any major revelations, but I would say that the reference to the Time magazine article hit home quite a bit “… Rip Van Winkle could suddenly find himself in the twenty-first century after sleeping for a hundred years and would be taken aback by massive changes found everywhere in society except in schools. Schools, he would quickly recognize. As Wallis and Steptoe point out: ‘‘American schools aren’t exactly frozen in time, but considering the pace of change in other areas of life, our public schools tend to feel like throwbacks. Kids spend much of the day as their great-grandparents once did: sitting in rows, listening to teachers lecture, scribbling notes by hand, reading from textbooks that are out of date by the time they are printed”(page 43).

I do understand why many teachers are reluctant to change their teaching ways. Intercity schools are feeling the pressure to increase district and state wide testing scores and many of the teachers probably fear straying away the grade level expectations and the established lessons that cover the core curriculum. It’s understandable how one could easily fall into the teaching to the test trap. Venturing outside the box with project based learning across the curriculum requires cooperation with peers, flexibility with the core curriculum, and administrative and parental support. It is much safer to stick with the standard book and lecture mode. No teacher wants to be the reason a school fails state or district assessment goals.

The later part of the chapter also had a quote which hit a nerve: “Learners of all ages are increasingly engaged in formal as well as informal learning, which is highly mobile and often ubiquitous. In such a world, each of ‘‘you’’ will need to continue learning in order to stay employed”. (page 50) One has to keep up with what the students communicate with and what activities they are involved with in order to make their lessons seem relevant. I’m a big cnet.com fan and will often read/watch the reviews on the website. I’m also a college coach that takes many long road trips with players that have all the latest tech devices. The idea that If you don’t keep learning you’ll lose your job seems a bit harsh, but in order to be an effective educator one should aware of, if not embrace the latest trends.

First Assignments

With EdTech Weekly, there is some much flying at you at once. The podcast is the only way really check out the sites and catch back up with the conversations.