LeaderTalk

Looking Back at 2008

As each year comes to a close,  I look forward to the year end "Best Of" lists that crop up across my network. It gives me an opportunity to catch up on things I've missed since I can never actually keep up these days with the abundance of information being shared.

Here's a list of a few that came my way in recent days.

Jane Hart's 100 Great Articles about Learning Tools and Technologies in 2008 - Jane Hart puts together a great series of lists throughout the year. From her Jane's Pick of the Day or the Top 100 Tools list she gathers together an incredible amount of content in one place. Your sure to pick up something as you browse through her posts.

How to 2008: How to Do Almost Anything with Social Media - This great post from Mashable writer Pete Cashmore, brings you Mashable's top How-To articles from the year. You'll find How-to articles on Google, Facebook, Twitter, Blogging, Online Video and much more in this series.

Online Collaboration And Learning: The Best Resources Of 2008 From MasterNewMedia - Robin Good is the author of the these resource compilations. Included are sections on Best Video Conferencing Tools, Best Screen Sharing Tools and much more. Unfortunately the Collaborative Tools Map section is not working at this time but hopefully will be up and running soon.

PC Magazine has put out their list of Top Websites of 2008 on their website. They have two sub lists Top 100 Classic Websites and Top 100 Undiscovered Websites. It takes a bit to get through the copious amounts of advertising on each page but their list contains many sites that were new to me.

David Byrne has put together his Top 12 List of Favourite Resources for 2008 in two posts Part 1 and Part 2 over at his Free Technology for Teachers blog.

Best of 2009 everyone!

Picture: http://www.flickr.com/photos/chenta/2313434629/sizes/l/

Awakening Possibilities

This past week I had the distinct pleasure of being part of a cadre of presenters in our local Manitoba Association of Computing Educators (ManACE) "Awakening Possibilities" event.

The event was set up following the theme "5 Minutes to Make A Difference" and each presenter was asked to present in a 5 minute span, a difficult task when you look at the knowledge and expertise of my fellow presenters.

Along with the 30 or so attendees at the event another 40 plus joined us via the live broadcast on USTREAM.TV and the back channel chat that went on was very active.Each presentation was recorded and archived so anyone who missed it can catch the presentations at a later time.

The moving force behind this event and last year's MBEdubloggercon was ManACE president Andy McKiel. This was a very forward thinking event and Andy deserves a great deal of credit for pulling it all together. In my Twitter discussions with Andy since the event he has told me there is a great deal of buzz about the event and plans are all ready in the works for something in the new year proving to me a lot can happen as a result of just 5 minutes worth of discussion.

One key theme  was apparent though out the night and was captured beautifully in the last slide of  Alec Couros' presentation   It's not about the technology.  

It was about how these can be applied to help our students improve their learning capacities.  It's always about the pedagogy and improving the learning opportunities for the students.

Proving Up

“Success in the …educational use of these materials …clearly indicate that, when properly used by teachers in the light of good pedagogical procedures, they constitute an educational development potentially as significant as the invention of the printing press”

As someone who advocates for the infusion of technology across the curriculum, this made a great deal of sense to me. It always has been the application of good teaching practice that makes any technology able to better enhance a student's capacity to learn. It is never solely about the technology but rather good pedagogy that allows the application of the technology to enable the students' learning.

This is a message you'll hear repeated during the K12 Online Conference which is winding up its second and final week. If you missed it thus far, rest assured that as the conference's name suggests all of the content is online for you to access now and in the future. The Conference Help Desk has a listing of the entire content of each of the conference's strands so you can see at a glance the amazing variety of presentations by leading teacher practitioners and school leaders. It's definitely worth a look!

Regarding the quote I used to open this post, I asked my wife and a few colleagues at work what they the "these materials" in the quote could be? Responses included cellphones, web 2.0 applications and books. They were surprised to find it referred to audio-visual materials circa 1944 and comes from the November 1944 issue of ASCD's Educational Leadership in an article called "Proving Up". You can find the entire listing of all of ASCD's archived issues on their website. Thanks to Vicki Davis for sharing the link in the Educators group on Diigo.

Move It to Improve It - Brain Rules

I've always been interested in fitness and wellness. Being involved in sports of all kinds and keeping myself well makes me feel good. For many years I was a volunteer with our provincial teachers' society working to educate teachers on ways they can take care of their own personal and professional wellness. So when material comes my way that makes sense to my wellness concepts I like to pass it on for the benefit of others.

I recently came across a very interesting book entitled Brain Rules by Dr. John Medina, the director of the Brain Center for Applied Learning Research at Seattle Pacific University. In the book he lays out some interesting facts about the brain and lists "12 Principles for Surviving and Thriving at Work, Home and School". The book is an easy read and is enhanced by both the website of the same name and the DVD which comes with it. 

The first rule discusses exercise and its impact on the brain and learning. My summation  - Move it to improve it! The video included here augments the text and is designed to be viewed following the reading of the text. However it is a great stand - alone discussion point and I'm sure will generate some comments on its own.

The remainder of the videos can be found on the BrainRulesBook Channel on YouTube.  They are all included in higher quality on the DVD that accompanies the book.

Garr Reynolds of the Presentation Zen blog, has shared a great Slideshare file of ideas he's gleaned from the book. He's called it "Brain Rules: What all presenters need to know". If you use PowerPoint with your students, staff or community you need to see it.

Definitely worth a look!

Brain Rules for Presenters

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: reynolds garr)

Some Sites to Get You Started

As we get back to school this week in our neck of the woods, I thought I'd share a list of sites that teachers and administrators might find useful in their first days back to school.

Mathway - Step-by-Step Math Problem Solver Having a hard time finding the answer to a mathematical problem? This is a great site that allows you to enter a problem and it pumps out the solution for you.

Dumpr.net I love sites that allow me to play with my digital photos and create a variety of creative results. With many students and teachers taking digital pictures in their classroom, this might be an interesting way to present the first weeks of school to your parents. Here's just one sample:

Be sure to check out Flickr Toys and GlassGiant as well. Both you and your students will have an incredible amount of fun in the process and cover many curricular areas as well.

definr - An Incredibly Fast Dictionary This site is pretty amazing. Type in the first few letters of a word and the site suggests multiple word possibilities as you type. Finish typing or just click on the word that it suggests and it pumps out the definition for you. Simple, easy, and speedy too.

Discovery Education's Homework Help This site is really multiple sites in one. It contains homework help for Math, Science, English, Social Studies and many other subject area either in the form of short videos or suggested web sites. 

101 Free Edugames This site is really a collection of 101 free educational games that you can use with your students in a multitude of curricular areas. For more information on using gaming in education please have a look at the Gaming in Education wiki.

Wishing everyone a great start to the school year. It's the first time in 28 years that I'm not in a school and getting ready. Hopefully the links I've shared here will help your start up in some small way!

Cross posted to the Literacy with ICT: IMYM Tutorials blog.

Resources for Student Teachers

I came across this link the other day and felt it had to be shared in as many ways as possible. Baptism by Fire: One Hundred Tips and Resources for Student Teachers from the folks at SmartTeaching will be a valuable resource for student teachers and their classroom mentors.

Contained within the article are general tips, links to teachers blogs, tips on classroom management, lesson plans, links to forums, resume tips and tricks, and a pretty comprehensive list of books for reading by those aspiring to join the profession and seasoned veterans.

Most definitely worth a look!

 

Innovation in Our Schools: An Old Fashioned Barn-Raising of Ideas

First, an apology. I am only 4 months and one day late for my last post ... skip to present day.

 I was fortunate to spend the last two days with some incredibly innovative individuals at the Microsoft Innovative Teachers Conference held in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. As I said in my morning tweet, “My brain still hurts in a good way!” Each of the invited attendees present at the conference is doing incredibly innovative work with their students and integrating/infusing technology into the learning culture of their classroom. Yesterday I was very fortunate to I sit in a group with Kathy Cassidy, Clarence Fisher, Darren Kuropatwa, Chris Harbeck, and Andy McKiel as we discussed the concept of what  innovation would look like in our schools.

As we brainstormed ideas, one key aspect that we discussed was time for staff collaboration and reflection. Being able to share, problem-solve,deconstruct and reconstruct ideas is something staff members long for but so seldom have opportunity to do. From these opportunities can come a common language, mutual understanding, shared visions and goals for a school.

We also felt there needed to be more celebration of what our students accomplish. As a former elementary school teacher and principal, I know the importance of the celebration of our students' accomplishments and how they shine as a result. From this idea, sprang a thought that we need to also  celebrate what our staff is doing. More often than not, the only person who knows what is going on in every teacher's classroom besides the teacher themselves is the administrator. So here's my idea. Let's celebrate our staff's work by having each teacher regardless of subject area create a science fair like poster presentation of what they think is one of their best lessons taught. Teacher's would include lesson topic, curricular objectives, outline, sample materials, assessment samples, etc. Anything that would highlight the success that this particular approach created for their students in the classroom. Teacher's have all this stuff done anyways so it should be a matter of just pulling it together. The benefit comes from the sharing at a team/staff meeting or school based professional development day. This is where the collective wisdom of the participants can shine. This is where sharing, questioning and even a bit of walking in another colleagues shoes can take place. This where teachers who habitually think they don't have anything to share can get affirmation about their practice. Every teacher has a gem of a lesson they could share and shine.

A follow-up session might feature how teachers are integrating/infusing technology into their classroom practice. Teachers could work individually or in teams to highlight their practice. If teachers are late adopters of technology, this would be an opportunity for mentors in the school to assist them. I think opportunities such as this would highlight the marvelous work our teachers are doing and give opportunity for them share and learn from each other at the same time. The potential impact on teacher practice could be significant.

I'll draw the analogy of an old-fashioned barn-raising where everyone pitched in to achieve a common goal. Working together to raise our individual and group's innovative practice can profoundly enhance the one thing we're in this business for in the first place - the learning of our students.

Image: Raising Wall 3 http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1220/534843169_bb299aa4ea.jpg?v=0

Alternative Routes

For the last month or more I have been intrigued by digital copyright issues and how they impact our schools. Interestingly enough, few teachers and administrators really understand digital copyright implications and unknowingly may be infringing on copyright on a regular basis  Think about how often Google Image Search is used in your school and what is done with the resulting images if you are wondering what I'm getting at. Compounding this is the fact that copyright laws differ greatly from country to country so what may apply in the US for example isn't the same for those of us living North of the border or in another country around the world.

So as I continue on my adventure to find out more about copyright and how schools, teachers and administrators can live comfortably within the rules, I've gathered together a number of alternative sources for images, music and video for teachers and students to use project work. While I have done my best to insure their availability it will be up to the end user to verify that they are following any and all provisos of their use. They can be found on my Alternative Sources of Materials page on my wiki.

If you have any other sources you would like to share I would love to add them to make this list more complete. Please leave a comment!

Photo Credit: http://flickr.com/photos/duncan/99863704/

A New iPod or MP3 Player for Christmas? Great Professional Development at Your Fingertips

Happy New Year! I didn't end the previous year well having missed my assigned posting date so have to play catch up. Here's a post that I was originally posted on my tech blog.

If you're like many individuals you may have received a new iPod or MP3 player as a gift during the holiday season. You are probably busy loading it with your favorite songs and perhaps even an audio book or two. But did you know that you can access some phenomenal professional development with it as well?

My iPod has been the source of many hours of listening pleasure since I received it as a gift from my daughter two years ago. I can honestly say I don't often travel alone without it and my handy FM transmitter in my vehicle. Besides music I have found some tremendous podcasts that I listen to on regular basis. I've listed some of my favorites below. All of them are available as a free subscription  through iTunes.

 

• Moving at the Speed of Creativity - Wesley Fryer

 

• Adventures in Podcasting - Shawn Wheeler

 

• Connect Learning - David Warlick
  

 

• The Teachers Podcast (formerly known as Podcast for Teachers) - Dr. Kathy King and Mark Gura

 

 

• SMARTBoard Lessons Podcast - Ben Hazzard and Joan Badger  2007 Edublog Award Winner

• K12 Online Conference 2007 and 2006 - This is the Motherload of Professional Development resources for the past two years. All of the presentations are broken down into their strands on the K12Online Help Desk Wiki.
  

 

So if your looking for a way to get some great PD without having to prep to be out of your classroom, subscribe to these and some of the  many other excellent podcasts that are out there.

 

Definitely Worth a Look!

 

** Here's how to manage several iPods on one computer via Vicki Davis

 

*** Here's a link to a presentation I created on Podcasting in Education that might be of interest as well as the Podcasting page on my wiki.

 

Image Credit: Louder @ http://flickr.com/photos/hermida/66757961/

What's the Hook?

Whenever we work with students or staff in a learning environment it is important to think of ways that we can "hook them". By this I mean what discussion point, activity or practice can we use to engage them as quickly and as meaningfully as we can in the intended learning.

In the technology workshops I have led over the last few years, new Web 2.0 tools have created "the hook" to get teachers engaged. When I hear from a teacher or an administrator the phrase "I love my Wiki!" or witness the excitement they see for a pedagogical application of a particular Web 2.0 tool in their classroom I know I've done the task I set out to do.

How can we do the same for our students in the classroom? Technology is one of the tools that certainly raises the "hook" factor in our classrooms. But not everyone has access to the technology all the time or, for some even on a regular basis, so what other options do teachers have? 

This is the part of the post where it becomes interactive. I challenge readers to comment and add ways they have used or seen teachers "hook" their students into the learning.

Watch this interesting video via Karen Montgomery's excellent Thinking Machine WIki that looks at some of the most important characteristics of students today.It was created by Michael Wesch, Assistant Professor of Cultural Anthropology at Kansas State University in collaboration with 200 of his students.

 

(Photo - L. Marie) Creative Commons Attribute