As I have explained in my last few posts, I will be using a number of the tools from this course in planning and preparing materials for AP World History, Model UN and History of Thought. This course has exposed me to a number of great tools that will help me reach more kids in more diverse ways and, hopefully, improve their learning of skills and content. The tools will also allow me to vary the methods kids use to respond to assignment materials and tasks.
What I am planning will involve them applying technical tools and skills to various levels of thinking. They will also allow the kids to do many of the tasks when it is most convenient for them. Some of what I will do will allow students to test themselves until they reach minimum competency or higher. I have much thinking, planning and creating to do this summer. It will be fun.
The Thing that has been my focus for the last third of the course has been Virtual Classrooms. I am really jazzed to put together a very usable web site for my AP History course and, if I have to, plan and produce an online environment for my Model UN course. For my AP course, the kids will use the site that I created as well as the publisher's online textbook site. I have also created a Facebook group called Bacon WHAPped History as a means to communicate with my students quickly and as a container for RSS feeds on topics useful to the course. While I want them to connect to this page, I do not expect them to "friend" me unless they want to. I never "friend" a student.
I have gotten an excellent education through this course. It sparked all kinds of ideas and fired me up as a teacher to try and to do new things. I want to thank you, Ron, for modifying the generic version of this course to fit our "needs" and responsibilities here in Michigan.
Monday, May 23, 2011
Thing 21: Screencasting
Screen cast links from the Summer Assignment page on my AP World History web site. I will be creating a number of screen casts this summer about assignments and how-to for the kids in all my classes. The first two are fairly rough in the delivery, but the content is there and pretty clear and organized. A number of the kids who are going to take AP World in the fall have already registered for the online textbook. They told that the screen cast was helpful in know what link to click and what to type in where. The textbook publisher does put a user through a number of hoops to get access to the site. The second screen cast instructs kids on how to navigate around the site and to find what parts of it I want them to use.
The technical aspects of using Camtasia were so easy. The rough part was me trying to speak clearly and with as little verbal "garbage" as possible. I am a work in progress.
Thing 20: Visual Learning
I have used both app-based and online graphic organizers before, but I hadn't used Bubbl.us. I really liked how simple it was to use. The learning curve is pretty level. Kids could pick up on how to use this pretty quickly. I also had a real reason for creating my web. I have to come up with various pros an cons to offering Eastern's Model UN class in different ways than we have traditionally done. It was nice that it automatically adjusted the color of the bubble depending on the layer of the link.
A number of teachers at Eastern are using Wordle. I just recently used it, along with Comic Life, to create an invitation for students to sign up for my History of Thought course. It was pretty easy to use and I think created a visually attractive and useful image with which to "market" what we cover in the course. We will see how the invite works it magic this week.
Sunday, May 22, 2011
Thing 19: Virtual Classrooms
As I read the requirements for this Thing, I thought back to a conversation I had this week with my principal at Eastern about how tentative the survival of my Model UN and History of Thought courses are right now. The budget belt is really being tightened and I need a much larger number of kids to enroll in the courses. One idea I had this weekend was to offer the course as a night course that meets once a week for three quarters of the school year for a half a credit. Its a structure we had at Forest Hills Central when I was there. Offering the course as a one-a-week night class would allow kids who are interested, but can't sign up because of prior course needs and commitments during the day to take the class.
Another option is to design the course to run online as a virtual classroom. This would allow kids to complete assignments when it is more convenient for them to do the work. For most it would be an overload class in addition to the 6 classes they take during the day. The major components as structured now are:
Are their potential pitfalls? Sure. One of the goals of the course is to have students sign up to take it more than one year to build a talent pool that can compete well at Model UN conferences. That means you would like some freshmen, sophomores, juniors and seniors to take the class. It would mean a diverse course curriculum to match various grade levels, years of experience and skills with online materials and videos. Other pitfalls include student access to technology primarily at home as well as access at school.
Time to design and digitalize the course is an issue. Where to host the course needs to be considered. Mentoring and monitoring students who you see infrequently is an issue. However, for all the things you need to think about, this course just might work with an online curriculum. The district just might go for it because they do want kids to have the experiences.
As someone who has been the Michigan Virtual mentor as both Central High and Eastern, the biggest determining factor for a student to succeed with an online course is self discipline. Being smart or not being so smart is much less of a factor in my view than how much self discipline a student has. Do they have the emotional intelligence to stay on task, finish work on deadline and seek help when they have a problem. Along with student emotional intelligence, do the kids have the positive support at home to help keep them motivated.
Another option is to design the course to run online as a virtual classroom. This would allow kids to complete assignments when it is more convenient for them to do the work. For most it would be an overload class in addition to the 6 classes they take during the day. The major components as structured now are:
- structure and function information about the United Nations and other international organizations
- world geography in the 20th century
- identify specific political, social, economic, and technological concepts and apply them to analyzing current world issues
- training in writing position papers and resolutions
- training in how to speak effectively and extemporaneously in public
- training in how to research information
- training in how negotiate and persuade small groups
- training in how to debate
Are their potential pitfalls? Sure. One of the goals of the course is to have students sign up to take it more than one year to build a talent pool that can compete well at Model UN conferences. That means you would like some freshmen, sophomores, juniors and seniors to take the class. It would mean a diverse course curriculum to match various grade levels, years of experience and skills with online materials and videos. Other pitfalls include student access to technology primarily at home as well as access at school.
Time to design and digitalize the course is an issue. Where to host the course needs to be considered. Mentoring and monitoring students who you see infrequently is an issue. However, for all the things you need to think about, this course just might work with an online curriculum. The district just might go for it because they do want kids to have the experiences.
As someone who has been the Michigan Virtual mentor as both Central High and Eastern, the biggest determining factor for a student to succeed with an online course is self discipline. Being smart or not being so smart is much less of a factor in my view than how much self discipline a student has. Do they have the emotional intelligence to stay on task, finish work on deadline and seek help when they have a problem. Along with student emotional intelligence, do the kids have the positive support at home to help keep them motivated.
Saturday, May 21, 2011
Thing 18: Staying Informed
This is the home page on my computer. I created this iGoogle page about 3 years ago and intermittently change what widgets are on the screen and what blogs I subscribe to. I check the headlines and blog posts every morning when I get to work (as well as the sites I have bookmarked). It helps me stay informed and I find interesting articles that I send on to the teachers in my school. I also find materials that help me in the classroom and interesting tidbits I can share with kids. Since I am in the midst of creating my AP World History web site, I will try to find a way for me to create a page of world history RSS feeds for use by me and my students.
Thing 17: Research and Reference
1. Student Research: I modified the first part of the assignment. My district subscribes to some Cengage/Gale Infotrac databases. Additionally, three years ago, I bought a number of Cengage/Gale's reference ebooks. Eastern has it own page for the databases and ebooks, and, as media specialist, I have worked hard to get both teachers and students to use them effectively. If you would like the non-district login password to check them out, just contact me. My efforts have been modestly successful. All the language arts teachers in the high school require students to use the Infotrac databases for research papers, but most of the other teachers in social studies, science, etc. only infrequently require kids to use them. When I can get kids and teachers to think about using them, and I show them all the ways they can search, cite, and distribute the information they find, they are thrilled that I have saved them a ton of time.
I compared my databases against those of SIRS Renaissance. The first thing I noticed is that SIRS allows for natural language searching. Infotrac is strictly a keyword/subject search engine. Point to SIRS. In terms of GUI, I think that Infotrac is more attractive and clearer and cleaner to use. Point to Infotrac. I did a search on both using the keyword/subject "philosophy". Infotrac returned many more hits than did SIRS even though SIRS lists the term as a specific subject. However, while Infotrac delivered more results, it also defaulted to treating the term as a keyword rather than a subject and most of the hits were sources where the term appeared, but did directly deal with the subject of philosophy. SIRS result list did treat the term as a subject. More direct hits. On the other hand, Infotrac did deliver more material about the subject of philosophy when the search was modified. Point to neither. When I click on the same magazine article of each, I believed that the layout of the page of Infotrac was better organized with its tools more clearly identified, the font was clearer, the citation options included different versions of MLA as well as APA formats. They both as the same tools for sharing, bookmarking, printing, etc., but Infotrac was easier to navigate then SIRS in my view. Point to Infotrac.
2. Advanced Research: One of the many Infotrac databases Forest Hills doesn't s subscribe to is Educator's Reference Complete. We thought about it a number of years ago, but decided it was too pricy. For many of the same reasons I like the look and feel of our databases at Eastern, I like the look and feel of this Infotrac database. I did a search for articles concerning "web 2.0". The search returned 319 full text articles. As with our Infotrac results, I like the detail that each "hit" contains. It is very useful to know not only how many words, but how many pages would printed if I decided I needed a hard copy. The results list defaults to putting the most recent article at the top. Sometimes this is useful, but I would prefer that the best results given my search terms are at the top rather than just the most current. You CAN choose Relevant to resort, but it should be the default. It is very useful that you can refine your search to only include "Peer Reviewed" materials. Cuts out the "popular" publications and add authenticity to the results. As with any database, it does not have everything possible in terms of all publications dealing with every subject of education. But it comes closer than any other data I have used.
I compared my databases against those of SIRS Renaissance. The first thing I noticed is that SIRS allows for natural language searching. Infotrac is strictly a keyword/subject search engine. Point to SIRS. In terms of GUI, I think that Infotrac is more attractive and clearer and cleaner to use. Point to Infotrac. I did a search on both using the keyword/subject "philosophy". Infotrac returned many more hits than did SIRS even though SIRS lists the term as a specific subject. However, while Infotrac delivered more results, it also defaulted to treating the term as a keyword rather than a subject and most of the hits were sources where the term appeared, but did directly deal with the subject of philosophy. SIRS result list did treat the term as a subject. More direct hits. On the other hand, Infotrac did deliver more material about the subject of philosophy when the search was modified. Point to neither. When I click on the same magazine article of each, I believed that the layout of the page of Infotrac was better organized with its tools more clearly identified, the font was clearer, the citation options included different versions of MLA as well as APA formats. They both as the same tools for sharing, bookmarking, printing, etc., but Infotrac was easier to navigate then SIRS in my view. Point to Infotrac.
3. Work Cited-1:
4. Works Cited-2:
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
Thing 16: Professional Learning Networks
I had enrolled at the Michigan LearnPort site a number of years ago. Our district used it for us to take the OSHA Safety Review Course. Since then, I have occasionally visited the site, but haven't taken any course through it. I might have, however, if I hadn't run into this course.
I also have already signed up with Facebook and Twitter. I joined Facebook primarily so I could communicate with students I had in class about class matters. I am VERY CAREFUL about what I post. I NEVER "friend" a student. They should never be put in the uncomfortable position of having to decide whether or not to accept my request. I almost always accept a "friend" request from a student and to date have only "defriended" on former student. Once one Facebook, however, I discovered that most of my out-of-school friends and my family on using it. It is a great way to keep track of their day-to-day happenings; especially those of my daughter, son-in-law and grandchildren.
Twitter is something I signed on to, but really don't have the ego to just tweet a grocery list and believe anyone cares. I do have a couple of students following me as well as my sister-in-law in Boston, but I don't use it much. I see it as an educational tool. It could be used as a quick one question quiz tool for kids to respond to. It also would be very useful for any emergency changes in class work or a schedule. One of the problems of using Twitter in my school is the iffy nature of cell phone connections. We are far enough away from a tower at Eastern so that connectivity with some service providers is dependent on weather conditions and location in the building. However, I am connected to a Twitter "newspaper" created by Kelly Kermode called Kelly Kermode's Daily Tweetpaper.
I have also a member of MACUL Space. Again, I have to admit that I don't take advantage of all the resources and information sources I could use. I could claim I don't have time, but I what I really mean is that I have not allocated my time to educate myself and use these tools and information sources.
I I am presently a member of MACUL. I have been a member on and off for a few years and I am back on because of the encouragement of Kelly Kermode, a MACUL board member and friend. Really, I should always have been a member given my job as media specialist and my interests in educational technology. Part of my problem is that I am not much of a joiner of organizations. Generally, I will join one, spend the money and think a year later what did I get for the investment. This happened years ago with ISTE ($39-$212), American Library Association ($65-$130 plus associate group membership fees) and MAME ($50). For the money, I think that MACUL gives me the biggest bang.
If I were to be more active in MACUL, I believe that I would demonstrate a willingness to try new technologies and ideas to get kids to learn whether it is formal content or reading, writing, thinking and technology skills. Kelly is trying to get me to participate more, share more and learn more from other members.
If I were to be more active in MACUL, I believe that I would demonstrate a willingness to try new technologies and ideas to get kids to learn whether it is formal content or reading, writing, thinking and technology skills. Kelly is trying to get me to participate more, share more and learn more from other members.
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