The power of MOOC

I have recently found myself in a MOOC. A #diffimooc to be specific. For those not in the know about this, a MOOC is a massive open online course.  It's a way for a university to offer a course, incorporate many useful and relevant communication and collaboration tools, and promote the idea of openness and sharing of information and ideas - the essential heart of web 2.0. People who are taking the course for credit have some specific assignments to complete, but the discussions and ideas are available to anyone who wants to participate.

It's a model that actually puts together tools and ideas many have spent time cobbling together on their own, and in a pretty neat way.

One of the great benefits of a MOOC, and the #diffimooc I am part of, is that it is giving educators this whole experience of networking, collaborating, and sharing in a fairly structured way (even though I know it doesn't always feel that way to participants sometimes!). Building a network is a fairly sloppy process on it's own - how people personalize it and use it varies widely.  The MOOC is allowing them a safe, guided way to build networks and find the key tools to begin with, rather than leave them to find it for themselves (as I had to).  Many teachers will and do find their way into this on their own, but many more do not - and would not - if it weren't for MOOC experiences.

I was excited to begin the #diffiMOOC, and as we move through this course, I find I sometimes have conflicting attitudes.  I am always happy to work with educators who are either new to the profession, or even just new to technology - it's a part of my work that I really enjoy.  However, I have to remind myself, when I went through this whole processes, I did it alone, and at my own pace. I did not feel the pressure of time, credits, or deadlines. I did not have any colleagues going through the same experience to express frustration to.  I do understand where there are frustrations with the MOOC, but when people let their frustrations overcome them and become disheartened and defeated, I feel disheartened too. I keep hoping that at some point they can find that spark that will help them to keep moving forward.

I don't know if other MOOCs are similar in terms of their requirements, but I suspect that of all the people who participate in a MOOC, about 1/3 will continue to actively build and participate in their networks. Depending on the size of some of these MOOCs - that is quite a number of educators (and other interested parties) who will learn to use and add to the power of our networks!

Tell stories

“No, no! The adventures first, explanations take such a dreadful time.”
― Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland; Through the Looking-Glass 

I have been giving a lot of thought lately to the importance of stories in our lives. In this digital age of information overload, the age-old tradition of storytelling is more important than ever. We have swung on a pendulum from the days before the written word, to the days before much of the population was literate, to the information age, but in each phase, storytelling has played a vital role. Who we are is defined by the stories we have been told, and the stories we tell.  Much of our learning would have been lost if people had been subjected to bulleted stone-age PowerPoints instead of compelling, meaningful stories. Storytelling used to be the primary means of learning, internalizing, and passing along our history, our culture, our morals, and life lessons. Ironically, in the age of instant information, it is now one of the only truly powerful tools we still have that allows us to engage in, remember, and internalize the ideas that shape who we are.

“After nourishment, shelter and companionship, stories are the thing we need most in the world.”
― Philip Pullman

Storytelling is the primary way I communicate what I am doing in my classroom, and still the main way I teach to my students. I use my own stories, and listen to the stories that others tell me. When students tell me about their lives and their learning, I listen closely. When teachers tell me about experiences, I listen closely. I repeat the stories of others often. When I'm teaching a lesson to my students, I tell them stories about the experiences of other students in similar situations. When I'm working with other educators, I tell them stories about my own experiences, and the experiences of other teachers that I've been told. When I'm working with administrators, I tell them stories about how the decisions they have made (or have yet to make) impact real people.

“It's like everyone tells a story about themselves inside their own head. Always. All the time. That story makes you what you are. We build ourselves out of that story.”
― Patrick Rothfuss, The Name of the Wind
 
We engage in personal stories that are told to us because they are directed at us for a specific purpose. It's not like having a random selection of books or articles - stories are told to us at a specific time, in a specific situation, for a specific reason. Because they are interesting, engaging, and real, we listen, we empathize, and we internalize them.

“Stories have to be told or they die, and when they die, we can't remember who we are or why we're here.”
― Sue Monk Kidd, The Secret Life of Bees
 
Stories are one of the main reasons that I have felt the pressing importance of keeping one foot firmly in my classroom practice, even though I spend more and more time working with other teachers on their own practice. It allows me to continue to draw from a wealth of relevant stories that I know will have an impact on them. Personal stories give me credibility.

My students are exposed to so much media in their daily lives, how do we cut through the noise and make them hear us? We tell them stories.

We want our students to have "digital literacy" - part of that means being able to critically evaluate what they see, but it also means being able to communicate in an impactful way. We need to make sure they know how to tell and communicate stories people will listen to.

• Listen closely to the stories people tell you - even if they don't realize that's what they are doing. 
• Tell your stories to others.

Most of my posts on this blog tell my classroom stories. They are about experiences I've had, the experiences of others, and also about ways you can teach aspects of impactful storytelling to your students.

Here are just a few storytelling resources from this blog that your students can use:
ProPrompter
Screen Casts
Book Trailers
QR Codes
Propaganda
Virtual booklets
Cameras
Wordle
Blogging
Blogs and Wikis
Time Lines
Teleprompters
Xtranormal
Online Slide Shows
Map Making
Podcasting
Glogster
Vokis
Animoto
Magnetic stories and poems
Concept Maps

An EdTech Professional Development Pyramid

What is the most effective way to encourage/deliver/integrate edtech professional development? The layout of this infographic should come as no surprise to anyone.  The pyramid is meant to work as all pyramids do - with the stuff on the top being necessary, but to a lesser degree than the items down the pyramid. The bottom layer is most essential for sustained professional development, but the middle layer is crucial in order for this to happen. I developed this infographic for an easy way to begin these conversations with district and site administrators, meant to be followed up with evidence and a plan.

To see a larger version, click on the image, and please feel free to share it. 

Here are just a few resources:
Classroom Technology Integration
Teacher-Led Professional Development
A Brief Guide to Tech Training
NETC: Assessing Technology Integration
Professional Development for Teachers Must Change

UNfortunately, gig sticks are still necessary. Fortunately, they can help transform your classroom!

Gig stick: aka, mini-USB drive, thumb drive, geek stick, flash drive, memory stick, jump drive, pen drive, I'm sure there are many more synonyms out there for this ubiquitous little device, which is not platform dependent.

First, let me say, I can't think of anything more uninspiring to be doing right now than writing a post about gig sticks.  However, until the world of k-12 education catches up to everyone else in the modern world, these are still quite necessary for most tech-integrating classrooms. There are still many many schools out there with limited equipment, and limited or locked down internet access.

So instead of writing a post about gig sticks per se, I'll get into a few quick and easy ways to use these things so that your classroom can operate with some semblance of a rich variety of tech-enhanced experiences for your students.

How can you use these in your classroom?

1. Video streaming locked down or narrow bandwidth? No problem - you'll need to do a little bit of work where you (the teacher) can get access to the video.  Use one of the many easy methods for downloading video.  Put it on your gig stick - build a collection if you have the time or inclination. 
2. Get a collection of gig sticks - a 1GB stick costs around $10 at an office supply store, but I have been amazed at how many I have collected free from conferences - many of the vendors are giving these things away like candy!  If you keep an eye out, you'll start seeing them lots of places. What should you do with this collection of gig sticks? This is your new digital library that you create and share with your students (or vice versa). Alternately, you can have your students bring them as part of your classroom supply list - a relatively cheap replacement for notebook paper, binders, etc.
3. Want to have students view video at home, but access is a problem? Load your video or other multimedia content onto a stick (or have them do it) and send it home with them.
4. Students creating video and multimedia you want to share? Have them drag and drop it onto a gig stick - then you can publish it easily on your class website, wiki or blog.
5. Ebmed a video into a worksheet or activity sheet you want your students to complete - drop it onto the stick. I know this is very easy to do on MS Word and Pages.
6. Make your own instructional videos for students using your own software, or free online movie making software like Movie Maker, Stupeflix, or others.  Make a simple screencast. Drop it onto the gig stick and distribute.
7. Much of my day is spent in a 1:1 iPad setting.  My students create lots of video on their iPads, but sometimes want to use some of the extra effects and settings on iMovie that the iPad version doesn't offer (green screen, slow motion, etc.).  They should be able to email the video to themselves and download it, but due to some of our filter restrictions, they can't.  So they either email it and download it at home and put it on a gig stick, or email it to me and I do the same. Then it's simple to transport their video to a computer where they can do some more extensive editing. They also have to do this to publish their videos from school, since our filter blocks them from uploading to YouTube.

The multitude of ways to use this little device are endless. For classrooms that don't have much equipment, little or no internet access, or in communities where students don't have access at home, the USB drive is a cheap, simple, and fast solution that can help you infuse some life, excitement, connections, and relevance into your lessons.

What I'm Reading Lately (weekly)

• Schools Ditch The Classroom To Put Play Back In Education | Co.Exist: World changing ideas and innovation

  tags: REACH edtechsec

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Mobile Learning Series: Overgram for great title slides...and poetry!

Overgram is a free app that I've been using for awhile on my iPhone because it can quickly add info or even humor to some of the pictures that I share through Twitter, Flickr, or even that I just text to friends. As an added bonus (for the Instagram crowd) they can also be shared through Instragram.  I recently loaded Overgram onto my students' iPads.

How can you use this in your classroom?

1. To introduce the students to Overgram, I created a scavenger hunt with a slideshow of pictures around the school and cryptic one-word clues on the photos using Overgram.  

2. My students have begun using Overgram photos to add interesting and original title slides to their iMovies and slideshows.

3. I thought it would also be a neat idea to use Overgram as part of a "visual" poetry unit.  Students studying poems with lots of visual imagery take photos and include a word or two from the poem that showed how they thought about what kind of imagery the language of the poem evoked. Overgram adds a nice aesthetic element to those kinds of photos. The one below was created to go with Rudyard Kipling's poem The Fires. *note - you have the option of removing the Overgram watermark at the bottom.

How easy is it?

Just take a photo, or use one from your camera roll on your mobile device, and double tap on the picture to add your text. You can change the font style and color, and move the text around, to add interest.  My students have also begun using Overgram photos in much the way I have - for sending each other pictures or posting pictures on Facebook with interesting or funny captions!

Logo Programming with Scratch - Let your students construct!

Let me start off with this caveat - Scratch is not a "sec" thing - it's more like a half an hour thing in terms of the initial prep.  With that said, I'll start singing the praises of this little program: it's fun, it will help your students construct and think in ways that make you want to sing, it's engaging, students become immersed in it, you will look at them in whole new ways!

Scratch is a program that lets your students learn to write simulations, interactives, and games in a programming language called Logo.  I'm using the word "write" pretty loosely here, because they don't actually write anything, they build the language with Lego-like blocks that control motion, looks, sound, sensing, operators, and variables.  If that all sounds a little too complicated for your students, let me assure you, it's not!  Kids take to Scratch so intuitively it's amazing! 

How to get started:

1. First go to the Scratch MIT website and download the Scratch installer - it's a quick download and doesn't take up much space - works on OS X and Windows.

2. Second, use a quick tutorial - here are a couple I like.  Spend about 30 minutes going through them just to familiarize yourself with what Scratch is all about. You only need to learn a couple of basic things to do this. The first time I used Scratch with students I did not do this - I literally knew nothing about how the program worked - I just knew what it could do, and it worked out great. But that's how I roll, and I understand not everyone loves those kinds of classroom risks like I do - so I've included the suggestion for the tutorials.  Let me assure you, you do not need to be the expert!

3. Have your students download Scratch, download and give them the "Getting Started" guide or the video tutorials on the same page, or direct them to these tutorials, stand back and let them go!

A couple of important things you need to do:
       *Let them play with it
       *Don't interfere and hover, but do pay close attention to the conversations
       *Encourage them to seek help from eachother
       *Identify the "experts" as they emerge - encourage other students to see what they are doing
       *Offer up ideas for games - mazes, races, puzzles, etc. are fun easy activities to start with

How can you use this in your classroom?

Scratch initially is all about the language, critical thinking, and constructing.  However, once your students get more familiar with it, encourage them to build quizzes, simulations, and interactives that go with what you are studying in class - things that can help others learn important ideas and concepts about the content.  I have had geography students build games, quizzes and interactives that led people to discover Egyptian tombs, navigate the Strait of Magellan in a boat, climb to the top of a ziggurat in Mesopotamia, and navigate the important plot points on the island in Lord of the Flies.

The very best thing about Scratch is how it will make your students think and collaborate.  You will have to step back and give up your "expert on all things" title, and watch the amazing things they will do!

Blooms Wheel and Blooms words - plan your activities thoughtfully

Blooms taxonomy has been around for a long time, and educators have found many creative ways to use it.  One way that I find it to be the most useful is in writing learning objectives.  In my mind, I have an idea of what I'd like students to know at the end of a lesson or activity, but using Blooms words helps me to really be specific about what kind of learning I'd like to happen, and then I can start planning for how to make that happen.

For example, let's say I'm teaching a unit on the fall of the Roman Empire to middle schoolers.  At the end of the unit, there are a lot of connections I'd like them to make.  I'd like them to understand that the fall of the Empire was not due to a single factor, such as bad management, but the culmination of several things that all led it down a path to it's destruction.  I'd like them to see that these factors can be common patterns that repeat in history.

How can you use this in your classroom?

Let's look at the active learning verbs I've used in my above example - "understand" and "see".  At the end of the day, I'm not really clear about how I'll make this kind of learning happen.  However, when I look at Blooms words (I like the Blooms Wheel, shared by MMI Web, an educational consulting group), I see words that turn on light bulbs for me, like "hypothesize", "explain", "dramatize", "distinguish", and "sequence".  These are words that help me to visualize specific instruction, projects, and activities that will generate the thinking needed for students to make these connections.

Another thing I like about the Blooms Wheel, is that it helps break down the Blooms words according to learning styles (creative thinkers, team workers), and includes a cool technology/art/project idea  element with lots of great suggestions (vodcast, sculpture, advertisement, photograph). 

GoAnimate - a quick way to teach (and re-teach) quick ideas

GoAnimate is another one of those great free web tools that have the potential to bring your lessons to life.  It's one of those tools I really love because it creates immediate engagement, is useful for all kinds of topics, all kinds of lessons, and all age levels, and it's very very fast and easy!

Just sign up for an free account (this somewhat limits your scenes and characters, but if you're just using it once in awhile that's ok), and you are ready to make a video.  Quickly choose a setting and your two characters, type in your dialogue, and hit "Publish".  That's it!  As soon as the video is generated, you can listen to it, and still go back and edit if need be.  Once it's all ok, hit save.  At that point you can tweet it, Facebook it, or get an embed code to post it to your blog, webpage, or wiki.

How can you use this in your classroom?

If you use a blog, website, or wiki to post your resources on for your classes, this is a no-brainer!  It can be a great introduction to a concept that students can refer back to whenever they need to. Or you can simply keep it stored with the videos in your account on GoAnimate and show it on the overhead as part of an interactive whole-class lesson.  It appeals to different learning styles. It is engaging. You can insert your own ideas, sense of humor, etc., and make the videos as interesting, exciting, engaging as you'd like. You can make several different videos of the same concept for varying ability and readiness levels.

The following GoAnimate video is one I made for a lesson in identifying the difference between there, their, and they're.  It is meant to be an interactive lesson that students can do on their own, with a partner, or simply refer back to as a reference.  It could also be used as a whole class activity or review.

Let me stress that this video took me literally under 5 minutes to make from start to finish - that includes embedding it!


There, Their, and They're by tweisz on GoAnimate

Animated Presentations - Powered by GoAnimate.

More resources for help and information

If you're looking for some step-by-step instructions in a screen cast, or more high school applicable ideas, Heather Lapouraille and Loraine Phillips have a great series on iTunes U called Teaching With Tech in HS Classrooms, and they have a video episode specifically for GoAnimate.  All of their podcasts are free!

What I'm Reading Lately (weekly)

• Code Literacy: A 21st-Century Requirement | Edutopia

  tags: digitalfluency code programming programminglanguage edtechsec

• Right of refusal | Dangerously Irrelevant

  tags: edtechsec refusal 1:1

• Technology Changes - Your Lessons Should Too - Instructional Tech Talk | Instructional Tech Talk

  tags: lessons edtechsec

• Study: Students Want Teachers To Use Technology ASAP - Edudemic

  tags: edtech techintegration edtechsec

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.