Pocket Mod

I hope summer vacation is going well for you and your family. I was teasing my husband because he always does a count down of the final days to school gets out. Instead, I put a countdown on my website of how many days there are until we go back to school. He didn’t think that was so funny. Nonetheless, we are about halfway and it’s so amazing how relaxing summer can be. Enjoy! Just a reminder, the rest of this newsletter is a “best of tuesdays” and I must say this was one of the most popular sites I’ve ever found.

A creative website
These creative people at Pocket Mod have brought the 20th and 21st century handhelds together! This FREE online tools is a new way to keep you organized. In the same manner that teachers utilize "foldables," this most clever folding system has endless variations of templates and customizable "mods" that make one sheet of paper magically become a handheld organizer. Ok, I know it makes no sense just talking about it. You have to check it out, design one yourself and get it in yours hands at Pocket Mod.

An image to share
I couldn’t resist this glimpse (above) at our cruise to Cozumel last week! Looks like a postcard, doesn’t it?

A proverb
“Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower.” Steve Jobs

An encouragement
For me, the two most important days of school are the first day of school and the first day back after Christmas vacation. The students always come in with high hopes and slates cleaned. What an opportunity to turn things around that weren't going so well or continue the momentum on things that are clicking. I want to encourage you to keep planning big on making an impact with your students. Do everything in bite-sized pieces so that you don't get overwhelmed. A happy teacher is a happy classroom! Let us know if you are in vacation mode or are you starting to plan for the next school year by posting a comment below.


How do you do that?
In this "How do you do that?" section, I would like invest in helping teachers engage their students in the learning process with technology. I was so jazzed about this Pocket Mod because I see it as an application for both teachers and students. Can you imagine the benefits of a class culture that understands the need to be organized? Teaching students to set goals, write them down, revise as needed and start again when things are not going well is priceless in the learning environment. These little Pocket Mods are a FREE gift as long as you have access to an online computer, a printer and a piece of paper. Let me know if you come up with some creative ways to use these Pocket Mods with your students so we can share. Oh, heads up - it took me a while to fold it right, but it was awesome when I got it right!


As always, I am
Ubiquitously yours,
K

Express Yourself

Do you want to have a little creative fun? How about a break from standardized tests and exams? Why not add a little personal touch to your papers and classroom presentations. The edition of “tuesdays” we will take a look at personalizing your classroom presence. We’ve all had good teachers that have left their mark on us and we can usually associate a memory with a visual item from their classroom: a certain poster, an outfit that was worn every Friday or a saying uniquely theirs. Why not create those visuals for them? After all, we all know a picture is worth a thousand words.

A creative website
There two ways to “express” yourself on BeFunky.com. You can create a cartoon version of any image that you own or you can create an original avatar (they cleverly call them uvatars!) This beta site is FREE and it was very easy to set up an account. Doesn’t it always amaze you how they can do these creative projects for FREE? Down the line, it looks like they will make their money from the creation of cards, postcards, calendars, etc with the cartoons you create. Very clever stuff. Who are these geniuses? You can check out their blog if you like.
An image to share
I had to share this cartoonized image of two podcast crazy teachers. Can you imagine what fun you could have with digital storytelling and this tool?

A proverb
“National borders aren’t even speed bumps on the information superhighway.” Tim May

An encouragement
It’s hard to create visuals for your classroom if you are not an artist. However, with technology everything changes. Anyone can take a digital image with a digital camera. Why take a digital image and cartoonize it? (I think I’m making that word up!) Teachers are so creative with little money and a lot of imagination. Take a good look at your classroom and consider original posters and art work all around your walls and developing a classroom character who would be present on all papers and lesson presentations. It’s called branding, but it really gives a sense of belonging and pride to a classroom. Please share ways that you “brand” your classroom in the comments below.


How do you do that?
Before I had a cool tool like BeFunky.com, I asked my husband to draw three characters for my math class. One was a thumbs-up high-fiving young man. The next was a tall, thin, big hoop earringed young lady and the last was a cross-eyed, math phobic young man with stars swirling around his head. I copied the drawing on the Xerox machine and literally copied and pasted them (how tedious) to all my tests and quizzes. I enlarged them on the copier machine and made a classroom border with the three characters along the front of the room. Each day I asked the students, “How are you doing?” To indicate their level of understanding, they replicated the look of the characters. They either used “thumbs-up”, a Ho-hum side-to-side hand gesture for the big hoped earring girl or totally rolled their eyes in their heads if they did not get the lesson. It was such a fun way to take a quick assessment and I would hear from everyone! The best part was adding the characters to tests and quizzes so they could circle their “Math Attitude” before they handed in their paper. Today, you could create your own characters in BeFunky and do a simple copy/paste to all your papers. (Warning - attitude and achievement don’t always match!)


As always, I am
Ubiquitously yours,
K

The Kindle

I know it seems unreal that we have to come up with tricks to get students to read, but I really believe that is only until they find “that certain book” that we will need enticements. What book did it for you? For me, it was “The Good Earth” by Pearl S. Buck. For my nephew, it was “The Hobbit” and then the trilogy that followed it. Reading in the 21st century has taken so many new forms: ebooks on computers, audio books on CD and mp3 players, Palm handheld e-readers and now a revolutionary new product that we need to keep our eye on. Since it is new technology it is still overpriced, but I can see this great little nano device becoming affordable enough for school in no time. It’s Amazon’s Kindle - the wireless reading device.


A creative website
Endorsing a product is never my goal in “tuesdays.” In fact, I recommend NOT buying the Amazon Kindle right now, but to watch it carefully. There are number of videos for you to check out on their website and Oprah even had Amazon’s founder, Jeff Bezos, on her show last Friday to show its remarkable potential. What impresses me most about the Amazon Kindle is the look and feel of the device. It’s small, but larger than a Palm handheld, thinner that an iPod, yet has the look of real paper. Amazon is brilliant because it has a free wireless system that brings you directly to their site where you can download free and inexpensive reading materials directly to your device ubiquitously! There are more than 190,000 titles available already and most of the top international newspapers that can be delivered to your device automatically before you wake up. It has an incredible long life battery and requires NO computer, No cable and No syncing. Keep an eye on this device as it becomes more affordable.


An image to share
The Kindle and a Pencil
www.amazon.com/kindle

A proverb
"The things I want to know are in books; my best friend is the man who’ll get me a book I ain’t read.”
Abraham Lincoln

An encouragement
Ok, I hear you. “I love the feel of a book. I could never give up holding a book in my hand and turning the pages.” I recognize that our generation feels this way, but what about our students? Enticing them to read comes in many forms. We read to them, we let them listen to audio books, we even show them movies of books they’ve read. I would like to really encourage you to consider changing their reading apparatus. What if a student is really turned on to reading just because they can have access to so many choices in a single device? What if you could have a class set of Kindles? What would you do with them? Please let us know how you would use Kindles in your classroom in the comment section below.



How do you do that?
How does the Kindle work? First, I must recommend that you visit the Amazon Kindle website and view all the videos that will explain it in much more detail than I can. (Just make sure you keep scrolling down. There are quite a few.) Kindle brings together simplicity and electronic ink. It really looks like paper! Wireless is the key. It means that you can get a new book in a matter of minutes downloaded right to your Kindle. It’s an out of box experience. Unwrap it, turn it on and your have a book immediately. You can read books, newspapers, magazines, blogs and even Wikipedia. Think about a visit to the doctor’s office. There are six-month-old copies of magazines but with a Kindle you can have the newest issue of any magazine and/or newspaper. The reviewers are saying that after only a few minutes on the Kindle, you forget you are reading on a screen. There’s constant flow. You don’t have to go get your reading material. It’s pushed out to you. Unlike normal wi-fi, you are never disconnected and never have to find a hotspot. There’s no monthly plan, no service plan, no minutes to use. People have gotten used to having their music with them on their iPods. The Kindle affords you the ability to bring your whole reading library with you! Pretty smart, Amazon!


“tuesdays with Karen” is a weekly newsletter/blog designed to encourage, equip and empower teachers to be creative with educational technology.


As always, I am
Ubiquitously yours,
K

Get a license

Anything that has to do with creativity really gets my attention because I believe the most important way to raise test scores is to tap into our teachers’ and students’ creativities. This week I want to open a door into a great world of creative sharing that brings dignity to the artist and encouragement to new creations. Have you heard of the Creative Commons license? I just hope I can explain this marvelously simple system to afford you of a whole new way of sharing with permission.


A creative website
The Creative Commons website and movement is my pick for our creative site this week. It is a non-profit service designed to provide free licensing for intellectual property for authors, scientists, artists, educators and students. I recommend clicking on the “Learn More” link where they have a series of videos that explain how Creative Commons work. We always want to protect the copyright of any material, but what if you do want to share? Consider a Creative Commons license for your work.

An image to share
There are many ways to share photos online, but my favorite is Flickr because it uses the Creative Commons license. I DO NOT recommend sending your students to this site, but I wanted to show you how Flickr has made it simple to share and license your original work. I have a collection of sunrises that are licensed with the following conditions: You are free to share, remix, agree to give attribution to the artist (me!), not use the photos for commercial use and if you create something from my photos agree to share yours in a like manner. Pretty great stuff!

A proverb
What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again: there is nothing new under the sun. Eccl. 1:9

An encouragement
I’ve been teaching a long time and am happy to report that teachers today share a whole lot more than when I began. Collaboration has proven to be a most effective way to impact our students. There is no greater compliment than for someone to want to use your ideas (with permission, of course!) As teachers, we need to encourage our students to create and share while always respecting the intellectual properties of others. Give credit where credit is due, observe copyright laws and investigate the Creative Commons licensing. Why reinvent the wheel? After all, nothing’s new under the sun!

How do you do that?
You can create your very own license by visiting their “License Your Work” section. Just entered a little bit of information and it will generate code to use on a website or document. Learn more about licensing your own work and the legal use of other people’s works with Creative Commons licenses. I recommend two videos: Get Creative and Wanna Work Together? When you visit the Creative Commons website, look for the Learn more link (it’s tiny and just under the title). I believe you will find this whole new way of sharing fascinating. Welcome to a new world where collaboration rules!


As always, I am
Ubiquitously yours,
K

Visuals

Technology’s great when it works! I love to help teachers get excited about the possibilities of using technology to engage their students and fully understand why it can be a frustrating road to take. Just went you think you have the coolest lesson ever, the computer freezes or the Internet is down or any other combination of quirks burst that bubble of enthusiasm. The best advice I can give is to find something that you are really good at and run with it. Don’t’ try to do it all, but instead become the go-to person on your campus at your expertise. Can you imagine if every school had resident experts on different technologies and could share their experiences? That would be teacher heaven. I would like to take this “tuesdays” and examine one of the simplest, yet profound effective pieces of technology that anyone can use without fear – the document visual presenter.

A creative website
The key word for engaging our students today is visual. If you can get the students to visualize what you are teaching them, you have a much great opportunity to make the learning connection. I found a good number of resources for using document cameras (visual presenters), but really liked the Umatilla-Morrow School Districts Technology Links website in Pendleton, Oregon. They had a whole section dedicated to the use of document cameras in the classroom- 100 Ideas for Data Projector and Document Cameras. Once a school invests in these great devices for their teachers, immediate visual connection to learning can be made in any classroom and in any content area. Good bye overhead projectors of the 20th century. Hello document cameras of the 21st century.

An image to share
AODDJ. schoolpic.jpg. 1998. Pics4Learning. 2 Dec 2008 A proverb

A proverb
“It’s a visual world and people respond to visuals.” Joe Sacco


An encouragement
If you have the opportunity to get any new technology this year, I want to encourage you to consider a document camera. The power of the visual presenter is endless. You can literally place ANYTHING as is under the camera and project it for the students for a WOW factor unlike anything else in the classroom. It is also a tool of technology that carries no fear. My husband is a non-techie guy, but cannot imagine teaching art without one. He does all his demonstrations, presentations and student art displays in full wall size for everyone to see. Science teachers can demonstrate experiments in real time for the whole class to see easily. Social Studies teachers can place historical documents and rare artifacts under the camera instead of risking loss or breakage. Math teachers can display manipulatives larger than life. If you can only get one piece of technology, my recommendation is that every classroom should have a document camera. The investment into visual learning is priceless.


How do you do that?
How do you use a document camera? I know there are many of you that already have one and use it without any training or any effort. Please let us know in the comments below how you have effectively changed the way you teach with visualization. These are a few of the many sites I found with effective uses of document cameras. Enjoy!

Classroom Use of ELMO Document Cameras

Camcor.com

Teacher Talk

Kate Links

Teaching ‘n Technology blog

Show Me Great Lessons! pdf

PS. During the summer when teachers are all over the place, I will be highlighting 'best of' tuesdays. Have a safe and restful summer. Be creative!


As always, I am
Ubiquitously yours,
K

End of the year messages

Summer is coming quickly. I often wonder who is more excited – the students or the teachers! To you, I say congratulations for another year of lessons learned. What is the most important thing you learned this year? What were you hoping your students learned this year? Their perception of what was learned is not always the same as what we thought we taught them. Why not ask them? I’ve always asked my students to reflect on what was learned throughout the year and particularly at the end. It can be done in many formats. They could answer a questionnaire, but the answers tend to be cookie cutter. They could do a narrative that will lend to a lot more creativity. I would love to encourage you to let them leave you an audio message. With a few inexpensive tools, you could create a recording studio right in your classroom.

A creative website
The two most popular ways to record student voices are Audacity and GarageBand. No matter what classroom computer you have, your recording studio is just minutes away. If you have a Windows machine, download the free version of Audacity. It takes only a few minutes. If you have a Mac, you can also download Audacity, but the students are much more fascinated with GarageBand and its built-in loops. Purchase a simple microphone. You can get them as inexpensive as $8.88 at Walmart or ask around school. Someone has one you can borrow for this project. Demonstrate a simple recording of an end of the year message as you project the interface on the screen. Students love to see the audio graphics created by voice recordings. There are endless teachable moments in these visuals alone. Prepare your message and then record it in front of the class. Once you have finished, set up your computer as a station and have each of the students come up one by one and record their end of the year message. Be sure they have a prepared script and it will go very smoothly.

An image to share
From Wikimedia (see on my website)


A proverb
Words are the voice of the heart. ~Confucius

An encouragement
I believe it is so important to record our voices at different stages of our lives. Your students will never sound the same again. How precious will it be to listen to their end of the year messages years from now. One of my colleagues used to have her students write a letter to themselves in 8th grade with all their hopes for high school and then she would mail it to them near the time of their high school graduation. Why not record their hopes and dreams and then play it back for them later? I really want to encourage you to get even a few of them recorded for your own encouragement during the middle of next year when you think things aren’t going well. There’s nothing let getting a note from a former student or meeting them at the store and they tell you how much they appreciated your class. These recordings can be your feel good moments on call. You only have a few more days. Set up a mini-recording station and let the students tell you how they feel. You will be surprised. Let us know if you do something unique with audio recordings and your students in the comments below.


How do you do that?

How do you record in Audacity? I love this program (although I will always use GarageBand if I’m fortunate enough to have a Mac). Audacity is very sophisticated, yet simple. Once you download it, you only need to know a few keys tools to be successful. First, use only the red circle to record, the play button (green) and the stop button (yellow square). Do not use the pause button, it causes goofy things to happen. Just avoid it. Next, there are six little tools in the left hand corner. You only need to know three to be successful. One is the selection tool. It looks like an I- beam. Use it like a cursor and highlight parts you do not want and delete! The second is the time shift tool that looks likes like a line with arrows on each end. This will allow you to move what you have recorded left or right of any other parts you have recorded. Finally, if you want to add some music to the recording, go to the Project menu > Add audio. It will drop another audio track to your recording, but will most likely be very loud. The envelope tool will allow you to put small dots on the edges of the recording and then literally squeeze the sound down so that it is merely in the background. Don’t try to be too fancy. Keep It Simple Sweety the first time. Remember, the goal is to preserve your students impression of this year so that you can share it with them later or to give yourself that needed confirmation of why we are in this profession. If you need more help with Audacity, there are tons of videos and websites that will aid you. Just Google “tutorials for Audacity” and you won’t be disappointed.



As always, I am
Ubiquitously yours,
K

Challenge Based Learning

I’ve heard of project-based learning, cooperative learning, inquiry-based learning and problem-based learning, but I was recently exposed to Challenged Based Learning. As our need to engage students increases, our methods of interactivity and tools of technology create new opportunities to make connections. Our students today are immersed in a world of technologies and opportunities, Why not challenge them to take action and make a difference while adding relevance and value to their lives? Apple Education has done extensive research on the integration of technology through their Apple Classroom of Tomorrow (ACOT) and are now sharing their ACOT2 – Apple Classroom of Tomorrow – Today research findings! This “tuesdays” let explore the benefits of Challenged Based Learning.

A creative website
This is not the only time of year when your students typically do not want to do anything. Throughout the year, too many of them get in the “do it for a grade” syndrome or worse, think an assignment is an option and take the F. Challenge Based Learning, as described on the Apple website, “is an engaging multidisciplinary approach to teaching and learning that encourages students to leverage the technology they use in their daily lives to solve real-world problems. Challenge Based Learning is collaborative and hands-on, asking students to work with peers, teachers, and experts in their communities and around the world to ask good questions, develop deeper subject area knowledge, accept and solve challenges, take action, and share their experience.” As you begin to wind this year down, consider digging deeper on the Challenge Based Learning site for what it’s all about, the components, the challenges, some samples and more.

An image to share
The image above is from Microsoft Office Online clipart

A proverb
The secret of getting started is breaking your complex overwhelming tasks into small manageable tasks, and then starting on the first one. ~Mark Twain

An encouragement
It’s so important to be challenged. Don’t you step up to a challenge you believe in? I want to encourage you to consider challenges that are age-appropriate for your students over the summer. Think in BIG terms first and then let the students narrow the focus down. For instance, some BIG ideas could be challenges concerning identity, power, violence, kindness, giving, impact or more. It’s always hard to visualize how these challenges could possibly become projects. Apple has a few samples available for you on their Challenge Based Learning site, but I would like to set challenge for me and you! I am going create a video this summer on a possible challenge based learning project and design it in Pecha Kucha style. Big ideas, huh? I think I’m up for the challenge because it has real merit to engage the students. When I finish it, I’ll make the video available on Teacher Tube or this blog.

How do you do that?

How can you learn more about Challenge Based Learning? When you have a block of time to study, make plans to dig deeper into the Challenge Based Learning site by Apple. Under the Key Components tab, there is an especially unique video that explains essential questions. You will definitely want to check it out for the drawing effects they added to the movie. The process tab has great advice for getting started, managing and getting the project out to a wider audience. There are some great challenge based projects for you and your students under the Challenge tab. Lessons learned are shared by the first pilot group of high school that took the “challenge” and can be found under the CBL area. The resources are so plentiful that it would be easy to miss some. Be sure to scroll at the way down to the Voices area for a continuing conversation of the need to challenge our students. The last tab is the encouragement to participate. Challenges cannot exist in isolation. They need to be shared. Finally, don’t miss the resources on the right panel that includes pdfs and video for your enrichment.

PS. You may be surprised that I actually posted “tuesdays” on Tuesday morning! I am having surgery this morning and actually prepared ahead of time for the first time. I appreciate your prayers. I am in His Hands.


As always, I am
Ubiquitously yours,
K