A New Adventure

My previous post was about picnik.com. Picnik is an online photo editing site. I was very impressed by how their site worked. It gave you a lot of control verses a lot of site that just give you auto fixes. I had a concern about how their crop tool was cropping and sent them a comment. Within 24 hours, they sent me a logical explanation on why it worked the way it does. I was impressed that they ( a free web site) would take the time to send me a reasoned response. Another reason to like the site.

 Picnik, keep up the good work.

 
Jim
 

Technorati Tags: picnik, photo, images

One definition of the word picnic is “cinch: any undertaking that is easy to do.*”  Www.picnik.com  is a picnic. I was pleasantly surprised when I tried editing a photograph on Picknik. It has a lot of neat features. You can load pictures from your computer, Flickr, Picassa or even take a picture with your webcam.

 

Once you’ve chosen your photo to edit you have a lot of tools. The tools include:

 

• Auto Fix
• Rotate
• Crop
• Resize
• Exposure
• Colors
• Sharpen
• Red-eye

 

Most of the tools allow you to adjust the tool to give you better results. I’ve tried a few other editing sites and they just give you an auto feature with very little control. There are also filters provided including the popular sepia and black and white. I don’t use filters a lot so my only comment is that the filters also have slide bar adjustments for you to use.

 

When you're done editing you can save your photos in multiple places:

 

• Flickr
• Picasa Web Albums
• Facebook
• Email it to someone
• Your computer
• Create a slide show from Flickr
• Print

 

One neat feature is that if you add Picnik to your web browser you can take screen shots of parts or all of a web page by just using a right click and taking the page into Picnik for editing.

 

While it may not be as good as Photoshop or Photoshop Elements  it is free, good, and easy to use.  Give it a try! I think you and your students will think it’s a picnic.

 

Jim

 

* wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn

 

Technorati Tags: wenzloff, photo, editing

 

 

 

 

 

 

My grandson was over this weekend and I took a few photographs. Above on the left is a thumbnail of the original photo I took. The one on the right is the corrected and cropped photo that I printed. I'm sure someone with more skills could do a better job of editing the photo, but I was happy with the results. The photograph actually looks better in the full-size print.

 

What did I do? First, I reduced the shadows. That helped show his face better, but left the photo looking flat. So I copied the layer and used the "multiply" layer option. That darkened the water. I used the levels tool to enhance the blue and green in the water. Everything was darkened including my grandson. So I  erased him from the copied layers so he was lighter and the background darker.

 

As I said, I liked the results. Hope you like it also. That's why I love teaching Photoshop because each photo is different and its fun to find creative ways to make the photo look better.

Jim
 

Yesterday, I had a fun day presenting at the Lenawee ISD. I hope the participants enjoyed it as much as I did. They were a great group of educators who were very open to learning new things. I talked about moving your content online, giving creative assignments and collaboration. We covered a lot of information and they had time to play with some of the new tools. I hope everyone left with some new ideas and tools to take back to the classroom next Fall. Special thanks to Greg, Sue, Kathy, and Kathy for all their help. They took care of all of the details and made my job easy. Thanks.

Steve Dembo from Teach42 joined the presentation via WebEx and presented on “Your Permanent Record.” I had seen the presentation before, but still learned a lot. Steve did a great job. It is hard to present when you can't see your audience. He made it look easy. Good job Steve.

Special thanks to Arnie. I had to call on him at the last minute to demo Skype.

Jim

Skype is a very powerful tool. Skype allows you to call anyone in the world for free! The only caveat is that the person you are calling needs to have a Skype account also. Your first question might be why not just use the telephone. Telephone calls are cheap. Skype offers you additional tools that allow you to combine tasks.

 

Here is how I used Skype Monday morning and some of the additional tools.. First, I needed to send a large file to Janine Lim. I sent it via email, but it was bounced back to me because her email doesn’t allow large files to be attached. I opened the chat feature in Skype and dragged-and-dropped the file into the chat window. Once Janine said she would accept the file the transfer started and it worked fine.

 

Next, I used the chat feature to chat with Chris Turek in Magnolia, Texas. He asked me if he could “Skype me” (Call me via Skype) later during his podcasting workshop. He wanted to show his group how you could record Skype calls in MP3 format and create podcast from the call. This means that your students can interview anyone in the world and record it for use in podcasts or presentations. I connected with Chris’s group later and talked about how we were using our blogging site. I was also able to type a url into the chat window so they could get to the site I was talking about with them.

 

Later that morning, Brian Mull in Louisiana contacted me via Sype to set up a conference call via Skype. You can have up to nine people participate in a conference call.

 

My last chat of the morning was a chat with Elaine Shuck for Polycom. She is located in South Dakota.

 

As you can see, Skype is a good tool that you may wish to consider using in your classroom.

 

Jim

 PS My username on Skype is jimwenz. Give me a call sometime.

  Technorati Tags: skype, collaboration, tools

 The dates are set for the K-12 Online Conference 2007. The conference will take place during the weeks of Oct. 15 and Oct. 22. It looks like it will be even better than the 2006 conference. Presenters include David Warlick, Alan Levine, Clarence Fisher, Brian Lamb, D’Arcy Norman, Derek Wenmouth, and Brian Cosby. You can read their bios at http://k12onlineconference.org/.

 

This is just the beginning of the list. You can still submit a proposal to present. Just click on the link above for more information.

 

If there are people interested in forming a local group in Macomb County to discuss the presentations and ideas, it might be fun to meet once a week for two weeks to view some of the presentations and discuss them with each other. I've put the conference on my schedule and look forward to learning a lot during those two weeks. Please let others in your school know about the conference.

 

My thanks to all the people who work so hard to put this together. 

Jim

 

  Technorati Tags: k12onlineconference.org, k12onlineconference

 

A few days ago I wrote about finding iTunes U. I’ve had a little more time to explore a few of the free resources they have to offer. I always enjoy hearing Guy Kawasaki speak. He is in the Stanford section in their lectures on business and technology. He made a very interesting statement to students and faculty at Stanford. He said that all good businesses begin for three reasons:

 

• Increase the Quality of Life
• Right a Wrong
• Prevent the End of Something Good

 

He told his audience that if they just start a company to make money they will most likely fail. Guy stated that his work at Apple was a mission. The people working at Apple were engaged and worked long hours because they truly believed that Apple could increase the quality of people’s lives.

 

The next podcast was a talk at MIT by Mitch Resnick. Dr. Resnick is the founder and head of the Lifelong Kindergarten Group at MIT. The title just makes you want to join. The title of his speech was Sowing the Seeds for More Creativity. He discussed why we need to allow students to work in creative ways to solve problems. He thinks we are heading into the age of creativity.

 

I’m sharing these small tidbits to encourage you to explore iTunes U. They have some excellent materials for you as well as resources for your classroom and it is all free. I know I plan on downloading more of the files for listening to on my drive to work.

 

JIm 

Some days I feel like Rip Van Winkle. I wake up in the morning and things have changed and I wonder how long I’ve been asleep. Reading through my email this morning I noticed a little blurb about iTunes U. I had read about universities having their own iTunes “stores”, but didn’t know there was a public iTunes U store. I followed the link and found some great resources. I thought this is great but how do I tell others how to get to iTunes U. After playing around for a while I just happened to notice that the menu under the iTunes Store (shown at right) had a new item. It now contains a link to the iTunes U store. I must have slept through the change.

English, reading, Spanish and Special Ed. teachers will want to check out Lit2go; Audio files for K-12. They have the audio files for hundreds of stories and you can get the print version from their web site. Also, they have stories in Spanish.

Have a son, daughter or student interested in a career Environmental Engineering? They will want to listen to the professor from Michigan Tech. explain what they will be studying in his class as well as audio files of his lectures. (Great for career exploration.)

I’m sure you’ll find something of interest to you and/or your students on iTunes U. Studying Greek, MIT Open Course, Ask a biologist (note the pdf transcripts of his talks are available also. This is an outstanding resource.

 

Jim, aka Rip Van

MACUL, Michigan Association of Computer Users in Learning, has started a social networking site on ning.com. You can visit it at http://maculspace.ning.com/. I’m very interested to see how the site develops and how it is used by educators. Will it flourish and develop into a resource for all the participants? Will it be a fad that slowly fades? I think the main thing working against its success is that most MACUL members are Social Network Immigrants. We aren’t sure of the benefit of a social networking site.

Communities are formed around shared interest and shared activities. Our shared interests are education and technology. Our activities span a greater area. We are teachers, tech coordinators, administrators, retired educators, college professors, state government representatives, and many more. It will be interesting to see if we can find a common bond to create a social network.

I really hope it works. I think it can be a good resource for all of us. Jane P. just posted a link to the Horizon Report that I found very useful. Ben has posted some good resources. And Kevin has posted some interesting movies. I’m hoping others will join in and share what they know or ask good questions to make us think.

 

Jim

 

Technorati Tags: MACUL, Social, education

Scratch was developed by the Lifelong Kindergarten group at the MIT Media Lab. All I can say is that it is a lot of fun. Just the name Kindergarten Group makes it sound creative and it is. The group at MIT describe Scratch this way:

 

Scratch is a new programming language that makes it easy to create your own interactive stories, animations, games, music, and art -- and share your creations on the web.

Scratch is designed to help young people (ages 8 and up) develop 21st century learning skills. As they create Scratch projects, young people learn important mathematical and computational ideas, while also gaining a deeper understanding of the process of design.

I downloaded it and was up-and-running in just a few minutes. It provides the user with modules that allow you to move characters, play music, and create games. You don't need code. You use the modules they provide and link them together in a series of actions.

This is a great way of starting students or your own children to the concepts of commands and results. The best thing in it is that it's fun even for "old kids." It is free and available for both Windows and Mac. Give it a try. ( http://scratch.mit.edu/ ) I might even share my great work in Scratch with you someday.

 

Jim

 

Technorati Tags: MIT, software, free

 

 

I found this site from a posting on CogDogBlog by Alan Lavine.  He always finds some neat stuff. The site is called Attendr. It is a Google Map mashup that allows conference attendees to post where they are from and some info about themselves.
You can then establish web links in various colors to other participants:

• someone they already know - orange
  
• someone they would like to meet - blue
  
• someone that wants to meet them - purple
  

 I have set up a sample to try it out. Add yourself to the map and perhaps together we can see how this works.

http://attendr.com/michigan 

 

Jim 

 

Technorati Tags: maps, google, web 2.0

Yesterday, I wrote about a workshop I had given. In describing the workshop, I mentioned Pageflakes as part of my presentation. I promote the use of Pageflakes to teachers as a tool they can use to create a classroom portal. They can use Pageflakes as the starting point for students and their parents who learning about resources on the web. Pageflakes definition of itself is:

Pageflakes is your personalized startpage on the Internet. Your address book, local weather information, to-do-list, news, blogs and much more – all on one page that you can access from anywhere.

It is easy to create a page and then add “flakes” to the page. Another definition from Pageflakes.

"Flake" is our word for those little modules which you can see on the screen.

Teachers can add news, pictures, the weather, calculators, web links, notes, etc. to their page. The nice thing is it is easy to use. It has a real low learning curve.

This morning, I had a comment from Rachel who works for Pagesflakes.

Naturally, I was excited to see Pageflakes mentioned in your blog. We have been excited to see how educators are making use of our site!

Next she said she had created a “flake” for my blog so Pageflake users could add my blog to their page. So it is official. I am now a flake!

All kidding aside, thanks Rachel, I consider it an honor! If you’re a Pageflake user you can use this link to add me to your page:

http://www.pageflakes.com/Community/Content/Feeds.aspx?moduleKey=339116

Also, you can view my Pageflakes page at:  http://www.pageflakes.com/jwenzloff

You local flake,

Jim

Today I had the pleasure to work with a group of twenty-five teachers from Fraser Public Schools. I was showing them tools that would allow them to have a “web presence” as well as some tools they could introduce in their classroom. I wanted to give them a quick overview of a lot of resources. If they wanted to learn more, they could come to a workshop or could teach themselves like a lot of us do. Items we played with included Wiki's, Portals ( Protopage and Pageflakes), Audacity for studycasts and student work, Furl, Google Notebook, Slideshare, and blogs. They were a really good group and could see a use for a lot of the tools.

Then came the question that made me think. An experienced teacher asked me how she could keep up-to-date on all of these new tools. I had to stop and think. I started to answer and stopped again. There wasn't an easy answer. There really isn't a place for educators to find out about new tools. If there is let me know. I learn about new tools from blog discussions, social sites, and networking with friends. I don't know how many conversations have sentences in them that start “Have you tried...”. I had to tell her I didn't know a place she could go. It really is about changing your web behavior.

I also decided that I would try to create a small directory of tools for teachers. Leave me a comment with your favorite web, open source, or free tool and I'll add it to the list. I'm working on a new web site (I know old web. It will be up and running by Monday. I'll have to have a grand opening. ( anewadventure.org ).

Jim

Yesterday, I was looking at Technorati.com and people who had mentioned my name in a blog posting. Below is a post from a blog:  (I couldn't find the person's name.)

 He or she wrote:

Furl está basado en tecnología web, por lo que podemos acceder a él desde cualquier conexión a internet y no sólo eso sino que cuando guardamos un sitio web en nuestra cuenta furl (que es gratuita), no sólo guardamos una dirección, ¡guardamos una copia de la página entera!. Si quieres una estupenda guía de cómo usar furl, Jim Wenzloff, te la ofrece en su página web. Con Furl también puedes compaginar el uso de RSS.

I could make out a little of what they were writing about in the posting but not much. I know they were writing about my guide to Furl. So I copied the posting into the translation tool in Google and this is what was written. (I'm sure some of the words and grammar on incorrect.)

 

Furl is based on technology Web, reason why we can accede to him from any connection to Internet and not only that but that when we kept a Web site in our account furl (that is gratuitous), not only we kept a direction, we kept a copy from the whole page. If you love a wonderful guide of how to use furl, Jim Wenzloff, offers you in its page Web. With Furl also you can arrange the RSS use.

 

It was interesting to me that I could find my name and get a translation of the passage in just a few minutes. To me this illustrates how connected we are to people throughout the world. Also, I was proud that my documentation was being used in  other countries and parts of the world. The bad part is that I had to have it translated. Unlike me, students in this flat world will need more than one language.

 

Jim 

Perhaps for the first time in history we are not only preparing our students for jobs that don’t exist, but we are preparing them for jobs that we can’t comprehend. A recent article of Money.cnn.com describes five new careers. The careers are Disease Mapper, Robot Programmer, Information Engineer, Radio Surgeon, and Second Life Lawyer. The first four jobs actually exist today. The fifth job Second Life Lawyer is a career that the author thinks will soon exist. Some of these careers I think I understand. However, I had misconceptions about an Information Engineer and Second Life Lawyer. It is an interesting article and does have an impact on what we do in schools.

 

Students will still need all the basic skills we have been teaching for years. The will still need mathematics, science, English, and general knowledge. They are still extremely important, but our students will need more. Information and analysis won’t land sustain them in the global economy. Daniel Pink in his book A Whole New Mind summarizes states:

What is in greatest demand today isn’t analysis by synthesis…seeing the big picture, crossing boundaries, and being able to combine disparate pieces into an arresting whole.”

Mr. Pink outlines six “right brain” skills our students will need in addition to the left brain skills we have been teaching. According to Daniel, our students need to be fluent in Design, Story, Symphony, Empathy, Play, and Meaning. You can get a full explanation of these skills in his book. If you want to hear more about what Mr. Pink thinks, listen to the three-part interview that Alan November did with Daniel Pink.

 

We need to encourage creativity and big thinking. Test taking skills won’t get you a job.

 

Jim 

The eight crayons on the left make up  the "Skin Tones of the World" according to Prang Crayons. I found them in the teachers' store in the building where I work. My first thought was how can we represent all the people of the world with eight crayons. You can make up your own mind on how you could mix these colors together to get the skin tones of everyone you know.

After I looked at them and drew a little I think you might be able to represent everyone. The one crayon I couldn't figure out is the blue crayon. I guess I need to combine with some other colors. Hmmm...back to the drawing board.

In case you wanted to know the colors are:

Dark Orange, Bitter Sweet, Cerulean, White, Raw Sienna, Tan, Black, and Light Peach.

 

Jim 

 

 

 

The title of the workshop is "Content, Creativity, and Collaboration." It is not only a new workshop, but a different type of workshop than I usually offer here. This workshop will look at why we need to change the way we teach as well as exploring the new tools we can use to implement the changes. I'm going to use more of a "sandbox" approach to the hands-on section of the workshop. When kids play in a sandbox there are usually a lot of toys and a pile of sand. The kids pick a toy, figure out what it does or doesn't do and then create an activity with the toy. Some will dig, some will build, and some will do everything including getting sand in their eyes. My plan in is to show the teachers a lot of toys in one of the categories and then have them play with them on the computer. I'll let them figure out how they work and what they can do with them. We will use the sand box for all three categories.

I've chosen  content, creativity, and collaboration as the topics. I think of them as a progression of on-line skills for teachers. The steps are basic: move your content on-line, engage students in creativity activities, and collaborate with others and the real world to provide the students an authentic audience.

The workshop is based on my resent presentations at conferences and I hope it will be fun and challenging for the participants. If you are in the area and want to join us, you can register at http://www.solutionwhere.com/misdtraining/
cw/CourseByCateg.asp. Choose view by month and then choose August. It should be listed there.

 

During the next two or three weeks I'll be sharing some of the resources and ideas that I will be using in the workshop. 

 

Jim 

Readers Make Leaders

Thanks to Janie Lynn Panagopoulos. We have just finished a four-week online reading and writing project. Janie writes books for upper elementary students and volunteered to be part of an author project. We used the blog to house the project. I had planned to just do one book, but Janie said lets do all four! So we set to work.

Janie recorded a series of podcasts for each book. Some of the podcasts we used for all four books. One of the podcasts that we used for more than one book was her podcast on research. That topic fit all four books. She also posted to the all four blogs each week. I can't thank her enough for all the work she did.

We had at least 27 classrooms of kids involved from ten different districts. Kids posted over 1,000 comments. Some of the teachers put a lot of effort into the project and you can see it in the work of their students. Other teachers just had their students read the book and listen to the podcast. That was fine also. I know time is at a premium in the classroom these days.

You can take a look at what the students did at the following sites:

Journey Back to the Lumberjack Camp
/blogs/journey/
Traders in Time
/blogs/traders/
Faraway Home
/blogs/farawayhome/
Train to Midnight
http://www.vismyclass.comb/blogs/traintomidnight

 

I also had the teachers evaluate the project. The feedback was very positive and should help us improve the project in the future. You can read the results of the evaluation at: http://www.surveymonkey.com/Report.asp?U=374937086483

 

As I said, the project went for four weeks. Each week the students were expected to read about 50 pages. They then had a chance to listen to one or two podcasts each week by the author. Each week there were two questions and an activity the students could respond to on the blog. We had over 1,000 comments. It was up to the teachers how much time they wanted their students to do in the project.

Janie and I are going to repeat the project twice next year. Once in the Fall and once in the Spring. You are welcome to join us. Send me and email indicating you want to participate in the online author project and I will add you to my notification list.

 

Thanks again Janie,

 

Jim 

Statistics might lie. Once or twice  a month I look at the statistics for my web site. The last few months I've been looking at how often my podcasts are down loaded from the site. I have been amazed by the number of downloads. For example, I did an interview with Chris Burnett ( The Clem), It was downloaded close to seventy times in March! While I'd like to think that this was a great podcast that has become  popular, but I don't think that is the reason. So why are there so many downloads?

 

My guess is that several people have subscribed to my podcast via iTunes and all of my podcasts are being automatically downloaded to their computers when they open iTunes. I can only hope that they actually open and listen to the podcast.

 

The positive point is that iTunes distribution system is excellent. iTunes gives educators a free and easy way to distribute their podcast. Sometimes educators forget the "cast" part of the word podcast. The "cast" part comes from broadcasting. Teachers like the recording of audio, but sometimes they don't see the importance of broadcasting their audio files. In my humble opinion, they should broadcast their files.

 

First, it provides a connection to parents and students. It may not seem important at first, but as more teachers become involved in creating podcasts and studycasts, students and  parents may have to go to different blogs and web sites to download the podcasts from various teachers and administrators. Then they will have to develop their own file storage system for saving the files and remember to go back and check for new podcasts. However, using iTunes, they can subscribe to multiple podcasts and have them automatically downloaded. That way they can have podcasts from multiple teachers and keep all the files organized.

 

In addition, broadcasting allows you to have greater "web presence." Web presence is important if you want to be part of the online educational communities. Other educators can see and hear what you are doing in your classroom and this visibility is important in finding partners on the web. Often teachers want to partner with teachers around the world for writing or data collection. Having a web presence builds your credibility and will attract teachers from around the world.

 

So, start broadcasting!

 

Jim 

Today I had the pleasure to talk to William Dobbie. Mr. Dobbie teaches social studies at Jeanette Jr. High, in Utica Public Schools. He created his blog in 2005 and added a podcasting site this January. He gives students online assignments. His assignments are issues or concepts that he wants students to reflect on and then post comments. I think you will enjoy hearing what he says about using his blog in the classroom.

 

 Interview with William Dobbie 

I'm sure that somewhere in your education you had to fill in the name of the states on a map of the United States. It was never hard, but it took time and it was hard for me to have a neat map when I was done. So I had this US Map site I had to try it out. You might want to try it also. I don't mean to put pressure on you, but you will be timed!

 

Jim

 

PS There is one big error in the game. Leave a comment if you find the error. 

I used the kindergarten learnings  in a recent presentation. My contention was that what we learned in kindergarten still applies to using the internet today. I broke it down into three categories: content, creativity, and collaboration. I think they apply.

Content

- share everything
- don't take things that aren't yours

 Educators need to share what they know and what they create. Our "content" will become outdated quickly.  Hiding it in a safe place will not protect it.  After  time it will become worthless. I think Blackboard and Moodle are great tools. But both of those tools encourage teachers to keep their content, lesson plans, and ideas hidden. We need to move to "open" content. Educators have a lot of knowledge and wisdom. We can all grow through sharing. Certainly the Web 2.0 tools have started us sharing more. Let's hope the trend continues.
 

Creativity 

 

- Live a balanced life - learn some and think some and draw and paint and sing and dance and play and work everyday.

 

New tools allow teachers and students to be creative and to create. Choice engages students in education. Look at your assignments. Are there alternative assignments that would allow creativity and still meet the learning objectives? In many cases there are. Most assignments are given to students so they can show what they have learned. What they have learned can be skills, concepts, or knowledge. Students have tools that allow them to share what they have learned in meaningful ways. Let's let our students use the tools. 

 

Collaboration

 

- Play fair.

 

Teachers want to collaborate with other teachers in other countries. Often they don't know where to start. I think the first step is putting your content on line so others can see what you're doing. If educators see you are doing interesting and creative things they will want to join you in projects.  Start small. Think big.

Just some thoughts late at night.

Jim 

At a local training the other day, Wesley Fryer showed us a simple page on Bloom’s Taxonomy. It had the six levels on steps. However, under the steps was another chart that was created by Clark in 2002 to show how the taxonomy promotes active learning. He broke the steps down into the thinking skill, activities, and then the type of products.

 

On the chart you find the thinking skill you want to promote. For example we want students to use creative thinking processes. The activities would include, combine, invent, compose, predict, write, imagine, etc. The products would then include song, cartoon, magazine, TV, radio show, etc.

 

I immediately thought what a great chart this is in workshops on technology in education. Just in the examples above think of how many ways a student could use technology to practice one of the highest thinking skills, create!

I'm going to hand out this chart in some of my presentations and have people circle the activities and products they can see technology enhancing. Hopefully, they will leave with curriculum ideas based on the taxonomy. I'm hoping it will help clarify how technology can help achieve our educational goals.

 

Jim 

I did a new presentation today at the Connecting and Collaborating Conference. The goal of the presentation was to show teachers how they can have a presence on the web with easy to use free sites. Moving content for your class or job is the first step. However, it is an important step. The presentation went very well. I had some good comments from the participants. I could easily turn this in to a full day hands on workshop. You can read about the presentation and see the web resources I used at the Wiki Site.

I'm not sure how many people realize how important it is to presenters to have them stop by and make a comment after the presentation.

Hmmm… anyone interested in me presenting this at the Macomb ISD or at their school district?

(Before you read this you should know that I have done work for Alan November and consider him a good friend. That isn't why I am writing this post. I think the podcasts mentioned below are worth your time.) 

Alan November has been doing a series of interviews with Daniel Pink and Yong Zhao. Mr. Pink is the author of A Whole New Mind and is an editor for Wired Magazine. Yong Zhao is a professor at Michigan State University and a nationally known speaker. You can subscribe to them through iTunes or listen to them on his web site. I think the five podcasts in the series are the best group of podcasts I have ever listen to since podcasting started.

 I've read Daniel Pink's book and have encouraged a lot of people to read it. I think that close to two dozen people that I work with have read the book. To me A Whole New Mind starts where the World is Flat left off. Mr. Pink describes the skills our students will need in the global economy. Read the book and listen to the podcasts.

I have heard Yong Zhao speak several times. While he always had interesting things to say, I think his conversation with Alan was better than any speech I have heard him give. Perhaps he felt free to share a bit more of what he believes than when he is talking to teachers and administrators. What he says about why technology is failing to make a difference in American schools should concern every educator.

I just talked to a group of educators today about students creating content, using new web-based tools in creative ways and collaborating with others. I wish I could have said it as well as Mr. Pink and Mr. Zhao did in the podcasts. 

Jim 

 

[Tags: Pink, Zhao, November]

 

Andy Mann, from the Ottawa ISD and I spent some time today exploring different online graphic organizers. We looked at four sites, Mindomo, Mindeister, Blubbl.us and Gliffy. We wanted to find graphic organizers that allow collaboration. Several of these allowed different people to edit the organizer, but only Mindmeister allowed us to simultaneously edit and add to the map. Mindeister also tracks who made changes and when the changes were made. Also, in Mindeister you can click on the names of the people you are in collaboration with and open a Skype call. Skype allowed us to edit and discuss what we were doing. This would be a great way to prepare for a joint presentation or a project.

 

If your looking for a collaborative mind mapping tool I’d recommend taking a look at Mindeister.

Below are some quick comments on the others:

Mindomo - the most colorful, but can only share as a graphic. Also, you can bring in images that are on the web. So you could use images in Flickr to add to your  map. No collaboration or peer editing.

Bubbl.us - Easy to use, quick reaction time. Only one person can edit at a time. It was difficult to give up control to another person.

Gliffy - You can allow others to edit. You can’t collaborate. Gliffy is now selling an upgrade and has placed an upgrade banner on the top of the web work area. This is a site I like, but I wouldn’t recommend it currently.

 

Jim 

On Thursday of the MACUL Conference, I was honored to receive the Making it Happen Award by MACUL. Making it Happen is an ISTE award that can be given out by their affiliates.

Making it Happen is an internationally recognized awards program for educators in the field of educational technology integration in K–12 schools. The program identifies and rewards educational technology leaders around the world for their commitment and innovation.

I was completely surprised at receiving this honor. I can’t thank the MACUL Board enough for giving me this award. It is very special to me because it came from my peers. I have worked with numerous people on the MACUL Board and many of them are close friends. It truly is an honor to have people that know you well give you an award.

Thank you, thank you, thank you,

Jim

Technorati Tags: macul07, iste, wenzloff

Google can be used for a lot of things. Now you can use it to quickly get to the website of the tracking company shipping your package just type in the tracking number and Google will id the company and provide a link to track your package.

 

Have you noticed those arrows in the concrete on the expressways? Those and other traffic systems keep track of traffic speed. You can now get up to the minute traffic reports for most major cities on Google Maps. See the example of I-696 in Michigan on the left.

 

More fun with Google Maps!

Jim 

 

On the Michigan Association of Computer Users in Learning (MACUL) blog I wrote about conferences and what I like to get from a conference. Contact with great people was one item on my list. I have met some wonderful people at conferences and continue to stay in contact with many of them. I’ve been thinking about that a lot since I wrote the post. I’ve decided I should thank some of the great people who I know professionally and thank them for what they have shared with me and how I appreciate them and the work they do. Therefore, I am going to try, every few weeks, to write about a fellow educator.

Here is my first “Great Person.”

Rita Hughes is a media specialist in one of our local school districts. She is a very bright person. Not only is she intelligent, but she always has a smile and a kind word. If I was teaching, I would want Rita to be my media specialist. She is always looking for new ways to motivate students to learn and to have fun in school. She tackles new technologies and, in addition, helps others in her building learn them. She has recently started her media aides podcasting the morning announcements. They broadcast the announcements via video, but the parents couldn’t hear them. Now parents have access to the audio. She is also involved in supporting her teachers in a new project using iPods in the classroom. Those are just a few of her latest projects. She has tons of other projects going.

She does a lot with technology, but her warm and friendly smile is why I am proud to call her a friend and valued colleague.

 

Thanks Rita.

 

Jim 

Will high stakes testing create an opportunity for outsourcing/offshoring education? That’s a question I briefly explore in my latest podcast.

Here is a rough outline of my thoughts.

 

1. High-stakes testing is driving schools to a uniform curriculum, uniform test for classes, and common assessment.

 

2. Friedman in The World is Flat and Pink in A Whole New Mind, make the case that anything that can be diagrammed with predictable outcomes or put in a flow chart can be automated or outsourced. If the curriculum is uniform with little modification from the teacher it can be put online. Online courses have set curriculum, activities, assignments, and assessments. Often the only interaction is through a discussion board or electronic communication with the teacher. Courses that use that structure can be taken offshore and taught by teachers outside of the students’ district..

 

3. There is an ever increasing educated population in Asia. Often people in Asian countries are willing to work for far less than their counterparts in the US. You might be able to hire three or four highly-educated Asian instructors for the cost of one US instructor.

 

4. English is easier to write than speak. Most communication in online courses is via the written word. It will be easier for Asian instructors to communicate in writing than verbally.

 

The move to increase the number of required courses in high school is preventing students from taking electives. However, if they can take several required courses online they then have time for band, music, art and drama in their schedule.

 

A long time ago I taught a summer high school course in government. A majority of the students in summer school were there because they had failed government. However, every year I had students in my summer school class that were there because of rumors about the high school government class or at the direction of their parents who had experience with the teacher with a younger child. These students would have gladly taken government online.

 

As a result of these factors we may find ourselves competing with foreign teachers unless the US  teacher adds “value” to the course. That is the main concept I want to stress. Good teachers add educational value to the content. Teachers need to be active educators that engage students in their content. Good teachers can never be outsourced!

 

Listen to my podcast on this topic.

 

Jim

Next week is our state technology conference, MACUL. I won't bore you with what MACUL stands for, but you can learn the name on the web site. I decided I would create a podcast of what I hope to get out of going to a conference. I hope you enjoy it and if you have another or perhaps better goal please leave a comment.

 

Also, you can visit the conference blog at http://macul.edublogs.org/. 

 

Jim 

 

 

Last week the Michigan State Superintendent of Education, Mike Flanagan, posted his second podcast. It is worth listening to or you can watch it. He did both an audio file and a video file. Even though the podcast was interesting, what was more interesting was the reaction within my department.

 

I have been promoting podcasting by teachers, administrators, and trainers like myself for several years. After Mr. Flanagan posted his podcast, a several people in my department said we have to start doing podcasts and using this "new" technology. It's good that more people in my department are seeing the value of podcasting and what it can provide for teachers.

 

Jim
 

This morning I had to stop to fill up my car with gas. I had to pay $2.55 for each gallon of gas. Like most people in the US, I didn't like paying that much. My next stop was at Tim Horton's to get a cup of coffee. They charged me $1.55 for a cup of coffee. I started thinking about the cost of gas that everyone complains about when the price goes up.

 

I paid two cents a ounce for the gas for my car. I paid ten cents an ounce for my coffee. Coffee's main ingredient is water. In Michigan, we are blessed with more fresh water than any other area in the world. Yet coffee cost me five times as much per ounce than gas.

 

It might be interesting to have students create graph showing the cost per ounce of common things they drink (Coke, juice boxes, milk, etc.). They would get a chance to use their math skills and perhaps start a good conversation on supply and demand and value.

 

I will say I did enjoy the hot coffee.

 

 Jim

 

ps The reason I said we would complain in the US is that in Europe and other areas of the world they are paying five dollars or more for a gallon of gas.
 

On Monday our students had the opportunity to interview Colin Bergel via video conferencing. Colin is the author of Mail By the Pail. Mail by the Pail is a book for young readers about a father working on a frieghter on the Great Lakes. The father is lonely wants to get mail from home. The mail does arrive via the only boat to have a zip code, the J. W. Westcott.

Colin is not only the author of the book, he is also a captain on a Great Lakes freighter. He did a great job explaining to our students about life on the Great Lakes and how he went about writing his book. The students really enjoyed it.

Jim 

I recently attended the Online Learning Experience Symposium sponsored by Michigan Virtual University. The main feature of the conference was the announcement of “Career Forward.” “Career Forward” is an online course that will meet the new mandate in Michigan that all students will take an online course or have twenty hours of online work in their high school career.

 

There was a lot of discussion about the good and bad points of this mandate and online courses. There are a lot of issues, but I think we are missing one major issue. Can these courses be outsourced to offshore companies? Daniel Pink in his book A Whole New Mind states that anything that can be put into a flow chart can be shipped to Asia. If India can answer our technology calls, why can’t India provide teachers for online courses? First, writing English is easier than speaking English. Second, once the curriculum is established and activities developed, it is a matter of implementing a plan and supporting students. Highly trained college graduates in India can be hired for much less than highly qualified teachers in North America.

Parents and students will then have a choice. Should I take Algebra from Mr. Smith who has a bad reputation or should I pay a reduced fee for taking an online course? The big question to me becomes what value does the teacher add to the curriculum. Most teachers add a lot to their curriculum and will never be replaced. But we all know teachers who could and may be replaced by outsourcing.

Maybe schools will be as flat as the world.

 

Technorati Tags: online, Wenzloff, School

This spring we will be piloting the most ambitious blogging project I have attempted, Readers Make Leaders. The goal of Readers Make Leaders is to encourage students to read with greater understanding and depth of thought. Mrs. Janie Lynn Panagopolous, author of numerous books, will be leading the students in the reading of her books. Each class will choose to read one of these three books, Journey Back to the Lumber Jack Camp, Faraway Home, or Train to Midnight.

 

They will read the book over a four week period. Each week Janie will be posting a podcast explaining  how she goes about writing books and background information on the book the students are reading. She will also be posting writing prompts for the students to respond to using the comment button on the blog.

 

Also, students will have a chance to ask Janie questions. She plans to respond to them via a podcast. It should be a challenge but a lot of fun. Most importantly, I hope the students learn from the project.

We will begin the project in late March and finish by the first of May. I think I will have at close to 20 classes involved. I'll keep you up to date on our progress. 

 

The blogs will be at:

http://visitmyclass.com/blogs/journey/default.aspx

 http://visitmyclass.com/blogs/farawayhome/

http://visitmyclass.com/blogs/traintomidnight/

 

 

 

Last fall I was fortunate to receive a MACUL Grant to help teachers with podcasting. The project is called Read It, Write It, Say It. It is a language arts based program to encourage students to read a book, story or poem. Then they write about what they read. It might be a review, a readers’ theater script, or a story based on what they read. I wanted the teachers to choose the assignments based on their curriculum. The last step was to create a podcast based on what they had written.

 

The project includes students in grades K-8 from ten schools. We had a few problems getting started, but we now have twenty-four podcasts published. Stop by and listen to one or two and leave feedback for the students. I'm sure they will appreciate reading your comments. /blogs/rws/default.aspx

 

You can also subscribe to their podcast on iTunes. Just search iTunes for Read It, Write It, Say It and you should find their podcast. We are using the RSS feed on our podcast category to link them to iTunes.

 

Jim

Google Labs has done it again with the introduction of Google Notebook. It is a simple way to take notes and gather web resources. You install Google Notebook in your web browser. It adds a small icon to the bottom edge of your browser. To add a quote from a web a page you just highlight what you want to add to your notebook, and then right click on the item. You will then see a choice to add the text or image to your notebook. It not only takes the text, it also records the URL of the web site.

 

This would be a great tool for students to use as they do web research or for teachers to gather information and web sites for a lesson. You can have multiple notebooks to gather different types of information.

 

You can also share your notebook by inviting people to see it by sending them an email through Google. Also, you can access your notebook from any browser with Google Notebooks installed so you can move information from work to home.

 

Try out Google Notebook. I think you will like it.
http://www.google.com/googlenotebook/overview.html

Jim 

What an honor! I, You, We were named person(s) of the year.

The headline of this year's issue will read:

“Person of the Year: You

We were all named person of the year for what we contribute to the web community and what we share with each other. Time is running the cover of this year's Person of the Year issue with a mirror on the cover. When you look at it you will see yourself. So, I have finally made the cover of Time!

 

To quote time:

Who are these people? Seriously, who actually sits down after a long day at work and says, I'm not going to watch Lost tonight. I'm going to turn on my computer and make a movie starring my pet iguana? I'm going to mash up 50 Cent's vocals with Queen's instrumentals? I'm going to blog about my state of mind or the state of the nation or the steak-frites at the new bistro down the street? Who has that time and that energy and that passion?

The answer is, you do. And for seizing the reins of the global media, for founding and framing the new digital democracy, for working for nothing and beating the pros at their own game, TIME's Person of the Year for 2006 is you.

Every teacher, student, principal, and educator who has contributed to the web is  person of the year! So, keep sharing, contributing, and consuming information. Who knows what it will lead to in the future.

 Jim
 

Podcasting is about reading, writing, and speaking. It is a simple technology that fits our curriculum goals. Podcasting also provides our students with an authentic audience for their productions. Podcasting is more than just recording audio files. It is also about broadcasting. Wikipedia defines Podcasting as:

A podcast is a multimedia file that is distributed by subscription (paid or unpaid) over the Internet using syndication feeds, for playback on mobile devices and personal computers^[1]. Like 'radio', it can mean both the content and the method of broadcast.

Currently (besides my own lame podcast) I teach teachers how to create podcasts and I am working on a MACUL Grant to implement Podcasting in classrooms. I’m having fun with both of these endeavors.

The workshop is fairly typical. I use the workshop to teach about Audacity and then have them create a small sample podcast. I would then talk about RSS and show them how it worked. I knew that it wasn’t enough to get them to understand the broadcasting part of podcasting. Now I have them team up and create a podcast about their favorite restaurant. Then we put the podcast on the blog that has a RSS feed. Their podcast appears in iTunes within the hour. (See Podcasting 101 or search iTunes for Podcasting 101 - we are the one with restaurants in the title.)

The MACUL grant project is off to a slow start, but is picking up steam. We have our first three podcasts published and the teachers are learning to use Audacity with the students. They are doing a great job and by the end of the year I’m hoping to have some great podcasts to share with you. Their podcasts are also posted on a blog called Read It, Write It, Say It. Or just search for Read It, Write It, Say It in iTunes. If you do visit the blog please leave a comment for the students.