TIE-Lights

Quick & easy way to share large files…

Maggie — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 15:13:47 +0000

Terry Shay, Lead Fablevision Ambassador, wanted to share a 10 mg. yearbook with us, his ambassadors. It was too large to email, so he put it in a cool web tool called Dropbox. This tool allows you to have a dropbox on your desktop and access files there from anywhere…There are levels of use, and the low level is FREE. It’s very slick!

Another cool Google Tool

Maggie — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 22:15:07 +0000

A fun way to take a quick trip through a lot of media to find out what’s happening is to use Google’s Fast Flip. It displays the front page of magazines, one at a time, and you can “flip” through them… YOu can go in deeper to the text of articles, and you can also choose the genre of magazine or newspaper. Very easy, very cool!

‘The Shallows’: This Is Your Brain Online

MaryLou McGirr — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 01:20:35 +0000

Try reading a book while doing a crossword puzzle, and that, says author Nicholas Carr, is what you’re doing every time you use the Internet. Interesting read about multitasking and cognitive styles. I made brownies while I listened to the story online. The brownies were delicious and I can only hope I was able to comprehend what I heard. Give a listen . . . it’s worth the time and who knows what else you’ll get done.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=127370598

Student Project on Bullying

Debbie O'Doan — Thu, 05 Aug 2010 17:04:39 +0000

These middle school students are collaborating on a project about bullying. This is a great example of students doing a project with authentic purposes. The book/materials they are developing will be used with elementary students in their district. Bullying Project

Last fall at the Systems Change Conference, Barbara Coloroso presented an in-depth workshop and a workshop to parents on Bullying. I would encourage you to attend the Systems Change Conference this year to see what great things you can learn!

New Technology and Practices from ISTE

Debbie O'Doan — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 18:50:54 +0000

Much of our world is moving online and as our technologies grow and change, our practice must follow. Six years ago, under the Project Enrich grant, I developed online courses based on instructional strategies that would work for all students. Over the years, I have pushed some tools to the limit to develop and offer the best courses for teachers. As we have seen the technology grow, I am thrilled about a technology found at ISTE: Schoology. Schoology is first FREE online learning course management system that I am aware of.
At the ISTE Conference, I attended every session I was able to about online and/or distance learning. I was involved in white paper discussions with graduate students and other conference attendees who were researching online learning and student completion rates. The following links are a few resources on the previous topics: Drop out Research, Online Learning for the Novice Student, Improving Online Discussions.
For me personally, learning new technology is exciting when I can directly apply it to my work. So in a recent face to face event, I presented resources for teacher leaders in our state to work with Best Practices Online and we practiced using schoology to hold discussions about this topic. As with any technology, if you learn a new tool, practice helps you remember it. We built in time for ”practicing the tools” into our event. I encourage you to go try a new technology such as schoology today!

And finally, my favorite presentation while attending ISTE:

Where the Girls Aren’t

Robots Powered by the Wind and Sun

gsteele — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 14:23:56 +0000

I’ve followed the LEGO movement in education for many years and enjoyed learning about the new LEGO Education Renewable Energy Add-On Set which will enable NXT robots across the nation to be generating power using wind and solar energy. Since there is an ongoing emphasis on Science, Technology, Engineering and Math(STEM), classrooms equipped with LEGOs and access to online resources can provide hands-on learning experiences. Visit www.LEGOeducation.us for more information. Can “LEGO Play” be one of our staff inservices?

A second project that intrigues me is called the simMentoring Project. Over the past year, teacher preparation candidates at the University of North Texas have been using simSchool as a learning tool to help them apply theories of learning in a simulated classroom. In the game, simulated students have personal characteristics and can have different learning styles. New features this year are “Create a new task” and “Create a new student” that allow the user to customize simSchool. Users can define their own task within the categories of recall, skill/concept, strategic thinking, and extended thinking as well as set nine cognitive and emotional variables. Visit www.simschool.org for more information.

Students as Creators

Kris Baldwin — Sat, 31 Jul 2010 03:20:08 +0000

Jeff Utecht’s session was one of my favorites at this year’s ISTE conference in Denver. He started out reminding us of how different the world is for our students—today’s high school seniors, for example, were born in 1992. They have always been connected, had access, had mobiles, etc. Now is an exciting time to be an educator though thanks to three big pieces coming together—constructivism, connectivism, and Bloom’s taxonomy, which was recently revised to show more active processes based on a foundation of process and content knowledge. Today’s students are creators and publishers in their lives outside school all the time; unfortunately, as teachers we don’t always tap into their proficiencies to engage with our content. We should constantly be encouraging students to change/improve, compose/create, combine/mashup, and hypothesize/predict. Utecht had many more interesting ideas to share, which you can find out more about in his new book Reach. Instead of being critical of today’s teachers, Utecht shares practical and useful ideas for how each of us can reach out to 21^st century learners and together we can all become more successful. You can also access his presentation notes and resources here.

scrofut — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 22:47:55 +0000

My take-aways from ISTE are many! I will just share a few here:

Developing, Designing, and Delivering: The Case for Powerful and Productive Presentations – Ken Shelton and Robert Craven

I have seen so many bad PowerPoints that I truly understand the Death By PowerPoint video on Youtube. I have used PowerPoint in the classroom and will be using it in my new role here at TIE and I really wanted to learn how to use it in a better way. Ken and Robert really talk about the visual impact that your presentation can have and why you really need to tell a story. I hope to be discussing this in greater detail in a class we are offering this fall ~ Bringing It Home: ISTE 2010!

Yolink

As I installed the extension in Chrome (and you can use it on other browsers) they said this:

Yolink – Search, Find, Create

Find exactly what you’re looking for, only faster. Using key terms, the yolink Chrome extension scans web pages, search engine results, e-books and more to deliver just the information you need. It even lets you peek behind the links so you can

decide what’s valuable. And then with just one click, it takes you to the exact location of the information, completely shortening your search process.

But it doesn’t end there. Once you’ve found what you need, yolink lets you compile all of your results in Google Docs and Spreadsheets and share them with colleagues, co-workers and friends using your favorite social network and bookmarking tools. So it not only simplifies your search, it simplifies your life. Not too shabby for a Chrome extension.

I am now ab

le to go to a website, click they yolink extension and enter words to search for. It makes searching the site so much easier and faster!

Foursquare

At first, I thought this was silly. You set up an account and then you check in at the places you are at. This alerts your friends – in one or several different ways – where you are. I found that for the conference, it was extremely helpful. There was a large group of us that were doing things together, but we would separate to go off to different sessions. Using Foursquare, we were able to quickly find one another. Plus, there was the fun aspect of earning badges and trying to become the mayor of a place. I never managed that! Sigh!

Plurk

This is not a take away from the conference as I have been using plurk for two years now. This conference cements the value in networking online and then having the opportunity to meet face-to-face. Because we already “know” each other, we can come together for very rich and meaningful conversation. Through this, I was able to be part of a digital jam session, where everyone brought their ipads, iphones, droids, and laptops and played beautiful music together. We added some digital guitars and used a free, online karaoke site called singsnap.com to add more depth to the jam!

I was also able to meet people that I might not have networked with. The new friends I have are already proving to be valuable resources.

While I believe you go to a conference to bring back resources, I know I could sit online and garner many of those. The face-to-face networking I get to do is something that is truly enriched at an event like the ISTE conference!

Technology – A Leader’s Responsibility?

Pam Lange — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 15:18:58 +0000

At the ISTE conference this year I continually heard the theme, “Walk the walk; talk the talk”. If, as an administrator or leader, we are asking our teachers to use Google Docs, integrate technology into everyday life, but we are not modeling it in our everyday life, then it is unfair to expect our staff to use it. If we ourselves are not walking the walk, then we shouldn’t be talking the talk.

In addition, we should be rewarding growth in the use of technology. If you have teachers or leaders in your building who are using some form of technology – reward them. It might be that you have a minimal budget. If so, the people who are using technology are the people who get the technology!

How would you rate your use of technology? What short-term goals could you set for yourself to begin the school year? What small technology integration could be embedded within your back-to-school In-service or training? Good luck this year and have a super 2010-11 school year.

Inspiration and Cosmetics

Scott Simpson — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 19:52:46 +0000

The technology I’m most interested in right now has everything to do with my passion: music. I’m a songwriter and composer, and I just love how new tools can open up new possibilities for me, creatively. Technology tools can do the same for our students. They can discover things about themselves and their creative potentialities—sometimes just by being introduced to a new tool. For me and my creative work, the new tool has been Garage Band. I’ve had a home sound studio for years, but until I had unlimited access to a Mac, Garage Band was an out-of-reach tool that I could never use long enough to incorporate into my own creative process. Now, after a few months of use, I’ve not only discovered and created pieces that would never have existed without this linking of artist and tool, I’m also taking what I gained and moving forward toward other Mac-based tools. I can’t wait to see what might happen next!
So what’s the downside?
Some tools are just so cool they can tempt us away from our creative source—something that can’t be purchased or upgraded. Garage Band, for example, is filled with wonderful pre-recorded loops that can be endlessly configured, reconfigured and manipulated to form all sorts of musical pieces—long and short, fast and slow, high and low, Hip Hop to Classical, Country to Reggae…. It’s endless! And it can be endlessly dissipating, creatively speaking.
Garage Band can’t get at, for instance, my frustration with the Gulf Oil spill, or our tendency as a society to be reactionary in the face of calamities and tensions rather than to be thoughtful and considerate PRIOR to acting. Garage Band has nothing to do with the feeling I get when a particular chord pattern matches up with a specific lyric and melody to say something I didn’t have words for BEFORE they came together. So if I become enamored with the tool to the point of distraction from my own deep well of experience, then the tool becomes destructive—no matter how cool it is! In fact, sometimes the cooler it is—the more impressive, the more likely I am to trade off inspiration for cosmetics.

Inspiration comes from the Greek root meaning to take in breath, or to take in Spirit. Cosmetic comes from the Greek root meaning an ornamentation, or ordering of the surface. Inspiration leads us to an INSIDE-OUT movement, while cosmetics attempt to create a change from the OUTSIDE-IN. Our students can lose themselves, if we aren’t careful, by trading off the deep well of their unique selves for a mere reconfiguration of the surface. At its lowest point, education has sometimes settled for this—for the cosmetic over the inspirational. This is why some people reject technology outright. But this rejection comes because, sometimes, technologies in schools have been abused.
Technology should be a brush or chisel in the hand of the artist, not a substitute soul.
As educators then, we must help our students settle into the delicate balance between the deep well and the cool tools. For me, this meant (and means) stepping out onto my back deck with my guitar and notebook in hand, considering my frustration with our knee jerk attempts to “fix” everything around us, often via a violent or explosive reaction, and then moving back and forth (for weeks, actually) between laying down tracks (both pre-recorded loops and fresh instrumental or vocal recordings), and listening to various mixes (in the car, my iPod as I walk, on our stereo) and seeing how what the technology brings me RESONATES within the deep well of my experience.
Eventually, what it brought this time was a new song, Punch Another Hole.
The growth-intensive use of a new tool, though thoroughly saturated with technology, is not primarily about the technology. It is always about human experience, human expression, human resonance across time and space. Inspiration transcends cosmetics. But technology, when used best, can provide a fresh bridge toward taking in NEW air—a new spirit, inspiration that deepens the well rather than capping it.
And while technology SHOULD cap some wells, it should never cap the deep well of the soul.

Interested in a related NY Times article concerning the current popularity of introducing imperfection to humanize digital technology? http://nyti.ms/d4Ykee