Category: Status

iPads and Classroom Essentials

This is a wonderful walkthrough by Fraser Speirs on how his school (Cedars School of Excellence in the UK)implemented an “iPad for Every Student” initiative and some of the resulting reflections the school has made.

I’m prodding my beloved Spartanburg Day School to do the same (at an annoyingly daily rate, I’m sure).

However, I was arrested for a moment when I came to this passage in the post…

An iPad for every child | Tablets | Macworld: “We are now at the stage where the iPad is embedded in the way we do business at the school. When we first started, we thought we could guard against misuse by threatening to take away the child’s iPad for a day or so. It turns out that doing so would now completely break the school day for that child. We might as well make them sit in the hallway and face the wall for the entire day. I did not expect that we would reach that point so soon.”

I hadn’t really considered how integrated a tool like an iPad could become to a classroom or a school. I have a “class” iPad that we use but we’ve only begun to scratch the surface of its possibilities and being that there’s only one to go around, it’s more difficult for students to dig deeper than note taking or quick reference searches with the device (although more and more students are getting iPads and bringing them to school).

However, I’ve purposely gone half the year now without renting the “laptop carts” which carry 18 white Macbooks for class. I have a very liberal policy when it comes to technology in my classroom (allow iPods, earbuds, iPads, mobiles… and even Androids to be used at a student’s discretion), but I don’t want the students to feel as if the laptops are a crutch to fall back on when we need to find material, make a connection or prove a point.

I guess that’s the same reason I keep a “mimimalist” look to my classroom with as few things on the wall etc as possible. It’s a science lab, but we’re just meeting in that room temporarily. I don’t want my students (or myself) to get fooled by the notion that the room itself is where science happens. Instead, I want them to look out the window at the beautiful dogwood just outside my classroom and realize that is their true classroom where all the lab supplies lie.

Everything in my classroom is very modular and utilitarian. The laptops could certainly serve as part of that utilitarian design, but I’d rather let student discretion and need drive the decision to use the web or an IM or a text message rather than saying, “Today, we will use the internet!” for a lesson.

I’m moving to a larger room next year with proper lab tables, gas lines, a chemical closet (and even an office). It will be interesting to see if my thinking changes then.

Regardless, I wonder if/when my dream of having iPads deployed across our school happens if we’ll have the same sudden realization about their essential nature to our character as a school. I also wonder about the ramifications if that does happen?

Keynote and Learning Experiences

The new beta functionality of playing Keynote presentations anywhere (well, anywhere there’s a browser, iPad, iPhone or iPod) is major for me…

iWork.com – The Great Wall

Most of the lessons or quick points I want to cover with my students are done on Keynote. We’ve always been able to watch them over the projector at school, of course. I’ve also uploaded the slides to the iWork.com beta site.

However, they were never able to play the presentation and get the full experience of the transitions and effects.

Now that has changed. Plus, with more and more of my students getting iOS devices, they can have that same experience in a mobile or tablet context.

That’s awesome.

INFP

Guilty!

Portrait of an INFP: “INFPs are usually talented writers. They may be awkard and uncomfortable with expressing themselves verbally, but have a wonderful ability to define and express what they’re feeling on paper. INFPs also appear frequently in social service professions, such as counselling or teaching. They are at their best in situations where they’re working towards the public good, and in which they don’t need to use hard logic.”

Search is the Card Catalogue of the Web

I wrote this piece on April 25, 2007. I’m fishing through some old posts and had to revisit/repot this as I think we’re on the verge of a major shift in attention literacy and finding information on the web.

Enjoy…

—

Search is king.

We have conferences and we have an entire industry built around the idea that “search marketing” is the end all / be all of online marketing.

If you want to reach people and influence their buying habits, you include a large AdWords and keyword budget for search. If you want people to find your website in the vast chaos that are search results, you spend a great deal of time and money on optimizing your site (in some cases at the expense of user interface and aesthetics).

But what about discovery?

Why has “searching” for information outpaced “discovering” information online?

It’s simple… companies and platforms who monetize a user’s ability to find the information they want have found it easier to provide “search engines” rather than “discovery engines.”

This is not just semantics.

Instead, look ahead to the future and how the average web user’s experience has progressed so far. Finding information relevant to your query has forever been a struggle. We’ve made positive steps forward with the search engines, but users still complain about the amount of junk, garbage and irrelevant results they receive in a Google or Yahoo search on a particular topic.

However, as the price of user generated data continues to rise and the price of producing user generated data continues to fall, we see a market shift away from “search” and towards “discovery.”

Soon, we’ll all be paid by Amazon or Google to host our data with them as we do our daily web browsing on our computers, on our cell phones, in our cars and on our digital cameras. Instead of searching for information, you’ll be discovering information based on your user generated output.

Our children will laugh at us for how we sought out information online, just as we raise eyebrows at the thought of using a card catalogue to find a book in a library.

Survival of the Focused

I would add that beyond the ability to “concentrate,” the ability to sift through the mountains of data, information, junk and propaganda will be the most essential skill for 21st century learners (an ability we’re still not doing a very good job at helping current students learn or sharpen)…

Book review: Is the Internet Changing the Way You Think? – WSJ.com: “One theme emerges frequently from enthusiasts and skeptics alike: Precisely because there are such vast stores of information on the Internet, the ability to carve out time for uninterrupted, concentrated thought may prove to be the most important skill that one can hone. ‘Attention is the fundamental literacy,’ writes Howard Rheingold, the author of ‘Smart Mobs.'”

Attention is a new literacy, but there are also many other literacies out there we can’t ignore.

Creating Your Own Education

Exactly what I’ve been wanting to try with my 8th graders…

Create Your Own Assignments « Teaching as a dynamic activity: “This semester I am planning to let students create or choose their own assignments. “

I just have to be brave enough to trust what I know they can do and give up the preconceptions of what “assignments” and “assessments” really mean.

I Love Dan Bricklin’s Note Taker HD App


You can use Note Taker HD to take notes, sketch diagrams, quickly and easily jot down names, phone numbers, to-do items, directions, and more. Pages are flexibly organized by date/time last modified, tags, favorites, and more, with thumbnail images of part of each page to help you find them later. Pages may be grouped together as multiple “sheets”. You can also email one or more pages as a single PDF file. VGA output is supported with zoom and pan.

via softwaregarden.com

I’ve been using Bricklin’s Note Taker app on my iPhone since last December, but the Note Taker HD app on my new iPad is simply extraordinary.

I cannot wait to get into the lab with my 8th grade students and jot down notes and observations that we can use to better communicate their findings in our Physical Science class next year.

Thank you again for all you do, Dan.

Architectures of Participatory Learning

But the meat of the argument is about how the best explanation for many of the group phenomena we see online, from ICanHazCheezburger to Wikipedia, is that people like sharing with each other and collaborating. Not always, of course. But there are architectures of participation that encourage the kind of sharing and generosity that enriches us all, and by experimenting with them, we can create media and social change that harnesses millions of people to help and amuse each other.

via boingboing.net

Just got this on my Kindle/iPad/Desktops/iPhone (have I mentioned I love the type of portability the Kindle platform offers and hope that iBooks can replicate that type of cross-platform experience?) and can’t wait to dig in today.

I’m a big Clay Shirky fan (click the link if you need a sample), and I’m hoping this book, along with Daniel Pink’s ongoing work, becomes a pointer I can use when folks ask about the “effectiveness” of my teaching style.

I love the idea of the Teacher/Learner as an Architect. There’s something inherit about teaching that lends itself to the type of mystical and very practical practices of masons-meet-Howard Roark.

We’ll see and I’ll, of course, keep you posted.

Steve Jobs on Educational Entrepreneurism

When you have
kids you think, What exactly do I want them to learn? Most of the stuff
they study in school is completely useless. But some incredibly valuable
things you don’t learn until you’re older – yet you could learn them
when you’re younger. And you start to think, What would I do if I set a
curriculum for a school?

God, how exciting that could be! But you can’t do it today. You’d be
crazy to work in a school today. You don’t get to do what you want. You
don’t get to pick your books, your curriculum. You get to teach one
narrow specialization. Who would ever want to do that?

These are the solutions to our problems in education. Unfortunately,
technology isn’t it. You’re not going to solve the problems by putting
all knowledge onto CD-ROMs. We can put a Web site in every school – none
of this is bad. It’s bad only if it lulls us into thinking we’re doing
something to solve the problem with education.

Lincoln did not have a Web site at the log cabin where his parents
home-schooled him, and he turned out pretty interesting. Historical
precedent shows that we can turn out amazing human beings without
technology. Precedent also shows that we can turn out very uninteresting
human beings with technology.

It’s not as simple as you think when you’re in your 20s – that
technology’s going to change the world. In some ways it will, in some
ways it
won’t.

via wired.com

Thanks to 37Signals’ blog for the link.

And amen.

I’m lucky enough to teach at an amazing place that allows me to do amazing things like pick my curriculum and textbooks and breadth of study (even though it’s technically Physical Science).

Fatherhood and Teaching

I have found that one of the most difficult things about being a high school teacher is being a high school teacher with two small children. It’s not that having two small children makes it harder to get work done at home, which they do, or that my teaching and coaching keeps me away from them more than I would like, which it does. Those aren’t really difficulties as much as they are inconveniences. No, the thing that makes this job difficult for me is seeing all of the possible outcomes for my children.

via mrogle.blogspot.com

Such a great post that sums up many of the feelings I’ve had about being back in the classroom again this year…

This is the first year I’ve been a teacher since having children. Now that we have #2 (2 girls… ahhh! and no, her name is not Commander Riker, although that would be awesome) on the way, I’m sure this feeling of anxiousness about the future of my children will only amplify.

I just daily try to keep in mind the lessons I learn and observe from the many good parents of my students as I navigate this utterly terrifying and always wonderful world of fatherhood.

Old News in the Classroom

The News Archive Partner Program provides a way for Google and publishers and
repositories to partner together and make historical newspaper archives discoverable
online. As part of Google News, the News archive search function provides an easy way
to search and explore historical archives.

via news.google.com

I’ve used this feature a couple of times in the past week with my 8th graders… they did seem to really enjoy seeing historical newspapers presented this way.

I remember being so excited to find a copy of a “moon landing” paper from ’69 at an antique shop when I was high school, so I had to buy it.

Funny how some things never change.

Anyway, this is a great resource for teachers in all areas/grade levels.

ABC Drops Linux Support for Online Viewer

I really enjoyed catching up on shows that I missed via ABC’s streaming online viewer.

However, I use Ubuntu (a flavor of Linux) and now ABC has dropped it’s support of that…

Media_httpwwwsamharrelsoncomwpcontentuploads200705stupidabcpng_wwybtfwffujzwda

That’s just stupid.  It’s a flash based player, and they are actually having to do work to exclude Linux users since it’s an OS agnostic player.  Wonder how much Microsoft payed them?

As the users in this Digg thread about the subject point out, Pirate Bay and tvtorrents.com are still working on my Linux world wide web, so I guess I’ll be watching ABC’s shows that way (and without the ads).

Wildflowers

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I’m listening to Tom Petty’s Wildflowers tonight.

It’s an album that still just as relevant and awesome as it was in 1994. I remember the first time I heard “You Don’t Know Kow It Feels”… Petty was on Letterman and had altered lyrics (“so let’s hit another joint…”) and it was an epiphanic moment for me.

It was one of the first albums I looked forward to coming out (along with In Utero from Nirvana that same year). I was a geeky dorky high school sophomore and not quite sure of my place in the world. I was heavily into Nirvana, Pearl Jam and Stone Temple Pilots at the time, but I knew that I’d like this album. I’m glad I stuck with it 13 years later.

I know it’s cheesy to like Tom Petty… but this album kicks my ass every time.

“Sometime later, getting the words wrong, wasting the meaning and losing the rhyme…”