Bringing in the Outside Voices

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Lou Franco Visit Collage

I am co-facilitating a workshop with high school students this summer, and our theme has been digital literacies. While I have a pretty good sense of how to teach technology and writing, I am by no means an expert in computer programming or in video game creation (although working with my own students over the years has helped). So, I have been working to invite folks from “the field” to talk to our students, and yesterday, we were fortunate to have a local computer software programmer — Lou Franco — give up some of his time to talk with the students for about 45 minutes.

holyoke-3d

Franco was part of the Hack for Change in Western Massachusetts and along with his day job of software programming, he also works on developing mobile apps. In fact, the first thing he did was pull out his iPad and show us an app that he is developing that creates a filter for 3D photography. He gave out some 3D glasses and as he chatted about working as a software developer, the kids checked out an image that he shot of some of our supplies. (He also has written an ebook about developing for the IOS platform.)

I liked how Franco talked about job opportunities, dedication to doing something you are passionate about, and the advice he gave to students who are thinking that programming or technology might in their future. He suggested they begin by building webpages around a topic they know about, writing expository pieces for Open Source software, and volunteering web design services to social service agencies and small businesses. This will allow them to create the start of a portfolio, which can translate into job opportunities.

These are all messages we are regularly sending to these English Language Learner high school students in this program (which is built around academic support, workshops and then jobs in the afternoon). But Franco brought a new and experienced voice into the mix, and for that, I am very thankful. It says a lot when someone gives up part of their day, travels to another town, and meets with high school students he does not know after getting an invite from a teacher he does not know (Lou and I sort of know each other on Twitter).

Peace (in the visit),
Kevin

 

Sparking A Conversation: You Have Permission to Make

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We invite you into this conversation about this video by Adam Savage, about the state of “making” in our schools and why the reduction of those spaces is negatively impacting the lives of students. I found a lot in what Savage is saying that resonated with my thinking but Terry took some of the comments to task, asking that we enlarge the possibilities.
What do you think?

Or go directly to the Vialogues site.
Peace (in the dialogues on vialogues),
Kevin

A fun remake of “Who’s on First?”

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We’ve finally (mostly) ended youth baseball in our house (the playing, not the watching, darn those Red Sox last night), and I was reminded of this classic joke of “Who’s on First” and a later version of it.  The heart of the joke, of course, is language, and timing.
Here is Jimmy Fallon and a crew of famous comedians (You should recognize most of them):

And the original, which is a classic:

Peace (on base),
Kevin

Remixing the Hacked Picture Book Project (or Hacking the Remix)

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Remix the Hack the Book

A day after the high school students in our Digital Literacies workshop “hacked and remixed” a Richard Scarry picture book, we handed them out some sticky notes and told them that we were going to “remix the remix.” Their task was to come up with new dialogue for someone else’s poster project, and attach that dialogue with the sticky note. The students were intrigued, adding some humorous touches to the posters.

This is all part of our conversations around the remix culture of the Web, and grounds our work with some of the Webmaker Tools we are starting to use to remix websites and create webpages.

Peace (in the mix),
Kevin

 

Hacking Education Week for CLMOOC

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Education Week Hacked for CLMOOC

I used the Hackasuarus tool Xray Goggles to hack Education Week so that all the news (fit to print) is about the Making Learning Connected Massive Open Online Collaboration. I mean, this is the way the homepage of the journal should look, right?

Check out my hacked Education Week edition

You want to hack, too? Check out the Xray Goggles site, and use the tool to hack away. Go ahead and hack my hack, too. If you do, share out the link. Keep the ideas flowing ….

Peace (on the web),
Kevin

 

Remix Your Summer/Remix this Website

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remixsummer
I was honored the other day when my friend Laura, from the Mozilla Foundation and Teach the Web, was inspired by my post about hacking a picture book with high school students. She created a Thimble website project that took Hacking a Book in a new direction. The wonderful thing about Thimble is that it is designed to be remixable, so I could not resist the urge and remix Laura’s work, and I went in another direction with it. Instead of “hacking the book,” I went with “remixing the summer” and used a book as my inspiration.

Have you ever read Weslandia? It’s the perfect summer vacation picture book by Paul Fleischman, with a social outcast boy (Wesley) creating a summer project to top all other summer projects: he invents his own civilization, and then by the end, the other kids in his neighborhood are part of the mix. I love that story (and use it for other projects with my sixth graders.)

So, my remix of Laura’s remix of hacking the book is about remixing your summer, with new and undiscovered countries unfolding around you.

Check out Remix the Summer

And while you are there, why not remix it once again? See the “remix” tab on the top of the page. Go ahead. Change it, make it your own and share it back out. Let someone else remix it again. It’s all good.

Peace (in the worlds of imagination),

Not Just Making but Making a Difference

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clmooc kiva
I’m trying to extend the idea of “making” from our Making Learning Connected MOOC into another direction. I’m hoping that the hundreds of people who have been part of the MOOC this summer might consider making a difference in the world, too. One invitation I am putting out there is for folks who are in the micro-lending site, Kiva, or who may want sign up for Kiva, is to join the “CLMOOC Team” that I set up there. Essentially, a team allows you to become part of a collective that lends out money for business owners around the world.

Come join our Team and make a difference in the lives of others. If you are new to Kiva, signing up for a team gives you a gift of $25 to lend right away.

Peace (in the lending),
Kevin

 

Book Review: The Spies of Gerander

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It’s always a wonderful thing when you stumble on the perfect read-aloud series. Such is the case with author Frances Watts and her The Song of the Winns series. My son and I just finished the second book in the series (which Watts is still writing, so now we wait) called The Spies of Gerander.  The story revolves around four young mice — two brothers, a sister and a friend — who must become spies. One team infiltrates the palace of the monarch bent on destroying their family’s homeland; the other team is off to rescue their parents from a prison island.

Needless to say, treachery abounds everywhere, and danger lurks behind every corner.

The Winns is a river flowing through the country in question, and it is slowly becoming the fulcrum upon which the plot turns and twists.

Watts does a wonderful job of setting two stories in motion, leaving the reader dangling at the edge of chapters, and then tying the stories together by the end while still leaving some larger stories unresolved. She did this with the first book in the series, too (The Secret of the Ginger Mice). She clearly is a master storyteller, and my son and I now wait for the third installment sometime in the future.

Peace (in the reading),
Kevin

 

 

The Augmented Reality #CLMOOC Shoe

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Two of my favorite bloggers, Larry Ferlazzo and Richard Byrne, mentioned an augmented reality app this week that I wanted to try out. I’ve been dipping my toes into Augmented Reality this summer as part of the Making Learning Connected MOOC, working with an app called Aurasma. This new one, called ColAR Mix, is pretty cool (and the app premium elements are free for part of this month).

The way it works is you download the app (obviously) and then you go the website, and print out one of the coloring pages they have available. Color the page anyway you like (Notice how I referenced the #clmooc on my shoe). Then, open the app and point the screen at the coloring page, and the object comes to life. Here, the shoes dances. In another one that my son did, a bear walks around and points up at the person holding the device.

What I would really like to see is open coloring, so that a person could draw whatever they wanted and that would come to life. I’m not sure how difficult that would be (probably, a lot) but for me, that would put a lot of more agency and creativity into the hands of the user. Still, for where Augmented Reality is right now, this app is pretty nifty and fun to use.

By the way, I used Vine to capture my coloring, too, as I was working on the shoe. And the video of the Augmented Reality was done by holding a camera above the iPad. The ColAR app does allow you to take screenshots of your creation and save it to the iPad, which is a handy feature to have for sharing.

Peace (in the colors that move),
Kevin

 

PS — Richard also shared out a previous post with five possibilities for Augmented Reality in the classroom that is worth checking out.

 

Hacking/Remixing the Stories of Richard Scarry

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Book Hack 1

I’m not sure if he is still alive and if he is, how happy he would be, but yesterday, in my workshop for high school students, we ripped, cut, hacked , shredded and remixed one of Richard Scarry’s picture books. To be frank, I even cringed a little bit, as I watched students go at the pages with scissors, glue, and ideas. Books are still sacred texts in my head. I don’t regret it though.

First of all, the book had seen some solid reading days with my three boys, and the binding was coming apart. And I bought the book, so I figure I own it. We could hack it.

Second, we remixed the book to make a few points in this digital literacies workshop that I am leading with these English Language Learner high school students. We’ve been talking about hacking and remixing as part of the digital culture they live in (referencing Dangermouse’s work with The Beatles and Jay-Z as reference points), and we will move deeper into both concepts today and next week when we jump into Mozilla’s Webmaker Tools. Our discussions yesterday centered on the perceptions of the word “Hacker” and I gave a brief history lesson of the Internet and the origin of the Hacker Movement, as well as touched on the Hack for Change events that are popping up. By the end, we had a nice balance of good/bad hacking.

Then, we moved into hacking and remixing this Nursery Rhyme picture book by Richard Scarry. Their task was to remix some pages of the book, to tell a new story, using three of the 11 digital literacy vocabulary words that have been introduced. We have word walls up, and we do daily activities with the words — such as portfolio, digital literacy, remixing. (I’ll share that work out another day). I shared out the one that I did as a sort of Mentor Text.

Book Hack 2

To be frank, I was sure if the high school kids would dive into it. And it took a few minutes. Then, they were all cutting up the pages and coming up with stories, and very engaged. It was pretty neat to watch.
hackbook collage2
The results is a nice, colorful wall of remixed Richard Scarry characters talking about digital literacies.
Hackbook Collage1
Today, we remix the remix, as I will be giving them sticky notes, and having them add new dialogue or text to someone else’s posters. Should be interesting …

Peace (in the book hack),
Kevin