This is another board that I created on Pinterest. I am always on the lookout for comics that poke fun at teaching.
Comics You Should Read (if you are a teacher)
Peace (in the sharing),
Kevin
PS — if you know of others that should be on this board, let me know.
I’ve been reading so much about Pinterest that I finally got into the site to give it a shot (thanks to an invite from a friend on Twitter). It’s OK. I like the visual element of sharing, but it seems like navigation is sort of tricky and not very intuitive to me. The homepage of the site is a visual mess. I do like how easy it is to create a project in Pinterest, and the javascript button now in my tool bar sure is handy for adding new elements (oh, excuse me, a new “pin”) to existing sites (eh, they are called “boards”).
Still, I created some “boards” around some themes that I am interested in. Here is one: Technology and Writing.
Technology and Writing: Book Reviews
Peace (on the board),
Kevin
This weekend, I am heading down to Birmingham, Alabama, to give a keynote address to a conference hosted by the Red Mountain Writing Project. The conference centers around the Common Core, 21st Century learning and more. I have been asked to also lead a short session that shares out some tools that teachers in a one-computer classroom might find valuable. While I am fortunate to have access to a cart of PCs on a regular basis (though they are aging now and showing their age), I realize that a lot of teachers must make do with a single computer.
It’s difficult to fully embraced digital literacy if that is your situation.
Anyway, here is the handout for the three tools that I want to share with teachers that I think could have an impact on a classroom: Cinch, Wallwisher and Make Beliefs Comix. (I also went for “free” since I assumed paying for something would be out of the question).
Three Free Tools for the One Computer Classroom
What would you put on your list?
Peace (in the sharing),
Kevin
My school district is deep into a project to begin mapping out our curriculum using an online tool called Atlas Rubricon. Actually, this first year, the focus is mostly on math and then we will begin diving into ELA next year. This “backwards design” curriculum project is slated to be a three-year venture, which connects our teaching goals with the new Massachusetts Curriculum Frameworks (aka, the Common Core). The plan by our superintendent to have to a district-wide curriculum map from which one can see the development of ideas and sharing of resources from whatever school you happen to teach in. (Needless to say, there are some concerns about this kind of standardization approach to curriculum development)
For the most part, I have been watching from the sidelines, since I don’t teach math. I tinkered around with Atlas a bit and helped with the math curriculum. The site is fine. Atlas is built around Essential Questions, and Learning Standards, and Skills, and Resources. You can make direct connections to the new Massachusetts frameworks through a series of pull-down menus, which is handy. The math work has been relatively easy, since we have been using a pretty standardized math program with a strict curriculum flow.
The ELA will be much trickier, since there is no ELA curriculum program, and meshing what I do with what my colleagues teaching the same grade level in the other schools in our district are doing is going to require a lot of finessing, and collaboration. I worry that we won’t be given to the time we need to do that kind of collaboration correctly. We’ll see.
This past week, I finally dove into Atlas and began “mapping out” how I see my sixth grade ELA curriculum. I’ve mostly started my focus on literature and have been slowly fleshing out the ideas. I will say this: this kind of activity does make you think and reconsider the goals that you have in mind around lesson plans and unit development, and I struggled at times with coming up with Essential Questions (those overarching ideas) that are the foundation of the teaching. It’s been interesting, and I’m glad I finally started into it.
You can even “test drive” Atlas yourself.
Peace (in the curriculum map),
Kevin
Participants at our recent Western Massachusetts Writing Project event around pop culture, technology and the Common Core were asking that we presenters share out our resources, so they can share them out with colleagues. Of course, we agreed, since the writing project is all about the sharing of ideas. We had three main sessions: video game design, digital storytelling with online tools, and social networking with Edmodo.
Feel free to peruse the resources.
- Click here to access all the collected materials from the event, including presentations and handouts.
- For a more focused look at individual resources, you can access the following:
- The opening address by WMWP Technology Liaison Kevin Hodgson
- The Digital Storytelling session by Will Bangs and Janine Solberg
- The Social Networking Session by Sara Jane McKinstry and Deb McKinstry
- The Game Design Session by Kevin Hodgson and Tina Browne
Peace (in the files),
Kevin
For the past few weeks, I have been sharing out pieces of a resource around video game design as my sixth grade students have created science-based video games. I often brought along my video camera for the ride, interviewing my fellow teachers and some of my students, and capturing some of the events as they unfolded with the project. I thought I might produce a video. But the more I thought about it, the more it made sense to keep much of the segments separate, and a website resource really seemed to be the way to go.
I’ve created this website called Video Game Design as a way to document our learning adventure around game design, science and writing in hopes that you might also consider the possibilities of video games in your classroom. It was quite an interesting project, which continues to unfold even now (some of my students will be revising their games for the National STEM Video Game Challenge). I’ve tried to show how the project touches on a lot of curricular areas, and connects with the Common Core initiative. And I have attempted to show how engaged my students were in their creation of a video game project.
Most of all, I want to emphasize that my young gamers moved from the “players” of other people’s games to the “creators” of their own projects, with a real audience (we used Gamestar Mechanic, which I highly recommend for this kind of project) and a real purpose. While there are areas I see in reflection that could have been done better, there is no doubt in my mind that this project transformed learning practice for a few weeks. It’s been a bit difficult to get back to the regular curriculum, to be honest.
I hope the site is useful for you. Feel free to pass it around and if you see things that need to be addressed or have some general comments, I would love for you to give some feedback here.
Peace (in the sharing),
Kevin
I suppose any reader of this space knows that I can come across as a cheerleader for the ways that technology can be used to transform the possibilities of composition and publishing for young people. But not everything is all rosy all the time. I admit that I am lucky to work in a school where the administration understands the power of technology, and invests as much as it can in equipment, but we still run into all sorts of hurdles.
I regularly use the Dell PC Cart that is housed in my classroom (convenient!) and leave the MAC carts for other parts of the building, particularly for my colleagues in the younger grades. But the Dell Cart is now going on six years old. I remind my students that the computers they are using were brought into the school when they were in kindergarten. That opens up a few eyes. And softens the complaints of processing speed and error messages.
I do a lot to keep the cart running because I don’t want the technology to interfere with the learning. I am not always successful and if often feels like I spend some days in a wrestling match with technology, both of us determined to conquer the other. So far, I am winning. I think. But every day is a new battle, and I need to be light on my feet. It also makes clear, though, why so many teachers give up on technology when the glitches take place, or the computer won’t start, of whatever. It can be exhausting.
Here are just some of the problems that I regularly run into:
I should point out that the students roll with it. While they expect speed and instant connectivity with equipment these days, they mostly complain, ask for help and then wait out the fixes with patience. Maybe more patience that I show at times. But together, we use what we got, and we keep pushing the equipment to the edge of what it can do. We don’t give up. Well, at least most of the time.
Peace (in the gripe session),
Kevin
Make your own nominations for the Edublog Awards.
Peace (in the sharing of resources),
Kevin
I had an interesting conundrum this week in which a website that I brought my students into had a temporary bug in the security feature that did not compromise the accounts, but it did invalidate a series of security questions that would allow my students to access their passwords if they should forget them or if they were to get lost. Unfortunately, unlike most educational sites these days, this particular one does not have a master list of student usernames and passwords available.
So, the day after I realized the bug (which was fixed), I gave each student a piece of paper and had them write down their username and password for me so that I could make a master list. I had to explain that no one would have access to the list (a few looked nervous, which is good) and that it would only be if they forgot their password or username.
This weekend, I created my list and began to notice some trends around passwords that I never really paid attention to before. And given that I am developing a digital citizenship unit for January, I see now that “Password Education” is going to be part of those lesson planning. While some students did a nice job of mixing up letters and numbers in a way that would be difficult to be hacked, I noticed some other things:
Of course, these are sixth graders and their main goal is to be able to remember their usernames and passwords, so they go the easiest route possible. My job is to teach them and remind them how to keep their data safe, and their accounts secure, and along with a conversation this week about it, it will become part of my upcoming digital educational unit, too.
Here are two resources that are handy when talking about passwords.
First, check out this infographic. It’s a good talking point.
Second, check out this site — Password Bird – which creates passwords based on some basic questions, and mixing up the words. I am going to come up with sort of activity that forces them to invent a few possible passwords. Another site — Strong Password Generator — is good, but the passwords that come out of the engine would be difficult for my students to remember, I think, even with the memory hints.
But I like this information from the Strong Password Generator site:
- A strong password:
- has at least 15 characters;
- has uppercase letters;
- has lowercase letters;
- has numbers;
- has symbols, such as ` ! " ? $ ? % ^ & * ( ) _ - + = { [ } ] : ; @ ' ~ # | \ < , > . ? /
- is not like your previous passwords;
- is not your name;
- is not your login;
- is not your friend’s name;
- is not your family member’s name;
- is not a dictionary word;
- is not a common name.
What it comes down to is an understanding of WHY we have passwords in the first place. This year, I notice, there is less of an awareness of security of online sites with my students. I’m not sure why that is. Without stirring up too much fear and anxiety, though, I want to inform them of ways they can protect their data, and also (when it comes to social networking sites) their reputations.
Peace (in the password),
Kevin
The Common Sense media group just released the results of a study of very young children (ages 0-8) and there are some interesting findings, including the increasing use of mobile devices and game consoles in young children’s lives. What is still in the air is whether this is good or bad, right?
Here is how Common Sense Media group describes the report:
Zero to Eight is a nationally representative survey of parents of U.S. children ages zero to eight, conducted to understand the patterns of media use among young American children. Covering TV, other video, reading, music, computers, video games, and mobile digital devices, we examine time spent and frequency of use; differences in children’s media use by gender, race, or socio-economic status; the home media environment; educational media use; and access to the newest mobile media platforms like smart phones and tablets.
One of the various findings (all of which are very interesting, by the way) that stuck out for me is the continued Digital Divide concerns related to socio-economic factors in not only exposure to technology and media, but also knowledge of how to use it (thus, in my view, validating the ever-increasing importance of schools and teachers). They even reference an “App Gap” of who has access to mobile devices. That’s a new term for me.
Check out this chart from the study:
And this one around race and media use:
Some other findings:
* Half (52%) of all children now have access to one of the newer mobile devices at home: either a smartphone (41%), a video iPod (21%), or an iPad or other tablet device (8%).
* Half (51%) of all 0- to 8-year-olds have ever played a console video game, including 44% of 2- to 4-year-olds and 81% of 5- to 8-year-olds. Among those who have played console video games, the average age at first use was just under 4 years old (3 years and 11 months). Among 5- to 8-year-olds, 17% play console video games at least once a day, and another 36% play them at least once a week.
* In a typical day, 47% of babies and toddlers ages 0 through 1 watch TV or DVDs, and those who do watch spend an average of nearly two hours (1:54) doing so.
I continue to be torn between being an advocate for young people learning and using technology and media for their own reasons and exposing young people to these elements of technology and media. This tension comes to me in my role as parent as well as teacher. I keep an eye on trying to give kids the tools to “create” and become the composers with the technology, and not just passive users. That’s my lens.
But studies like this indicate that too many parents of very young children are content to plop a kid in front of any screen and let them at it, no matter the age. That unsettles and worries me, to be honest. No screen should be a babysitter, and all of the initial research around brain development and technology seems to indicate something is going on with our brains when young people use technology.
I am hoping to use parts of this study at a future Western Mass Writing Project event as a way to look at technology and pop culture and media saturation.
Peace (in the wonderment of the change),
Kevin