Boolean Squared: the Tech Cabal and Jenni Peg

The boys begin to realize the potentially powerful mind of Jenni Peg in Boolean Squared today. Have no fear, though, she will soon become one of the gang as they all play a trick on Mr. Teach (that sequence comes later this week). I wrote Urth today talking about new ideas because I found myself running a bit short. Ack.

Peace (in the ideas),
Kevin

The Day in a Sentence Wall

I was hoping we might reach 30 posts on our Day in a Sentence wall this week. The good thing? You can still add your ideas to our wall and keep the idea moving forward. Reflect and Connect!

Peace (on the wall),
Kevin

Some Apps to Consider

The Boston Globe this morning had an interesting piece in the Ideas section about some iPhone Apps for “ideas on the go” that I thought I would share for us literary-minded folks. A few apps I know but most, I don’t.

  • Instapaper — this app allows you to bookmark articles from various online newspapers for later reading. I have heard about this one (it’s free, so worth a try) but I am not yet on the level of wanting to read my news on my iTouch. Do you?
  • Newstand — This is an aggregator of RSS feeds for newspapers. The app costs $4.99, so my question is: why buy an app when there are plenty of free RSS collectors out there? I guess the draw is that it focuses in on publications, but free is the way to be (although many are now saying that the wave of free content is exactly what is killing the newspaper industry).
  • Stanza – This is one I have used. It’s a free ereader and it comes with access to tons of free books. You have to get past the small reading screen but it works fine. And did I mention it is free?
  • McSweeney’s Small Chair — I do love Dave Egger’s McSweeney’s publishing house and this app pulls from the various publications there. Is it worth a $5.99 investment? Not sure. But this is one I will be checking out and consider the purchase, if only to keep supporting Egger’s publishing efforts.
  • Electric Literature — It seems like I have read about this one before. The app costs $4.99 but it features anthologies of  “named” writers. I would prob avoid it for the cost. Sorry.
  • IndieBound — This is an app (free!) that uses GPS to find independent book stores. That is something I can support. I do try to mix up my business with books between the small book stores in our area with the Barnes & Nobles. (And Amazon).
  • There was a mention of something called Scrollmotion’s First Things Last, which is free, and which apparently showcases an interactive serial story. What is that? Now, I need to know.

Peace (in the app),
Kevin

A Band Director, dissected

This comic made my morning, as it brought me back to the one high school teacher who went out of his way to nurture my creative side — our band director, Mr. M.

Thanks to JohnBogey for making this comic.

Dissection Of A Band Director

Peace (in the band),
Kevin

Day Three of Glogging: Two Steps Forward, One Step Back

We finished up our week yesterday with a good amount of time on our Glogster space as students worked on their posters about Three Cups of Tea (while also practicing their original puppet plays, which we will perform for younger students next week and also videotape).

The two mini-lessons I showed them were how to add a podcast to their poster and how to import videos that are related to the book project. I did have a conversation with one student who wanted to have some media about Monster Trucks and he tried to defend it by saying that he wanted to show the differences between cultures. Nice try, but no dice. (But I told him he could make another personal Glog after the project and that satisfied him).

Now, you can record and embed audio right with the Glog, but in my test in the morning (Note: always test technology before letting the kids in the house!), that didn’t work. I’m not sure if it was the microphones (we have a bunch of fairy cheap mics), or the wireless data flow, or what, but it didn’t work for me. So, I turned to the trusty Microsoft Sound Recorder, which I often forget about but which is an easy way for students to record audio (sound recorder is in XP, under Accessories and then Entertainment). The sound quality is mediocre but workable. Students watched me walk through it and then they were off to the races. (They are recording a short book review)

I also showed how to embed videos, and even gave a list of URL addresses for videos like the Three Cups of Tea song, interviews with Greg Mortenson and others. I reminded them again that just because they can do something doesn’t mean they should — there should be some rationale and there is no reason why a poster should be plastered with videos just to fill the space and just to be cool. I think they got the message.

So, things were moving along during the first three classes, but in the fourth period, just as they were logging in and getting down to work, the entire Internet of our school crashed. I could tell something was wrong as hands began shooting into the air. “Mr. H, this isn’t working,” became a familiar refrain. After realizing what was happening, I quickly shouted out, “OK, everyone move to recording podcasts now,” which is the moment when our principal walks in for a quick visit to see students at work in the classroom.

Ha. Now imagine the scene: hustle and bustle, with one group shouting out puppet play lines behind our puppet theater (they are practicing using loud voices for performances), as other students are scrambling to record podcasts and a few still working on their Three Cups of Tea questions. The noise level is, well, pretty high. For me, it is pretty normal for tech-related projects. There is a lot of activity going on. I know some principals would be wondering just who the heck is in charge here.

I am lucky. My principal doesn’t ask that question. He quickly called the office, and asked that our tech person figure out why the Net was down, and then he wandered around, listening to the students at work on their podcasts. We chatted for a bit, discussing how the video that he showed at our recent staff meeting (I can’t remember the title, but it is the one about children needing to use technology to learn and be ready for the future — they hold up signs, etc, and look depressed) and how it was met with a decidedly mixed reaction by our staff.

Then he left the room, and we kept on working. I just wish the Internet connections had come back on. It never did.

Peace (on the posters),
Kevin

Day Two of Glogging: Getting Down to Work

Yesterday, my students got deep into Glogster as they began working on their Three Cups of Tea assignments, where they are addressing such questions as culture, character traits and challenges. The day of play on Wednesday really helped and I am giving them the option of pairing up with another student, if they want.

I offered the pairing up for two reasons. First, for some students, working with others is a great way to learn (for others, though, it is a distraction so it’s a fine line and I not afraid to pull teams apart). Second, I am a bit worried about wireless bandwidth with Glogster. For the most part, it has been fine, but the site has gotten gummed up during various class periods as data is streaming on our laptops. Teaming up means fewer laptops running, which I hope will reduce the load (particularly when we start using microphones to podcast the book reviews).

One other difficulty some students ran into: they had to do some trial and error on finding the right kind of sticky pad for the text they had, as some of the options allow a lot less text than others (it creates a scroll down bar, which is not great). Other than that, the technology learning curve had very few bumps in the road yesterday.

I began the class yesterday with this great video of Greg Mortenson’s daughter, Amira, singing a song that she helped compose (according to the interview in the book) and performs. I love that she is about the age of my students — they can relate to her on some level — and that the music video shows footage of Greg in the villages that we read about. My kids loved the video and were singing the chorus of “Three Cups of Tea” as they worked on their glogs. A few asked how they could bring the video into their glog (that’s for another day, I told them, but I like that they saw that possibility).


Peace (in more than just pennies),
Kevin

PS — On another note, my science teaching colleague heard all of the students talking about glogging and her interest was piqued, so the two of us are going to brainstorm how they can create billboard-style posters for the Engineering a Bridge project now just starting. And my co-teaching colleague set up his own Glogster account for his pull-out students, and then told his wife, a teacher, about it, so she went and set up her own acc0unt and is now working with her high school students. You might want to check out Glogster, too. It’s free and easy to use and very engaging.

Day One of Glogging: It’s all about Play

Yesterday, my students dove into Glogster — the online virtual poster site — and boy, were they having fun. The night before, they had homework that included reading through a short tutorial of how to use the site. The rest of the homework was writing about Three Cups of Tea, which is the basis for the project that they will begin today in earnest.

I decided to hold back on letting them begin the project so that they could have a chunk of time to just play. I have to keep reminding myself how important this is — this play time with technology is not a waste of time but a valuable space for exploration. Too often, we just have kids jump right in. You know, though, that they are going to explore, so why not give them time to do it?

And the sharing and communication that goes on during these times is quite fascinating. They really do rely on each other as much as me, and what they now know about the site (which is free and allows a teacher to set up a “classroom” of students) will help them with their projects. They are designing a Three Things about Three Cups of Tea poster, with a podcast book review.

The most difficult part of yesterday was making sure they read their Glogster-generated username (called a nickname) and password. Both are a random string of letters and numbers. I had tiny slips of paper with their information to hand out to them (I wonder if I will need to go through all that again today?)

They were clearly frustrated to learn that they could not change their user names and make their glog site their own, but I explained that we in the virtual class could see who they were (they added first name last initial to their profiles and when you are logged into the class, you can see those names — but only if you are a member of the class) but the random user names gave a nice protective shield from the outside world. They understood and it was another lesson in protecting your identity when online.

Here is a glog that a student did, in the 20 minutes they had to work. I know that I will have to keep talking about design with them and repeat my mantra: “just because you can do does not always mean you should do it.”

Peace (on the glog),

Kevin

Boolean Squared: In my old school …

My new character, Jenni Peg, gives Boolean some info about her old school where the most interesting part of her learning experience was done in spite of the teacher. I hope that is not the case in your classroom. Or mine.

Peace (in the frame),
Kevin

Day in a Sentence on a Wallwisher

Hello

I am back to hosting Day in a Sentence and it is cool to be doing it for the first time in 2010. I am going to direct folks to a Wallwisher site that I set up because it is just so darn easy to use and I want to show people what this site is and allow them to think about possibilities.

Are you new to Day in a Sentence?

Here is what it is all about:

  • You reflect on a day in your week or your entire week;
  • You boil down your reflection into a single sentence;
  • You share it out (in this case, on the Wallwisher, but often, we use a blog post)
  • By Sunday or so, we share out what everyone has written.

You are invited to join us! Come to the Wallwisher and leave a sentence. You can even add audio links, video links, or even your blog address with your sentence.

I wrote about my entry into Glogging with my students this week. We had a great time just saying that word, you know?

Peace (on the wall),
Kevin

PS — Oh, yeah, I can embed the wallwisher, too.