Flowgram September 25, 2008
Posted by Matthew Woolums in Conference Sessions, Link Collections, Tools.add a comment
Trying out a new presentation option called Flowgram. Yesterday I started putting up a presentation as a page on the blog (see new page: Beliefs) and wasn’t entirely satisfied with the way it looked. So I thought I would try Flowgram as a way to collect web pages as part of the presentation. It also allows you to upload PowerPoint presentations, link to YouTube videos, etc. You can also record a voice track. This should be useful for digital story telling as well as more traditional forms of presentations in the classroom. Here is my Flowgram.
http://www.flowgram.com/p/xya4ch23fxgnid/
Web Page Highlighter September 23, 2008
Posted by Matthew Woolums in Tools.add a comment
Angela Maiers tweeted about another cool tool. The Awesome Highlighter lets you highlight text from a web page, and then gives you an address you can share with your students. I can see this tool used by both teachers and students, especially when teaching note taking, summarizing, skimming, and research. Here is an example of an earlier post with added highlights. It would be nice if you could also draw with the highlighter so you could circle things. I also haven’t figured out a way to highlight pictures. Notes can be added, but they seem too limited in the number of characters in the note. So it doesn’t do everything, but what it does is awesome!
Voting With Their Check Books September 17, 2008
Posted by Matthew Woolums in Opinion, Tools.add a comment
Very interesting new mashup from Google lets you see who donated money in the current presidential race. Zoom in and check to see who made the donation, how much they donated, and to which candidate the contribution was made. I doubt the individual contributors realized their names, addresses, and political leanings would be made this easily viewable on the web, but it is quite interesting to see which of my neighbors have pitched in and to which campaigns. Hours if not minutes of fun!
Are You Smarter Than an 8th Grader? September 16, 2008
Posted by Matthew Woolums in Data, Opinion.add a comment
I’m not a big proponent of standardized tests, but maybe because I understand how tests are often constructed, so my results don’t always reflect what I know but rather what I know about the test. Anyway, here are a couple of fun little 10 question tests to take in Math and Science to see how you stack up against 8th graders from around the world. At the end you get to see national scores to see how your 8th graders stacked up. Of course, what is actually stacked remains a subject for discussion. This came by way of a post by Lucy Gray.
Tried to embed the quiz directly in the post, but something keeps getting edited out when I save. Either visit Lucy’s blog (always a good idea) or try this link to take the quiz.
http://www.edin08.com/dataquiz.aspx
Transference of Learning September 13, 2008
Posted by Matthew Woolums in Opinion.add a comment
It seems odd to me that when we learn something, we also have to learn the same thing in a different context. Transference of learning is complicated and often involves a regression in skill. Take handwriting for example. When learning cursive, a student with nice printed handwriting often takes a step or two backward in legibility. Once the basics are picked up, the legibility quickly returns. The same might happen when learning calligraphy.
The same thing happens with social interactions and technology. Learning to be polite in the classroom doesn’t necessarily transfer to the playground or the cafeteria. Learning how to behave in a movie theater doesn’t necessarily transfer to a ride in the car. Learning how to navigate through a file system on a computer doesn’t necessarily mean knowing how to navigate through a web site. As technology changes, previous learning is no guarantee of future understanding.
Take the example of a reporter in Colorado who decided it would be a good idea to use Twitter to cover a funeral as it happened. Now I doubt that the reporter would ever have considered using a cell phone to call in the story as it happened, but the result would have been about the same in this setting. The task set before us is not easy. How do you help someone, student or fellow teacher, learn from the mistakes they’ve already made instead of repeating them? Is there a role for technology to play to facilitate this learning transfer, or does technology just complicate things by providing additional contexts?
http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/09/13/colorado-newspaper-twitters-three-year-olds-funeral/
Lamination September 6, 2008
Posted by Matthew Woolums in Opinion.add a comment
The start of the school year brings with it many preparations. Setting up a room is important to set the stage for the learning environment. Schools in my district are very particular about presentation and spend much time and effort talking about and reviewing what goes into the look of a classroom. As I look at the walls, I’m noticing a trend. Maybe it is a good one, maybe not. More of the material, like word walls, seems to be used more than once. The work is ongoing and applicable to the learning each day.
It wasn’t that long ago that knowledge was permanent. Once up on the walls, information was not expected to change. Up go the letters of the alphabet, and up they stay, all year long, whether we still need them or not. Better yet, laminate those letters so they can be reused every year because the information they represent is static, it doesn’t and shouldn’t change. Of course, that is not always the case. With the overwhelming amount of information available to us and our students, sometimes what we need to focus on isn’t just the information, but what we do with it. Can we trust what we read? Can we verify it? Can we apply it to something new?
In a world where the immediate often pushes out the important, and in schools where the inertia of previous learning methods almost always wins, maybe we should be taking more time to step back and ask ourselves what is it that we are doing that is worth laminating? How much of what goes on in a classroom is worthy of making permanent and bringing back year after year? How much of what we do should go up on the walls while we need it, and then is taken down to be replaced by something more immediate? I don’t have any final answers, but the questions seem worth asking.
DoodleBuzz September 6, 2008
Posted by Matthew Woolums in Tools.add a comment
I love mashups. There is something fascinating about taking what others have created and making something new and unexpected out of it. Take DoodleBuzz for example. Lots of places search news stories, even those that let you search for specific ideas. This one lets you draw or doodle your news searches. My early attempts are messy and difficult to read, but if you take this idea and apply it to a touch surface, you might get some interesting results.
How Many Of You Are There? September 4, 2008
Posted by Matthew Woolums in Conference Sessions, Tools.add a comment
I’m sitting in on a session about Pageflakes, and one of the side trips we took was to a site that compares your name with everyone in the USA to let you know how many others have the same name. I’m sure you could use this in a Math class to generate data for graphing. Or in writing, you could check to see how common a character name is. You do need to agree that you are 13 or older, so please don’t use this with younger kids.
According to this site, there are 3 people who share my first and last name.
| HowManyOfMe.com | ||
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