Spreading the Word (spoken!) on Conference Connections August 3, 2007
Posted by Matthew Woolums in Articles/Videos, Conference Sessions.add a comment
The Savvy Technologist, one of the earliest educational podcasters I ever found, is promoting an educational podcast directory called Conference Connections. You can find podcasts from FETC, NECC, and TCEA conferences. If you can’t get to these conferences, you can still benefit from some very important conversations and presentations.
http://technosavvy.org/2007/06/20/spread-the-word-on-conference-connections/
TIE 2007 Session 4110 – Web Based Applications for the Classroom June 23, 2007
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Session 4110 – Web Based Applications for the Classroom – Jon Pierce – 6/22/07
Jon is a technology specialist for Challenge School in Cherry Creek.
Started with 37 signals and Basecamp – used for project management. Campfire is used for private chatting and file transfer. There is a free section. Opens up in a dashboard that provides an overview of activity in the project, messages, to-do lists, milestones, writeboards, and chat. Highrise is new. Backcamp is like Basecamp.
Moved on to Googledocs and spreadsheets and Goolge Pack. Used it for script writing for school news. Google Pack collects some of their featured applications like Picasa and Google Earth. I need to follow-up with Page Creator.
Hot Potatoes. Six applications. Makes quizzes and tests with multiple choice, short answer, crossword, match and order, and more. Tests are available for printing, hosting on a web server, or hosted.
CutePDF is a free Windows pdf creator. PDF Viewer 2 was released out of beta and is open source.
Portaportal is a web-based bookmarking. http://guest.portaportal.com/tieco is the site set up for the class. Layout is similar to other starter pages, but Jon makes great use of organizing the links he’s collected into categories. Portaportal also has a dashboard if you log in with a free account. Portaportal also lets you switch between accounts. Avoid ABC order because it is very difficult to undo. http://guest.portaportal.com/challengeschool is the Portaportal for his school.
Awardspace.com, http://www.awardspace.com/ is a free host without ads. Very nice.
TIE 2007 Session 3306 - Search Savvy Kids June 21, 2007
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3306 – How to be Search Engine Savvy – Patti Hayes – 6/21/07
Objectives:
• Define
• List top sites
• Filters/blocking
• Website evaluation
• Helping students search
Searching takes a long time.
Terms
• Metacrawlers – search other search engines
• Search engines – crawl the web to build/rebuild their database of results
• Subject directories – a list of sites collected and organized by people
Examples of each type were listed. I’ve added a couple to my collection of search engines, http://del.icio.us/mwoolums/search We also looked at a couple of student search sites. The PowerPoint for this session has an extensive list of student search sites. Some of these are definitely new to me. I enjoy collecting search engines.
Filters were discussed, with a link to a free filter that can be downloaded. Commercial filters were also listed in order of popularity. We looked at current Internet usage statistics. The numbers keep going up.
Students need to be shown how to search, scaffold the search with starting points, help them evaluate the information, keep it age appropriate.
Web evaluation checklist – ask questions:
• What can the URL tell you?
• Who wrote the page? Is there an institution or individual?
• Is it dated and current?
• Is the content authentic?
• Is there any integrity or is the content in conflict with ads?
• Can you identify the bias?
• Is this ironic or a spoof?
• If you have questions or reservations, how can you satisfy them?
We looked at the worksheet Patti uses with her kids. It is linked from the session entry for the conference. This worksheet gives kids some planning guides before they start searching, including listing key words they plan to use, a place to clarify the question or problem, and a place to list results. We were then given time to work through some of the lengthy list of links she provided on her PowerPoint.
This is really helpful information on searching and web evaluations.
TIE 2007 Session 3213 - Free the Internet! June 21, 2007
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3213 – The Internet is (Should be) Free – Me – 6/21/07
This was my first time presenting on my own. I have assisted other people by co-presenting before, so I was a little nervous. Turn out was great, there was only one open seat and at one point a couple of people were sitting on the floor. I even had a TIE board member in the front row. I was a little jittery, so I need to remember that next time I shouldn’t drink pop before the session, only water.
I presented information about free online tools, and how to use a couple of them. All of the materials are posted on my blog at http://villagegreen.edublogs.org. The second half of the session consisted of presenting two video clips, one on net neutrality and another on copyright/fair use. Almost no one had heard of the term net neutrality before the session, but I think they at least knew enough afterwards to dig a little deeper on their own. All in all I’d have to say it was a successful session. Since it was built on an idea that I started with at last year’s TIE, I’m anxious to see where it goes a year from now.
TIE 2007 Session 3106 - Digital Storytelling and the LOC June 21, 2007
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3106 – Digital Storytelling with Library of Congress Resources – Kathy Ferrel and Erin Hunt
6-21-07
Funded through a grant from LOC. They provide a program called Essential Exploration that has face-to-face and web components. They are looking for rural partnerships. Participating schools get staff development, credit, and tech tools (books, ipods, flash drives, printers, interactive whiteboards.)
Digital Storytelling is telling a good story. Examples were shown about the preservation of history and a personal story about someone’s father. When teaching, remember it is always about the story first. Elements of a digital story include:
• Point of view – usually1st person
• A question
• Emotional content
• Voice (narration) – kids are reluctant to talk
• Soundtrack (consider copyright)
• Economy (less is more)
• Pacing
• Media – Graphics or photos, motion (videos, flash, animation,) text, audio
• Action
• Relationship – linear or nonlinear, customized?, calculations (tally,) manipulations (interaction)
• Context – some stories stand alone, some need stage setting
• Communication – story could be one to one, one to many, or many to many
Steps to creating a digital story:
1. Choose topic
2. Storyboard
3. Gather materials
4. Digitize elements
5. Add voice over – narration
6. Soundtrack
7. Share story – publish
Resources:
University of Houston http://www.coe.uh.edu/digital-storytelling/default.htm
Story Center http://www.storycenter.org and http://www.storycenter.org/memvoice/
Tech Head http://www.tech-head.com and http://www.tech-head.com/dstory.htm
primaryAccess http://www.primaryaccess.org digital storytelling software
A review of available tools along with the degree of difficulty for each tool was presented. Next we worked through searching American Memory. You can search using the top search box. Items are organized around collections, which can present a few challenges. You can also browse by topic. On the right is a list to browse collections by media type. Media is not edited, and should be previewed or media links collected ahead of time. Citations can also provide challenges because the copyrights are not owned by the LOC, they stay with the owner of the original material.
A review of Windows Movie Maker was presented so people could use the tool to create their digital stories. This part of the session is time intensive because of the unfamiliarity with the software on the part of some of the attendees. Additional handouts and files will be available from http://www.unco.edu/primarysources/tie/
TIE 2007 Session 2311 - Creative Commons June 20, 2007
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2311 – Collaboration Rules! Discover Creative Commons – Cindy Loehr – 6/20/07
Cindy is an integration specialist in Cherry Creek and works with 6 schools. I work with 38. Creative Commons is changing copyright in the world today. Great place to search for pictures, music for podcasting, videos, and more. Cindy used Route 66 as an analogy. We moved to a wall to show our comfort level with the subject. Those new were in LA, those experts were in Chicago. Most of us were somewhere in between.
As educators, we use digital media all the time: podcasts, blogs, image slide shows, etc. Lawrence Lessig is instrumental in the development of Creative Comments. http://lessig.org/freeculture/free.html In essence, creative commons allows for protecting your work but making it public for others to freely use. We viewed the presentation from OSCON 2004 on Lessig’s site. Some of the session was slowed down due to attendees’ lack of computer knowledge.
Cindy does not argue for the elimination of copyright, rather the use of alternatives. Trading cards were distributed listing different issues and Colorado IL standards. The cards were created using fd’s Flickr toys - http://bighugelabs.com/flickr/
Creative commons, http://creativecommons.org/ , allows for sharing, reusing, and remixing. Next we watched a video “Wanna Work Together?” that demonstrates the uses of CC. Essentially, CC allows you to stamp your work with specific copyright information that specifies what others can do with your material. http://creativecommons.org/about/history covers the history of CC. There are many options for copyright under CC, some limiting commercial use, some restricting modifications, some just saying use it anyway you want.
http://search.creativecommons.org is used for searching. The Google tab has a lot of documents. Google and Yahoo are fairly new. Cindy mostly uses the image and audio sections. The searches in flickr only include those results with CC licensing information. You can also search from flickr by http://flickr.com/creativecommons and the results show the CC licenses.
Cindy talked about brainstorming before searching. The example she used was the term avalanche. When looking at flickr results, she also looked at tags. Picsearch.com says they are family friendly. Pics4learning is another one. http://zoo-n.com/flickr-storm/ creates trays for flickr slide shows. Think digital story telling. Bighugelabs is another one, linked above.
For music, CC uses Owl Music. Searching on Owl uses sound, not text. http://www.owlmm.com/ searches by selecting a sound file, and it looks for similar works. You can choose whether or not to use commercial music. This is totally cool! Also, http://www.jamendo.com for more music. Also, CCMixter, http://ccmixter.com/
TIE 2007 Session 2219 - Open Source, Web, and Databases June 20, 2007
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2219 - Working with Open-Source Web and Database Systems – Ron Patterson, Web Database Specialist, Academy School District 20 – 6/20/07
Handouts available on the TIE site.
Web Development
Ron started with background info about the web, its early days using static web pages which moved to dynamic driven from databases. http://www.w3.org and www.apache.org as good resources. Academy 20 uses a three-tier model based on open-source tools.
Open Source Software
Open source software is managed by community development. In many cases you can use a main distribution or version, or you can contract with a 3rd party vendor who supports a particular distribution. Licensing fees are usually lower or no cost. Problem resolution is usually quicker. http://www.opensource.com
PHP
Open source. Based on the C programming language. Designed for web page deployment. Supports MySQL, PostgreSQL, Oracle, ODBC, dBase, InterBase, Ingres, LDAP, and other database platforms. http://www.php.net
We looked at a sample PHP script. It is very similar to HTML with which I’m familiar. Just like a CSS style, or Java, there is a special set of PHP tags. <?php indicates the start of a script. Look for a text editor that helps with code formatting. I like to use TextWrangler.
Database systems centralize data management, structure the data, a database looks a lot like a spreadsheet with tables (files), rows (record), columns (field), relationships (how one table relates to another. There are also languages used to query the data to retrieve information. SQL is a structured query language. Managed backups may include rollbacks so you can restore from earlier data.
MySQL
There is an organization around MySQL, which is open source development and support. This does run on different platforms. http://www.mysql.com and http://dev.mysql.com for more information.
There are specifics to consider with MySQL. It supports char, varchar, text, and blob as data types. Each can hold different amounts of data. Same for integer, smallint, bigint, tinyint, float, double, decimal, numeric, date, time, datetime (big difference from Oracle,) timestamp, enum, and set.
PostgreSQL
Open source. Support on multiple platforms, similar data types with support for arrays, mathematical complex, geo-spatial data. http://www.postgresql.com and http://www.postgresql.org for more info.
Other open source resources include InterBase/Firebird, Berkley DB XML, OpenLDAP, OpenBase SQL, Perl, Ruby, Python, and Java (not really completely open source).
Perl
This is the language I saw in the Tuesday session. Open source, C-like programming, database independence, used for CGI (common gateway interface or web application), great for batch database maintenance. http://www.perl.com
Common pitfalls
Take some time with the initial configuration. Register_global settings in PHP 4.1 and up, variable definition and initialization is not required as in many other languages, missing $ symbol on variables, and missing end tags in HTML. Watch out for truncating varchar data. Don’t set the output before the header. Look for missing semi-colons and end braces. Use == for conditional tests rather than =,
Examples
Sample commands were shown on a slide. It is mostly command line. Commands do things like create records, insert new rows (records) or columns (fields,) set dats types, print results, set primary key (like name or field id) which makes the database efficient, update, select, and query or sort results.
We also looked at a simple address book example. The actual code is listed in the handout for the session.
Resources
http://www.oreilly.com
Managing & Using MySQL, 2nd Edition
Web Database Applications with PHP & MySQL
MySQL Cookbook
MySQL Reference Manual
MySQL Pocket Reference
Practical PostgreSQL
PostgreSQL Essential Reference
Programming PHP
PHP Cookbook
http://hotscripts.com
http://tacosw.com
The Web Programming CD Bookshelf, Version 1.0
Marc Liyanage, http://www.entropy.ch/software/macosx/
Vim, http://www.macvim.org/OSX/
New Web Technologies
Dynamic HTML
Ajax - Asynchronous Javascript (this is the fuel for many web 2.0 applications, which allows for reduced page reloads to handle data or user interactions)
RPC - Remote Procedure Call capable
XML and other data handling
Result: Minimal reloading of pagesNew Web Technologies
Example
Ron showed MySQL Administrator (OS X). Allows for a very granular view of your running database, including option to kill (end) specific queries. There were other OS X tools demoed. CocoaMySQL lets you select a database, table, and it displays the structure, allowing you to manipulate the structure of the table. Academy is now using SchoolCenter for their web content management system, which is actually a PHP and MySQL solution.
TIE 2007 Session 2118 - RSS June 20, 2007
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2118 – RSS Connecting ideas and knowledge – Will Richardson – 6/20/07
Points to his PDF article on weblogg-ed.com – RSS Guide. RSS – real simple syndication. This is similar to subscribing to a magazine or newspaper for web pages. In the digital world, these RSS subscriptions are free. An RSS subscription comes from a content producers RSS feed. RSS feeds are common for blogs, wikis, photo sharing, etc. The good news is you can be more efficient keeping track information online, the bad news is you can easily get overwhelmed collecting feeds.
Starts with Google Reader as an RSS new aggregator. Collections are organized in folders. New posts are indicated by bold and the number of new items. RSS works best when we self-organize. Google Reader lets you star, share, email, mark as read, or edit tags that describe the post. Will’s reading has changed. He’s no longer reading every word. Quick scanning lets him organize information for later detailed reading or discarding. Uses Performancing to assist with the blog proess. http://performancing.com/
And http://performancing.com/performancing-firefox/performancing-firefox-1-1-delicious-technorati-release
How do you collect feeds? I find most of them from other feeds to which I subscribe. Will checks frequency, authorship, number of incoming links, etc. You can also search by keywords. Check frequently visited we sites for a feed link. You can also now download your Google reader content using Google Gears. Sometimes it is as simple as the traditional link with RSS added. For example www.nytimes.com/rss provides a list of all the RSS feeds they provide. You can also unsubscribe. In Google News, you can specify a topic and a source to generate an RSS feed. This is important. http://blogsearch.google.com/ and technorati can be used to search for blogs.
Social bookmarking. The web2.0 directive includes sharing the good stuff. Del.icio.us. He looked a little bit at IBM who has implemented social tools big time. Tags are really important. Again, we’re organizing ourselves, where folks create the taxonomy – naow called folksonomy. David Weinberger, “Everything is Miscellaneous” http://www.amazon.com/Everything-Miscellaneous-Power-Digital-Disorder/dp/0805080430
David Weinbergers blog: http://www.hyperorg.com/blogger/
Will walked through the steps of saving a bookmark on smartmobs, adding tags (use a unique tag for easy reference by your students) and save the link. This tag includes an RSS feed. You can even subscribe to a network from del.icio.us.
Will also used flickr to demonstrate tagged photos. Example: http://flickr.com/photos/tags/darfur You can also subscribe to YouTube tags for video.
Starter pages, pageflakes, netvibes, can be built with RSS feeds, but shared with others. These are already familiar to me and are included in my presentation notes for my session on Thursday.
RSS to javascript, www.rss-to-javascript.com lets you create a javascript that can be pasted into any web page.
There is also an RSS calendar (http://www.rsscalendar.com/rss/ ?), librarything is another cool inclusion, http://www.librarything.com/.
Teachers can monitor their student published work through RSS, or you could set up a system that requires approval. Best is probably up front education where everyone knows that what is published needs to be appropriate. Parents, teachers, students, all need to understand that they are publishing publicly and objectives and expectations were clearly understood.
It is important to avoid the ‘echo-chamber’ to only subscribe to feeds that affirm what you believe.
TIE 2007 Session 1112 - Python June 19, 2007
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1112 Using a Free Computer Programming Language it Integrate Math Standards - Scott Durkin 6-19-07
Python is named after Monty Python. Python is a very easy and simple programming language. Python is a strict formatting language: it is all about the spacing. http://staffweb.psdschools.org/sdurkin. This class is based on the same concept as the original concept as the MIT work (http://www.boston.com/news/education/k_12/articles/2007/05/15/with_simplified_code_programming_becomes_childs_play/)in Logo or Squeak or now Scratch. There is a strong presence in industry and in web. This is also very similar to the programming work on a TI 83 calculator. Conditional statements require the use of a “:”. Close the shell after each script run to get a clean start.
We were walked through scripting a simple ‘halt, who goes there?’ program, another to calculate the area and perimeter of a rectangle, and a game to guess a secret number. Additional examples included factors, primes, and least common multiples.
This session has been terrific. In so many sessions, a presentation like this is more of a theoretical discussion. This was a hands-on session where we were actually programming in Python. This will really help with web programming, and also with meeting Math standards.
Will Richardson at TIE 2007 June 19, 2007
Posted by Matthew Woolums in Conference Sessions, Edubloggers.add a comment
TIE 2007 This may be a little rough. My apologies for any errors in spelling or grammar. I’ll try to come back in and clean it up a bit.
6-19-07
Keynote – Will Richardson
Started off with a presentation of CPS (student clicker systems) with information about the integration of technology and data collection. Looks like the clicker systems are close to reaching a tipping point in use in schools.
Will Richardson is presenting at the TIE conference. He starts off by saying he sees things through 3 lenses, as a teacher, as a parent, and as a blogger. Will mentions a couple of points from Karl Fisch’s (http://thefischbowl.blogspot.com/) ‘Did You Know’ presentation.
Politics is beginning to use social tools. These new tools allow for us to connect in ways we couldn’t before. Citizen journalists are transforming journalism. Many online new sources allow for direct commenting by readership. Model for music has to change in the environment where most of the music online is shared. People are contributing, in conversations, to the opinions about everything.
Everything is changing except education. We just don’t move very quickly. Our kids are changing as long as they have access. 1 in 3 in Philadelphia have never been on the Internet. Kids are posting their own movies and pictures, and we’re all downloading them.
Standardized testing isn’t going away. The world is getting more transparent. The future will bring always on networks from everywhere. Our (education’s) response is to restrict access. Will blogs because he is engaged in interesting conversations. Blogging allows anyone to participate in those conversations. The conversation is global in scope. How do these technologies change teaching and learning.
The difference: the last 6 years involved 95% engaged learning through the blog conversation. The previous formal education through Masters and beyond didn’t add as much to his learning because he was probably only learning at 15% engagement. Examples:
• www.fanfiction.net. Student publishing and audience reading. Mostly these are adolescents because they want to, not because it has anything to do with school.
• While we usually think of myspace as a place to block, there is a lot of learning going on there. Meg Cabbot, the author of Princess Diaries has a myspace where her readers can write directly to the author.
• Nata Village blog – blog about life in a world ravaged by AIDS. Even villagers from Nata Village have been able to comment on this blog.
• What holds us back? Lack of knowledge and fear. How many of us are smarter than a fifth grader? Text message to 46645 with define:term. The ‘Google’ term definition is phoned back to you.
• MIT Courseware is also available online and can be taken for free. Kids in Nigeria are able to access this.
• Wikipedia – our kids are using it. It shouldn’t be used in isolation. We need to show them how to use it, and how to be effective with the information they get there. Not only can the info be edited, but that editing history can be reviewed, and the back-story conversations can also be reviewed. Kids are also getting the idea that they can also contribute
• Collaboration example of online document with 4 IM windows open editing collaboratively due that afternoon. Kids can’t be just readers and writers, they also need to be editors. Martinlutherking.org is a site that should raise red flags for kids, but they also need to know what to do in response. They need to be able to edit.
• Hypertext reading and writing is a different set of skill sets. NYTimes “Scan this book” Literacy is changing. Knowledge and information is changing.
• If you have an Internet connection, you are no longer the smartest person in the room. Connect up to them and learn from those smarter people. EX: Secret Life of Bees. The students’ blogs were first on Google. They connected to the author who responded with a 2300+ word response.
• Pulitzer prize winning author mentored one of Will’s journalism students.
• Polar blog connected to 6 classrooms. Kids wouldn’t let the teachers take the blogs down after the project was over because they had more learning to do.
• Flat classroom project connected to a classroom in Cambodia.
Kids need environments that let them go beyond our limitations. What we assign also has to change. Kids have no investment in the work we give them. Ex: Radio Willow Web podcast. We have to get away from worksheets and getting them to a world wide audience.
Wrapped up with a student produced video called ‘Parents’. Makes a great point about buckling up. Became an LA public service announcement. We need to connect them to a transparent, collaborative, connected world. Simply digitizing the old analog work isn’t enough. The conversation has moved from classrooms to professional/personal practice. It is incumbent upon us to embrace this for ourselves, to inform our own learning practice. Find learning transformed for ourselves.
Three questions:
1. Who do you learn from? Are they all in physical space?
2. How are you building your networks?
3. How are you modeling your learning for your students?
Upcoming TIE Conference June 15, 2007
Posted by Matthew Woolums in Conference Sessions, Link Collections, Net Neutrality, Tools.add a comment
I’m putting up my materials for my presentation at the upcoming TIE Conference. Take a look and see if there are better examples of online free tools or categories I’m missing. What are your favorite online tools? There will be a second page covering Net Neutrality still to come. The page is listed above or can be accessed here:
