Avatar Images

Something of interest came from the EduBlogger that I would like to note here: Avatar images! Because you don't necessarily want your students posting pictures of themselves online and with their public blogs, you can go to the sites that the EduBlogger lists and draw your own cartoon character or Avatar image. This can depict the student in place of their face or a piece of their personal life you would rather they not share until they are fully ready to become a responsible digital citizen. I put together one of my own, but I was required to sign up with the website and provide information I would rather just not fill out. So, my Avatar image remains unseen. But, this would be a great idea for students of all ages.

Distance Education and the Bush Alaska Scenario

Damon Hargraves of the Bering Straight School District came and spoke in our Ed Tech class last month on technology in the Bush of Alaska. What I discovered was disquieting and also very intriguing. First of all, as many of my classmates have noted, there is a lot of money for Bush schools that allows for them to purchase the equipment and technology necessary for their students' education plus more than the minimum! Urban schools don't have that type of funding (or at least we don't see it used for such things). The second thing I noted was that this sort of technology could not only link outlying villages, but it could also link the home schooled community to teachers and networks unlike anything ever seen! What the possibilities for open wiki pages and public pages and sites are beyond fathoming. I would really enjoy learning more about this technology so that 1) I can tap into the funding machine that sponsors these ventures, and 2) So that I can reach new students in fresh and exciting ways around the nation and even around the globe!

Down for a week

So, the Blackboard site went down with a bang this week. All of my classes were cancelled and virtually no emails could get back and forth from faculty to students. While it was a nice week to get homework done (the stuff that didn't require a blackboard page) and get caught up on classes, it makes me wonder just how much stalk we put into a single server. Whatever would we do if the power went out for more than a week? Whatever would we do if the internet was hacked and all sites sent bugs to our computers? This was just a small outage that required a small percentage of very perseverant IT souls to work around the clock. They managed to fix the problem in less than a week. But, a whole school week was totally cut off for several classes. No homework was turned in and no classes could be held via online Elive sessions.

I propose that we have a back up system that we can go to. It doesn't have to be perfect, just an older system kept in the online vaults for outages such as these. What do you think? Could it be possible?

Board on Money

I didn't have much success looking through the blogs I'm following for any new educational tidbits, but I did attend a Club Ed meeting at UAA last night that I think you all would be interested in hearing about:

Mrs. Sunny Hilts from the Alaska Association of School Boards came and spoke to some UAA Elementary Educations students all the way from the Kenai! She came as an ambassador to tell us soon to be teachers what a school board is and does. I won't go into specifics here, but she had an interesting comment that we all need to be aware of. One of the points Mrs. Sunny made was concerning the budget for schools. She said that right now the school systems are sitting in a large pool of cash. The oil industry has done well and has pumped lots of cash into education as well as the government stimulus packages. The school budgets are rather flush at the moment. Consequently great bounds in technology, resources, and training is available like never before.

The bad news is, this education funding bubble will not likely last forever according to Mrs. Sunny. What she calls 'The Gap' is coming. 'The Gap' is what she estimates as a 5 year period where funding will dry up from the oil and the government and schools will be left with very little money for technology and other perks. She wanted to prepare all of us teachers for a drought in educational opportunities.

I say this for two reasons: 1) to ask if you think her information is correct according to your outlook and 2) to ellicite ideas of what we should do if she is correct?

Standard? What Standard?

This is a nice time in the semester to go back and reflect on the big picture: the Standard. Yes, that over arching Standard in the sky by which we must compare ourselves is upon us once again. The Standard by which I am to compare myself and my current Educational Tech class is the NETS-T 2008. Now, upon reflection, we as a class have done quite well with following along. We have become better able to model technology better in the classroom. We have learned how to set up a lesson using technology, yet not rely on it. We have learned new technologies ourselves and seen their pros and cons. We have reflected nicely on the idea of digital citizenship and looked at our own selves in light of the internet's logs. All in all, we are following the Standard to the letter and are all the more standardized for it.

Please don't get me wrong, this is a great thing at the moment; I have learned tons about the way technology works and how to use it in a classroom setting. However, I don't want to stay in this Standard box forever. As you can already tell, what started as a classroom assignment has led to a blog that I actually use. I keep track of my friends' blogs and blogs that hold interest to me. I am no longer just using this as a classroom assignment obligation. I'm starting to get creative with the way I use my technology. I'm stepping outside of the Standards as I begin to realize the possibilities out there.

Smart. Real smart.

Today I got to observe a classroom with a Smartboard! I was SO pumped! It is my first time seeing such technology let alone getting to play with it. I simply asked the teacher if I could mess with it while the students were involved in a craft and she said sure and booted up the computer. Next thing I knew, all of the students were gathered at my feet, watching me touch the screen and orientate the board to the projector.

Two things happened: 1) all of the students wanted a turn at writing their name with the 'magic marker' and 2) I discovered that I was going to need one on one time to work out how to use the Smartboard smartly. I did the best I could with number one. And in the process learned some more on number two. First, I lined the kids up and had them take turns writing their name on the board. The immediate thing that was apparent, was that kids had a tough time writing on the board because their hands and shirt sleeves brushed the board making the screen register other movements and contact rather than just the censor pen. As a result, the children's work was sloppy and frustrating. The second thing I noticed was that the shadow created by the children was most distracting. Because the Smartboard was front lit by a projector, all of the hands from the children trying to write as well as the children just making funny shadows in the light, created major obstacles to the writing. The board needed to be backlit for optimum performance.

My next thought as I watch the kids, was how to get a keyboard to project itself on the screen rather than having to write everything in by hand. I asked the teacher who didn't know. So, I poked around the program and found the button that projected what I desired. I was thrilled with my success! I had found a tool that the teacher didn't know existed.

The final thing that I noted from the kids virtually teaching me how to use the tool by their own mistakes was that there was three pieces of technology used in this silly writing of names on a wall: the computer, the projector, and finally the Smart board itself. When the kids bumped the projector, the orientation for the Smartboard went out. When the computer was accidently touched, the projector no longer projected correctly. When the Smartboard shut down, the whole thing depended on the computer to get it all back online. My point is this: this whole set up is WAY too much trouble for just a little fun. Smartboards may be innovative, but they are certainly not ready to hit the mainstream yet. I would love to have one, however, to learn how to use. I wonder how much they go for on the market?

Assignment for Class on Technology

Okay: I think I am done exploring for the moment and need to buckle down and get to work on my assignment.

Here is the prompt:

Where you are at on tech skills to be a great teacher and where you think you need to be? What are your strengths and weaknesses in technology use for instruction and professional development? What kind of plan can you develop for your professional growth?

1. I consider myself in the middle of the road technologically. I'm exploring, getting to know key programs such as Word, Excel, and Powerpoint. I am not proficient in anyone of these areas and there is definite room for improvement before I hit the classroom. I am not, however afraid of exploring with these programs and I wish I could learn them faster.

2. My strengths: I like to use technology. If I know it, I use it. I also am not afraid, once I know how to use a piece of technology, to take it outside of the box and use if for creative projects. My weaknesses: I have to be told about the technology; I don't just go looking for it by myself. Just because I can conceive of something, doesn't mean I go looking for it. Nor can I create it.

3. A long term plan for my professional growth would include getting some intermediate level classes for anything and everything under the sun technology speaking. I would like to become known as the teacher who is the most creative and most innovative in the school. I want to know how to take my students to the levels they need in technology and to do that, I need a starting foundation from which to build.

More Fun!

The blog I am following for my Ed Tech class is the EduBlogger and what I took away from that reading is that I can set up my own Elive rooms for free for up to 3 people! I set up an account with the learning tool and I hope to be on my way to being able to reach people around the area without too much trouble. This may be the answer for meetings taking place in Anchorage that folks in the Valley might want to attend. It may also be the answer for meetings in the Valley that Anchorage folks want to attend! Or for folks in Kenai! You know, all of those poor souls that are all tied to Anchorage because that is where the administration sits, but otherwise can't take part in all of the activities! We can help change the role of the outlier communities now by tying them together with Elive! Who knew?! Well, I may have to fiddle with the program some more, but wouldn't it be cool to live this dream???

Ooo... Shiny!

So, I got on the Blogger to fix up an assignment for my Ed Tech class when I accidently started reading and listening to one of the blogs I am following. On that blog was a cluster map of all of the places around the world that people lived and looked at their page! I decided that as a geography buff I wanted one on my page! So, now a half an hour and lots of extra stuff saved on my clip board, I have my very own ClustrMap! Yay!

And... I've complete forgotten what I was originally going to post about. In the meantime, however, I have also discovered the Add a Gadget function on Blogger and have been playing around with my layout. It won't be long before I can actually set up the page the way I wish to have it run. Oh the worlds of greatness on Blogger! Soon it shall be mine to control and it shall not control me!

Where teachers aren't techy

There was an interesting discussion in my Ed Tech class this evening. We were talking about how much technology teachers should be familiar with. There were varying answers across the board. Some teachers don't need to know how to use technology at all. Others need to know how to not only use, but also fix their techy tools. In the middle, there is the majority of teachers; those that need to know enough to get through the day, yet no need to be overburdened with the concepts too deep for their fields. I think that while it is helpful to know about technology, it is not necessary for teaching and learning in a classroom setting. However, that being said: I like to use technology because I find it fun, interesting, a new way to get creative. I could care less about hard drives, updates, or security. What I care about is: how do I create something fun with powerpoint or how do I put together a smashing lesson plan using a voice thread? How do I create a website upon which I can advertise my lesson plans and curriculum? I don't rightly care about the RAM on my computer or whether I have fast enough internet, I just want to have fun.

Oh, and teach students to have fun with me :). That too!

Voice Threading

Today I learned how to make a voice thread! It was the neatest thing! I effectively uploaded several photos, recorded my thoughts on each like a powerpoint slide presentation, then edited my settings so that other folks could view it as well! That was rather exciting to be able to do all of that in a relatively small amount of time. A brand new task has been mastered! Go check it out!

http://voicethread.com/#u554397.b661868.i3500484

Blog on a Blog

I have been following the EduBlogger. Today I found a fascinating little tidbit from it that kind of gave a 101 crash course on blogs. I have been having trouble working with mine and with the RSS feed and I found this bit very helpful.

1) A blog is like an online journal. I need to check it or add to it at least once a day. I should add it to my list of things to do such as checking my email, updating my Facebook, or writing a letter to my penpals. It does seem like a rather hard way of working, but if I want to be successful with this thing, I need to be here more than once a week.

2) I can bookmark popular posts. I still don't know how to yet, but at least I can look for the option.

3) I need to somehow increase my readership if I want my blog to be important. I figure the best way to do this is to start dialoging on other people's blogs and they, in turn, will be interested in reading mine. Once we get some good conversations starting, then I will have a reason to be on this thing.

So, that is what I learned today on Edublogger.

RSS Nightmare

RSS - I still have not found the usefulness for this feature. I haven't been back to my Google reader account that I created and consequently made a mess of. I think I made a technology toxic spill on the internet and someone is going to have to clean it up for me one of these years. You know, that is an interesting question:

Do sites that are inactive for a certain period of time eventually get shut down and deleted from memory? Or do they stay out in the computer system forever and ever? Is there such a thing as overloading the system with an infinite amount of memory? hmm... maybe it is time for me to go read a science fiction novel about computers going rogue on mankind!

Be Googled!

So, I have looked up both my maiden name and my married name in Google and am proud to say that neither displayed anything embarrassing or plausible for identity theft. My maiden name turned up that I had made the Dean's List several years ago as well as an old address. My married name turned up in church bulletin as teaching a Sunday school class this past summer as well as my Facebook account. You could therefore deduce from your findings that I am a smart college student at UAA, living in Anchorage, attend a church, and am socially connected on the web. Not too bad considering how much time I spend on a computer!