Will my phone work?

Testing testing

***Attachments excluded by request.***

Action Research Conference Rocks

Now that I'm back and not dependent on travel internet access, I can finally post some images from the conference. Unfortunately my verbosity peaked long ago. What I can tell you without working too hard is that there were some awesome presentations and we were lucky to raise a bit of excitement over Moodle. I'm happy to be back and home, but now the journey is my PDD, so I'm off to work again. Next conference, I promise I'll do a better job.

Projector vs. Projector

Well our More about Moodle session went just fine. We could see the wheels turning in the heads of the attendees...as if they were thinking "hmmm now how can I get Moodle running in my school/district.."

We were trying to plant seeds. Wanted to do the live demo but tech problems struck again.

BTW, just remember when a you see the word "projector" some people think this:



and then some people think this:




One can never underestimate the power of semantics. ;-) We were lucky in that most people at this conference are using the first kind so that meant we didn't have to compete for the second kind. Just a minute and a laugh. We'll get back to you with more later.

Action Research - Design for Learning

Happy to say I made it to Taos for the Center for Teaching Excellence Action Research Conference. The theme this year is "Design for Learning." Somethings wacky on my phone with my VersaMail (which is how I mobile blog) and I haven't quite got it fixed yet, so I have no pictures to show you. I'm actually on roaming right now so what you see comes directly off of my laptop. Would have made it sooner but it also took me a while to get my laptop wireless running (there's that whole laptop battery issue also, but that's ok).

Why is it we always have problems with technology when we need it the most?

Cest la vie!

No EXPLORATORY Left Behind

The picture shows PE equipment designed to teach character education. The role of exploratory was addressed in this session by allowing each exploratory domain to break into a small group and share ideas using discussion questions. I met an innovative group of about 25 tech teachers and we all shared resources, lessons, & strategies. We will follow up by forming an email listserv! Went to session expecting to find info for my exploratory team but left deep in techno-innovation. Very good & interactive presentation!

Online predators

Very eye opening presentation on all of the tricks predators use to lure middle school kids. Just something as simple as accepting a file can provide a predator a map to your home via savvy IP tracking tools. I learned how to look at profiles to learn a kids true age no matter the age they claim. This is information our kids & parents need!

School wide technology integration

The pictures you see here are attempts to share with you the amazing work at Keith Valley Middle School at Horsham, Pennsylvania.

Three years ago they decided to change from technology as a pull out skills based class to technology support labs for each content area. The way this works is each of their 3 tech teachers works with one grade level and schedules the lab for the content areas throughout the year. The tech teachers work with the content area teachers to plan & coteach an in depth tech infused activity. Every student then does a project using technology for each of their classes during the year.

I could literally go on for an hour describing the benefits of this approach. This school is maximizing tech resources to affect all content areas. The content area teachers are able to approach the lessons without stress of tech problems and the tech teachers can maximize student and access in a way which supports content learning.

The examples of student work created in this program are what really get you thinking (links to come soon). Full rigor and higher level thinking are very explicit in their interactive timelines, virtual museums and podcasts. So very cool.
I have so much more to say about this but my Palm keyboard needs a driver update so i'm thumbing this....

Don't worry...I will surely bring this up again.

Home away from home

Practice room at the Gibson guitar outlet provides a Cruces girl all she needs to cure the homesick Nashville blues. Thank you!

Frank Baker on Film

Just came from the session on ML with creator of the ML Clearinghouse, Frank W. Baker. I really connected with his message of using film to advance our curriculum goals and engage students in 21st learners. He offered a thorough overview of film as a vehicle for media literacy with dozens of resources @ http://www.frankwbaker.com

Now I'm off to learn about a schoolwide tech integration project!

NMSA Registration!

We are at the amazing Gaylord Convention Center. Huge...lots of people...about to start a session on media literacy. Can't wait!

The Future of Social Networking

Fred Stutzman gives an overview of the next generation of online communities.

http://chimprawk.blogspot.com/2006/06/social-networking-five-sites-you-need.html

Me Publishing via Julz

My friend and mentor, Julz, is an avid blogger and member of this blog. Here is an informative posting describing Me Publishing that Julz has on her blog....

http://julztechtalk.blogspot.com/2006/05/me-publishing.html

Uses of Blogs vs. Blogging

So to help get the ideas flowing, I would like to share something from Will Richardson's book, p. 32. (for info see www.weblogg-ed.com).

What he presents is a list of uses of blogs and then kind of rates them in terms of how much "blogging" is really involved.

Basically the continuum he describes extends from posting assignments, through posting journals and links, on to annotated links, and links with analysis. Annotating links with analysis would be, according to Richardson, the simplest form of blogging.

From then on the levels of blogging complexify as the synthesis of metacognitive writing and links to a meaningful audience develop.

Richardson describes complex blogging as, "extended anlaysis and synthesis over a longer period of time that builds on previous posts, links, and comments."

Which brings me to my latest blogging realization, in order to understand blogging I need to immerse myself in complex blogging. Well, we've been doing this in many ways through our EDLT cohort. This is just the continuation of our journey -only into the blogosphere we go.

Welcome EDLT Cohort Friends

I just wanted to welcome my colleagues from the EDLT Cohort. I encourage you all to add your contributions.

Maya Eagleton

Please allow me to introduce you to a researcher that I have found who has done some work with hypertext and literacy. Her name is Maya Eagleton. Please visit her website and read one of her publications:

http://earthvision.asu.edu/~maya/

I recommend her study about 'The benefits and challenges of a student-designed school website.'

From Our 'Skateboarding' Conversation

As we discussed uses of the Internet in education, I mentioned creating wikis and blogs as way of creating an online reading log for your personal use.

I'm using both of these and finding interesting features of each. Both are free and can be public, private, collaborative, individual, etc.

Using either one is great...

http://www.near-time.com

http://www.21publish.com

Also, take a look at these:

http://del.icio.us
Delicious is a fascinating social bookmark sharing and tagging tool. I highly recommend you get in and import your bookmarks!!

http://www.furl.net/ Haven't used Furl, but it's a similar tool.

http://www.flickr.com/ This is a fascinating photo sharing tool... You HAVE to go look!

So what did you find? Let's talk about it here in Technology Adventures.

A Teacher's Blog

I learned about this blog in Will Richardson's book Blogs, Wikis, and Podcasts: and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms.

It's a teacher's blog of the experience using blogs with students... very cool.

http://adifference.blogspot.com/ (The teacher's name is Darren Kuropatwa).

Sweet Potato Paradigms

Wouldn't it be nice if we could have the security of the closed paradigm with the democracy of the open information paradigm? It'd almost be as good as sweet potato fries with ranch. Mhmm, ranch. (Fries from The High Desert Brewery.)

My Super Cool Rollyo

So what is this? This is my super cool new rollyo- I learned about it on the RETAzens Near Time environment. Basically this is a personalized search engine. Check the drop down menu to see some of the rolls I have included. You should definitely try this out on your own!!

Select...DiggaliciousdotWeb 2.0 TechnologyEducation TechnologySemantic WebComputer Ethics ClassMoodleMiddle School WeblogsSearch The Web

Starting F2F

I started back in Las Cruces today for the last class of my Master's degree.