Education, Science, and Technology

Tech Tip: Google Makes Searching for Creative Commons Images Easier

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 17 Jan 2014 18:25:00 +0000

Google recently changed their image search to allow people to search images by usage rights easier. In the past you would have to go to Advanced Search to filter image results. They have now added this to the "Search Tools" menu in Image search.

This will hopefully make it easer for teachers and students to search and use images appropriately.

How long will written text be important?

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 21 Jul 2013 19:31:00 +0000

Kelly Gallagher the author of Reversing Redicide (2010) said "Educators know the commonly cited culprits behind the decline of reading: poverty, lack of parent education, print-poor environments at home, second-language issues, the over scheduling of children, and competition from electronic media."

I want to reflect upon my own household. We are very fortunate to not be impacted by the first four culprits listed above; however, we are severely impacted by the last two. I have 3 children, all three have a passion to reading (I thank their mother for this). I would like to study the habits of my oldest who is 9. He is currently reading at the 9th grade reading level in both fluency and comprehension. The kid is scary smart. Without sounding egotistical he got my natural gift as an auditory learner and his mother's passion for reading. This passion for reading still takes a back seat to electronic media. You give him a choice between the iPad or a book and it iPad 100% of the time. What has been fostered in him though is that when the iPad is in "time out" the first thing he reaches for is a book. The thing we struggle with at home is, how to teach him how to "self police" that.

Books are continually taking a back door to electronic media, even if the student has a love for reading. The big question I have is, "Is there a link between reading fluency and comprehension and audio visual fluency and comprehension?" In other words can a poor reader still critically analyze film for example? Also if you look at story telling over the course of history the medium has changed, from pictographs on caves, to oral tradition, to written. These changes occurred over thousands of years. It is hard to imagine, but are we in a transitional time from written form to a more audio visual form?

Technology has fostered each of those changes, and is it possible that technology is changing the medium again? As digital media continues to become easier to create we are leveling the playing field for both authors and consumers of that type of content. Will reading and writing ever become a "niche" art form and everything else is communicated audio visually, much like painting, and oral storytelling has become today? These are big questions that we have to answer, and are not going to be answered anytime soon, but in my mind these are huge questions that we need to answer.

Gallagher, K. (2010). Reversing readicide. Reading to Learn, 67(6), 36-41.

Instagram also on its way out? What we should be teaching students.

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 16 Apr 2013 16:35:00 +0000

This has been my observation over the past year, what do you think?

http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2013/04/12/report-teens-are-like-totally-bailing-on-facebook/

I will go on record and say that Instagram is also on its way out. For those of you that don't know Instagram is now owned by Facebook and we will see it rolled deeper and deeper into their product until the Instagram name is no more. In fact, the article says Instagram has seen no growth in teenage demographic over the past year. Twitter has been a hot spot this year. What I find funny is I first started talking to students about twitter when I joined 6 years ago. They all mocked me and said twitter was dumb. Well I guess I was correct.

Here is where this conversation is going. How do these companies make money? From the data they collect on you. You are not the consumer, but the product. They are selling your data to advertising companies. This is why the adds you see in these services are so relevant. Now, most people don't think about that or don't care, but my second prediction is that eventually people will and we will see a backlash agains companies like google, facebook, and twitter. The question is will it get to the point where people want a service like twitter and facebook, but privacy from advertisers. That is where app.net comes in. This is my prediction. We will get to the point where people want a social network that they have control of and be willing to pay "real money" in stead of their data. I bring this up for a few reasons. It is really important that students wrestle with these topics and understand that someone is making money whatever the business model. Servers don't run themselves for free.

How far are we willing to go in terms of our privacy? Are we willing to give up information about ourselves for a better experience? Some would argue yes. Look at the benefit we get from google. In the "olden days" we would have to search for restaurant Summerlin or restaurant Las Vegas. Now Google already knows you are in Las Vegas and will give you results for that. However, it is really obnoxious when we are planning a trip and searching for restaurants in Boston then we need to specify to google that we want restaurants in Boston. This also affects how students do research. A student that searches for American Revolution in Las Vegas will get different results from American Revolution search done by kids in Concord, MA or London. Are we teaching these skills to students? How do we get out of our private search bubbles that have been tailored to us?

If you are interested in these topics of privacy, research and filters please check out the following: I had the opportunity to see Eli Pariser keynote a conference last summer on Search Bubbles and Online Filters. You can see his TED talk here: http://www.ted.com/talks/eli_pariser_beware_online_filter_bubbles.html

You can also find a somewhat counter point of view in Jeff Jarvis's book Public Parts:How Sharing in the Digital Age Improves the Way We Work and Live.

These are important things that we need to think about ourselves and with our students.

New Reddit Series

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 20 Mar 2013 15:46:00 +0000

There are many, many, many sites out there where users generate, share and vote on content. One of the more popular ones in the past year has been reddit.com. Like any other site like this there is a wealth of inappropriate and downright nasty content that is found and aggregated. The content is not created by reddit.com, but submitted to Reddit and voted on by its users. There are also several reputable companies that use reddit.com to get their content to viewers.

Wikipedia can explain better than I can,

"Reddit, is a social news and entertainment website where registered users submit content in the form of either a link or a text ("self") post. Other users then vote the submission "up" or "down", which is used to rank the post and determine its position on the site's pages and front page." Users can then comment on t/,[stylized as reddit, is a social news and entertainment website where registered users submit content in the form of either a link or a text ("self") post. Other users then vote the submission "up" or "down", which is used to rank the post and determine its position on the site's pages and front page."

Users can then comment on those links.

Anyway, a section of the website that you should know about is the "Explain Like I'm Five" series. It started, I believe, by users that are posting difficult questions and then asking that the answers are explained to them like they are five. My guess would be mostly high school and college students. You can view the series here http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/ . Then users would attempt to answer their questions as if the asker was "like they are five." Some are actually really good and some are absolute garbage. Some questions are not meant to be explained to a five year old, but the community known as the internet is trying.

As teachers we need to be aware of sites like this for a few reasons:

Students and Learners in general are really cleaver in how they use online resources to get information that they need. I think that this is really cool.
We need to be aware about sites like this when designing assessments. Asking yourself is that "googleable" not enough anymore.
Sites like turnitin.com simply can't keep up with the content being generated at sites like this.
If a student uses information from here how do we teach them to take it further and check the resources?
How can we harness (not necessarily reddit.com) this style of learning in our classrooms? Students today want to and do learn by being social. It is actually their preferred method of learning. I am not discounting the appropriateness of individual deep types of thinking, in fact that is also extremely important, but how are we meeting the needs of our diverse set of learners.

Finally, reddit.com has turned some of the "Explain Like I'm Five" series into youtube videos. You should be aware of these also. The series is, like the written questions, taking extremely complex topics and boiling them down. Whenever that happens people tend to "miss the mark." These videos will become viral and might create simplistic misconceptions in your content area. On the other hand they could be springboards into discussion. I have not watched them all nor evaluated their appropriateness for all audiences, but I wanted to make you aware of them and their potential impact.The video series can be found here:
http://www.youtube.com/user/reddit/videos?view=0
An example:

LEC Photostream

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 23 Nov 2010 15:35:00 +0000

Get the flash player here: http://www.adobe.com/flashplayer

Google Instant Search - Impact on student research?

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 15 Sep 2010 19:02:00 +0000

Last week Google released a new way of searching when you are on their home page called instant search. What instant search does is provides a list of website results instantly as you type each letter. Now if you are logged into your google account the results are both personalized (based upon your web history) and localized.

While it is good practice to employ several search strategies and to use different search engines, data suggests that most students will only use Google. Now with Google instant the displayed results of your search are different based upon where you are and who you are. While this might be a good thing if you are searching for pizza, what if you are comparing the policies of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. As you type W...A...S...H...I...N...G and so on the results you get will change instantly based upon where you are at and your past history as you type each letter. Will this be a distraction to students as they search? Student habits rarely took students past the first page of results and some would suggest that this new method of displaying results will not take students past the first three hits for the first few letters of a word that they type.

Here I typed an L into the search box while logged into my google account. The top hit is Las Vegas Review Journal. However, I bet that is not the case for my father who lives in Northern Wisconsin.

So my question is again... what implications do you think this will have on student research? Or am I over thinking the implications?

Webquests vs Websheets

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 23:21:00 +0000

Webquests seem to be a popular activity for teachers to use in their classrooms. I have no problem with webquests when used and created as they were originally intended. However the traditional webquest has been skewed into something that it shouldn't be, a websheet.

A webquest, in it's intended sense, is to divided into several parts. First the student should be presented with some sort of real world scenario/problem. The student(s) is then given some sort of role in which they need to solve that problem. The webquest (especially for students first learning how to navigate the web) then will then provide a listing of resources for students to look at to gain background, current research, and general information about the task at hand. This can help model for the student what quality web sources look like. After the student wonders through the information the students then tackle the given task, and CREATE something. They need to use upper levels of their brain and synthesize and evaluate the information. They need to come up with a solution to the problem by creating the actual product.

I have been disappointed with the number of webquests that I have found/seen/heard about that are turned into glorified worksheets, or as I call them "websheets" (not to be confused with Oricle Databases websheets). It is absurd that we continue to have students lookup, record, lookup, record, lookup, record.... and depend on Bloom's lowest level of taxonomy. Having a student look up information on a website and transfer information to a piece of paper is NOT a webquest, and does not deserve to be called that. Call it what it is a boring worksheet, that uses the internet as the source of information instead of a textbook.

Check out the webquest created by Duncan Morrissey Lisa Tattoli at SDSU called Modern Museum of Romanticism. It challenges students to look at Romantic Art and then create a museum exhibit.

Teachers, please be careful when browsing through webquests. Make sure that the webquest is of quality design and not just a last ditch effort at lesson planning. Webquest authors, please continue to create quality webquests that are fun, exciting, and challenge students to think.

Download Youtube Video

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 17:03:00 +0000

There are many ways to download and use youtube videos in presentations. This one came to my attention this summer at the BLC09 conference in Boston, MA. I like the fact that you do not not have to download any software and it is very easy to use. I have only run into a couple videos that would not download.

Professional Develpment ... Optional?

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 07 May 2008 15:49:00 +0000

I am currently working on a professional development plan to prepare our faculty for a 1:1 laptop program to be rolled out in the 09-10 school year. Next school year each month we are planning on having one 3 hour workshop. Then to supplement the workshop we are planning on having smaller sessions on a weekly basis either before or after school. The problem is that some in our school want these smaller sessions to be optional with a monetary incentive for attendance. It is of my opinion that if these sessions are not required then teacher attendance is going to be very low, even with the incentive.

The better alternative would be to make the sessions mandatory and then add an incentive for using what they have learned in the classroom. To document the use of the technology they could post the lesson plan to a school wiki, and provide examples of student work. I also think if we want to give them choices, then offer 4-6 different sessions a month and make them pick 3 or 4 of them to attend.

Teachers have enough on their plate, I know I am one, but I also know teachers are not going to come to an "optional" professional development session for a small bonus on their paycheck.

photo by edublogger on flickr.

Memorization and 21st century skills

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 21:40:00 +0000

I was sitting at our faculty in service today and our guest speaker is a prominent psychologist in our area. I was listening to him talk about strategies that we can use to help students with learning disorders be successful in our classrooms and ultimately in the "real world." Many of the strategies that he discussed were great recommendations that any good teacher should and would incorporate into their classroom.

One section of his talk did bother me. He said that memorization is a very important skill that should be taught and incorporated in all parts of the curriculum. Where does this fit into teaching students 21st century skills? He was correct in saying there is too much information for anyone to memorize, but his answer to the problem is wrong. As we are preparing our students to be successful in the 21st century, we need to get past this idea that everything needs to be memorized. As an anatomy teacher I struggle with this issue myself. We need to teach students how to access and filter the enormous amounts of information that is constantly being streamed at them. The faculty at our school was asking "How do I help my students memorize this?" The question we should be asking is "How do I teach my student to access and use the information appropriately?" We need to teach students how access the information and to use their learning network. We need to move beyond rote memorization. With technology tasks that have been traditionally left to memorization and left brain thinking can be done by a computer. We need to encourage and foster the right brain skills in order to prepare our students for the 21st century.

Teachers in the 21st Century must change and adapt to keep up with their students. The time has come for teachers to move away from rote memorization, repetitive practice, silent study without conversation, and brief exposure to topics, and instead, move closer to authentic learning.
-Dave Sherman "What Really Engages All Students?"

We need to teach students how to learn how to access the information to make informed decisions and solve real world problems.

Image from http://www.flickr.com/photos/tashamort/2316193178/ username: Natrasha

Technology Summit Day 2 Part 2

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 19:39:00 +0000

Faith Lutheran Technology Summit Day 2

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 16:01:00 +0000

Coverit live Faith Lutheran Technology Summit

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 23:40:00 +0000

What skills do our students need?

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 21:51:00 +0000

What is the technology skill set that the graduate of a High School will need to complete their college work? To enter the work force? What tasks will be second nature for them that we are not thinking about today?

In order to compete in the 21st century global economy, students need to learn how to harness the power of technology to communicate in our increasingly flat world.

If students are to learn these skills, they may need to get very different kinds of assignments. Here's a traditional assignment: "Read the following descriptions of sites in Metropolis and, referring to the specifications, determine which site would be the best for a park." A corresponding assignment that would teach 21st-century skills might be this: "Using GPS equipment, work with students from two other schools in this city to determine the best site for a park, collaborate on a multimedia presentation, and arrange to make that presentation to the city council." In the latter assignment, students use various forms of technology (Internet, Email, GPS equipment, perhaps digital cameras, PowerPoint™), solve real-life problems, and work together to produce the desired result.
Note that the technology alone is insufficient. Good pedagogy is still good pedagogy, and that means engaging students, challenging them, encouraging them, and trusting them to do well. The trick—the goal—is incorporating technology into that pedagogy.
-The Journal/21st century Skills

Good pedagogy is still good pedagogy. This year at Educon 2.0 five guiding principals were outlined in a discussion about our schools.

Our schools must be inquiry-driven, thoughtful and empowering for all members.
Our schools must be about co-creating — together with our students — the 21st Century Citizen
Technology must serve pedagogy, not the other way around.
Technology must enable students to research, create, communicate and collaborate
Learning can — and must — be networked

We also need to consider the three essential questions from Dan Pink's, A Whole New Mind:

As teachers we need to make sure that our lessons are surrounding these questions/statements. If our students are going to be competing in a global economy then we need to take a serious look at the essential learnings and pedagogy in our classrooms. In order for change to occur we need to continue to look at 21st Century literacy skills.

Biotechnology - Lego Rocking Platform

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 05:06:00 +0000

I am making my return to blogging. Next week in my AP Biology class I will be isolating green fluorescent protein from transformed bacteria. I need a rocking platform agitates a liquid bacterial culture. It is too late to order one like the one offered from Bio-Rad.

My only option was to build one myself. I went to our robotics lab and built a rocking platform out of Lego's. It fits perfectly into my incubator and was much more economical.

Below is a video of the Lego Rocking Platform in action.

Old Classroom/New Classroom

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 24 Sep 2007 17:22:00 +0000

(Click video to advance slides, right click to rewind)

Thank you Will Richardson for this great view of education. As we get more into the digital age we need to start thinking about what types of activities we are doing in our classroom. We need to start thinking about in the age of access, "Why do I have my students memorize this?" We also need to start considering, "What engages students?" "What impact are my students having on the world?" Please start a discussion here as we attempt to answer these questions.

Use for twitter!!!

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 14:23:00 +0000

Today I invited my AP Biology colleagues from around the world to join me in the twitter community. I hope this can become a collaborative, productive community. We will now have the ability to ask for immediate help on labs, questions in class, etc. I think this could become very powerful for teachers teaching the class as well as students taking the class.

Jonathan Orr

Hot Viruses... Topic of Discussion

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 22 Aug 2007 03:28:00 +0000

Over the summer my AP Biology students read a book called The Hot Zone by Richard Preston. I contacted some of the people who were written about in the book. My students next week will have the opportunity to interview Dr. Joseph McCormick about his research in Africa and his work with the Ebola virus. The interview will be conducted using a program called vsee. My students will also be talking with Jerry and Nancy Jaax. At the time of the outbreak the Jaax's were military officers on assignment at USAMRIID. I am excited to make these connections, and I know it will make learning more meaningful and powerful for my students. I have been inspired to start making connections and to collaborate by manay at BLC07. Will Richardson just disscussed the importance of this in his blog post The Future of Work–.

Ben Glenn - The Chalk Guy

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 15 Aug 2007 19:42:00 +0000

Today I had the opportunity to see Ben Glenn "The Chalk Guy" present at our school Faith Lutheran Jr/Sr High School. Ben's focus for his presentation was teaching students with ADD, and how we as educators can inspire and uplift these individuals. His ideas for helping ADD students in the classroom would also benefit all students in the classroom. Ben said that when most people walk from A to B they are so caught up in their agenda that they miss everything in between. When a student with ADD walks from A to B they notice everything in between and are drawn to the most interesting thing there. It is not A and B that are the important things, but the journey from A to B where the real learning occurs.

Marc Prensky makes the statement in his presentations "ENGAGE me or ENRAGE me". In the classroom students are going to be drawn to whatever is the most interesting in the classroom. This does not just apply to ADD students, but to all students. In most cases this is not the teacher. In order to engage students, teachers need to be creative, and step outside the box. As teachers we need to provide our digital natives with activities that truly engage them. What engages these digital natives: video games, iPods, facebook, and text messaging.

Will Richardson makes the analogy that students and teachers methods of communication used to run parallel, but now our students are veering off of that path and are showing no signs of coming back. So as teachers we need to follow them and use tools in our classroom that truly engages them and emphasizes the journey from A to B. We should be seeing more use of video production, podcasts, blogs, and chat rooms to connect our students to a real audience. Nothing is more engaging than having an expert at the CDC discuss a book about viruses, or the author of a book responding to a blog posting that a student wrote about that book. We as teachers are no longer the experts, but we have the power through technology to engage the students in collaborative activities and connect them to the real world.

Ben Glenn Photograph courtesy of http://www.chalkguy.com/. (used with permission)

Help for a Presentation

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 03 Aug 2007 02:35:00 +0000

I have been asked by my executive director at my school Faith Lutheran Jr/Sr High School to do a 45 minute presentation on Web 2.0 in the classroom. Right now very few of our teachers are blogging and using Web 2.0 tools in their classes, and we are starting a huge technology program. With this type of audience I don't know were to start. I could really use some suggestions and help with this presentation. Any comments/resources from the experts would be appreciated.

Thank you,
Jonathan Orr

Schools 2017

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 29 Jul 2007 19:30:00 +0000

When thinking about classrooms of the future I think about what Marc Prensky said in his presentations at BLC07. Marc Prensky is the author of two books, the first being Don't Bother Me Mom--I'm Learning! and the second Digital Game-Based Learning. Marc was the first person to use the terms "Digital Natives" and "Digital immigrants. Marc has also written numerous articles on classrooms of the future.

Walls are a thing of the past. Schools of the future will have much fewer walls. Learning will become much more collaborative and cross curricular. Students will be working at meeting tables collaborating on projects influenced by the "real world". Closed book memorization tests are going to be a thing of the past. In today's digital world who cares if they memorize all the capitals of the world when they can have an answer on their cell phone in under a minute by texting Google. We need to connect kids to their communities and to their world.

Dan Pink and his book A Whole New Mind tell us that schools of the future should foster skills such as creativity, empathy, contextual thinking and big picture thinking. “The greatest opportunity for change is currently found in after-school programs and informal learning communities" – MacArthur White Paper, 2007

I like the metaphor that Prensky uses in his presentations. Kids used to grow up in the dark. Schools and education were showing them the light. Digital natives with technology are growing up in the light and schools are turning off the lights. We need to bring the students back into the light. How do we do this?

I don't think anyone has the clear cut answer, bet we need to engage them more. Kids are bored with our classrooms. I do think that technology and connecting kids to the real world will with out a doubt play a huge role in engaging them.

Web 2.0 in the Classroom

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 20 Jul 2007 16:00:00 +0000

Attending BLC07 has been an inspirational experience for me. I have always "known" about the various collaboration tools available on the internet. What I haven't been able to wrap my brain around is how to apply these methods of communication in my classroom. I started BLC07 attending a workshop by Will Richardson. In his workshop he reviewed technologies such as RSS, blogs, and wikis most of which I was already familiar with. Even though we spent a lot of time reviewing technical skills, he really drove home the idea the connections we make are what is important. Alan November again repeated this same concept in another session that I attended. In education we need to connect our students to not only each other, but to others in the world. When we make connections and build our own personal networks that is when the real learning starts to occur.

What makes web 2.0 so powerful is that we can connect our students to people they may have never had a chance to connect to before. It could be an author, researcher, athlete, or anyone. When a student makes a connection to an author of a book they are reading that is really empowering for that student. Other connections that are important are that between the teacher, parent, and student. As Dr. Tim Tyson points out in his presentations the blog can help connect the parent to the classroom. Connecting the parents and family to the classroom is very important to the students education.

I am just beginning to connect myself to the world and I hope to start to help my students connect to the world as well.