Taking Five, of course May 23, 2008
Posted by Wendy Wolfe in Friday Five, Random Thoughts.add a comment
This week was a crazy one. Our seniors finished school today, I presented to a St Mary’s Social Studies Methods course and at the MN eLearning Summit, and now it is (finally) quiet. Usually I like to write earlier in the day, or even Thursday, but this post is definitely in the spirit of taking five.
At the eLearning Summit, I was reminded of a video (4m 44s) looking at students today, please forgive me if I have shared it with you previously, but I think watching it (again) is never a bad thing, especially as we get ready to take a summer break and, at some point, begin to think about and plan for next year. Michael Wesch (creator of the video) was the keynote speaker for the eLearning Summit and he provided a great peek into the issues that challenge education, especially post-secondary which is what we all want our students to someday be prepared for. With that in mind, I hope you enjoy the video – we will just perpetuate the viral status of the video, but that isn’t all bad either. 
Have a great weekend -
Wendy
Summer Technology Symposium Preview May 16, 2008
Posted by Wendy Wolfe in Educational Resources, Friday Five, Toondoo, Webbased tools, Wikis.add a comment
I am so excited about the opportunity our staff has this summer – to spend four mornings learning more about PowerPoint’s capabilities, Web 2.0 tools, podcasting, movie making, games, and more! Today’s Friday Five invites you to take five minutes to check out some student projects that showcase some of the things we will be learning about this summer.
1. Working with podcasts and making movies. For this assignment, students (seniors) took one of President Bush’s Saturday Morning Radio Addresses and turned it into a movie. For many of them, it was their first experience making a movie. A works cited list was submitted as part of the assignment. Two of the students submitted their work to YouTube, one of them is linked here.
2. Use cartooning and music videos to tell stories, teach about Supreme Court cases, whatever you want them to. Here you will find examples of cartoons and music videos designed to teach about Landmark Supreme Court cases – students created them then posted them to the class wiki to showcase their work.
(The music videos play when you click the play button on the green screen.)
3. An example of a digital flowchart – while this was for the Crusades, the possibilities are endless.
And we will do so much more! It will be an exciting week.
Spelling Saturday May 10, 2008
Posted by Wendy Wolfe in Educational Resources, Friday Five, Uncategorized.add a comment
This morning on GMA there was a 15 second spot on a school zone in Nevada (if I heard correctly) where someone painting “School 15MPH” on the street of a school zone as “Scool 15MPH.” (I have not yet found the picture, if you do, please send the link my way, I’m going to continue looking. At several technology conferences I have attended, some seem to say everything is at our fingertips so we need to teach process over content. At least we still need to learn to spell. As our school works on there/their/they’re and its v. it’s I found a group (TEAL: The Typo Eradication Advancement League) who has a mission to fix the misspellings and typos around the country. I love it. The hotel in Kansas City was not overly receptive when I mentioned their typo on their sign in the parking lot and that was the only time I ever mentioned something like that. (If you would like to see a video clip about TEAL, check here.)
TEAL is posting their adventures to a blog and in their blogroll, they have a list of seven blogs dedicated to spelling and grammar – what great resources and examples of abuses of the English language. My pet peeve is usually hearing people say “oriented” as “orientated.” There just isn’t a second “t.” One of my favorite spelling-related moments in the classroom came a couple of years ago when one student asked, “How do you spell ‘orientated?’” I responded, “You can’t.” A great spelling discussion ensued.
I know this post is a little late (I generally post on Fridays for The Friday Five) but tis week I spent the “Five’s” time on a brochure for an upcoming TG Staff Tech conference we will offer this summer and how appropriate for this post, I spent yesterday fixing a typo on the brochure only to decide there was a grammatical error so I recycled all 75 color copies and will have them reprinted for Tuesday
Happy spelling and happy weekend!
mp3 player? ipod? Welcome to another tool… May 2, 2008
Posted by Wendy Wolfe in Friday Five, Tools.add a comment
Before and after school you see students walking around with strings going up to their ears – is what they are listening to educational? The answer is probably not…but it could be. This installment of the Friday Five looks at the MP3 player and offers five examples of food for thought regarding the uses of them in educational settings. I hope you can take five and explore! (One more thing, you should know that even without an MP3 player, anyone with a computer can access the audio and video files too.)
PC Magazine defines an mp3 player as: “A digital music player that supports the MP3 format, which was the audio format that started a revolution in online music downloads and distribution. All portable music players, the iPod being the most popular, support MP3 along with one or more other audio formats. CD players, whether shelf units or portable, may also play back MP3 files.” Some also play video files. A common misperception held by many new to the MP3 world is that everything needs to be purchased. On the contrary – not only can you create your own content, but scores of free MP3 files are available.
The following are several ways MP3 players are being used for educational purposes:
Professional sports teams are using the video iPod to help pitchers study the swings of batters.
Would you like to learn Arabic? Brush up on your Latin? Spanish? French? Check out these free foreign language lessons!
How are iPods being used in collegiate settings? This article from the Christian Science Monitor gives a peek into some of the ways iPods contribute to academics (and addresses some of the new ethical issues as well). And here you will find Duke’s summary report on the use of iPods in their classrooms – some exciting results!
Health and fitness? How about some free workout videos?
iPods are even in elementary schools!
If you have questions about iPods, you should know most students (at least the ones with the earbud “strings” coming out of their ears) will be happy to tell you about them – many faculty members too. Off the top of my head (and I am sure there are many more in our building), I can think of at least one campus minister, a science teacher, a music teacher, an English teacher (Mary Ellen), and two Social Studies teachers, (Ann and your’s truly) who love their iPods and I am sure they would be happy to talk with you about their experiences with them.
Cost? An entry-level iPod shuffle is around $60. Some interesting food for thought as this school year is ending and over summer we can think about hopes and dreams for next year…
Happy Friday and thanks for taking “Five.”
Wendy
