Defend Your Avatar!

What do you think of avatars? Do you have an avatar? If you do, can you defend it? Can you explain what it is and what it represents?

Over the years, I've heard and told various stories of how students created some project, including  avatar development. It's an act of creation from ideas built from prior knowledge and ongoing lessons. If you have an individual avatar, you created it or described how it should be created.

If you don't have an avatar, I'd like to suggest what I consider an appropriate place to begin, no matter your age. The Bronx Zoo website is a wonderful place for teachers and their students. There are the obvious lessons about habitats, with images and lesson plans, but the Avatar Generator, BuiLD YouR WiLD SeLF is not one of the traditional lessons. Making an avatar with this web application provides an opportunity to learn about habitats as you learn to use online web applications, technology and group interactions.

Glogster Education: DIY for teachers

Try out the Glogster Education website. It's easy to add your students, and they don't have to have an email address. The teacher has control over the project distribution and content. Save money, resources and the environment by eliminating the need for traditional posters. These can be saved in .jpg format and displayed on monitors or digital photo frames.

You may use my sample, but I would appreciate it if you would link to this article or cite my work.

If you are using Glogster, what do you think of the product? What was your experience?

NRICH Your Student's Math Interactions

I have used and shared this website for several years now. Students and teachers can access a variety of math problems and activities that can enrich student's learning.

There are interactive aspects students access here, when they choose a background for their work at the NRICH website.

Try this website and sign up for their monthly newsletter.

clipped from nrich.maths.org Skip over navigation Search by Topic | Tech Help | Thesaurus The NRICH Project aims to enrich the mathematical experiences of all learners. To support this aim, members of the NRICH team work in a wide range of capacities, including providing professional development for teachers wishing to embed rich mathematical tasks into everyday classroom practice. More information on many of our other activities can be found here. thousands of our free mathematics enrichment materials (problems, articles and games) for teachers and learners from ages 5 to 19 years. All the resources are designed to develop subject knowledge, problem-solving and mathematical thinking skills. The website is updated with new material on the first day of every month. This month's mathematical theme continues to be Visualising: We use visualisation almost every time we engage in problem solving,

Vision of Innovation

Photo by Alex // Berlin (away for 3days)
Attribution-ShareAlike License

Encouraging students to use their youthful strength, the plasticity of their brain function to create or innovate is the passion of Toshiba in partnership with the National Science Teachers Association. To fulfill their passion, they created the ExploraVision Award.

When NSTA and Toshiba think of creativity and innovation, they refer to innovation in future technology, and that includes all areas of life. From previous discussions, you may think about Who is a Science Teacher? Students can pursue creative thinking through purposeful, structured means, such as lateral thinking, or they may have a unique idea, a brainstorm, that could change how some common object is used. Their creative thinking may be more unstructured and it could create a totally new process or product. Either way, students can be encouraged to explain and share their ideas for an opportunity to earn scholarships for themselves and technology for their school.

Encourage teachers to help students participate in Toshiba/NSTA's ExploraVision opportunity. Whether they win an ExploraVision award or not, they will learn to collaborate, explain and enjoy the process of creative thinking. Can you help?

Tapestry for Learning

Over the years, many teachers have dreamed of implementing their ideas within their classroom, grade or school. These teachers often need money for materials, technology and other resources, so they search for assistance. Many have received Toyota Tapestry Grants for Science Teachers. Remember, who is a Science Teacher?

The Toyota Tapestry Grant is the largest of its kind in the United States, and they award mini-grants of $2,000 and larger grants of $10,000. to K-12 Science Teachers in the United States.

The three categories in which grants will be awarded are:

1. Environmental Science Education
2. Physical Science Applications
3. Integrating Literacy & Science

To find out more about applying for the Toyota Tapestry Grant, visit the Toyota Tapestry Program website. These applications will be completed online, and the deadline for submission is 11:59PM, Eastern Standard Time, Wednesday, January 21, 2009. Let's hop to it. Don't delay!

Are You Sure You Aren't a Science Teacher?

Photo by Lucy Nieto
Attribution-NoDerivs License

Have you been fooling yourself into thinking that you are NOT a Science teacher? Hmm! What is a common response to this question: "Do you teach Science?" No, I don't  teach Science, I don't even like Science.

Often, we are so locked into our 20th century INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTIONary mindset, that we think we ONLY teach History, Language Arts, PE or other separate topic. I think it is more prudent, as we move away from the ASSEMBLY LINE mindset, to think of  ourselves as TEACHERS of children, not TEACHERS of a topic.

For instance, how can one teach of the end of the Dark Ages in Europe (the unkown times), without mentioning the pivotal role played by the rapid spread of one of the most famous of all pandemics (or series of pandemics) the bubonic plague, the Black Death? So, History teachers ARE Science teachers after all. That is just ONE example.

A very popular history book of recent times is Guns, Germs and Steel. It tells the story of the past 13,000 years as it references the introduction of steel and guns as well as the well documented use of germ warfare by warring factions.

In Physical Education, the teacher is concerned with the improvement of the overall physical fitness of their students. When their students are fit, they think better, play more actively and enjoy life more. I wonder? Do PE  teachers teach about nutrition, healthy habits, muscle control, rules for games, etc? Yup, PE teachers are science teachers too.

There is not one ASSEMBLY LINE strand of education, and all the interactive, symbiotic education of the 21st Century includes aspects of science. Therefore, every teacher is a science teacher, we just haven't moved ourselves off the ASSEMBLY LINE and into the 21st Century yet.

I think you will agree that every teacher is a science teacher, and the corollary also must be true.

Blogged with the Flock Browser

BubbleSnaps: Quick and Easy

BubbleSnap was recommended by a colleague in Plurkadia, so I tried it out. Whether you have unlimited time to think of a clever saying to go in the bubble, or you need something NOW, BubbleSnap will work for you.

My colleague used shared how she used BubbleSnap to develop an introductory letter for her students. I think another use would be to develop a captioned BubbleSnap picture to be used as an anticipatory set, questions on a test or any number of other educational ideas.

I downloaded, captioned, emailed, saved and copied my sample BubbleSnap to blog in under 5 minutes. You can also use your Flickr pictures.

BubbleSnap is easy to use, and the steps are very straightforward. You can email, print or blog your BubbleSnap. I recommend it for anyone, but especially for teachers and students.

Choices Teachers Make

The core philosophy of the PLN, Personal Learning Network, sometimes called by a variety of names like: Personal Learning Environment(PLE), Personal Learning Community (PLC), Professional Learning Network (PLN), or Professional Learning Community(PLC), remains the collaboration among your peers, professional in their field of expertise, in my case: teaching. When other people, who work to educate and inform their best practices, share their experiences and reflect on how these best practices informed their actions, they become your teacher. This is the reciprocal teaching factor that plays such an important role in effective professional development.

Relating to teachers' choices in learning to know our students and using that information to guide best practice is my focus. Children's interests in the 21st century can be boosted by all teachers and parents, not just by those with advanced resources. With that caveat in mind, this advertisement video does illustrate the point of how we can use technology as a tool to enhance learning while we get to know our students.

Today, I was reading blog posts among those from my PLN, and I was so drawn to this post, Successful Teaching: Highlighting Students’ Talents, by my colleague/friend, Pat Hensley, also known as loonyhiker, I knew I NEEDED to respond to it. This poignant story of how the teacher can validate or deny a person's ability to achieve in school based on their perceptions prompted me to make this response to Pat's thoughtful reflection of best practice as she experienced it. She reminded me that quality teaching is a choice that teachers make with help from a quality learning community.

I appreciated your reflective questions relating your experiences with your skateboard boy and the yoyo boy in the video. Children have hobbies, and frequently these hobbies are reflections of what they would want to do for work as adults. I am always concerned when these talents are dismissed out of hand.



While other teachers dismissed skateboard boy and his talents, you did not. "I would ask him why he was so good for me and not others and he looked at me and said, 'You like me and wouldn’t let me get away with any of that.' He felt the other teachers didn’t like him but he knew I cared and that made a big difference to him."

I am sure the other teachers may have thought they liked him, but as Dr. William Glasser, MD says in his classic, The Quality School Teacher:
"...we will work hard for those we care for(belonging), for those we respect and who respect us(power), for those with whom we laugh (fun), for those who allow us to think and act for ourselves (freedom), and for those who help us to make our lives secure (survival). The more that all five of these needs are satisfied in our relationship with the (teacher)manager who asks us to do the work, the harder we will work for that (teacher)manager.

Teachers also need opportunities to make appropriate choices, and they deserve principal teachers who are lead managers.

Sometimes not all teachers have the opportunity to work with those who will bring out their best, so they revert to a more coercive stance. I believe schools can be greatly helped if everyone works to make their school The Quality School I hope you don't mind that I have included a link to one of my blog posts, n2teaching: The Quality School Teacher, that relates to yours.

Thanks for this thought-provoking post that reminds me why teachers teach.

YouTube, Copyright and Lucacept

Are you developing lessons on Acceptable Use Practices, copyright issues, or Creative Commons? Then you may be interested in my discussion of this topic, as well as a wonderful blog posting by Jenny Luca at lucacept with her questions about the trends in copyright, education, students, the internet and teachers, YouTube and Copyright: the dilemma for educators.

Jenny ends her posting with these thoughtful questions.

I’m wondering about the future of copyright and what may happen now that user generated content is really taking off. Will we see a backlash against copyright regulations? Will we see users post their content and stipulate that it can be used and reformatted so that educators can employ it in classrooms to convey important messages? Will more people use creative commons licences to allow their work to be used easily in educational settings? Will the copyright council be able to stem the flow of infringements to the law as more and more educators realise the potential benefits of YouTube to provide useful content for classroom instruction?

This is my response, and I am responsible for my opinions and statements on this topic. Thanks go to those who prompted me to think of these topics, but they are in no way responsible for any of my opinions or statements here.

Your insightful lessons using YouTube must encourage students to upload their work [there], and this is a wonderful extension of this popular media venue into their educational life.

Thanks for the tip on downloading before the lesson. That would help prevent ruined lessons from technical malfunctions.

Hopefully, Creative Commons Copyright will become more prevalent. I use the Share-alike Copyright, in my work, and I encourage others to consider it. Even though some dispute it, teachers have permission to use work under American copyright for educational purposes.

I follow Lawrence Lessig's lessons and stories(Free Culture) on what happened when business became more important that expression.

I am all for making money, yet I agree with those who believe that family or corporate empires don't need to be maintained from one person's or group's work. For example, our new copyright laws directly favored Sonny Bono's widow (who replaced him in the US Congress, after his untimely death while on a SKI TRIP).

I am not sure why the work of Sonny Bono is more important than the work of John Phillip Sousa, but hey you never know.

Lawrence Lessig,[Stanford law professor] gives an excellent Ted speech about John Phillip Sousa's active disagreement with long copyrights. Sousa believed that we would have a more creative, richer world if people were allowed to have access to copyrighted work after a much shorter time than we have now. I agree.

Thanks for discussing this important topic.

PageFlake Focus on Science

When I locate new science rss feeds, reputable resources, I add them to my public N2Teaching Science PageFlake. Earlier this month, I found websites that relate to Biology, Chemistry, Oceanography, Physics and other sciences. I hope you will take a moment to look over the other rss feeds in my public PageFlake Focus on Science.

Images created are referenced to Joe Landis, of the National Science Foundation. The original websites fed into this Science PageFlake belong to very reliable science research groups who are participating in the US Polar Year 2007-2008. There is an rss feed for the general public, and you can also find several rss feeds intended for teachers.

Voki, OK!

Voki, Oki, Oki, Oy! When the producers of Voki discovered this name, they were on to something engaging. The web application is cool, the name is cool and the ways you can use it are cool. Voki is very cool.

My first experience with Voki was on a profile page of one of my Classroom 2.0 colleagues, Jonelle. I was smitten. The realistic avatars, backgrounds and presentation box were so appealing that I had to find out about Voki.

Students are also enticed by Voki, even mature, sophisticates (young adults) have engaged Voki. They use it to tell about themselves, to share information about their school and to practice their online, interactive skills in a protected environment.

Since Voki is a widget, a web application, it stands alone. While you do sign up for Voki, you don't have to interact within a community to benefit from this application. I have seen Voki avatars in a variety of online places, including profiles, blogs, wikis and webspaces. Any of these places can provide students a protected environment where they can experiment and develop educational online experiences.

One aspect of Voki that can be interactive is the comment section of the Voki box, so students can respond to a Voki presentation, just as they might comment on a blog. While commenting or making their first Voki, students don't have to use their own voices. Voki has a text to talk mechanism with a choice of several accents and voices of both genders. I use the Kate voice who has a slight British accent, and I consider it most effective.

Earlier, I wrote a blogpost explaining how to accomplish a action research based evaluation of Voki, as used by students called, "Welcome to My Web!", Said the Spider to the Fly, included Voki and Weather Widget in a blogpost. The purpose of this first post included evaluating web based, online applications, so I reviewed Voki as soon as I started using it.

Recently, I decided to make another review of Voki, because I believe this widget has met critical mass among those teachers using online, web applications with their students. In one day, I found Voki on the majority of the new websites, blogs and wikis that I visited among a group of teachers planning an online educational conference. That is above and beyond all of my colleagues on various educational networks who are using Voki extensively.

Documenting this rise in the use of Voki, I made several searches, some were general search engines and the social bookmarking network, favored by teachers, del.icio.us. If there are other networks or search engines that I could use in the future, please let me know;D Here are some of the results:

*del.icio.us There were a total of 139 SEPARATE bookmarks for VOKI. Within those bookmarks, more than 5,000 users had also selected this combination of 139 bookmarks.

*google.com A total of 33,000 website references contained this search string: Voki, education, school. Amazing!

*yahoo.com More than 40,000 urls contained the same three tags: Voki, education, school. There are thousands more because I noticed that all tags of Voki in Classroom 2.0 were clustered in one search result, so that is probably the same situation in all the educational network searches.

*adonomics.com A Facebook analysis and developer services has many compare/contrast analyses. This one is comparing Voki to Meez.

References to Voki can be found in Digg and Ask.com, so it seems the point is proven that Voki has reached critical mass for educational use around the world. Have fun and learn with Voki;D

BTW: I find it very exciting to see the expression of the promise of a particular widget that I know has great educational potential. There are specific educational activities and projects that Voki can enable or enhance, and that is a blogpost all in itself.

The Quality School Teacher

While moderating comments on this blog, I came across one poignant comment made by an anonymous college student. This student was reading Dr. William Glasser's profound work, The Quality School: Managing Students Without Coercion. Afterward, Anonymous would continue the assignment by making a lesson based on the tenets proposed in The Quality School.

I was so touched by the powerful comment of this anonymous person wanting to learn more, yet recognizing that Dr. Glasser's ideas are timeless in the power to move learning beyond anything we often experience.

Immediately, I responded with encouragement and (hopefully) a suggestion, as Dr. William Glasser would say, that Anonymous would be well served to adapt some of the lessons shared in The Quality School.

That wasn't the end, for me. I began to think,

What did Dr. Glasser's work mean to me? and How did it affect my teaching philosophy and practice?

It seems to me that Anonymous must be on a similar journey.

As I thought back to the time when I first learned about The Quality School, I recognized two basic questions that guided my personal learning process to improve my impact as a teacher.

*How could I be effective in teaching and learning?
*Where do I start the journey?

Starting remains a potent obstacle in anyone's work, so I was hoping that my words were of some help to Anonymous. I believe that Anonymous wants to be an excellent teacher who is beginning the quest to teach well.

Anonymous was also a great help to me. When I read my original post, The Quality School, I realized I needed to go back to the core of my experiences in learning about The Quality School. I would refresh my experiences on my educational journey. I needed my STUFF.

I keep all of my teaching artifacts, materials, and books, including Dr. Glasser's in my small warehouse on a farm about 4 miles out of town. Yesterday, I decided to go out there and find these books. Since I hadn't been out to the warehouse in several months, I was concerned. I hoped I wouldn't spend a great amount of time looking for the right box among the vast number I use at various times in my teaching and professional development.

When I began looking, I was overwhelmed and amazed at how well I organized my STUFF. I forgot that I finally did it. I really organized my STUFF, so I could utilize it.

Every box had a detailed label on it. I enjoyed looking through the boxes, cabinets, and drawers as I thought about all the lessons past, present and future. After thirty minutes, I had oriented myself well enough to seriously look for my favorite books on education philosophy, psychology, and pedagogy.

As I lifted one box from the top, I noticed some valuable notebooks containing lessons on graphic organizers for reading, writing and math. I set these by the door. Then I looked in the same area and there was a small plastic container that said "MOM's CDs". I wondered, "What's this?". I opened them and found music CDs I thought I had lost, but now they were found. Right next to this container was a very sturdy cardboard box with my handwritten note: IMPORTANT EDUCATIONAL BOOKS, INCLUDING THE QUALITY SCHOOL.

Surprise and shock ruled the moment, and then I felt that strong sense of elation when you truly accomplish a task well.

I took my loot home, after I did the Dance of Joy.

Beyond these past two days, I continue sorting, reading, writing and thinking. Tonight, I finished reading The Quality School Teacher, and I focused my efforts surveying class activities and lessons related to Dr. Glasser's tenets.

Even now, after all these years, I am overwhelmed by Dr. Glasser's work. I would like to share THE SIX CONDITIONS OF QUALITY SCHOOLWORK, that he discusses in Chapter Three, The Six Conditions of Quality of the bookThe Quality School Teacher.

1. There must be a warm, supportive classroom environment.
2. Students should be asked to do only useful work.
3. Students are always asked to do the best they can do.
4. Students are asked to evaluate their own work and improve it.
5. Quality work always feels good.
6. Quality work is NEVER destructive.

Now, I know why I was so affected by the short, yet profound anonymous comment about The Quality School. When you read about how you, the teacher, can teach and live in a quality school, it is a shock, a revelation. Quality seems impossible, but that is what Dr. Glasser says is only our personal reaction, based on our own lack of experience.

Tweet, Tweet!

Unless you are a student of early 20th century music, Mitch Miller, or children's music, you may not recognize this song, Let's All Sing Like the Birdies Sing! Tweet, Tweet, Tweet. Tweet, Tweet!, but it is appropriate for what all twitterers do! We TWEET! & TWEET! often. I find Twitter to be an excellent mini-blogging and social networking tool that does allow opportunities for use in the classroom.

At Classroom 2.0, Elizabeth Davis started a discussion on Twitter, Are You Using Twitter?.


Many of us have contributed some interesting thoughts about why, how, where, when we tweet and to whom we tweet. This has been one of the most informative, interesting discussions we have had while I have been a member of Classroom 2.0 educational social network. Please access the discussion. You will enjoy it.

As the discussion progressed, the CR2.0 network evaluated the finer points of our use of Twitter. An important issue discussed was whether to follow people who don't follow you. The problem is that you become interested in their tweets, but you can't send them messages unless they also follow you. My ambiguous thoughts are reflected here:

Following someone on TWITTER is not all it's cracked up to be....sometimes! I don't follow anyone, for long, who won't follow me within a time span, UNLESS there are some overcompensating issues....such as access to information, humor, or other points of interest in their tweets.

For instance, it is highly unlikely (although not impossible:) that Leo Laporte, of TechTV, Twit.tv, and lately Lab with Leo will probably ever follow me, BUT he provides information that is so valuable TO ME that I continue to follow him. He also does not overwhelm my twitter network.

This interaction problem is not a drawback on Jaiku! I really like the comment section on each Jaiku posting. I can comment on anyone's Jaiku posting. There will be people who won't like this, and that is why they may appreciate the selectiveness of Twitter more than Jaiku's forum like qualities.

If people do not want to have a person on their Jaiku contact list, they can remove them. In my experience, what really happens is that most people check your Jaiku postings, and they often become a follower or at least they accept comments and contact! :)

Right now, another member of the #twit(tv) group and I are having a conversation about the low number of women geeks. He thinks there should be more, and I agree! I commented on his posting to Jaiku to #twit(tv)....because I am in the twit(tv) group. He is not in my individual contact list and I am not an individual contact on his list. As a result of this conversation, we may follow each other, or not....BUT we can interact.

What do you think about social networks, such as miniblogging and instant messaging? Do you use Twitter? If not, why not?

Still on the Road

I am still on the road, and I will return home from Topeka tomorrow, Friday, October 5, 2007. Today's posting will be short, and I have nothing but good news to report. I have completed the entire teacher licensure renewal process on the 230 professional development points I earned in the last two years that I taught at USD #259, Wichita, KS.

So, what can I say, it is wonderful. The Wichita Public Schools educational system is one organized, professional student-centered school district. Wednesday, October 3, 2007, when I arrived at the school district offices where they take care of teachers' professional development transcripts, all my documents were ready. My professional development points transcript was printed, signed, and placed in a sealed envelope ready for me to carry to Topeka.

When I arrived in Topeka, I went to the KSDE office. I turned in my application for renewal and all the supporting documentation. The specialists there were very helpful. More details to follow later.

If you want to be the very best teacher possible, work hard, be supported, and change children's lives, you should consider teaching in Wichita, KS.

7 Steps For Online Class

TappedIN, an educational social network, is sponsored by Stanford Research Institute, Inc. within their Center for Technology in Learning, an innovator in educational research interests, including TappedIN.

Follow
these seven simple steps to discover TappedIN, the online tech campus.
You can have an office and make protected classrooms for K-12 students.
TappedIN is robust and receptive to the educational needs of teachers,
students and tech leaders:

1. Visit TappedIN as a guest. Sign in as a guest. Enable chat.
   


2. After signing in, you will be directed to the Reception Room.


3. You have arrived. Usually, volunteers are available to help...if you want.
   


4. Move your cursor to the bottom of the TappedIN Reception Room and read the Quick orientation to Tapped In.


5. At the top of the webpage, you will see tabs. Click on the Me tab. Read your message.
   


6. Click on the TappedIN tab and visit the campus, people and calendar of events.


7. After that, the "sky's the limit"...read more, join TappedIN, talk online or visit offices.