Friday, December 31, 2010
Thursday, December 30, 2010
12 Days of Christmas
Video #12 (OK, so it's not a video of technologically made music, but these flash mob things are pretty cool, eh? i thought it would be a good set up for the big event tomorrow night, the biggest gathering of mobs around the glode, New Year's Eve!!)
Wednesday, December 29, 2010
Tuesday, December 28, 2010
Monday, December 27, 2010
Sunday, December 26, 2010
Saturday, December 25, 2010
Friday, December 24, 2010
Thursday, December 23, 2010
Wednesday, December 22, 2010
Tuesday, December 21, 2010
Monday, December 20, 2010
Sunday, December 19, 2010
12 Days of Christmas
In order to celebrate/countdown to Christmas and No:ia, i offer you a new video each day, spotlighting how technology can be used to make/teach/learn music. And anyone who knows music, knows that music IS math...
Enjoy, and Merry Christmas!! No:ia, No:ia!!
Video #1
Enjoy, and Merry Christmas!! No:ia, No:ia!!
Video #1
Wednesday, December 15, 2010
It's Time To Trust Teachers with the Internet
Funny. i don't recall doing this interview, nor changing my name to "Meg Ormiston". Bizarre, but read on... It's Time To Trust Teachers with the Internet: A Conversation with Meg Ormiston
For Meg Ormiston, it's a wonder sometimes that teachers don't just give up. Restrictive Internet policies in schools, coupled with unresponsive IT departments and beleaguered administrators, present teachers with a nearly impossible situation: They're being pressured to incorporate 21st century teaching and learning into their classrooms, but they're not being allowed to use the tools they need to do that. They're being hamstrung. And so are their students.
Ormiston has served as a curriculum coach, school board member, conference presenter, professional development specialist, and grant facilitator. Currently, she consults with schools on incorporating technology into the classroom to reach 21st century learners. And that requires her to continue speaking up for teachers who aren't yet trusted with Internet access in their classrooms.
In this interview, Ormiston told us that while there are legitimate barriers to using some Internet technologies in classrooms, the justifications in many cases are much flimsier. Bandwidth might be too limited for the widespread use of streaming video, granted, but in a lot of cases, the reasons for the restrictive policies aren't very clear. Schools seem simply not to trust teachers, the very individuals they've hired for their training and certification as professionals formally qualified to care for children in a classroom setting.
And, as she observed, if schools by this point can't trust teachers to decide whether a given Web site is appropriate for their students, how can they trust those teachers in the classroom at all?
Ormiston will be speaking at three sessions on these topics at the FETC 2011 conference, being held Jan. 31 through Feb. 3, 2011 in Florida: "Playing School or Preparing for Life?" and "Bringing the World to Your Classroom Using Web 2.0 Tools."
THE Journal: A lot of schools are blocking access to the Internet--especially to social networking sites and resources. Why is this happening?
Meg Ormiston: I'm a parent, and I think it's important for us to protect children. But we have to look at teaching and learning too. We want to keep kids safe, and I'm all good with locking pornography. But we have to remember to teach responsible computing. That includes social networking. We have to help students make good choices with networking resources and sites they visit and help them know right from wrong. We can't blanket-block everything because that's also blocking learning.
One of the examples I use is YouTube. Yes, there are inappropriate things on YouTube. But there are such rich wonderful learning opportunities too. As budgets continue to be slashed, YouTube offers a lot of learning opportunities. Should we filter and check them? Absolutely. Nobody should be trusted in the classroom with students if they can't also be trusted to use YouTube appropriately.
When I started teaching, we had to make sure to preview videos and filmstrips before we showed them. Teachers need to be the filters to make sure that what's on YouTube is appropriate. But that means they need to be given the opportunity to access YouTube for teaching and learning.
THE Journal: What's the hold-up on unblocking filters?
Ormiston: For some schools, it's a legitimate problem of bandwidth. There's just not enough network power coming into those buildings for kids to be streaming videos. In those situations I can see restricting it for certain times. Or in some buildings they limit it during their peak hours. I understand the bandwidth issues.
Another issue is that people who are not certified educators are making decisions about what is blocked. Or a lot of times, it's the piece of software that the district has purchased that makes the blanket decisions. Social networking on many tools will be blocked. That will cut out all opportunities to use images on Flickr, VoiceThread, Blogster.... A piece of software is running the Web filter and blocking full categories, which means we're blocking a lot of learning because of the label of "social networking." Most of the software has the ability to overwrite the filter. But some districts don't give anybody the opportunity to overwrite it.
But I know it can be done. On the flip side, I [work with] one high school where all that they're blocking is Facebook and the whole category of pornography. Everything else is up to the discretion of the educators.
THE Journal: What's the opportunity that's lost when schools are more restrictive?
Ormiston: If you're doing nothing but blocking all day long, teachers are going to give up using technology. If I were to keep hitting the wall again and again, I'd give up. I'd go back to the tools that I had before the computer was around. It's a turn-off for teachers. When I go into those districts, I hear, "You can't get it here." They give up. And so would I.
But the biggest part of the problem is that when students go home, it's the Wild West out there. There's no blocking in most cases. There's no filtering. There's usually not an adult to help them make good choices. And they haven't been instructed in the schools about what's appropriate and what's not. That's my biggest fear. We're letting kids wander around on the prairie with no guidance.
THE Journal: So how can an educator make a successful case for opening up access to the Internet?
Ormiston: Unfortunately, this is the worst part. You have to send your teachers home to learn because they can't learn Web 2.0 tools or any of these social networking tools at school--because they're all blocked. Once your teacher goes home to learn, then they have to come back and say, "I'd really like to use this for this purpose. This aligns with my curriculum. This is age appropriate..."
But here's the hard part. Even if those teachers go home and find VoiceThread, what then? Many teachers don't even have anybody in their building to go [to]. They might be able to fill out a form for a service desk or ask the principal, who's already overwhelmed, but a lot of them don't have a point person to say, "This is really useful, and I'd like to use it with my class." They don't have any options. If I were them, I would give up.
Another thing:. These tools are constantly changing. We need to be able to get to the locking and unlocking at the moment you need it for teaching and learning. [In] one of my districts it takes two and a half weeks to get an answer about whether the site will be open or not. Most people just give up the site because they know the answer is going to come back from some central office, and the answer is going to be no. So we give up. Then somebody comes with questions: "Why aren't we using more technologies in the schools? Why isn't it making difference?"
What's crazy is that I can walk into a high school and have a student show me how to get around any filter put up. So the students know the work-arounds, and the teachers' hands are tied.
THE Journal: What needs to be in place for a school to open up access?
Ormiston: A lot of really focused professional development. It's not enough to say, "Woo-hoo! We're open today!" We've locked teachers down for so long, they need to know what's appropriate, what's not, what to preview, what the best sites are for getting started if they're new to this. And we need professional development not only for our teachers but also for our administrators.
THE Journal: Why the administrators?
Ormiston: The leader has to have the vision to make change. Many leaders don't have deep technical backgrounds. So when the expert in the IT department says, "No, no, no," it's hard for the school administrator to say, "Yes, yes, yes," if [he or she] hasn't been exposed to social networking sites or to the possible teaching and learning opportunities. The easy answer is to block everything. Then we'll be safe. But we're really not.
THE Journal: Say the filtering is lifted. Suddenly, the riches of the kingdom are available to educators. What should they do next?
Ormiston: A tiered approach is great. Most of the filtering software is tiered. Let's start off by opening access for teachers, and let them explore and begin to figure out how to use YouTube appropriately in the classroom. Let's see what happens. Everything is going to be fine. Then let's start changing permissions for students.
When I'm working with a blocked and filtered school, and they're starting to think about coming out of it, I often recommend opening one site a month or one site a week, if they can handle it: "This week we're going to try Wordle and make tag clouds.... We're all going to try VoiceThread...."
THE Journal: Do you think you'll ever be able to stop talking about this stuff?
Ormiston: Sometimes I just say, can't we talk about something else? I feel like it's so old. When are we going to snap out of it? When are we going to realize that you can block and filter until you're blue. But [then kids] open up their smart phones, and there's not a block or filter, and they're sitting in your schools.
Education is the key. Leadership is absolutely the key. The leader has to understand why this is important, then advocate to others [on behalf of] the faculty and students that this is about teaching and learning today.
People say to me, you don't understand the network, and I keep saying, no, I don't. I focus on teaching and learning. I'll say to IT people, you'd be happiest if nobody ever came to school, because then there'd be nobody to block, filter, cause problems, hack.... They'd have nothing to worry about.
But this is about a living, breathing, and ever-changing community. Every time we get one of these new tools, we have an opportunity to engage students. That's what it's about. It's not about locking things behind the gate. It's about appropriate engagement. We have to find the tools that we can embed into curriculum that students will really enjoy. They do not enjoy another packet of papers. They want multimedia. They crave the opportunity to work with other people--and other people outside of our schools. With a lot of these tools, we have that opportunity--of course, with supervision.
We lose so many opportunities when a network person says, "No Skyping in our school district...."
For Meg Ormiston, it's a wonder sometimes that teachers don't just give up. Restrictive Internet policies in schools, coupled with unresponsive IT departments and beleaguered administrators, present teachers with a nearly impossible situation: They're being pressured to incorporate 21st century teaching and learning into their classrooms, but they're not being allowed to use the tools they need to do that. They're being hamstrung. And so are their students.
Ormiston has served as a curriculum coach, school board member, conference presenter, professional development specialist, and grant facilitator. Currently, she consults with schools on incorporating technology into the classroom to reach 21st century learners. And that requires her to continue speaking up for teachers who aren't yet trusted with Internet access in their classrooms.
In this interview, Ormiston told us that while there are legitimate barriers to using some Internet technologies in classrooms, the justifications in many cases are much flimsier. Bandwidth might be too limited for the widespread use of streaming video, granted, but in a lot of cases, the reasons for the restrictive policies aren't very clear. Schools seem simply not to trust teachers, the very individuals they've hired for their training and certification as professionals formally qualified to care for children in a classroom setting.
And, as she observed, if schools by this point can't trust teachers to decide whether a given Web site is appropriate for their students, how can they trust those teachers in the classroom at all?
Ormiston will be speaking at three sessions on these topics at the FETC 2011 conference, being held Jan. 31 through Feb. 3, 2011 in Florida: "Playing School or Preparing for Life?" and "Bringing the World to Your Classroom Using Web 2.0 Tools."
THE Journal: A lot of schools are blocking access to the Internet--especially to social networking sites and resources. Why is this happening?
Meg Ormiston: I'm a parent, and I think it's important for us to protect children. But we have to look at teaching and learning too. We want to keep kids safe, and I'm all good with locking pornography. But we have to remember to teach responsible computing. That includes social networking. We have to help students make good choices with networking resources and sites they visit and help them know right from wrong. We can't blanket-block everything because that's also blocking learning.
One of the examples I use is YouTube. Yes, there are inappropriate things on YouTube. But there are such rich wonderful learning opportunities too. As budgets continue to be slashed, YouTube offers a lot of learning opportunities. Should we filter and check them? Absolutely. Nobody should be trusted in the classroom with students if they can't also be trusted to use YouTube appropriately.
When I started teaching, we had to make sure to preview videos and filmstrips before we showed them. Teachers need to be the filters to make sure that what's on YouTube is appropriate. But that means they need to be given the opportunity to access YouTube for teaching and learning.
THE Journal: What's the hold-up on unblocking filters?
Ormiston: For some schools, it's a legitimate problem of bandwidth. There's just not enough network power coming into those buildings for kids to be streaming videos. In those situations I can see restricting it for certain times. Or in some buildings they limit it during their peak hours. I understand the bandwidth issues.
Another issue is that people who are not certified educators are making decisions about what is blocked. Or a lot of times, it's the piece of software that the district has purchased that makes the blanket decisions. Social networking on many tools will be blocked. That will cut out all opportunities to use images on Flickr, VoiceThread, Blogster.... A piece of software is running the Web filter and blocking full categories, which means we're blocking a lot of learning because of the label of "social networking." Most of the software has the ability to overwrite the filter. But some districts don't give anybody the opportunity to overwrite it.
But I know it can be done. On the flip side, I [work with] one high school where all that they're blocking is Facebook and the whole category of pornography. Everything else is up to the discretion of the educators.
THE Journal: What's the opportunity that's lost when schools are more restrictive?
Ormiston: If you're doing nothing but blocking all day long, teachers are going to give up using technology. If I were to keep hitting the wall again and again, I'd give up. I'd go back to the tools that I had before the computer was around. It's a turn-off for teachers. When I go into those districts, I hear, "You can't get it here." They give up. And so would I.
But the biggest part of the problem is that when students go home, it's the Wild West out there. There's no blocking in most cases. There's no filtering. There's usually not an adult to help them make good choices. And they haven't been instructed in the schools about what's appropriate and what's not. That's my biggest fear. We're letting kids wander around on the prairie with no guidance.
THE Journal: So how can an educator make a successful case for opening up access to the Internet?
Ormiston: Unfortunately, this is the worst part. You have to send your teachers home to learn because they can't learn Web 2.0 tools or any of these social networking tools at school--because they're all blocked. Once your teacher goes home to learn, then they have to come back and say, "I'd really like to use this for this purpose. This aligns with my curriculum. This is age appropriate..."
But here's the hard part. Even if those teachers go home and find VoiceThread, what then? Many teachers don't even have anybody in their building to go [to]. They might be able to fill out a form for a service desk or ask the principal, who's already overwhelmed, but a lot of them don't have a point person to say, "This is really useful, and I'd like to use it with my class." They don't have any options. If I were them, I would give up.
Another thing:. These tools are constantly changing. We need to be able to get to the locking and unlocking at the moment you need it for teaching and learning. [In] one of my districts it takes two and a half weeks to get an answer about whether the site will be open or not. Most people just give up the site because they know the answer is going to come back from some central office, and the answer is going to be no. So we give up. Then somebody comes with questions: "Why aren't we using more technologies in the schools? Why isn't it making difference?"
What's crazy is that I can walk into a high school and have a student show me how to get around any filter put up. So the students know the work-arounds, and the teachers' hands are tied.
THE Journal: What needs to be in place for a school to open up access?
Ormiston: A lot of really focused professional development. It's not enough to say, "Woo-hoo! We're open today!" We've locked teachers down for so long, they need to know what's appropriate, what's not, what to preview, what the best sites are for getting started if they're new to this. And we need professional development not only for our teachers but also for our administrators.
THE Journal: Why the administrators?
Ormiston: The leader has to have the vision to make change. Many leaders don't have deep technical backgrounds. So when the expert in the IT department says, "No, no, no," it's hard for the school administrator to say, "Yes, yes, yes," if [he or she] hasn't been exposed to social networking sites or to the possible teaching and learning opportunities. The easy answer is to block everything. Then we'll be safe. But we're really not.
THE Journal: Say the filtering is lifted. Suddenly, the riches of the kingdom are available to educators. What should they do next?
Ormiston: A tiered approach is great. Most of the filtering software is tiered. Let's start off by opening access for teachers, and let them explore and begin to figure out how to use YouTube appropriately in the classroom. Let's see what happens. Everything is going to be fine. Then let's start changing permissions for students.
When I'm working with a blocked and filtered school, and they're starting to think about coming out of it, I often recommend opening one site a month or one site a week, if they can handle it: "This week we're going to try Wordle and make tag clouds.... We're all going to try VoiceThread...."
THE Journal: Do you think you'll ever be able to stop talking about this stuff?
Ormiston: Sometimes I just say, can't we talk about something else? I feel like it's so old. When are we going to snap out of it? When are we going to realize that you can block and filter until you're blue. But [then kids] open up their smart phones, and there's not a block or filter, and they're sitting in your schools.
Education is the key. Leadership is absolutely the key. The leader has to understand why this is important, then advocate to others [on behalf of] the faculty and students that this is about teaching and learning today.
People say to me, you don't understand the network, and I keep saying, no, I don't. I focus on teaching and learning. I'll say to IT people, you'd be happiest if nobody ever came to school, because then there'd be nobody to block, filter, cause problems, hack.... They'd have nothing to worry about.
But this is about a living, breathing, and ever-changing community. Every time we get one of these new tools, we have an opportunity to engage students. That's what it's about. It's not about locking things behind the gate. It's about appropriate engagement. We have to find the tools that we can embed into curriculum that students will really enjoy. They do not enjoy another packet of papers. They want multimedia. They crave the opportunity to work with other people--and other people outside of our schools. With a lot of these tools, we have that opportunity--of course, with supervision.
We lose so many opportunities when a network person says, "No Skyping in our school district...."
Monday, December 13, 2010
Wednesday, December 8, 2010
Friday, December 3, 2010
You Heard It Here First!!
Okay. The Future is NOW. Qwiki. Watch this and realize that the futures we dreamed about in films like Total Recall and WALL-E are set in the not so distant future...in fact, they might already be here.
Qwiki at TechCrunch Disrupt from Qwiki on Vimeo.
Thursday, December 2, 2010
More Kids are Getting Anti-Psychotic Drugs
If this intro to the article doesn't make you want to read it, i don't know what will...
It’s no coincidence that the occurrence of ADHD has risen in parallel with the growth of standardized testing. These kids are being given Ritalin and Adderall and all sorts of other things—often quite dangerous drugs—in order to get them focused and to calm them down. It's a fictitious epidemic. Anyone who knows anything about anything knows that the secret to success and focus in the classroom has nothing to do with drugs or discipline or anything like that. The secret to success is about developing an engaging methodology that engages students to want to be there. It's not about getting them to learn, it's about getting them to want to learn. Without motivation, there will be no learning. posted by Ian Jukes
Read the article Ian Jukes is writing about here.
It’s no coincidence that the occurrence of ADHD has risen in parallel with the growth of standardized testing. These kids are being given Ritalin and Adderall and all sorts of other things—often quite dangerous drugs—in order to get them focused and to calm them down. It's a fictitious epidemic. Anyone who knows anything about anything knows that the secret to success and focus in the classroom has nothing to do with drugs or discipline or anything like that. The secret to success is about developing an engaging methodology that engages students to want to be there. It's not about getting them to learn, it's about getting them to want to learn. Without motivation, there will be no learning. posted by Ian Jukes
Read the article Ian Jukes is writing about here.
Wednesday, December 1, 2010
Six Nations District Numeracy Committee Meeting Minutes Wednesday, October 27th, 2010
Six Nations District Numeracy Committee Meeting Minutes
Wednesday, October 27th, 2010
District Teacher Room, J.C.Hill School
12:30 p.m ‑ 4:00 p.m.
In attendance: Joe Restoule General, Marlene Martin, Tammy Clause, Jessi Skye, Alice Anderson, Luanne Martin, Anne Noyes, Carrie Froman (late)
1. The positions (co‑chair and secretary) were nominated and selected for 2010/2011 school year. The positions are as follows: Co‑chair ‑ Marlene Martin, Secretary ‑ Jessi Skye/Luanne Martin alternating every other month
2. Terms of Reference were discussed. A motion was set to finalize the terms of reference at next PAC meeting. Mr. Restoule General typed up the purpose of the committee, Responsibilities of the Committee, and Recommendation Procedures. It was recommended by the committee for the Numeracy District Teacher to attend all PAC meetings to provide a brief Numeracy Committee update to keep all principals informed.
Functions of the District Numeracy Committee:
*Focus of the NC – Improvement of student achievement through improvement to classroom math experiences (includes using the Mathematical Processes, using manipulatives)
*Using assessment data for, of and as learning
*develop PLCs at each school according to school needs
* ensure connection w/PD committee
*generate teacher resources such as a user’s guide
*desk book example, added on to with additional topics (3 part lesson; Big Ideas, scopes of sequence)
*adjust DNP (District Numeracy Plan) to meet new template of SSP (School Success Plan)
Responsibilities of Numeracy Committee:
*Get District Numeracy Plan approved and sent to PAC for Nov. 9th
*complete final draft of minutes within 1 week of the NC meeting
*2 days for the first draft (sent to all NC members); 2 days for revisions (from NC members) in advance of sending to DNT
*DNT share minutes with Ps and VPs and NC (Ps and VPs would share minutes w/ALL staff (electronically/hard copy)
*report back to staff at the next scheduled staff meeting
*co‑chairs sign by next NC meeting
*targeted information sessions as need be (priority items)
Recommendation Procedure
*recommendation that DNT attend each PAC to present a monthly update/recommendations/reviews and field/respond to questions and/or concerns
*in the event of closed/cancelled PAC an e‑mail to all Ps and VPs from DNT for any time sensitive items
*Numeracy committee NOT to share items with general staff until P and VPs see it first
3. Approval of minutes was agreed by last year committee members (L.Martin, A.Anderson, J.Restoule General).
4. A review of the District Numeracy Plan was made. Changes were made by the committee. A new draft will be sent out via email by J.Restoule General. A motion was set to finalize the Plan at next PAC meeting.
5. Meeting adjourned
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