I love my job. Most of the week I've been doing professional development with teachers who have just received new laptops. Our half day, two-on-three training sessions with teachers who wonder "why are we doing this?" as they enter, often exclaim "My head is full!", "This was great!", or "When can we do this again?" as they depart.
As much fun as it is working with my colleagues, the best part of this week was getting into the classroom and working with kids. The middle school Extended Learning Program students have been studying Australian Aboriginal Art. As they started their unit, they collaborated in sharing the resources they discovered by posting links on the class's private wikispace. I helped guide them in creating class accounts and making appropriate contributions a couple of weeks ago.
When I returned this week, I saw the beautiful artwork the students had created in the style of aboriginal Australian artists. I handed students a digital camera, and worked with their teacher to create a free account on Photoshop Express. In short order, we uploaded dozens of images of their artwork, shared the gallery, and embedded it in the wiki.
The embedded show is shown below. Explore the buttons. The lower right icons copy embed codes and link to the interactive gallery on Photoshop.com.
Cloud computing with kids creations... I love my job!
Friday, September 19, 2008
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
Virtual Worlds..the next WWW?
I've been listening to Neil Stephenson's Snow Crash on my iPod. I've been meaning to read it for some time, but finally bought it and started listening on my last kayaking road trip. I've heard a lot about the Metaverse since I started exploring Second Life and a few other virtual worlds about a year and a half ago. I dropped in this evening on a meeting of the Discovery Education Network, joining the avatars of educators and technologists from across the globe in a virtual auditorium. I dealt with the usual lag, bandwidth issues, and "rezzing" before the presenter's and participants' voice chat kicked in along with the local chat. I browsed the profiles of a dozen or so fellow educators' attractive and sharply dressed avatars, as I watched the slideshow and listened to the voice presentation.
I have a feeling that virtual worlds are about at the point where the World Wide Web was in about 1994..nearly 14 web centuries ago. Dozens of virtual worlds are emerging.. some a glorified chat rooms, others with a cartoonish gaming feel, and others yet that strive for video-realistic 3D immersive virtual reality. It's just a matter of time before virtual 3D worlds are as common and widely accepted as Facebook and YouTube are today, and e-mail was in 1998. Exponential growth rates in bandwidth, processor speed, memory, and display technologies will propel today's concepts of interactive worlds into the tommorow's immersive virtuality.
Disney is already ahead of the curve, marketing to the next demi-generation. Linden lab's Second Life has a median member age of 30-something. Barbie doll avatars give themselves away as over-40's by conversing in complete sentences with proper punctuation. The virtual world growing much faster than Second Life, has a median age of about 12. By the time Club Penguin's cartoonish young avatars reach college age, the typical laptop they'll get at high school graduation will have doubled 6 times. While gasoline may exceed Europe's 2 Euro per liter, a $500 laptop will likely have 64 Gigabytes of RAM, 64 GHz processors, and typical WAN bandwidths between 10 megabits and 1 Gigabit per second. The iPhone sized computer, communicator, publisher, "screasel" could easily sport a wireless, heads-up display embedded in a pair of shades/headset.
As folks like Disney, Google, Adobe, Samsung and other Edu-web-vid-utainement industry players exploit the potential of these tools, virtual worlds, cellular communications, the web, social networks and massively multiplayer gaming will evolve at a rate that will make the dot com boom seem like a bump in the dirt road that was once referred to as the information superhighway.
I hope I can surf in on the massive wave that will sweep into the education world as the new reality reshapes our institutions. If you want a sneak preview, sign up for a SecondLife account, join a bunch of educator groups, and join the in-world SLedCC (Second Life Education Community Conference ) event this September 5-8. Or, you can turn off your computer and TV, and go outside and play. Virtual worlds will be part of our lives soon enough anyway.
I have a feeling that virtual worlds are about at the point where the World Wide Web was in about 1994..nearly 14 web centuries ago. Dozens of virtual worlds are emerging.. some a glorified chat rooms, others with a cartoonish gaming feel, and others yet that strive for video-realistic 3D immersive virtual reality. It's just a matter of time before virtual 3D worlds are as common and widely accepted as Facebook and YouTube are today, and e-mail was in 1998. Exponential growth rates in bandwidth, processor speed, memory, and display technologies will propel today's concepts of interactive worlds into the tommorow's immersive virtuality.
Disney is already ahead of the curve, marketing to the next demi-generation. Linden lab's Second Life has a median member age of 30-something. Barbie doll avatars give themselves away as over-40's by conversing in complete sentences with proper punctuation. The virtual world growing much faster than Second Life, has a median age of about 12. By the time Club Penguin's cartoonish young avatars reach college age, the typical laptop they'll get at high school graduation will have doubled 6 times. While gasoline may exceed Europe's 2 Euro per liter, a $500 laptop will likely have 64 Gigabytes of RAM, 64 GHz processors, and typical WAN bandwidths between 10 megabits and 1 Gigabit per second. The iPhone sized computer, communicator, publisher, "screasel" could easily sport a wireless, heads-up display embedded in a pair of shades/headset.
As folks like Disney, Google, Adobe, Samsung and other Edu-web-vid-utainement industry players exploit the potential of these tools, virtual worlds, cellular communications, the web, social networks and massively multiplayer gaming will evolve at a rate that will make the dot com boom seem like a bump in the dirt road that was once referred to as the information superhighway.
I hope I can surf in on the massive wave that will sweep into the education world as the new reality reshapes our institutions. If you want a sneak preview, sign up for a SecondLife account, join a bunch of educator groups, and join the in-world SLedCC (Second Life Education Community Conference ) event this September 5-8. Or, you can turn off your computer and TV, and go outside and play. Virtual worlds will be part of our lives soon enough anyway.
Thursday, August 28, 2008
VoiceThreads - Tell Your Story
As I mentioned in my previous post, my favorite web-based tool has to be VoiceThread. A VoiceThread is an interactive, collaborative album that can share images, documents and videos. When a voicethread project is shared, people can add comments using voice (with a microphone or telephone), text, audio files, or video (with a webcam). You can create a Voicethread project for a class, and create different identities for each student. Students can then comment about the images added to the project.
I've presented several conference sessions on using VoiceThreads in the classroom. I also include VoiceThreads as a major topic in a credit course I teach about Web 2.0 Tools for the Classroom. A class collaboration is embedded below.
I've collaborated with several K-12 teachers in developing creative VoiceThread projects with their students. These projects can be set as public or private, so student and public participation and viewing can be moderated. Art teachers, world language teachers, kindergarten teachers, science teachers, school nurses, and others across the educational spectrum have found inventive approaches to use this tool.
Rather than reading any further on my blog, go to the VoiceThread site and watch the tutorials or search for some examples of educational projects.
I've presented several conference sessions on using VoiceThreads in the classroom. I also include VoiceThreads as a major topic in a credit course I teach about Web 2.0 Tools for the Classroom. A class collaboration is embedded below.
I've collaborated with several K-12 teachers in developing creative VoiceThread projects with their students. These projects can be set as public or private, so student and public participation and viewing can be moderated. Art teachers, world language teachers, kindergarten teachers, science teachers, school nurses, and others across the educational spectrum have found inventive approaches to use this tool.
Rather than reading any further on my blog, go to the VoiceThread site and watch the tutorials or search for some examples of educational projects.
Saturday, August 23, 2008
My Second Favorite New Tool
VoiceThread would have to get the vote for my favorite web tool. More on it another day. I just discovered Photoshop Express . I've been playing with this free online photosharing and editing application this past week, and I love it!
I live in the Windows world most of the time, and have taught students and adults graphic arts and editing skills in Photoshop ( from 2.0 through CS3 as well as Elements ) for years. I've always been disappointed that Windows has never included a decent graphic editing app like the new iPhoto. iPhoto and Garage Band are reasons enough for me to reboot my MacBook pro and move from the "dark side" (XP) and play with the Leopard lifestyle. Sure, anyone can download the GIMP for free, but until now, I've never come across something as fun,free, and easy as this new web application for working with digital images.
Adobe has created a flash-based, web 2.0 application for uploading, editing, organizing, and sharing photos. The interface is intuitive, visually appealing, and has an iPhoto-ish feel to organizing albums and editing pictures. It allows you to use images already loaded to Flickr, Picasa, Facebook, or Photobucket. You can upload and save 2GB of images online with a free account. Galleries have a variety of 2-D and 3-D display options with a Cover Flow feel.
Rather than rambling on about features, I'll suggest that you explore it yourself. I envision great ways to use this tool in the classroom. Students can collaborate on digital stories by uploading their own pictures to a class account, and creating captioned albums and slideshows. Digital art portfolios can be created and shared. Primary classrooms could create Alphabet Albums - collections of images of student images of objects that represent specific letters of the alphabet. Here's an embedded album I made of this summer's adventure:
As Adobe joins the rank of big players who understand that the web will be the computing platform of the next decade, they are developing some fine, free resources with which teachers and students can be creative. ( Have you seen Buzzword?)
I live in the Windows world most of the time, and have taught students and adults graphic arts and editing skills in Photoshop ( from 2.0 through CS3 as well as Elements ) for years. I've always been disappointed that Windows has never included a decent graphic editing app like the new iPhoto. iPhoto and Garage Band are reasons enough for me to reboot my MacBook pro and move from the "dark side" (XP) and play with the Leopard lifestyle. Sure, anyone can download the GIMP for free, but until now, I've never come across something as fun,free, and easy as this new web application for working with digital images.
Adobe has created a flash-based, web 2.0 application for uploading, editing, organizing, and sharing photos. The interface is intuitive, visually appealing, and has an iPhoto-ish feel to organizing albums and editing pictures. It allows you to use images already loaded to Flickr, Picasa, Facebook, or Photobucket. You can upload and save 2GB of images online with a free account. Galleries have a variety of 2-D and 3-D display options with a Cover Flow feel.
Rather than rambling on about features, I'll suggest that you explore it yourself. I envision great ways to use this tool in the classroom. Students can collaborate on digital stories by uploading their own pictures to a class account, and creating captioned albums and slideshows. Digital art portfolios can be created and shared. Primary classrooms could create Alphabet Albums - collections of images of student images of objects that represent specific letters of the alphabet. Here's an embedded album I made of this summer's adventure:
As Adobe joins the rank of big players who understand that the web will be the computing platform of the next decade, they are developing some fine, free resources with which teachers and students can be creative. ( Have you seen Buzzword?)
New Purpose and Mission
I confess, I've been a poor blogger. As I discover and share exciting new techie resources with colleagues, I've often been accused of "having way too much time on my hands". In fact, my real passions all involve going outside to play...usually going WAY outside, and playing HARD!
I realized that it takes much less time to browse, explore, and discover than it does to create and produce. With iGoogle, RSS feeds from edublogs, tweets, Digg, del.icious, and StumbleUpon, finding cool new resources is easier than ever.
I've decided to try to use this blog to share some of my favorite resources and ideas for using them in K-12 education and professional development.
If I subscribe to my own posts, I'll be reminded as I check e-mail of my promise to myself and see how well I keep it!
I realized that it takes much less time to browse, explore, and discover than it does to create and produce. With iGoogle, RSS feeds from edublogs, tweets, Digg, del.icious, and StumbleUpon, finding cool new resources is easier than ever.
I've decided to try to use this blog to share some of my favorite resources and ideas for using them in K-12 education and professional development.
If I subscribe to my own posts, I'll be reminded as I check e-mail of my promise to myself and see how well I keep it!
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
Thinking about Web 2.0
Tomorrow is already here. Advancement of tech-tools accelerate along an exponetial path, while institutions change gradually. Change sneaks up on us as as we incorporate new tools into our daily routine. We are more interconnected than ever before. Communication tools that were science fiction a decade ago, now grace our daily lives. Bluetooth headsets, iPhones, webcams, and Blackberries, GPS navigation systems slip into our lifestyles. We can post to blogs, surf the web, share videos, and converse freely across he globe as we sip a latte, watch a soccer game, commute, or shop the produce section. Students maintain networks of friends scattered to colleges thousands of miles away, as they tag one another on Facebook, IM, Twitter, and Skype.
Teaching has never been more important. Learning how to learn may prove the most significant skill we can teach. We are challenged to teach students how to learn in a digital world that changes at an exponential rate. Our world is not changing constantly. It is changing at an increasing rate of change.
Educators are beginning to realize that school must prepare students to succeed in careers that don't even exist today. Teaching communication, creativity, collaboration, critical thinking, and adaptability will prove far more valuable than any content that we can hope to impart to our students.
Though the term "Web 2.0" has become a buzzword, it encompasses the emerging and constantly evolving tools that are shaping new media. The education world will need to embrace these new tools if we are to prepare students to become lifelong learners and successful, responsible global citizens.
Creativity is the peak of the new pyramid of Bloom's revised taxonomy. I believe that innovative teachers will discover how to leverage the tools of Web 2.0 and beyond to inspire and engage their students. The most creative of these students will become the developers and collaborators of the Web 3.0 and 4.0 tools that promise to shape the coming decades.
Teaching has never been more important. Learning how to learn may prove the most significant skill we can teach. We are challenged to teach students how to learn in a digital world that changes at an exponential rate. Our world is not changing constantly. It is changing at an increasing rate of change.
Educators are beginning to realize that school must prepare students to succeed in careers that don't even exist today. Teaching communication, creativity, collaboration, critical thinking, and adaptability will prove far more valuable than any content that we can hope to impart to our students.
Though the term "Web 2.0" has become a buzzword, it encompasses the emerging and constantly evolving tools that are shaping new media. The education world will need to embrace these new tools if we are to prepare students to become lifelong learners and successful, responsible global citizens.
Creativity is the peak of the new pyramid of Bloom's revised taxonomy. I believe that innovative teachers will discover how to leverage the tools of Web 2.0 and beyond to inspire and engage their students. The most creative of these students will become the developers and collaborators of the Web 3.0 and 4.0 tools that promise to shape the coming decades.
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