What did they really learn in class yesterday?

I taught a day long PowerPoint class yesterday. As is usual, the participants ran the gamut from very beginner to fairly advanced. The class is designed to start from the dead bottom beginning and work toward intermediate skills. However, I assured the advanced users that they would surely pick up some valuable tips or tricks along the way - at least I always do no matter how many classes I take on a topic.

As folks filed out at the end of the day, one of the advanced users stopped to tell me how much she had learned in class and how happy she was that she stayed. At the beginning of class she realized she was in the wrong class and considered leaving. I was thrilled, of course! Out of curiosity, I asked her what were a few of the things she learned about PowerPoint. She enthusiastically told me nothing - she already knew all that stuff. The golden nuggets came in between the PowerPoint instruction. She said the websites I talked about were exactly what she needed (I wish I could remember all of them), and the tips on presentation design had never occurred to her. During the break one of the other participants helped her with a completely unrelated technology problem - one that no one at her school could tackle. She wanted to know what was on the docket for tomorrow!

I'm still thrilled that it was time well spent for her. And, I promised her I would share one of the sites we played with called SlideShare . This is a free site where educators have put their PowerPoint presentations in order to access them from anywhere and to share them with other educators. Go have a look. Search a topic you generally work with - I bet you'll find something. Additionally, if you have a great presentation you use with your students - share!

Another site we talked about was PowerPoint in the Classroom, a campy little site full of instruction and tutorials for both 2003 and 2007.

Good Times!
Lee Anne

PowerPoint - My Dear Old Friend

With all the new web tools and free tools and what have you that are available now, we may forget about our dear old friend PowerPoint. When it comes to classroom tools that are versatile and easy to use for both student and teacher, PowerPoint always fits the bill. I ran across a blog post that reminded me of this in the Edublogs Magazine, "Teaching Technology Takes Kids Farther: PowerPoint." The author shares some very nice resources and tutorials (go about 2/3 down the post to find the links), as well as discusses personal classroom integration techniques. I encourage you to take a look at the article and the resources - lots of cool idea sparkers.

If you want to build, freshen, or advance your PowerPoint skills, of course we offer classes on the Eighth Floor to meet just those needs. (Both 2003 and 2007 versions)

Go to the Eighth Floor Class Info for times and dates.

As always, if you have question, comments, or concerns . . .

Just Sharin'
Lee Anne

Its Free! -- K12 Online Conference

Are you looking for a FREE conference?
Look no further: http://k12onlineconference.org/

Welcome to the K-12 Online Conference!

The K-12 Online Conference invites participation from educators around the world interested in innovative ways Web 2.0 tools and technologies can be used to prove learning. This FREE conference is run by volunteers and open to everyone. The 2008 conference theme is “Amplifying Possibilities”. This year’s conference begins with a pre-conference keynote the week of October 13, 2008. The following two weeks, October 20-24 and October 27-31, forty presentations will be posted online to the conference blog (this website) for participants to download and view. Live Events in the form of three “Fireside Chats” and a culminating “When Night Falls” event will be announced. Everyone is encouraged to participate in both live events during the conference as well as asynchronous conversations. More information about podcast channels and conference web feeds is available!

Call for proposals: http://k12onlineconference.org/?p=218

I attended the first two (2006 & 2007) and found them to be well, well worth my time.

Just Sharin'!
Lee Anne

Tips for Digital Literacy - Yes, this is stuff you want to know!

Like many of you, I am still trying to get a comfortable handle on “digital literacy.” I have tons and tons of questions and very few "good" answers.

• How do I help my students evaluate and manage all the information presently available to them?
• How do I help them distinguish the good from the bad from the ugly?
• How do I help them understand copyright and copyleft?
• How do I help them find a variety of information (not just what’s available through Wikipedia or Google)?
• How do I, how do I, how do I????
  

So, anytime I see an article dealing with anything to do with digital/information/media literacy, etc., I’m on it. Needless to say, this article from TechLearning, “Make Students Info Literate” by Judy Salpeter had my full attention. The article touches on several timely topics, such as finding a variety of research options, finding effective research terms, copyright, tools that make evaluation easier, terms and definitions of 21st Century literacy, and NCTE recommendations.

In case you don’t subscribe to TechLearning you may want to . . . no, I don’t get any money for this!

Just Sharin’!
Lee Anne

The Magic of Digital Storytelling

Digital storytelling! How I love thee, let me count the ways. Yes, I am blog reading, again. Here’s a post that definitely got my attention. Alix Peshette, in her blog EdTech Gold Rush writes about the power of digital storytelling. There are so many points I find interesting in her discussion about her recent research (and grant proposal) using digital storytelling with Special Education students, but here’s what got my attention.

"Everything I read or see about 21st century learners speaks about their engagement through digital learning. What goes on in most classrooms are teaching styles that rely on textbooks, lectures and multiple choice tests.

A blinding flash of the obvious is that most school board members and district-level administrators have not been in the classroom (as students or teachers) since the advent of the Internet. They can mouth the words about the importance of technology, but deep down, they just don’t get it. They haven’t seen the engagement that comes from letting our students work in a modality that is second nature to them."

Because I chose this particular excerpt from her post, you may be thinking I am going to "go off" on administrators. Not at all! Remove any negative connotations you may interpret – for example, “They can mouth the words . . .” Replace that with, "They can blindly support . . ." Replace "They haven’t seen the engagement . . . " with "They aren’t lucky enough to participate in learning at this level. " See where I’m going with this? No, the administrators aren’t "there" where the classroom teachers are – teachers and administrators are doing different jobs. It’s as it should be.

Okay, so how do we communicate? Alix talks about a project she did as part of the grant working with 4th and 5th graders using PhotoStory3 (free!).

"In the space of five minutes, as each 4th grader recorded their voice and then listened to it, magic happened. The excitement rose, smiles were wide and friends were listening to each other’s recordings. All this with three-dollar microphones and free software!"

I think administrators get magic.

We offer several classes using free tools that lend themselves to digital storytelling, such as Digital Picture Projects which uses VoiceThread and PhotoStory 3 and Developing Mulitmedia which uses MovieMaker. In fact, much of what we do on the Eighth Floor is all about helping teachers make the magic happen. I’m just sayin’.

Here’s my suggestion: of course we want you to come up for classes, but more importantly, why don’t you come with your administrators or with your teachers (who you bring depends on what you do – see how that works?). Be the team that makes the magic.

Thanks!
Lee Anne

What About Blogs - April 30, 2008 Class

What About Blogs?
Welcome to the Eighth Floor class about blogging in education. As a collaborative and constructive tool, blogs have found their place in education. As educators, we are using them as learning tools not only for our students, but also for ourselves.

Blogs in Plain English



Lee LeFever of the Common Craft Show

So What’s a Blog?
Let the 6 & 7 year olds from Room 9 at Nelson Central School educate you about what they think a blog is and why they love using them!



Let’s Talk About Blogs
How is a blog different from a website?
What does it mean to blog, be a blogger?
Why do you think you or your students might be attracted to this as a form of expression?
The first step to being a good blogger is to be a good blog ____________?

Education Professional Development Blogs
Weblogg-ed - A blog by Will Richardson
Moving at the Speed of Creativity - A blog by Wesley Fryer
Blog of Proximal Development - a blog by Konrad
Blogs about Educational Blogging - a wiki by Support Blogging.com


Classroom/Student Blogs
Arthus - NewlyAncient (high school student blog)
The Good Habits Blog (blog for students)
Mrs Cassidy's Classroom Blog (elementary)
Blogical Minds (This is a blog created to explore what happens when 5th graders blog and converse about literacies in class and beyond)

Google Search for Blogs
http://blogsearch.google.com/?hl=en&tab=wb

Check out the following education/safety focused postings and articles:
MySpace Education
Change Agency
BlogSafety.com
Blogs, Fair Use, and Paying to Play

Blogging Tips and Tricks:
Web Blog Basics
Blogs - Anatomy
Blogs for Learning
Evaluating Blogging
Blogging Best Practices
Top 10 Blog Writing Tips
___________________________________________________________________

QUESTION!
Since this is a class about blogging, we thought you might want to do a little, well, blogging. So, what are some advantages to using blogs? What are some disadvantages? What can you do to minimize the disadvantages?
____________________________________________________________________

Add your comment to this post. Take a minute to think about the above questions. (Or share something else, if you choose, like an idea your already have for using blogs) Click on the "comments" link below and then type your answer. You can comment as "anonymous or other." Be sure to include your name somewhere so we know who you are. Read others’ comments and feel free to comment on their comments!

Thanks!
Lee Anne

Intro to Photoshop on the Eighth Floor - THE MOVIE!

We have ordered some Flip Video cameras for our Eighth Floor classes this summer. I can't wait to start using them in class! These are seriously easy to use video cameras. You know me, I don't like anything too complicated. You also know that I couldn't help playing with one and in the process making Scott my victim.

Since he is teaching an Intro to Photoshop class this morning, I thought I would video the start of his class and thus share the course topics with anyone interested in taking the class. So! If you want to know what you will learn in this very popular class, watch the video.

Even if you don't care about the class, watch the video! I confess that I didn't spend a lot of time "editing" the video and cleaning it up, sorry. I'm dying to, but I just don't have the time right now. I'm going to guess this first attempt at this took me about one and half - two hours including creating this blog post. I'm sure I will be faster next time!




Here are the tools I used: Flip Video, Microsoft MovieMaker, YouTube, and Blogger.com. Except for the Flip video, these tools are all free, and of course, "stuff" you can learn about in our classes.

(Thanks, Scott, for always being such a good sport!)

Just playin'
Lee Anne

Transformative is a Beautiful Word

I've been working with a group of graduate students (all educators) on some pretty sizzling topics like public domain, fair use, and copyright. Let me tell you, these are topics that can really get a madcap party started. I'm just sayin'!

Understanding copyright is a challenge - and that's kind of putting it nicely. But I read a post by Joyce Valenza, Fair use and transformativeness: It may shake your world, and suddenly I felt like it was a little easier to breath. You know, kind of like when you have a cold and you pop a mentholated lozenge in your mouth. Air can suddenly pass through swollen passages. It's a miracle. The word "transformative" was like a mentholated lozenge for us.

Here's a taste of what she has to say about fair use in education.

"My new understanding:

I learned on Friday night that the critical test for fairness in terms of educational use of media is transformative use. When a user of copyrighted materials adds value to, or repurposes materials for a use different from that for which it was originally intended, it will likely be considered transformative use; it will also likely be considered fair use. Fair use embraces the modifying of existing media content, placing it in new context.

Examples of transformativeness might include: using campaign video in a lesson exploring media strategies or rhetoric, using music videos to explore such themes as urban violence, using commercial advertisements to explore messages relating to body image or the various different ways beer makers sell beer, remixing a popular song to create a new artistic expression."


There's much more in the post. And, even though the effects of the lozenge don't last for very long, you feel good for a little while, right. I thought her discussion was worth reading and thinking about.

If you want or need to do a little more reading on copyright (or copyleft) here are links to enough information to keep you busy for a few minutes.

http://del.icio.us/lamorris/copyright
http://del.icio.us/lamorris/copyleft
http://del.icio.us/lamorris/Library

Just sharin'!
Lee Anne

Wanna SEE your Delicious Network?

This is seriously cool!

Here is a way to "see" your learning network.

If you have a social bookmarking account with Delicious, you are going to love this. You can "explore" your network - who hooks up with whom, etc. I was surprised by the number of people who are fans with many of the people in my network.

Delicious Network Explorer:
http://www.twoantennas.com/projects/delicious-network-explorer/

If nothing else, it's entertaining!

Just sharin'!

Lee Anne

What does Web 2.0 Mean?

If you have ever looked up anything on Wikipedia, you have used a Web 2.0 tool. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_2.0) If you have ever watched a video on YouTube or TeacherTube, you have used a Web 2.0 tool. If you have ever been on MySpace or Facebook or LinkedIn, then you have used a Web 2.0 tool. If you have ever watched a movie from Netflix on your computer, you have used a Web 2.0 tool. If you are reading this blog, you are using a Web 2.0 tool. (Check out WebWare for a pretty good list of Web.2.0 tools)

Web 2.0 tools are kind of becoming the way things are "done" on the web these days. Someone asked me the other day what was Web 1.0? Great question! Well, we didn’t really call it Web 1.0 at the time because like most things that change over time, we didn’t know there was going to be a newer version. Think of Web 1.0 as your basic website - a static page that contains information you can consume or access - a one-way form of communication, if you will. Web 2.0, on the other hand, is your two-way form of communication, often called the Read/Write web. This means you can not only consume (read) the information on the site, but you can also contribute (write) to the information. For example, you could leave a comment on this blog post and then you would be writing to the web.

What does this mean? Pretty simple - now everyone and anyone who wants to can be published on the World Wide Web. Everyone has a voice. Your learning network has grown exponentially. You have access to more primary resources than ever. Does that sound a little overwhelming? Don't let it be.

If you are interested in knowing more about Web 2.0 tools and what they look like when used in education, then we have a class for you, Web 2.0: The Lightning Round. In this hands-on class we will look at many of the tools being used by educators in their classrooms and for their own professional development. The class meets this Wednesday, April 2nd on the Eighth Floor from 8:30 am – 2:30 pm.

Hope to see you Wednesday!
Lee Anne