Quick Byte: Library 2.011 World-Wide Conference Nov. 2-4

Professional development conferences play a large role in my life.  What’s not to love about intellectual sharing, healthy questioning of norms and looking into the future of one’s field?  It’s hard if not impossible to walk away without a mind whirling full of ideas and possibilities.

Due to costs and logistics, it’s not always possible to attend conferences.  Fortunately, there are increasingly more quality, free online opportunities to stay current.  The Library 2.011 World-wide Virtual Conference seems to be one of these!  It was held Nov 2-4.  You can find out more info here at Library 2.0 the future of libraries in the digital age. Watch recordings of the sessions here.  The conference Twitter hashtag is #lib2011.

As a side note, with these free online conference possibilities, I find myself stepping a bit beyond my profession and gaining a broader view of education and our future by attending.  Although I am not a librarian, the topics of this conference seem applicable to all of education.  We have addressed some of these ideas within this blog such as in the post, What’s a Book?  Is This a Book?  I also learn a lot from following and interacting with librarians in twitter and on Google+.  What a better way to learn and support this amazing group of people than by attending?

Stay tuned for an upcoming post highlighting The Future of Education, Classroom 2.0 and Steve Hargadon, the creator of Library 2.0 Ning Network.

Happy attending!
*This post was updated after the conference concluded.

Tech and Ed Play with Web 2.0 Tools: Part 1 Timelines

Series Introduction to Tech and Ed Play with Web 2.0 Tools: I’m excited about this series of posts.  It started with this question that you may want to challenge yourself to answer as well: What ways do I currently use or have I used digital technology effectively in the classroom or in my personal life?  I’ve been contemplating how to answer this question on the blog for a long time, and I have put it off because it seems overwhelming. It also makes me feel vulnerable to show examples that are less than what I am capable of doing, but what I had time to do, the knowledge to do at any given time, etc. (The whole competence vs. performance thing my TCE 572 students discussed this week.) These experiences have spanned many classes and several years.   I will inevitably fall short here because I know there are so many more creative ideas and tools to explore, so I’d love to gather examples and ideas from our readers.  When I recall one of the main focuses of this blog, to play with technology and share, I’m going to go for it here! 

My first post here focuses on online timelines.  Upcoming posts will highlight online make-your-own comic strips and books, voicethreads, uses of screencasting tools in digital storytelling, and more.  A final post will be a screencast compilation of some of my own creations.

Part 1: ONLINE TIMELINES WITH A FOCUS ON DIPITY.COM 

Description and My Example (When Tech): I became interested a few years ago in the possibility of online timelines, and dipity.com was the first one I explored.  Dipity states, “Users can create, share, embed and collaborate on interactive, visually engaging timelines that integrate video, audio, images, text, links, social media, location and timestamps.”  I used it in an intermediate adult ESOL Listening/Speaking/Vocabulary class as a simple model for students when doing a presentation on their past, present, and future.  My example is really basic, but it gives the general idea.  Watch this video that walks you through it.

Here’s another example on dipity entitled Steve Jobs Life and Career.  You may change the views in the upper right hand corner to see it as a timeline, flipbook, list, or map.  Happy exploring of dipity.com.

Possible Uses in Education (Met Ed): Several of my former college of education students have used and even presented their own dipity timelines when they reflected on their own language learning.  Online timelines can be used in all content areas.  Students or teachers can highlight any event(s) in a history timeline.  They can use them to document the steps of a scientific experiment.  They can use them to tell a story, outline the plot or characters in a story, etc.  Online timelines can also serve as an alternative to a Powerpoint or Prezi.  How can you use them?

I like how many of the timelines like Dipity can be embedded in a blog or website.  Most of them have the option to be either private or public.  More online timelines that I haven’t yet had the time to explore completely are listed in our web 2.0 tools page.  Some of them include LIFE Timeline, TimeToast, and Xtimeline.    LIFE Timeline contains ready to go timelines with some beautiful pictures as well as the option to make your own. Tiki Toki also looks especially engaging to me.

Additional sources:  If you are interested in exploring more student examples of media in education, check out Wes Fryer’s  Share: Playing With Media.  His site, book and podcast in part inspired me to get started on this series. 

Discussion:  How would you use or have you used online timelines?  Which timeline(s) have you found useful?  Feel free to share a link here or drop us a line via email.

Happy exploring and creating!

Bringing Writing Alive With Web 2.0 Tools EERC Presentation

Here is part of our presentation entitled Bringing Writing Alive K-12 With Web 2.0 Tools.   It explored blogs, online dictionaries, digital storytelling, and online stickies. 

 

You may access the outline and presentation links here.  http://bit.ly/oWunfi

We were going to use this Primary Wall link to introduce ourselves: http://primarywall.com/TEB0aRKt5o For whatever reasons, it wasn't working in the lab.  That was the first time we had experienced any issues with Primary Wall, so we still recommend it for elementary teachers.  It's a good reminder though to test out any technology in your given setting first and to have a plan B.

We used this Titan Pad as a wrap up of the discussion. http://titanpad.com/IRmBcuMAhB Titan Pad is an easy set up, online collaborative writing tool, with a low learning curve.  No passwords are required and only the link is needed.

Here's a thanks to everyone who joined us!

The Teachers Should See This: National Geographic Kids Jumping Jacks

I am ten years old and a guest blogger here.  I often find interesting sites and sometimes want to share them.  I will occasionally post things I think teachers should see.  Here's my first post! 

Do you know what the Guinness World Record for people doing the most jumping jacks is?  Michelle Obama is trying to break the record.  Click here to see how you can help or just to watch the event on October 11, 2011.  It is found on National Geographic Kids.  This is a site I recommend for teachers.

The Versatile Blogger at Year One

We have been blogging for approximately a year now on When Tech Met Ed.   Sylvia Ellison at El’mentor recently passed on The Versatile Blogger award to us.  It was a welcomed reminder of how professionally useful the blogging experience is.  Our purpose continues to be to explore technology as a tool and for professional development.  Along the way, we have discussed and researched topics such as gaming, transmedia storytelling, podcasts, etc.  These topics often make us think and are fun to consider in larger contexts such as educational reform and the future jobs of children. Blogging has also opened up some doors like professional networking.

After accepting The Versatile Blogger, here are some things we are requested to do:    

1. Thank the person (people) who nominated you and provide a link back to their blog.
2. Share 7 things about you.
3. Pass this award along to 15 other blogs that you have discovered.

Seven Things About Us (See our individual bio pages at Cheridy and Kacey.)

• Cheridy:  I can’t think without considering education and learning.  I’ve tried without much success. Even simple things such as taking walks, watching movies, etc. cause me to make connections with teaching and education.  This can at times be annoying to those around me, but on a positive note, it leads me to have a love for curriculum development.
• Kacey: I am interested in learning. I spend time listening, reading and processing anything I can find to help my students learn. 
• Cheridy:  I am interested in learning more about instructional design and effective ways of teaching online classes.  
• Kacey: I became a teacher because as a child I had a difficult time learning. My hope is that because I struggled and eventually succeeded I can fast forward a child in their learning so they won't have to go through the pain and frustration that I did.
  
• Cheridy:  Chocolate, family/friends, huckleberries, reading, teaching, traveling, and writing make me happy.  Above all, I like people and activities that make me laugh or think. 
• Kacey: I enjoy gardening, reading, camping-- especially at the beach, and spending time with family and friends. 
• Cheridy and Kacey:  We enjoy discussing all things education and technology and have fun collaborating.

15 Top Notch Blogs We Learn from Reading  (See our network page for more.)

1. 21^st Century Educational Technology and Learning: Michael Gorman 
2. Bit by Bit: Bob Sprankle 
3. Box of Tricks: Jose Picardo 
4. Bud the Teacher: Bud Hunt
5. Cool Tools for 21^st Century Learners: Susan Oxnevad 
6. Edu Mashup: Jessica Vaz 
7. iLearn Technology: Kelly Tenkely 
8. Integrating Technology in the Primary Classroom: Kathleen Morris 
9. Langwitches: Silvia Rosenthal Tolisano 
10. Tech The Plunge: Jeff Thomas 
11. The Clever Sheep: Rod Lucier
12. The Principal Blog: Melinda Miller 
13. The Kids Should See This: Rion Nakaya and her 3 year old curator
14. Mr. Salsich’s Class 
15. Write Now in Room 204

Thanks again to Sylvia Ellison, our readers, and those we enjoy reading.  If you are considering blogging for professional growth, our advice is to go for it!  It’s rewarding on many levels.

Part II Gaming: Making It Work for Teachers and Students

Here’s a post with more questions than answers.  It’s a post that reflects learning in progress about gaming and education.

Here’s what I hear practicing teachers saying:  For the most part, they see the potential of gaming, but they face some challenges using it.  The technology is not always functioning in the class or able to support it.  When the tech does work, fitting it into the curriculum, making sure it aligns with the standards, etc. for multiple reasons is a task that is asking a lot from an underpaid and overworked group of dedicated people.  Some want one place to go to—where they are not searching all over the Internet to find resources.  In essence, these teachers want it incorporated into the curriculum they are using and part of a system. 

I also hear many teachers saying they are extremely hesitant to recommend or use online games that require passwords. This hesitancy is at all levels K-adult.  The ramifications of managing 25+ kindergarten students on more than one online site is understandable.  Yes, I’ve read multiple ways of doing this—using the same password, etc., but the reality of it is enough to turn most teachers away.  This issue persists all the way to adults.  I see it changing, but many of my adult students are hesitant to create yet another password and username.  It can lead to good discussions about security, digital footprints, etc, but is it all worth the time and effort the busy teacher asks?

Equal opportunities:  And then, there is the question, how can students access these same sites outside of class to extend their learning?  Not all students have access to the Internet at home; while other students in the same class not only have the Internet, but their own iPads.  Is it fair for the teacher to require or recommend online games or apps when only a portion of the students have access to them outside of class?  Is it fair for them to not recommend them?

These questions lead to other questions:  1. Perhaps a disruptive educational innovation in the hands of students and teachers is on the horizon that includes gaming, individualizing instruction and addresses some of the issues faced?  Oh, let’s throw transmedia  storytelling in there for good measure too.   2. What changes are on the horizon with text based curriculum?  See our previous discussion on this topic.   3. And then the inevitable can of worms: How does all this fit into standardized testing?  Life is interesting in part due to not having all the answers. 

As I search, here are actions I wish to pursue and encourage others to do: 

• Keep searching for online and mobile games that do indeed foster positive learning experiences beyond rote memorization to developing high order thinking skills.  Use the revised version of Bloom’s Taxonomy as a measuring stick.  
• Advocate for educational gaming that is accessible to teachers and students both inside and outside of school.  The author’s of Disrupting Class have an intriguing blog.  This article is one of several that relates to this topic.
• (This is perhaps the hardest considering how much our teachers face and do.)  Encourage creative and innovative administrators and teachers to look beyond the curriculum.  There are some amazing opportunities out there that are not bound by textbooks or walls and that do incorporate the standards and keep individual students at the center. 
• Promote computer science K-12.  Whenever we can put students in the role of the designer, empowering them with these tools, we are empowering them with critical thinking skills and perhaps shaping our future.        

In the meantime, when can teachers use gaming?  In the broader definition, most do.  See the low tech World Peace Game post for an example.   It can also begin with simple steps like discovering what is available.  (See links below to get started.)   Creating links to games on class websites or blogs can also be effective for providing kids safe spaces in independent work time or as an outside of school recommendation.   

Here are recommendations to get started for finding appropriate educational gaming:

• Read this post called Gaming and Learning—Are They Connected? by Zoe Branigan-Pipe that discusses this topic. 
• Digital Play is a blog I follow that highlights games for language learning. 
• I Education App Reviews  and Apps in Education are sites that review educational apps. 
• Fun Educational Apps also reviews educational apps and shares special offers. 
• 21^st Century Educational Technology and Learning has some good posts on games in Education.  Michael Gorman did a series of posts on this topic.  Here is one of them about using games to teach STEM and language arts. 
• Interaction Education blogs about educational apps and has a blogroll of additional ed. app bloggers.  I particularly liked this post that addresses some of the questions asked in this post. 
• Inanimate Alice is my latest find of transmedia storytelling that is worth checking out!
• Our Ed Sites tab has some educational games in all content areas that we have either used or want to explore more.  We will continue to highlight them and gaming apps in posts.

Feel free to share additional resources with us!  Happy educational gaming!

*photo credits by FotoChronicle 

Part 1 Gaming: Should Fun, Learning and Games Intersect in the Class?

What’s your favorite game?  Is it a good game of chess?  Are you more of a Solitaire or crossword puzzle person? Is WoW your thing?  Perhaps you prefer sports such as soccer or basketball?  Most of us have some game(s) we like.  Mine is Pinochle.  Just saying the word makes me smile.  Think of your favorite game.  Some part of you must light up.  Strategies, fun and learning all tied together in a bundle of joy, frustration and satisfaction—games.  What, the three letter f word—fun, and learning tied together?  Is it possible? Maybe it is inevitable? Erno Rubik, inventor of the Rubik’s Cube pointed out, “Our whole life is solving puzzles.”

Here’s a “playful” post with more questions than answers.  It’s a post that reflects learning in progress.  Perhaps you can relate to my background at some level?  I’ve explored online games for learning purposes as a kid, teacher and parent.  See my past post on Number Munchers, The Oregon Trail, and Lemonade Stand.  Boowa and Kwala bring back fond memories of interacting with music and stories with my 18 month old on snowy Michigan afternoons.   I’ve set up links for my adult ESOL students and their children to game learning opportunities.  I download apps and software and use Twitter and Google + to find educational sites for my now 10 year old.  All of this I do instinctively, but WHY?  Are online and mobile games really a good way to learn?

I recall playing Number Munchers with such intensity that my parents had to kick me outside to play in the real world.  Is this healthy?  Was I intrinsically or extrinsically motivated?  Does gaming really lead to healthy learning? If the answers to these questions are positive, how do we as teachers fit gaming into the curriculum?  These types of questions led me and Kacey to discuss gaming and gamification.  At the end, we were both in agreement that gaming has exciting potential in education.  Here’s my take away that I plan on researching and pondering more.

Definitions matter.  Gamification is a term I’ve seen in multiple contexts, including the business world and education.  Gaming extends to a wide variety of games.  Here’s my very rough breakdown of the definitions in education as I see them in my experience and at the beginning stages of research.

1. There are games for the sake of escape.
2. There are a lot of flashcard drill-and-kill type games and apps out there today.  They are often rewards based.  These are not the type of games we are endorsing for educational purposes, but on occasion, they may serve a purpose.
3. The more substantive educational games encourage problem solving and extension of thinking and learning into the real world.  More recently, I’m seeing them embedded in transmedia storytelling like Inanimate Alice. (Read Gary Hayes at Personalized Media to find out more about transmedia and related topics like augmented reality.)
4. It seems that educational gaming is stepped up a notch when students take on the role of the designer.  I’ve seen this first hand as my kid explores Sketchup.  With good reasons, computer science teachers promote programs such as Scratch for kids elementary and beyond. 

As a final thought, many of the games under each of the above categories have a social component to them.  Massively multiplayer Online Role Playing Games (MMORPG’s ) depend on this.   This info.on Digital Play is useful in defining gaming related terms in my field of ESOL.  Perhaps with some imagination and discussion, any of the above types of games can be incorporated into the classroom in a healthy learning environment, even if it means just reaching out to our students and tapping into their interests.  But there’s much more potential than just that!

Here are some of the related sites we discussed worth considering:

• Getting Serious Games Into the K-16 Classroom  is a 2010 Google Tech Talk by Victoria Van Voorhis.  Amongst many other things, she talks about how games can fit into standards and individualize instruction.
• The video media clip of Jane McGonigal, Alternate Reality Game (ARG) developer and author of Reality is Broken, led to good discussion about my definition 2 type gaming, games that potentially have intrinsic value, games we’d like to see fitting into to the standards, augmenting instruction.  Watch her 2010 TED Talks video Gaming Can Make A Better World! Perseverance, collaboration, and hope are a few of the many concepts in her talk that should spur conversation. 

• Here is my personal favorite!  4^th grade teacher, John Hunter, discusses his World Peace Game in his 2011 TED Talk.    See my previous Quick Byte about this talk.
• I enjoyed this Teachers Teaching Teachers podcast with Jaun Rubio and David Gagnon and liked this gaming definition: "Experimental spaces to fail and have accelerated feedback and a role and a goal and a narrative."  The potential to combine gaming, social justice themes, reality and augmented reality is fantastic.   They talk about working with local libraries, using QR codes, and having students do real life searches in books and exploring aspects of their community.  They also emphasize students as designers.
• If you have an interest in pursuing this topic, here is a 2010 TED Talk by Ali Carr-Chelman: Gaming to Re-engage Boys in Learning, sure to bring up more good debates and questions about gaming.  These two 2010 videos in part take a look at the terms gamification in the context of business and real life: When Games Invade Real Life TED Talk by Jesse Schell and The Game Layer on Top of the World by Seth Priebatsh.

An upcoming part II post will pull together what I hear practicing teachers saying about gaming, our takeaways as applicable to education, and site/app recommendations for extending learning with gaming in education.  In the meantime, happy gaming!

Quick Byte: Multiple Perspectives

Does the world sometimes look a little flat or one dimensional?  Does one perspective get boring or just not seem to capture the complexity or full picture of life or history?  Do you ever want to have a say in the ending of a story?  Do you think creativity and multiple perspectives relate?  If you answered yes to any of these questions, you will want to watch Raghava KK: Shake Up Your Story TED Talk. (It's under 5 min. and may result in a new app on your iPad.)  It also has some clear implications for education.

This talk relates to the first TED Talk I ever watched that hooked me, The Danger of a Single Story with Chimamanda Adichie. It really draws out an idea that I advocate for in my teacher prep classes-- including multiple perspectives in our teaching.  We should be doing this in all the content areas: language arts, math, science, social studies, etc.  What ways could you bring in a variety of perspectives into your classes?

In addition, this talk points in the direction of the future that is within grasp with transmedia storytelling and augmented reality as seen in my Worth a Wow: Inanimate Alice and What's a Book? Is This a Book? posts. 

If you liked Raghava KK's TED Talk highlighted above, watch his earlier talk entitled Five Lives of an Artist.  It's good stuff.

Happy viewing!

Links of the Summer

Summer passed us by in a wink of the eye.  We stayed busy traveling and exploring.  This post reflects some of our learning and finds.  They are on the topics of Triangulation with Leo Lapport, TED Talks on the topic of language, brain-based learning, transmedia storytelling, and Google Sketchup.  Enjoy!    

NETCAST and TED TALKS PICKS

 Kacey’s picks—Triangulation: Leo Lapport has moved the TWIT.tv company to the new studio where they are netcasting even more content. (I had the opportunity to visit the studio with my husband this summer.  Stay tuned for a post about our visit.)   Recently, I’ve been listening to Triangulation where Leo and Tom Merrit “talk to the smartest people in the world about the most important topics in technology.”  It is part of the TWiT Netcast Network and streamed live every Wednesday at 7:00 PM Eastern/4:00 PM Pacific at http://live.twit.tv.  Triangulation – David Allen Getting Things Done was my most recent listen.

Cheridy’s picks-- More Amazing TED Talks:  TED Talks continue to keep me coming back for more.   Although I’ve enjoyed a wide array of TED topics, I’ll point to the language focused ones I blogged about this summer.  See my low tech intro to my upcoming series from the eyes of a newbie about gaming in education.  It highlights John Hunter’s World Peace Game. Watch and read about some excellent language and listening TED Talks here.  Check out related past posts.  Also, be sure to look at this 2011 TEDxRedmond link.  The talks organized and delivered by kids took place on Sept. 10^th.  They are truly inspirational to watch! 

Karenne Sylvester has an excellent post called 10 English Speaking Activities Using Ted.com.  My experiences using these fall right in line with her philosophy that these really work as a springboard for discussion and use of all the modes of language. As a wrap-up, keep your eyes open for an upcoming post about Raghava KK’s latest talk.

 

LINK PICKS

Kacey’s picks-- Brain-Based Learning: Recently, I came across  Steve Reifman’s blog . He has been an elementary classroom teacher for 17 years, author, and interested in brain-based learning.  I’m looking forward to further reading and exploring his books and blog! Another teacher blogger I’ve been reading who is interested in brain-based learning and technology is Diane McKinney .

Cheridy’s picks—Transmedia Storytelling and Google Sketchup:   Unexpectedly this summer, I stumbled upon what have become new areas of interest for me in ed tech: transmedia storytelling and gaming.  See my post on Inanimate Alice and ponder the exciting potential in ed. 

 I’m also throwing in a link to Google Sketchup which my kid played with this summer for hours.  One of my College of Ed. students used it in excellent lesson plan for ESOL students in math.  

How could you use any of our links in your class or personal learning?  Happy  exploring!

Worth a Wow: Inanimate Alice

The first word that flew out of my mouth as I first interacted with Inanimate Alice was “Wow.”  I didn’t want to be hasty in making judgments, so I continued with episodes two and three—continuing to say “Wow.”  As I wrapped up with episode 4 and additional research of what kids are doing with their own productions, again—you guessed it, “Wow” tumbled out of my mouth.  Now, this could mean that I have a limited vocabulary, but I’ll choose to believe it means that Inanimate Alice is worth a “Wow” and consideration in education.

Inanimate Alice Description: Inanimate Alice is an enaging transmedia story written by Kate Pulinger, directed by digital artist Chris Joseph, and produced by Ian Harper.  It gets progressively more challenging as Alice gets older in each episode.  The reader interacts with Alice as she matures, lives in various cultures, and explores technology with her imaginary digital friend Brad.  In episode one she is 8, and in the final episode four she is 14.  Suspense propels readers to follow Alice in episodes to China, Italy, Russia, and England. Readers are encouraged to fill in the gaps and create their own stories.

Experience and Applications: I began interacting with Inanimate Alice with my kid, but I freely admit that I couldn’t wait and jumped ahead after I tucked her into bed.  We had a blast going through the lesson plans together, modifying them in our own ways. It didn’t take but a minute for me to see how setting, tone, character, rhythm, symbolism, etc. were coming alive before my child’s eyes, ears, hands, and imagination in a way that I didn’t begin to fully experience until my undergraduate English major courses.   Inanimate Alice, the lessons, and student examples seem to give a glimpse of what may be to come and how this generation of digital natives can process, consume, and generate literature in a variety of ways. 

Inanimate Alice Resources:

• Download a unit lesson packet here.
• Visit Inanimate Alice Facebook 
• See what a teacher and students have done with Inanimate Alice onthis wiki by Mr. Woods. 
• Explore resources for Inanimate Alice posted on Digital IS by Laura Fleming.  They include links to wiki examples from teachers and students who are currently using Inanimate Alice and more.

Laura Fleming wrote A New Model of Storytelling on Edutopia that also caught my attention.  Laura seems to have a passion for this topic and to be a great resource for a newbie such as myself who is beginning to explore transmedia storytelling in education.  She blogs about it at EdTech Insight. Read Laura’s informative post on Digital IS here about Inanimate Alice!  Browse additional information on Digital IS about transmedia storytelling in education.

                                                                               

Further Reflection and Related Possibilities:  In the grander picture, this all relates to my What’s a Book? Is this a Book?  and to Illuminated Text and Kinetic Typography Bring Reading to Life posts. This also reminded me of Storyrobe and Storykit apps, where for the past year my daughter has created stories that include pictures, words, and sound effects (the piano for a menacing shark).  Transmedia storytelling and these types of apps seem to have the ability to empower students as writers and readers to interact with the written word in a way that involves the senses and meaningful connections to reality.  This is a topic we owe to ourselves and students to continue to explore!  How can you envision using transmedia storytelling like Inanimate Alice?

Happy exploring and interacting!