todays bird
❣ Chile in a Photography ❣
cherry valley forever
h
NASA
almost home
trying on a metaphor
YOU ARE THE REASON
Alisa U Zemlji Chuda
let's talk about Bridgerton tea, my ask is open
roma★
Andulka
hello vonnie
Aqua Utopia｜海の底で記憶を紡ぐ
Discoholic 🪩
Sweet Seals For You, Always
Game of Thrones Daily
2025 on Tumblr: Trends That Defined the Year
dirt enthusiast
we're not kids anymore.
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@teachflo-blog
Preparing students for this century involves creating experiences that place them at the center of their learning....experiences that link motivation, dialogue, and reflection to their learning goals.
Alan Gwynn for Forged Integration
Students learn best when they are in control of their learning.
Ben Johnson
Integrating Technology into a Project; A Reflection
Living Museum
The idea of the Living Museum is for students to research the biography of a famous historical person and transform themselves into that person. This project is very traditional in that it is basically a research paper with theatrics thrown in at the end. And for the sake of keeping this post not too too long I will not go into the many task (timeline, guidelines and rubrics) that students follow throughout the project.
The technology used in a research project like this would usually consist of:
the Internet for research
a Word Processing application to type documents, scripts, posters etc...
I definitely was not the first to assign project, it has been around for years. However, I wanted to infuse technology into the project based on observations made from some of the museums that I have visited recently.
One way that museums are making their displays more interactive are by using QR Codes.
Above is a QR Code, It is used as a visual portal to sites, videos, email, calendars. They are easy to create and with a QR Code reader app installed on a mobile device, can be used in many educational ways. Students added a QR Code to a poster of their historical person.
I assigned students to highlight a short unknown fact about the historical person that they were already researching. The idea being that a person attending the Living Museum could "find out more" about the historical person by following the QR Code.
Once the student had the fact, they wrote it down in the third person to juxtapose the live first person POV presentation that they would be giving the day of the Living Museum.
They practiced.
Once the student was ready they recorded their short fact on an iPad 2 connected to a Blue Snowball using the Camera Connection Kit. The Apple version is a bit pricey so I did an Amazon search for 'camera connection kit' and found a very economical version (less than $7 with shipping) I used Garageband app to record the audio.
There are several ways to handle the audio recording part of this mini-project. If you are using a PC with a microphone built in or with an external USB mic, Audacity is a good option. Audacity is a free audio editor and recorder and has a robust selection of tools.
Audacity also works with a Mac.
If you are working with a Mac, the easiest option would be Garageband since it comes pre-installed with OS X. It too has an assortment of editing tools.
The part I found time-consuming was moving each students audio file to a page on the Internet. Since I used Garageband on my iPad, I had to email each one to myself so that I could move the file around from folder to folder. It was not difficult, just time-consuming.
Alas I found an option that will streamline next year's project!
Evernote!
There is also an Evernote app for iOS, Android, Blackberry and Windows Phone. It is one of the true cross platform applications available for free and I have written about its many uses before.
Audio can be added to the note from within Evernote and since it is cross platform, one student could be using New iPads and others using iPod Touches and laptops. Everything syncs!
Using Evernote to record the audio makes sense because this was how I created a Web page for every student. All I did was create a note under a folder I named 'Living Museum' and saved each audio file within the notes. I named each note by the historical person.
Images, links and text can also be added to the note. Whatever is added to the note will show on its own individual Webpage.
To create a QR code for each student (another slightly time consuming part) I had to copy the uniquely generated Evernote Url to a Google Docs and Spreadsheets spreadsheet. Once each URL is entered, a formula will generate a unique QR Code for each address. I learned about this at Tammy Worcester's Tip of the Week blog.
This is how it looked as a Webpage:
Once I had each site 'live', I printed the QR Codes and had them cut and pasted onto each students individual poster. Tony Vincent of Learning In Hand blog has a cool but pricier solution.
This is a step-by-step explanation with commentary for each step of the way. I made mistake and I learned from them. Now its your turn. Thanks for reading.
Here are a few photos of the Living Museum (on some you can see the Poster with QR Code in the background).
Christopher Columbus
Rosa Parks
Benjamin Franklin
Juan de Oñate
A slide that I created for an upcoming workshop on how to implement technology in the classroom.
Dan Meyer 'Flipping the Bird.'
Bookmarking for Teachers
As we start the new school year I thought it might be a good time to list some of the many bookmarking sites and apps available to teachers. While almost all of these sites are free, they also offer a premium service. It is called *freemium. Only one, Pinboard, is a straight up premium service.
Evernote (freemium) - Evernote can do more than just save bookmarks, it can also save documents, images, web clippings, voice recordings and notes. It is a cloud based service and can be installed on Mac or PC computer. There is also an app for iPhone & iPad, Blackberry, Android and Windows Mobile. One great mobile feature is the ability to capture images from within the app. Just open the app, tap the camera and point and shoot. Tagging your notes makes it easy to search. Magically, you can also search text within images! The free service allows unlimited space but caps the amount to 60 MBs a month. If you choose to pay ($45 a year or $5 a month), the upload increases to 1 GB a month, no ads, searching within PDFs and the availability to view notebooks offline on mobile services.
While I do not use Evernote for bookmarking sites (I do pay for the Premium service), it can easily be used as a tool for saving bookmarks, especially for those who prefer to use one cloud based service for everything.
Diigo (freemium) - Diigo is another web service that does more than just bookmark websites. A small clickable button is added on to your browser of choice and when you find a site you want to bookmark, you simply click the button. A small toolbox will appear and give you a few choices: Highlight (with a choice of colors), Bookmark (with tagging and descriptions), Sticky Notes (which will appear on the site whenever you visit). Lastly, the ability to share the bookmark on Twitter, Facebook or via email with one click. There is also an iOS app available for free.
The free service allows unlimited bookmarking but caps highlighting to 1000 a year and 30 cached sites. If you feel the need for more, Diigo also has a basic plan (unlimited bookmarking and unlimited highlights for $20 a year) and a premium plan (unlimited everything including caching whole websites for ($5 a month or $40 a year).
Pinboard (premium) - Pinboard is my bookmarking service of choice and although it does cost money to open an account, it is a one time fee. For less than $10 (as of this **post), it is well worth the cost. It is not as social as other sites such as Delicious in that the default settings are private. Tags are not shared as openly and the sense of not having information overload, at least for me, is greatly appreciated. The site is clean and has scales well with many viewing options. Tagging and editing tags is also very simple for one bookmark or several at once. Notes can be written for each bookmark as well as a description.
Although the site is not as social as others, it does have RSS, a way to network with other users and a 'what is popular' link to see what bookmarks are being saved. Unfortunately there is not an iOS app but it looks and runs great on Mobile Safari.
Here are a few other sites:
Delicious - it is no longer owned by Yahoo! but I have read good things about the new direction.
+Pocket (formerly Read it Later) - this service is very pretty in design and has a universal iOS app. I wonder how well the site will look once your bookmarks starts to scale? Worth a look.
Pinterest - New kid on the block and a little different that just bookmarking sites. While it does save the bookmark, it does not allow tagging. You add images (that are linked to the original site) to different boards. I have not yet figured it out completely but when I find an image, I save the link to Pinboard. It has a huge following especially in the education community. Also worth taking a look at. It too has a recently made universal iOS app.
*freemium - a portmanteau of the words free and premium. **Users pay a one-time signup fee of around ten dollars. The fee goes up by a fractional penny with each new user via Pinboard's About Page.
Michelle Luce for Education News:
It’s like a scholastic vitamin.
Haha, that is awesome!
I don't procrastinate, I wait until the last minute to dominate.
Matthew Paul Gomez (my brother)
Great post by John T. spencer on how to cheat proof your classroom. He wrote an eBooks that I read last year called Teaching Unmasked. I highly reccomend that you check it out. A list of books he has authored can be found here.
Good read by By Jennifer Demski for THE Journal. I really liked the 'Habit in Action' section, not only to get a clearer understanding but because it shows that this is really happening somewhere.
Learning Forward (via edweek.org):
Want to retain the best and brightest educators? Equip with them with the tools necessary to be highly successful at what they spend their entire day doing: having conversations.
Word.
Mirroring an iOS Device to Your Mac/Win Computer
I have been looking for a mac software that allows iOS mirroring to my computer and this morning I stumbled upon AirServer. I also tried a mirroring app called Reflections.
Sometimes the best way to show an app (especially for 1:1 students) is to demo the app. Even though I could use (I do sometimes) the VGA adapter to project an app that I want to show students, my mobility is halted. I still prefer the old 30 pin connectors that snapped to the device. The VGA adapter tends to disconnect from my iPad 2 with the slightest movement. A mirroring software gives me the freedom to move around the room and have students participate.
Reflections I had been looking at Reflections because of the nice iPad and iPhone frames that border the mirrored screen on the computer. It looks complete and little details like this usually make the difference for me. It also allows video screen recording and password protection because of the capability to have multiple devices mirroring. You wouldn't want a rogue iOS user to pop up on your screen during a lesson or a training!
The Mac version of Reflections costs $14.99 for a single user license and does not expire. The Windows PC version costs $19.99 for a single user license and does not expire.
AirServer AirServer is advertised as a way to make your iPad 2 or New iPad and iPhone 4S a game console. The video on the Website shows two people playing Temple Run and mirroring on the same TV. It also has password protection and with the use of Quicktime (a free app that comes with Apple Computers), screencasting is easy. Unfortunately, AirServer does not have the nice frames that Reflections has, however, the price makes up for it.
With AirServer I can get a student/teacher license for $11.99 (which included up to three computers) for Mac and $5.99 for a Windows based PC (up to three computers too!).
Both Reflections and AirServer are worth taking a look at if you are looking for a way to mirror your device to your computer.
Quotebook is a universal iOS app that helps you organize and share your favorite quotes.
Teacher Effectiveness What teacher doesn't like to share an inspiring quote with her students and colleagues? Use Quotebook to keep track of favorite student quotes and use them to inspire future students.
Joel Heffner:
These are serious questions for politicians, educators, and parents to ponder!
For all Android users, you are in for a treat! Here is an exclusive review by the people at The Verge. Teacher Productivity Use Instapaper to store articles from the Web that you want to read later. The article is saved in a nice UI that is clean and ads free. Want to read offline or in the dark or share on Twitter? Instapaper is loaded with features and for $2.99 on Android and $4.99 on iOS (Universal,) Instapaper is a steal. Enjoy!
Teacher Productivity Nice Web app that organizes your meeting agenda then kicks it up a notch by adding a timer! Great for faculty, staff, grade level and parent meetings.
Teacher Effectiveness Use NextUp to project how much time is left or that a student/group has to present to the classroom. If they have ten minutes to present, add a few extra minutes to each topic so that there is a window of time for students to set up:
Group 1 13:00
Group 2 13:00
Group 3 13:00
No sign up required, it just works.
From the maker of Today's Meet reviewed here.
Seth Godin:
Sometimes, only better is better.
Gold.