Mystery Skype

This was originally written for my school's weekly staff newsletter, Bear Essentials, November 22, 2013.

One of the great things about going to a large conference with a colleague is you can divide and conquer - each person goes to a different session then shares over lunch or dinner.  At ECOO, one of the sessions I didn’t attend was on Mystery Skypes.  But even though I didn’t see it, I’ve learned quite a bit about it over the past week because Sarah went to the session and was inspired to try it. (Skype is a free video calling service on line.)

The idea behind a mystery Skype is that you connect your class to another class somewhere else in the world and each class tries to figure out where the other is located.  It is a great way to start talking about location, weather, or culture.  It inspires curiosity and engagement.  It forces the students to ask specific questions that will help them solve the mystery of where the other class is.  It also forces the class to think about where they are in the world, and how it might be discovered by another class.  Excellent option for getting students thinking about perspectives or point of view.

Over the past week, Sarah set up 2 mystery Skype sessions with 2 different classes.  The first was only a mystery for Sarah’s class, as they skyped with a friend of hers at the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre.  The class is studying the holocaust and creating a museum to demonstrate their learning.  They skype session was able to give them access to an expert to expand their research.  Sarah’s second class will do a mystery Skype with a First Nations class as both classes are reading The Rez Sisters play in 3U English. In this case, both classes are in the dark about the other’s location.

But mystery skype is not the only way to use skype.  There is a website with ideas for using skype in your classroom (https://education.skype.com/‎) that suggests using skype to collaborate with other classes around the world, to invite experts into your class or take a virtual field trip.  Here you can find all kinds of ideas for using skype in your class (experts, lessons, topics, classes looking for a connection).  There is also a skype blog, twitter feed and facebook group if you want to see what others are doing.

Update, after this was put in Bear Essentials.

See Sarah's reflection on her first Skype session with her friend at the Holocaust Centre. Her reflection on the second Skype session should follow soon.

taking notes with videonot.es

This post was originally written for my school's staff newsletter, Bear Essentials, November 29, 2013.

image from http://www.videonot.es/img/logo.png

I ran across this very cool new chrome app/website recently.  It came to me through one of my circles/communities in Google+.  It would be great for blended or e-learning classes, but useful for anyone taking notes on videos.

The app/site is videonot.es and it allows you to take notes while you are watching a video - side by side, on the same screen.  Each point you type is automatically tagged with the minute/second in the video when you typed it.  When you go back through your notes, if you click on a point, it will load the video to that part of the video.

The video and corresponding notes are saved in your google drive.  This means that you could start watching and taking notes on a video notes at school, then go home and pick up right where you left off.  You (or your students) can also share it with others and take group notes.  There is also an option to export to Evernote if you are an Evernote user.

To use videonot.es you need to go to the chrome store, find the app, then install it.  When you install a chrome app it is connected to your chrome id and therefore is with you on any computer with chrome that you are on.  To use it (after install), type videonote.es into your URL, or from Drive, go to create and find the app in the list.

There is a youtube 3 ½ minute demo you can watch at http://goo.gl/H0EccN (shortened URL is case sensitive) or in Youtube, search for “Videonot.es as Demo”.

Geek Squad

I have a dream  (I mean) I have a vision of a school in which all community members are free to use technology for the sake of student learning and are well supported while doing so.  Here’s my vision...

We would have a number of students who are comfortable with chromebooks, ugcloud, UG2GO (including databases, e-books), and other educational apps (like bitstrips, prezi, screencasting...) and they would be able to help the rest of the school population with whatever.  I envision a few peer to peer training sessions in which I lay out the common trouble-shooting issues or FAQs for using chromebooks or ugcloud, and in which they peer to peer train/learn various common applications so they can help others.  Maybe each one becomes an expert with a specific software or web-based educational application, or maybe they are all expert trouble shooters and on the spot learners/helpers.  I would also work with them on some tutoring/social skills so they can work with a variety of school community members (staff and students, one on one or whole class).

Once comfortable with technology and the idea of being used as resources, I see a few ways this “Geek Squad” could be used.

1) They could run “lunch and learns” in the library Seminar Room or in the Bear’s Den every other week.  These could each focus on a different application or web resource.  These could be open to staff and students.

2) They could have ‘shifts’ in the library before/after school and at lunch to help students or staff with technology problems in course work.

3) They could be ‘pre-booked’ by a teacher/class to help introduce or get students started on a new project with new applications or software.

My rationale:

• I am committed to allowing students to use GAFE and other Web2.0 tools to demonstrate their learning.  I would like to see other teachers develop the confidence or find the support required so they can allow their students to best demonstrate their learning in whatever ways suits the students’ purposes.  
• In order to do this I would like to grow a culture in the school of co-learning, where students and teachers can learn together. This supports and models the idea that we are all lifelong learners, and we can all respect one another’s strengths and weaknesses and we can support each other in our challenges and grow.
• Having students use their expertise to help teachers encourages that community of co-learners.  It also gives the students a voice in how they would like to learn or demonstrate their learning.  
• There is a fair bit of resistance in many teachers to trying new technology in class because they don’t feel confident enough with the tools/resources.  In such cases, the students in geek squad would become a resource for the teacher and the class.  It takes quite a bit of pressure off the teacher, and may allow that teacher to learn the new tool or device along side his/her students, again modelling the importance of being a life-long learner.

I’d love some feedback on this.

What would you like to see if something like this were offered at your school?

Is "Geek Squad" offensive? Is tech team or tech club better?

Would you use student experts as a resource? Would other teachers you know?

I am going to try to get this idea funded, so any and all feedback you would be willing to give is greatly appreciated.

Read & Write

This was originally written for my school's staff weekly newsletter "Bear Essentials" October 11, 2013

You may have seen this app on your chromebooks. It often pops up as an add on app, and students randomly click on install or not without a reason.  Then they complain that there is a bothersome tool bar at the top of their screen that looks like this:

You can hide the bar when it shows up by clicking on the green and yellow square.  The pull down menu will stay and you can click on it again to bring it back.  So why would anyone want this or use this?

It is a text to speech app.  It will read what is on your document within google docs.  I think it’s a great tool for students to edit their work.  I often tell my students to read their work  aloud and listen for mistakes or awkward wording.  This does that out loud reading for them.  It is a simple replacement for kurzweil that doesn’t require extra software downloads.  It will work for pdfs that are saved within your Drive as well.  Students can scan text, upload to google Drive and open with Read&Write for google (you can choose “open with” by right clicking on the document name in Drive).  You do have to highlight the text you want read.

I’m sure it will do lots of other stuff, but I haven’t played with it very much.  But if you or your students use kurzweil, or you know students who have trouble reading or editing their work you may want to check it out.

This was first posted October 4, in my school's staff weekly newsletter "Bear Essentials."

I have a few ideas bouncing around in my head right now that I think are related somehow.

The first is reflection on the staff meeting Monday.  I haven’t received much feedback, but what I have gotten has been positive. (might be selective sharing)  What I liked about it is that a) it was to some extent self directed PD, and b) it was based on things real teachers are actually doing in their classes.  I also think that having the ALPs as a shared document was a very practical way of giving staff practice at using ugcloud.  I’m not certain, but by the sounds of it, more people finished their ALP this year during the session than previous years.  Hopefully fewer people will be chased come November.

The second thing going around my head that I want to share is the title of a session I might go to at ECOO this year.  It’s called “It’s OK to be right where you are (it’s not OK to stay there).”  I love this idea.  It can be both affirming and a challenge.  I think it can speak to the life-long learner in all of us.  You are OK where you are, but how can you grow?  I think the ALPs ideally address this as well.  Think about what you’ve done to get where you are, set some new goals, and plan out how to get there.

The third related idea is the SAMR model.  It is a model of technology integration.  Like the ECOO session name, it’s OK to be at any stage at any given time, but you need to know there are other option for growth and change.  The challenge is thinking about how you most use technology for student learning, and thinking about how you can try new things.  Here’s the model:

Twitter Experiment in class

Yesterday I decided I’d inject a little bit of digital citizenship and connectedness into my grade 9 geography class.  We were talking about ecological footprints, so in class I logged into my @ODSSUnger twitter account and sent two tweets.  We composed the tweets together (OK, I did it, but I did it in front of them and got their input) in class.

The first one was fairly general: “My gr9 geog class wants to know what you do to reduce your ecological footprint #UngerCGC1P”  This is not my PLN twitter account, and I only have 43 followers (most of which are Orangeville businesses that just follow anyone/everyone in Orangeville with a twitter account), so I also retweeted it on my PLN twitter account hoping for more feedback.  

One response to this tweet was

From this we were able to discuss how this would help reduce his footprint.  How many different areas this would affect of his footprint.  We also talked about how this would be possible in the winter months.  The class seemed to think he must have a greenhouse whereas I thought he likely froze or canned his produce.  So we tweeted him back to see. We will (hopefully) look at his response on Monday.

We also sent a tweet to our Mayor Adams:

This was good in terms of giving the class something to talk about that was local.  Which one they thought was most significant, what each meant and how it affected our footprint and land use.

I appreciated that the students could see what we were talking about in class was something that other people were thinking about and focused on.

The added bonus was in a couple replies to Mayor Adams’ tweet.  

These two tweets allowed us to discuss point of view and bias. We looked at the profiles of each of the people and discussed how their backgrounds and professions may affect their view. This was all outside of my "lesson plan" but really got the students thinking and discussing with real life examples.

Since then there has been a discussion between Mayor Adams and Chris Halliday on twitter that I can’t wait to show my class.  I love that asking a fairly simple question on behalf of my geography class has blossomed into an interesting discussion that has moved beyond my room, but that my students still get to see it.

This little experiment of mine resulted in a few different good discussions and teachable moments that would not have happened had I not reached out beyond my class.

We got to talk about what I thought were good twitter etiquette guidelines. And as a class we wrote thank-you tweets to the people who responded.

I am thinking about getting the students to do a little side research about the EAB issue and what the students think the town should do about an arborist.

This is not something I have tried before, but feel fairly good about how it went and will try again.

What have you done to bring “real world” examples into your class?

What bonus ‘teachable moments’  have you had this week?

And if you would like to share how you've reduced your ecological footprint please tweet to @ODSSUnger and use #UngerCGC1P. Thanks!

GAFE Certification

Image from: http://memoirvita28.blogspot.ca/2013/05/college-life-exams-part-3.html

A few weeks ago I wrote the 6 google exams to become a Google Apps certified trainer.  Each of the 6 exams was made up of 60 multiple choice questions and there was a 90 minute time limit.  They were intense.  The good thing was that I didn't have to have every detail memorized in order to pass the test.  I had to know how to find the answer.  It's google, you are allowed/expected to search for the answer.  But it was still tough.

At least once, I found some piece of information to answer a question and thought "Oh, I didn't know I could do that."  But in the stress of completing the test I couldn't for the life of me remember what that was when I was done.  I just remember having the thought.  But I feel fairly certain that if/when I decide I want to try whatever that thing was I'll know I can go looking for the answer.

I really enjoy using Google Apps for Education (GAFE) in school.  And one of the things I like about it is the availability of helpful hints and tips available.  I don't have to know how to do everything, I just have to have the confidence to go and find the answers.  Google is good for this, as is youtube.  Many people have uploaded screen casts about how to do anything you could possibly want to do.

Because I appreciate GAFE so much I spend quite a bit of time talking to others about its merits and how they can use it.  One of the toughest things I have to get them to believe is that they can play with it without knowing everything about it.  They can also find answers to whatever questions they might have.  Many time people come to me with questions about how to do something.  If I don't know off the top of my head, I will go with them to a computer and look it up, or I will look it up and email them links to videos or help pages on whatever they want help with.  I hope that eventually people will gain the confidence to search for the answer themselves.

Back to the Google Certification...  I passed all 6 exams.  I am now a Google Certified Individual.  It is my intention to complete the certification process to become a Google Apps for Education Certified Trainer.  I believe that this process will be much more reflective and give a much more accurate picture of my ability to work with GAFE and pass on my knowledge to my colleagues and work with it in class.  On many levels I find this process at least as intimidating as the exams as it is much more personal.

I will continue to share my process in becoming certified here in this blog.  It is my goal to be done it this summer.  Wish me luck!