tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-65970353890922236322024-03-13T12:11:25.503-07:00Playing in the SandboxParent. Educator. Coach.
Reflections on life's iterations. Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11927948328480203361noreply@blogger.comBlogger27125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6597035389092223632.post-22489800623841595072013-10-26T10:38:00.000-07:002013-10-26T10:38:11.706-07:00Reflections on Coding to Help in Geometry<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Lp4ULj1qQSQ/UmvMT0I08JI/AAAAAAAADGI/R3m2xi6OCeA/s1600/IMG_0305.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Lp4ULj1qQSQ/UmvMT0I08JI/AAAAAAAADGI/R3m2xi6OCeA/s1600/IMG_0305.PNG" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Hopscotch block codes for animation.</td></tr>
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Recently my Geometry students were tasked with using <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/hopscotch-coding-for-kids/id617098629?mt=8" target="_blank">Hopscotch</a>, a basic "coding" app for iPad, to create a simple animation.<br />
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<b>Objective</b>: Use Hopscotch to understand Conditional Statements.<br />
<b>Instructions</b>: Create an entertaining and engaging animation for your classmates using multiple characters with multiple "If...." commands. Then create a ShowMe video that demonstrates your knowledge of "If...Then..." statements and your animation commands.<br />
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<u>I had multiple reasons for assigning this task, some of which are listed here:</u><br />
1. Expose students to coding structure.<br />
2. Working with "IF...THEN..." conditional statements.<br />
3. Use commands such as: rotation, change by x, and change by y. <br />
4. Interpret movements in the coordinate plane, work with coordinates, and design something using math.<br />
5. It is playful and open ended. It is a creative expression of math.<br />
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The final reason I tasked students with this project was to expose them to conditional statements. It seems Common Core has done away with the need to learn "IF....THEN..." statements as they relate to geometric proofs. To be honest I always struggled with teaching this concept really effectively and students always struggled to really grasp it, but then again there is probably a small percentage of us who really love mathematical proofs.<br />
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However, I do believe that conditional statements are very important for our logical development as well as for our future generations of computer programmers and software engineers. So to expose them to this type of language in a playful way seemed like a good idea.<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/UqWj-0KzR0U?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
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<u>Here is what I liked:</u><br />
1. Kids got creative.<br />
2. Kids asked questions about how to animate- they were genuinely interested in a math task.<br />
3. It gives immediate feedback. Simply tap play to see how the changes in animation.<br />
4. Kids tried things that I never thought of- such as adding emoji's as text objects.<br />
5. Kids were proud of what they made and bragged about what their classmates made.<br />
6. Prior to the bell ringing, kids coded in Hopscotch rather than played a game on the iPad...(alright there were still some that played games).<br />
7. Kids were working with (and therefore learning) the basic ideas around translations and rotations in the coordinate plane without being told to learn about translations and rotation. By the way these transformations are our next unit of study.<br />
8. It gave some students who may not do well on a traditional paper assignment the opportunity to demonstrate an understanding of content.<br />
9. There were not many guidelines. Student work looked different based upon what they were interested in creating.<br />
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If you are on an iPad you can view this student sample by opening this file up in Hopscotch. <a href="http://hop.sc/1cm1muo" style="font-family: Helvetica;">http://hop.sc/1cm1muo</a><span style="font-family: Helvetica;">.</span><br />
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<iframe frameborder="0" height="433" src="http://www.showme.com/sma/embed/?s=IpAy6bI" width="578"></iframe>
Looking back on the assignment I realize it wasn't the perfect assignment. At least, it wasn't perfect in the way that all students aced the part of the chapter test on "If...Then..." statements and proofs.<br />
But again, this raises another question on assessment- when using projects to create an understanding of concepts how realistic is it to expect our students to transfer that knowledge from a project to a traditional paper assessment? Isn't my real end goal for our students to be able to transfer their knowledge from the traditional paper assessment to a real life application such as creating a computer animation?<br />
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Would love to hear your thoughts....as it appears I am still learning!<br />
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11927948328480203361noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6597035389092223632.post-43505685010901296392013-06-17T03:48:00.003-07:002013-06-17T03:48:46.221-07:00This is a 'Hackathon'<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-mnxDEKpXNiQ/Ub7aEkMUWxI/AAAAAAAAB3g/BneqtG1leXQ/s1600/grhackpic+pan.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-mnxDEKpXNiQ/Ub7aEkMUWxI/AAAAAAAAB3g/BneqtG1leXQ/s1600/grhackpic+pan.JPG" height="179" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">GR- iBooks Author Hackathon, photo via Steve Dickie</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I can't tell you how often I get asked the question: "Why is this called the iBooks Author <i>Hackathon</i>? What does that mean?" </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Let's break it down and tell you why.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><u>What is a 'Hackathon'?</u></span></h4>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">According to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hackathon" target="_blank">Wikipedia</a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">an event in which computer programmers and others involved in software development, including graphic designers, interface designers and project managers, collaborate intensively on software projects. Hackathons typically last between a day and a week in length. Some hackathons are intended simply for educational or social purposes, although in many cases the goal is to create usable software.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"> </span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But aren't '<i>hackathons' </i>just for programmers? Nope! Back in February 2012, Steven Leckart wrote in <a href="http://www.wired.com/magazine/2012/02/ff_hackathons/all/1" target="_blank">Wired Magazine</a> </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The trend [hackathon] has already spread beyond the conventional tech world. There are women-only hackathons, hackathons for teens, hackathons for college students, hackathons to fight autism, hackathons to improve education, </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">hackathons to help veterans, hackathons to build Occupy Wall Street protest tools, hackathons on clean energy...</span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ymafnCGYRqU/UbxIL2rJPuI/AAAAAAAAB1g/TORdSWetbYo/s1600/2013-06-12+15.07.57.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ymafnCGYRqU/UbxIL2rJPuI/AAAAAAAAB1g/TORdSWetbYo/s1600/2013-06-12+15.07.57.jpg" height="150" width="200" /></a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So this is how we found ourselves calling this the iBooks Author Hackathon. It is a multi-day, intensive, collaborative event to create usable products that will improve education...this is a <b>hackathon! </b></span><br />
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<u><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>The Characteristics of an iBooks Author Hackathon</b></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span></u></h4>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>1. Passionate and creative educators seeking to author high quality interactive content. </b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">To date over 85 educators and a half a dozen trainers have come together at a hackathon to learn about iBooks Author and create interactive 'books' for their content area / grade level. In addition, participants learn about copyright, creative commons licenses, open educational resources and a way to collaborate with colleagues to share these books. </span><br />
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-7fhtSDbnJjM/UbxIL19b2PI/AAAAAAAAB1Y/mxgCMV9raGI/s1600/2013-06-12+14.51.30.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-7fhtSDbnJjM/UbxIL19b2PI/AAAAAAAAB1Y/mxgCMV9raGI/s1600/2013-06-12+14.51.30.jpg" height="150" width="200" /></a><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-QzeycsO0jmI/UbxIL5CUXII/AAAAAAAAB1c/mO3BXSdDOxE/s1600/2013-06-12+14.51.21.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-QzeycsO0jmI/UbxIL5CUXII/AAAAAAAAB1c/mO3BXSdDOxE/s1600/2013-06-12+14.51.21.jpg" height="150" width="200" /></a><br />
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<b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">2. Collaboration of workers to c</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">reate in community. </span></b><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We truly believe one of the factors that makes this event so powerful is the ability to collaborate with a common goal in mind. Participants spend some time throughout the two days whiteboarding their thoughts and ideas for their books. A lot of our time is spent with individuals helping them think through creative ways to build their books. </span><br />
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-JJGZ_geXd2g/Ub7cVN469XI/AAAAAAAAB38/4NL-PltwvNk/s1600/2013-06-12+08.27.15.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-JJGZ_geXd2g/Ub7cVN469XI/AAAAAAAAB38/4NL-PltwvNk/s1600/2013-06-12+08.27.15.jpg" height="150" width="200" /></a><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-KNpMVqbj0cw/Ub7dJtQQCcI/AAAAAAAAB4g/n-4mOyWo5bc/s1600/grhackpic.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-KNpMVqbj0cw/Ub7dJtQQCcI/AAAAAAAAB4g/n-4mOyWo5bc/s1600/grhackpic.JPG" height="150" width="200" /></a><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>3. Inspiring each other with their creativity and sharing of ideas.</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In addition to collaboration, sharing is another big goal of this project. Too often teachers create and work in isolation from one another. A key factor of any hackathon or<a href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2006/05/googles-20-percent-time-in-action.html" target="_blank"> Google 20% time</a> is to share out what you are working on, what you are creating and get feedback, input, and help from the greater audience. Throughout our time together we paused to share out what we were doing. </span><br />
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-F_yUVxm2Mv8/Ub7cnm6A9iI/AAAAAAAAB4I/CVR3_dBGv7Y/s1600/2013-06-12+09.35.47.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-F_yUVxm2Mv8/Ub7cnm6A9iI/AAAAAAAAB4I/CVR3_dBGv7Y/s1600/2013-06-12+09.35.47.jpg" height="150" width="200" /></a><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-rwHwukn56r4/UbxIWSPoPjI/AAAAAAAAB2U/aiis6FjGZYc/s1600/2013-06-12+08.27.49.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-rwHwukn56r4/UbxIWSPoPjI/AAAAAAAAB2U/aiis6FjGZYc/s1600/2013-06-12+08.27.49.jpg" height="150" width="200" /></a><br />
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-_1TpxUenxQs/Ub7cnyCpNOI/AAAAAAAAB4U/kamm_MdUvGM/s1600/2013-06-12+15.04.50.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-_1TpxUenxQs/Ub7cnyCpNOI/AAAAAAAAB4U/kamm_MdUvGM/s1600/2013-06-12+15.04.50.jpg" height="150" width="200" /></a><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Ij7dC8jAQb0/UbxIWb_KRZI/AAAAAAAAB2I/HGMN2gEuAHw/s1600/2013-06-12+08.27.36.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Ij7dC8jAQb0/UbxIWb_KRZI/AAAAAAAAB2I/HGMN2gEuAHw/s1600/2013-06-12+08.27.36.jpg" height="150" width="200" /></a><br />
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<b>4. <span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Energy and a buzz of excitement around the end goal. </span></b><br />
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-loUorJUi9jc/UbxI8miP_XI/AAAAAAAAB2o/JMqYia8Ey2M/s1600/2013-06-11+11.09.42.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-loUorJUi9jc/UbxI8miP_XI/AAAAAAAAB2o/JMqYia8Ey2M/s1600/2013-06-11+11.09.42.jpg" height="150" width="200" /></a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">For me, this is perhaps the greatest characteristic of these events. A full day of professional development can be a lot to ask of a teacher especially in June (early June). But we weren't asking for 1 day, this was 2 FULL days of learning and making. At the end you'd expect folks to be checking out, playing games, and basically doing anything but creating. Not here. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Participants worked up to the bell. They were excited about the potential for impact these interactive modules <a href="http://adilaura.blogspot.com/2013/04/sharing-knowledge-inspiring-creativity.html" target="_blank">(see and download my examples here)</a> could have. They weren't jumping through some administrative hoop, they weren't checking an item off their to-do list. Rather, the product they were making was desirable, it will help teachers and schools sustain their iPad environments, and the they could grasp how to make it happen through the training and resources they were equipped with. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Of course when you put on a hackathon there are a few requirements to keep that edge of excitement. For us, that meant raffles a few times throughout the day, a video chat from the team at Bookry.com, cool t-shirts supplied by Bookry for the participants, awesome lunch food, great snacks throughout the event and finally a free registration towards <a href="http://www.macul.org/" target="_blank">MACUL 2014</a> to give away. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This was a great two days of making. We have several more planned throughout the summer <a href="http://mibookexchange.wix.com/ibahackathon#!join/c199t" target="_blank">(see details here)</a>. However, we also recognize this is the first in a string of years to come that will be necessary to truly meet the end goals of this project- open educational ibooks for k-12 content- that others can download, personalize, and distribute to their students. </span><br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11927948328480203361noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6597035389092223632.post-2122634863776701132013-06-05T03:39:00.002-07:002013-06-05T03:39:53.964-07:00Failure is Part of the ProcessI failed today.<br />
It hurt.<br />
It sucked, actually.<br />
It knocked me down, left me spinning a bit, raised questions...<br />
even worst, raised doubts.<br />
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I've come to find out over the past few years that failure is a part of the process. The process of making. The process of living. The process of teaching and learning.<br />
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I had written a proposal for a large grant that would greatly aid the efforts of <a href="http://adilaura.blogspot.com/2013/06/reflections-from-first-ibooks-author.html" target="_blank">my project.</a> I spent days pouring over the application process and making sure the dozen page report I was submitting met all the criteria. Writing is a difficult task for a math teacher who is typically not so inclined grammatically perhaps you've noticed by reading this.<br />
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I thought for sure the organization would see this proposal as a way to impact educational environments on a global scale. I thought for sure they would see how this money and their name could go towards opening up high quality educational resources for teachers around the world. After all, that is the way I was seeing this project. But instead this is the response I got from my work.<br />
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I am writing to inform you of the grant evaluation committee's decision to not fund your project at this time for reasons such as,</blockquote>
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The proposal did not clearly identify specific ways in which the project would be an innovation in the use of the technology in education, or have a specific measurable impact on a target population.</blockquote>
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After Failing.</h3>
I got it wrong.<br />
My art was not valued in the eyes of others.<br />
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I could chose to be defeated. I could chose to walk the other way and hold on to my failures. I can keep looking for people who see things the way I see them. Those who will agree with me and see my creations as I see them.<br />
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Or.<br />
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I can chose to iterate. I can listen to my audience. The judge of my work. The beholder of my art. I can tune in to what they see as beautiful, acceptable, and honorable. I can wipe the canvas clean, if needed, or just had the missing strokes, colors, textures that are needed to make this work beautiful in the eyes of the beholder.<br />
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The doubt raised by this failure can not get the best of us. Doubt must lead us to seek. Seeking must lead us to a deeper understanding. This understanding must lead us to iteration and transformation.<br />
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This is what it means to live fully, exposing your work, risking your heart by creating your art. To keep that art locked up where no one can criticize it, admire it, or display it would be selfish of us and robbing ourselves and the world of something beautiful.<br />
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Keep seeking. Keep making. Keep transforming. You and the world will benefit.<br />
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11927948328480203361noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6597035389092223632.post-35458399666982289722013-06-04T11:30:00.000-07:002013-06-04T11:30:31.938-07:00How My Learning Environment has Changed with the iPad<h3>
<u>In the Beginning</u></h3>
Towards the end of the 2010-2011 school year I started flipping my classroom by having students read for comprehension from the textbook and filling out a sheet of guided notes prior to coming to class. Class time started with reviewing select problems from the section, then progressed to independent practice and group work. Class concluded with a 4 question check for understanding students would complete on their own.<br />
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<span style="background-color: #cfe2f3;">It struck me how poorly kids could read for comprehension</span>. Was this the fault of the textbook companies for writing content in such a boring and non engaging style? Was this a result of our societal shift to more video and less reading?<br />
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<u>Along came the iPad</u></h3>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-T522WCGS2jg/T9JdLRN-8_I/AAAAAAAAAHY/Iq8SNJoGg2o/s1600/photo+1.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-T522WCGS2jg/T9JdLRN-8_I/AAAAAAAAAHY/Iq8SNJoGg2o/s320/photo+1.PNG" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 13px; text-align: center;"><a href="http://dl.dropbox.com/u/17725155/Geo%20Basic%20Foundation%20epub%20notes.epub" target="_blank">click here from an iPad to see my first chapter</a></td></tr>
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Despite being a newbie to all things Apple I jumped right into creating content for my students using pages and exporting to epub files. I loved it and I truly thought it was great, there was text, images, videos, and links to websites. The interactive of the ibooks was twice that of a regular textbook and I thought for sure this opened up multiple channels of communication for the learner.<br />
However, <span style="background-color: #fff2cc;">students seemed to really struggle with reading for comprehension and knowing what the desired outcomes where for each section. Was there a breakdown in the ebook or was there a more deeply rooted issue that was ingrained in the learning philosophy of our students? </span><br />
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There were multiple areas of change concurrently taking place. First of all these students were freshman and coming into the high school environment was new to them. The issue iPads was completely new to all students but to freshman equipped with trapper keepers for every subject the issue of digital organization was confusing. These students wanted and needed a physical form of homework in front of them. All this said I knew this year was going to be more than teaching about math. I knew I would have to focus my students on unlearning their bad habits of sitting and getting information. I knew it would be a fight to transform their belief that learning was passive and instill in them personal responsibility of their learning and taking an active role in their education.<br />
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Despite believing this and in the interest of easing students into these changes I cut back on text, images, and links, and focused solely on video. I was convinced that students were struggling with the new style of learning, they weren't ready to be responsible for "learning" the material on their own. They needed a more structured teacher directed lesson in which they were told exactly what to write down and where to write it. Students were asked to view vodcast lectures at night, and to come to class prepared to talk about that content the following day. However, there were issues, just like when you assign a problem set with homework you'll have those students that don't do their homework. Same was true here even though the homework was just to watch a video and fill in the notes. All flip teachers have been here before.<br />
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<span style="background-color: #fff2cc;">Was this really flipped instruction? Was this really benefiting students? </span><span style="background-color: #fff2cc;">Was this at all removing the teacher from the role of the sage on the stage? Or was this just re inventing the traditional classroom lecture on a nice shiny device?</span><br />
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<h3>
<u>Test run on Textbook App</u></h3>
Right before the end of our semester we decided to flip our class using only the free sample of the textbook app that our textbook company provided in the app store. All other factors remained constant, the only difference there was no guided video notes from the teachers, only those videos that were done by the app creators. Students were given instructions on how to navigate the app and how to interact with it then set free to move through the chapter. You can read <a href="http://adilaura.blogspot.com/2012/02/digital-textbooks-created-by-textbook.html" target="_blank">my blog post found here</a> but essentially this is what we found:<br />
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<ul>
<li>using the app was equivalent to having the students use the online site and read the textbook</li>
<li>students struggled to piece together the video examples with their guided notes</li>
<li>the app took up huge amounts of space on the iPad (1+ GB for one chapter)</li>
<li>students felt disconnected from their teacher due to the fact the videos featured a teacher they had no personal relationship with.</li>
<li>Final thoughts were sealed after meeting with our textbook rep- it was going to cost $49 per app for students for a 6 year period if we purchased the app through them. This would mean that student devices would need the app loaded onto their device in some way other than downloading from the app store. Can you imagine connecting 2000 devices one at a time or even 30 at a time, multiple times a year to load the next chapter or semester of materials on? This seemed all to unpractical. There has to be a better solution, a better method of delivering and interacting with content,</li>
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<u>iBooks Author and the Mastery Flipclass</u></h3>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-6VhCoDvkBos/T9N5be4eU7I/AAAAAAAAAH8/wCdk-qU-GRY/s1600/photo+(6).PNG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-6VhCoDvkBos/T9N5be4eU7I/AAAAAAAAAH8/wCdk-qU-GRY/s320/photo+(6).PNG" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 13px; text-align: center;"><a href="http://dl.dropbox.com/u/17725155/Geometry%20Chapter%209.ibooks" target="_blank">from iPad, click here to see our first ibooks author attempt</a></td></tr>
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The release of iBooks Author and iBooks2 was truly thrilling to me. And again only having a few months of Apple knowledge under my belt it was too appealing to not jump in and see what could be done.<br />
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Students were becoming more comfortable with exploration learning, engaging in problem solving and learning through feedback. </div>
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In addition to making the shift to using iBooks Author to create more interactive content, I also moved to the <a href="http://www.thedailyriff.com/articles/the-flipped-class-what-does-a-good-one-look-like-692.php" target="_blank">Mastery Flipped class methodology</a>.<br />
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Under this methodology students were no longer expected to be on the same page on the same day. They all received a unit roadmap with certain checkpoints along the way. The checkpoints served as accountability for students. The order of their learning took on the form of reading/viewing content in ibooks, practicing a problem set, self correcting this problem set, passing an online formative assessment with an 80% or better, then completing a 4 question paper and pencil quiz- this grade went into the grade book. If they received less a 2.5/4 then students would complete a reteach worksheet provided by our textbook company. Students were encouraged to work in groups of 2-3 they were encouraged to create <a href="http://www.showme.com/" target="_blank">Showme</a> videos and post them to Edmodo for their classmates to view and review.<br />
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The beginning of class was a time to check in and connect the content students (majority of students) were working on to real life problems. For example, during our unit on surface area and volume we took time to calculate the volume of plastic saved by bottling companies when they went to a smaller sized screw cap. We took time to process why this was important and what our place and math's place was in this real world connection. Often times we employed apps such as Socrative, Poll Everywhere, or Nearpod to gain student data.<br />
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Following a large group check in, students would break up and work on problem sets, projects, or quizzes and tests, while I (the teacher) went around to each student and group and checked in. Some days were high demand teacher days and I found myself quickly adopting the "ask 3 then me" rule. Other days students did not have a lot of questions, but overall I found myself spending more time with students working 1 on 1 or 1 on 3 way more than in the past when I would lecture and spend little time problem solving.<br />
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Some days class was loud and crazy and I fought my inclinations to quiet the crowd and keep things orderly. Yes, some students need that peace and quiet to concentrate and focus, while others seem to thrive in the noise. Other days I would have pockets of students taking quizzes and tests and therefore would need to keep the classroom environment quiet so as to not compromise that testing environment. Anything that went in the grade book was done by the individual student in class on paper and pencil and was hand graded by me. I really wanted to accurately measure my students understanding and felt that online assessments while great for formative evaluations and immediate feedback did not provide insight into a students thought process and problem solving techniques.<br />
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Students were shedding the layers of passive learning, sit and get philosophy, and starting to take responsibility of their learning. Those motivated students were moving through the content at accelerated paces. These students were given opportunities to extend their learning by completing non traditional content related projects. While those who needed extra time, had busy schedules, or just learned less quickly than others were supported in this and still moved through the materials. Unfortunately, there were those students who chose to do absolutely nothing. There were students who, no matter what you did or how you motivated them, they dug their heels in and refused to take on the responsibility, they chose to fail. The good news in this is, out of the 95% of students who did chose to work in this setting all of them passed the course.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11927948328480203361noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6597035389092223632.post-8149958447444211472013-06-03T12:18:00.000-07:002013-06-03T12:18:13.050-07:00Reflections from First iBooks Author Hack Event<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">It has begun. Over the past 6 months this moment has been built up, played out, and romanticized in my mind. It is hard to believe that the first of several of these 2 day events has come and gone. This marks the beginning of the summer of an amazing movement by k-12 educators around the nation to make open educational ibooks. This project is described in more detail on our website: <a href="http://mibookexchange.wix.com/ibahackathon"><span class="s2">http://mibookexchange.wix.com/ibahackathon</span></a></span></div>
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<span class="s1">If you haven’t heard of Monte Vista Christian Schools it’s because it may be the countries best kept private school secret. This beautiful campus is tucked away in the outskirts of Watsonville, CA and is home to about 800 middle and high school students. Among their many claims to fame is the fact that they were the first school to go one to one iPads in the U.S. And now they are first into this initiative to create a repository of open educational ibooks for k-12 education. </span></div>
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-JsbqktDSsEg/UazrVgKyGlI/AAAAAAAAB0g/sio4kH225TE/s1600/photo+(2).JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-JsbqktDSsEg/UazrVgKyGlI/AAAAAAAAB0g/sio4kH225TE/s1600/photo+(2).JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span class="s1">Our relationship began a few months ago when high school principal Steve Woods reached out to me and asked if I’d be willing to come out host a hackathon event on their campus. Here are a few reflections on our time. </span></div>
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<span class="s1">There were 25 hackers in all from San Francisco to Santa Cruz to Los Angelos (actually the folks from LA had to drop at the last minute but are still participating virtually). We gathered on the beautiful campus of Monte Vista Christian School in a Mac computer lab perfect the size of group we had. </span></div>
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<span class="s1">We spent a few minutes talking about how this project came to be, why it is important to k-12 education, and what the end goals are. The following two hours consisted of learning about iBooks Author as an authoring tool and attendees built their first book using resources that I had gathered for them. Even though most of us didn’t get around to creating our actual books in iBooks Author I think it is best to spend that morning time learning the authoring tool and showing attendees the possibilities of an interactive learning experience. </span></div>
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<span class="s1">Right before lunch we were privileged to get a Google hangout chat with the wonderful staff from <a href="http://bookry.com/">Bookry.com</a>. If you don’t know what Bookry is all about I encourage you to check them out. In a nutshell they provide complimentary service to educators creating widgets to use in their iBooks. Rhys, the company founder, gave us an overview of their upcoming quiz widget, sure to be a smashing success among educators looking to get student feedback on a variety of question types. </span></div>
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<span class="s1">The afternoon consisted of learning about copyright, creative commons, and public domain content. I want to thank Josh Mika (<a href="http://twitter.com/ijoshmika" target="_blank">@ijoshmika</a>) and the invaluable resources he has provided in this area. I don’t know if we could have spent enough time on this topic as it is surely a concern when creating digital content. We scoured the resources provided in our iTunesU course in addition to learning a few search techniques for finding creative commons content. </span></div>
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<span class="s1">Another good chunk of our afternoon consisted of learning about the collaborative space we will all be working in to access each others work and build our repository. The space we have chosen to do this in is called <a href="http://box.com/">Box.com</a>. Again, if you haven’t looked into Box I highly recommend them as they offer some amazing services in addition to their cloud storage. This area of the training came to take up more time than I had anticipated as folks needed to see how to function within this platform. So we ended up spending another hour demonstrating how a content area team could work together to create different chapters of the same book. This did prove to be beneficial and I believe Box will help us attain our goals.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">In upcoming hackathons I will do this a little differently, including getting folks into this space sooner, stashing content there for them to download and experiment with and model the collaboration process. Furthermore, it became evident that people need to see a workflow modeled for them. Including how to search, find, and attribute open educational resources. They need to be exposed to tools such as Skitch for capturing their screen, Textmate for editing HTML code, and the basic Apple suite such as Quicktime, Keynote, Pages, and iMovie for creating and formatting content. </span></div>
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<span class="s1">Overall, it was a success. I consider it so because it’s a first step down a long road of creating high quality multi-touch interactive books that others can download, personalize, and distribute to their students. Without the first step of exposing them to the project, training them in the tools, and bringing them into the collaboration the movement would have not begun. We would have continued to create in isolation. However, the community is forming, the learning is beginning, the content is growing, the ideas are improving, the flywheel is starting to move. </span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11927948328480203361noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6597035389092223632.post-24390800609412756452013-06-02T02:59:00.001-07:002013-06-02T03:02:22.351-07:00Going First.<div style="text-align: right;">
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Daily I'm reminded of both the thrills and fears of going first. Mainly I see these extremes through the eyes of my children when they are either screaming "Me first!" or "Not me!" For example, when it's time to serve birthday cake and ice cream they're all too ready to receive the first piece ahead of their cousin whose birthday we're celebrating. However, when it comes to getting their haircut, fingernails clipped, or bath drawn they're all too willing to let their siblings go first. Funny how that works, but not unpredictable.<br />
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When reward or treat is bring offered we are all about it. At the same time when an event occurs that we don't see the immediate benefit in we are not so quick to sign up and will gladly let others go first to see what's in it for them, then make our decision to jump in. Likewise, when an opportunity presents itself that raises a bit of fear in us we're not creatures that readily select ourselves to go first, exposing our vulnerability and drawing upon our courage.<br />
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There is too much safety and comfort built in to remaining where we are. However, this may be the most dangerous of all places- to simply remain where you are. What if no one ever took that risk? What if no one ever led? What if no one ever chose to be vulnerable, courageous, the first?<br />
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Lead well today. Take risks today. Be first for selfless reasons today.<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i> photo via morguefile.com PD </i></span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11927948328480203361noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6597035389092223632.post-1982672182029116092013-04-17T14:59:00.001-07:002013-04-17T15:02:55.056-07:00Sharing Knowledge, Inspiring Creativity<div style="text-align: left;">
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If you have read any of my other <a href="http://adilaura.blogspot.com/p/iba-book-hack.html" target="_blank">posts or pages on this blog</a> you will know that I am a big proponent of teacher created (hacked) interactive books made for the iPad using iBooks Author. <a href="http://bit.ly/ibahack" target="_blank">See our summer project here. </a><br />
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So, in honor of attending the #NCTM conference this year in Denver and in hopes of inspiring creativity in others and generating feedback (kind critiques) of my own work I am posting two semi-polished interactive books. After downloading them to your iPad please revisit this blog and leave a comment giving feedback to the work in progress. Thanks!<br />
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You will need to download these books from an iPad and chose to open them in the free iBooks app.<br />
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><a href="https://www.box.com/s/g7zlph4ckmrrpnf1x02n" target="_blank"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-mFHNDRoN574/UW8Y_ZNtw0I/AAAAAAAABpQ/zbCT8W66ZBY/s1600/photo.PNG" height="200" width="152" /></a></span></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.box.com/s/g7zlph4ckmrrpnf1x02n" target="_blank">Geometry: Transformations75 MB Download to iPad</a></td></tr>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-hmO_LzHzYcs/UW8Y5Vp-KcI/AAAAAAAABpI/k7f0IoJW8Ks/s1600/photo-1.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-hmO_LzHzYcs/UW8Y5Vp-KcI/AAAAAAAABpI/k7f0IoJW8Ks/s1600/photo-1.PNG" height="200" width="153" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.box.com/s/bm29wkw1lo2itnuqmxbe" target="_blank">Geometry: Circles70 MB Download to iPad</a></td></tr>
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About the Books</h3>
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Both of these books are created in iBooks Author and are only viewable on the iPad. However, if you wanted them in ePub format we can provide that format you will just lose most of the interactive features. </div>
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Both books contain student friendly text, images curated from creative common sources, HTML widgets that allow for exploring patterns and relationships, and quizzes both embedded and online. In addition to these features, the books contain videos, some that are embedded that will play offline and others that are streamed from YouTube.<br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11927948328480203361noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6597035389092223632.post-62554275171195130662013-04-16T02:19:00.002-07:002013-04-16T02:19:23.657-07:00Soccer Ball Math<h3>
The Ball Story</h3>
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-K5BEklf9_gg/UW0NtHkXTUI/AAAAAAAABoc/4Q2bysa-Kn0/s1600/file5771281077526.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-K5BEklf9_gg/UW0NtHkXTUI/AAAAAAAABoc/4Q2bysa-Kn0/s1600/file5771281077526.jpg" height="133" width="200" /></a>It happened to me yesterday. Like all non-expecting, well-intentioned, hard-working coaches who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. </div>
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I was positioned 10 feet outside of the goal frame instructing my goal keeper on a few points. The rest of the team lined up around the 18' mark, poised and ready for taking shots on our keeper. </div>
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Just as I turned ever so slightly to face the next shooter and motion for her to take the shot. That's when it hit me, literally. That's when the cry of all self respecting men rang out around the world. That's when the wayward shot from the foot of the quietest girl on the team came like a comet screaming for my manhood and hit me square, causing every woman and child in viewing distance to pause, gasp, and then burst out into laughter. </div>
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I dropped. </div>
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I cried.</div>
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They laughed. </div>
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The Ball Story Problem</h3>
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Being a soccer coach I am fascinated with the different designs of a soccer ball. However, the traditional design offers geeky teachers a challenging math problem involving areas of two dimensional regular polygons that are linked together to form a three dimensional solid. </div>
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So, in honor of attending NCTM 13 in Denver this week (and of course the story above) I thought I would share this problem. The students do an entertaining job of explaining the problem in the video below. </div>
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Problem: Find the surface area and radius of the traditional size 5 soccer ball when given the side of the regular pentagonal panels is 4.2 cm. </h4>
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<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/5OCIPnDH5D0?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
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<h3>
Persevering</h3>
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Simply handing the students a soccer ball and asking them to find the surface area is also a nice way to address the math practice standards of 'persevering in problem solving.' Hopefully after presenting this problem students will ask good questions such as; What do I need to know in order to find the radius and the surface area? What shapes make up the surface area of the ball? How can I find the area of one of those shapes? etc. </div>
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Obviously you can scaffold the information as you see fit for your students. As you can tell from the video we chose to tell them how many pentagons and hexagons made up the surface of the ball. You could also chose to give them more information such as the formulas for finding the area of a regular polygon. Or you could simply hand them a ball and a ruler and tell them to come up with as an exact of a measure for the surface area and radius as they can. </div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11927948328480203361noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6597035389092223632.post-22367578689058954992013-04-09T07:26:00.000-07:002013-04-12T05:15:02.413-07:00iBooks Author Hackathon-- #Macul13 reflection pt. 3<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-XDmr5c7yNMU/UV7UvwcVAMI/AAAAAAAABnk/QJLbi5yzoSM/s1600/ibookauthor+hackathon+%7C+Wix.com.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-XDmr5c7yNMU/UV7UvwcVAMI/AAAAAAAABnk/QJLbi5yzoSM/s1600/ibookauthor+hackathon+%7C+Wix.com.png" height="201" title="iBooks Author Hackathon" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">bit.ly/ibahack</td></tr>
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This was the event I was waiting for at <a href="http://www.macul.org/milearning/ibooks/" target="_blank">#Macul13</a>. Finally a chance for <a href="http://www.blogger.com/profile/08605575656767405786" target="_blank">Steve Dickie</a> (<a href="http://twitter.com/falconphysics" target="_blank">@falconphysics</a>) and I (<a href="http://twitter.com/anthonydilaura" target="_blank">@anthonydilaura</a>) to tell a wider audience about a large scale cooperative project that will bring educators together to create high quality, interactive content using iBooks Author.<br />
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This hour long presentation was an absolute high for me. This is where my passion lies: collaborating with highly motivated, creative educators to create and share digital content that will undoubtedly innovate the way iPad classrooms will function.<br />
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Working with Steve and co-presenting this project with him felt like we had been working with one another for years even though it was only our second time of being in the same room. Steve is an incredibly brilliant science teacher that approaches teaching and learning from a very artistic angle. What he brings to this project and to those hacking science content is invaluable.<br />
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About the Project</h3>
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Here is a brief overview of <a href="http://bit.ly/ibahack" target="_blank">the project</a> as we described it to our audience. For further information see <a href="http://edudemic.com/2013/03/ibooks-author-hackathon/" target="_blank">my article that was published</a> at Edudemic.com on March 28th, 2013 and check out the projects website <a href="http://bit.ly/ibahack" target="_blank">here</a>. </div>
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<b>What:</b> Multiple two-day events that bring teachers together to learn how to author content using iBooks Author. Collaborate in content area or grade level teams to divide up and conquer common core aligned granular size learning modules that are shared among teachers. </div>
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<b>Who: </b>Motivated and creative teachers working in an iPad learning environment as they will most directly benefit from these resources. </div>
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<b>Why</b>: There are literally 100's of reasons perhaps 1000's if you consider the amount of money a district can save and redistribute to support student learning by having teachers create and use these "digital textbooks." <span style="background-color: yellow;">But first and foremost is the reason of student learning.</span> What I have experienced and what research backs is that when a curriculum is more personalized and tailored to differentiate for student needs they are more likely to succeed and own the learning. Content delivered in this manner allows the teacher to re-purpose their face to face time. It allows class time to be spent on a deeper exploration and transfer of content.<br />
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Why this is so exciting?</h3>
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It's not that <a href="http://www.apple.com/ibooks-author/" target="_blank">this technology</a> is so amazing and new that gets me giddy. Rather, it is the idea of accomplishing this task together, collaborating and sharing with a group of like minded teachers. Let's face it that doesn't always happen in our building, department, grade level groups.</div>
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I don't look at this technology as something so innovative that it will blow our doors off. However, I do believe the results of this project are something that could allow teachers to innovate their classroom practices in a way that blows the doors off their student's learning. That, to me, is very exciting. </div>
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I want to learn. I want to share what I know. Doesn't everyone want professional development to be like this? Learn from others and share what you know put them together to advance education. However, how often do we sit and humbly (or selfishly) remain quiet in department meetings? Or how often do we as teachers not have the buy in for what our PD is about? </div>
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This event will be teacher driven and grassroots. It's not an order coming down from the administrators (at least not yet- ours is thinking about telling departments "no more textbooks"). It will call upon the creativity of many, it will deepen the creativity of many, and it has the potential to deepen the creativity of students. </div>
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11927948328480203361noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6597035389092223632.post-78392492181335274702013-04-05T12:41:00.004-07:002013-04-05T12:41:41.407-07:00A Letter to #MASSP-- Encourage CollaborationHello Michigan Secondary School Principals,<br />
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Many of us had the chance to chat at the<a href="http://masspipadsummit2013.sched.org/venue/B120#.UV7hAKvzZ2s" target="_blank"> iPad Summit </a>held in East Lansing a few weeks ago. But for those of us who didn't I wanted to take a moment and inform/remind you about the <a href="http://bit.ly/ibahack" target="_blank">iBooks Author Collaborative project</a> going on this summer. If you're currently, or will be soon, educating in a 1 to 1 iPad environment at any grade level this project is a worthy investment of your money and your staff's time.<br />
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We all reach a point in our iPad initiatives when we must evaluate the technology, address how it is transforming our teaching and learning practice, and answer the question 'how will we sustain the program?' I deeply believe this project can help us address all of these concerns.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-4l7n8EJ4qUQ/UV7mtC165DI/AAAAAAAABn0/9RhvgBUS8nc/s1600/ibookauthor+hackathon+%7C+Wix.com.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-4l7n8EJ4qUQ/UV7mtC165DI/AAAAAAAABn0/9RhvgBUS8nc/s1600/ibookauthor+hackathon+%7C+Wix.com.png" height="201" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Collaborate - Create- Share</td></tr>
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The iBooks Author collaborative is a project that will bring teachers together to create and share high quality, digital 'textbook' content. Teachers participating in this event will also have access to the content created by other teachers so that they can adopt their work and personalize it for their own students.<br />
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We know, and research shows, a personalized learning experience is a contributing factor to an engaging and successful learning experience. Teachers will have the ability to update and personalize these interactive ebooks which is unlike any other hard bound textbook.<br />
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The vast amount of digital content readily available online along with access to high end authoring tools like iBooks Author makes a great case for this project. However, to the average teacher, the task to create this digital content can seem daunting unless we work together. I have no doubt that by participating in a hackathon event this summer your staff will be well on its way to authoring authentic content, increasing their expertise in their field, stimulating their creativity, and leading your school into a deeper and more meaningful level of tech integration.<br />
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I want to ask you to encourage your creative and motivated staff members to get involved. The cost of the two day event is minimal ($30). I want to ask you to support their efforts, possibly offer participants $200 for creating shareable content. What could possibly cost the district $2000 this summer (sending 10 hackers) could possibly lead to saving tens of thousands of dollars in the coming years by not having to purchase textbooks.<br />
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In conclusion, we truly believe the better reason for getting involved is the benefit to student learning that will occur as a result of your teachers getting highly active in collaborating, creating, and sharing these resources.<br />
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Please feel free to ask further questions or direct teachers to <a href="http://bit.ly/ibahack" target="_blank">our website</a> and <a href="https://plus.google.com/u/0/communities/112862452781960201400" target="_blank">Google Community</a>.<br />
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11927948328480203361noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6597035389092223632.post-12391051233066270342013-04-05T00:56:00.004-07:002013-04-05T00:56:57.250-07:00iPad 2, Year 2, Audience of 2-- #Macul13 Reflection pt. 2Last year my colleague, Shawn Jacob, and I had a fabulous time sharing our school's (Zeeland Public) 1 to 1 iPad journey at Macul12. We named our session "Create, Consume, Collaborate and Communicate- the high school iPad experience." It was awesome and we had a sold out crowd, it was literally standing room only. So we thought 'let's do the sequel.' People will want to know what we learned in year one, what we've changed in year two, what were talking about for year three, and how we are going to sustain the initiative in years to come.<br />
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-vFTnrXweRu0/UV4QGTNAU_I/AAAAAAAABnU/xP5fvqEmrDY/s1600/IMAG0052.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-vFTnrXweRu0/UV4QGTNAU_I/AAAAAAAABnU/xP5fvqEmrDY/s1600/IMAG0052.jpg" height="180" width="320" /></a><br />
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We all know how sequels go, or better yet, don't go. It's not that we suck... at least, I don't think we do. We had our magic trick planned and ready to go (pulled due to lack of audience) who else does a magic trick to start their presentation?<br />
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Alright, for all you who "wanted-to-come-but-couldn't-make-it" here is a quick summary.<br />
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<h3>
Year 2- What we're doing differently</h3>
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<b>1. Focus on Digital Citizenship</b></div>
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It quickly became apparent that adolescents might be well versed in digital technologies (although not all) however, they are not well versed in the digital ethics and understanding of the trail they are leaving of themselves online. </div>
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This year we focused more on digital citizenship. Students were required to attend an hour long presentation on online ethics. Parents were encouraged although not forced to attend. We hosted another presentation from a local lawyer on the dangers and consequences of sexting. </div>
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A small group of teachers from the elementary level took sometime looking through age appropriate material for students to learn more about digital citizenship. A decent amount of our website (<a href="http://ilearn.zps.org/digicitizen/">ilearn.zps.org/digicitizen</a>) is dedicated to equipping parents, students, and staff with resources for addressing and teaching online behavior. </div>
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<b>2. Focus on Instructional Strategies</b></div>
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The theme of concerns from teachers after the first year really drove to the heart of the question "what should I be doing to effectively leverage learning and teaching with an iPad?" This lead us to layout some strategical practices so our teachers had some targets to shoot at. Here is where we landed:<br />
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<i>A. Online Presence</i>. This should be our first step, certainly for those who didn't already have a classroom presence online. For many of our teachers this was already being done so their next move was to ramp up the interactivity. To move away from a static one-way communication space of a website and towards a more social platform, such as <a href="http://edmodo.com/" target="_blank">Edmodo</a> or Moodle.<br />
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<i>B. App-lied Learning</i>. This is sometimes where people say "but it's not about the apps" and of course it isn't but why else did you buy the iPad? Yes, we want our teachers to use the apps for creating, consuming, critical thinking, collaborating etc. We felt it was important to support our teachers in how to use the App eco-system to enrich student learning. This meant re-creating the <a href="http://ilearn.zps.org/iteach/apps/blooms/">Blooms Taxonomy Wheel</a> for apps for our teachers and training them on how to use the iPad to collect student work.<br />
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<i>C. Data Driven Instruction.</i> With a piece of technology in the hand of every student we knew that collecting data would be much easier. The question then became how do we use this real time data to support / differentiate student learning? Many of our teachers are leveraging the data collecting ability of sites such as <a href="http://braingenie.com/">Braingenie.com</a>, <a href="http://thatquiz.org/">Thatquiz.org</a>, Moodle Quiz maker, <a href="http://tenmarks.com/">Tenmarks.com</a>, and <a href="http://www.mobymax.com/Curriculum/Math" target="_blank">Mobymax.com</a>. Teachers can use data collected through these online assessments and re-route students during face to face time to better meet their needs.<br />
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<i>D. Authentic Audience & Project Based Learning</i>. These two are goals we are striving for but certainly have a way to go to fully implement. The idea being that we really want our students to be producing real world artifacts and problem solving for a real world audience. </div>
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<b>3. Professional Development</b><br />
Finally one other concern coming from our teachers was around the area of ongoing professional development. They expressed their desire to have someone available full time to work with them towards integrating the iPad into their instruction. This is where my job was created and it has been a real pleasure to serve my k-12 staff this year in this capacity. In addition to face to face support we have ramped up our <a href="https://itunesu.itunes.apple.com/audit/COEMWKWMEB" target="_blank">online professional development</a> as well by offering video tutorials for teachers to view when and if they want. </div>
<h3>
Changed Practice- Shawn's example of teaching with an iPad</h3>
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My colleague and english teacher, Shawn Jacob, did a great job of highlighting a few changed practice behaviors that are indicative of many of our teachers habits. These behaviors include using <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/institution/zeeland-public-schools/id506408090" target="_blank">iTunesU</a> to distribute course materials, using <a href="http://kidblog.org/">KidBlog.org</a> for his class to publish to authentic audiences, using <a href="http://instagrok.com/">instagrok.com</a> to conduct research, and finally leverage the iPad for creating great content. </div>
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Shawn is an excellent example of a teacher integrating the iPad in a meaningful way and on a daily basis. The stories he tells about students and their use of the device to build meaning and content is truly spot on and humorous. </div>
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11927948328480203361noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6597035389092223632.post-88089778150275678812013-03-24T01:40:00.001-07:002013-03-24T01:40:26.343-07:00Inspired. -- #Macul13 Reflection part 1<h3>
Launching Kids</h3>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><a href="http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3ALiftoff_Endeavour_from_Launch_Pad_39A.jpg" target="_blank"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/--gV0u64shkk/UU67alwfuEI/AAAAAAAABg4/ZddtoDy-cSQ/s1600/Liftoff_Endeavour_from_Launch_Pad_39A.jpg" /></a></span></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3ALiftoff_Endeavour_from_Launch_Pad_39A.jpg" target="_blank">By NASA/Jeffrey Marino [Public domain], <br />via Wikimedia Commons</a></td></tr>
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You've seen the image before, a bunch of nerdy NASA dudes sitting in front of monitors while the countdown over the loud speaker hits zero. The flames burst forth from underneath the shuttle lifting it high into the atmosphere. Just as the shuttle breaks through the exosphere the nerd heard throws back their chairs and jumps for joy cheering and celebrating another successful launch and exploration of space. </div>
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<a href="http://kevinhonecutt.org/" target="_blank">Kevin Honeycutt</a>, a Macul Keynote, talks about launching kids, inspiring their goals and ambitions and fostering their whole growth as an individual. I appreciate Kevin's candor and the way he expresses his thoughts. He has a way of connecting with my heart when he speaks about reaching out and teaching the lowly and marginalized student. <span style="background-color: #fff2cc;"><b>He does an incredible job of reminding teachers that it is not about the technology, but rather, the relationships we hold with students and how those relationships foster creativity, individualization, and self esteem in our young people.</b></span></div>
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One of the colleagues I attended Macul with, Shawn Jacob, is really good at this as well. I deeply admire his classroom management strategies and the efforts he makes to keep kids and curriculum moving in the forward direction. He shared with me a few stories of seeing his own students launch and you can tell these are the stories that fuel him and keep him teaching. </div>
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Listening to both Shawn and Kevin reminded me of how much I miss the classroom and being connected to kids. They also reminded me of a few important rules in life and teaching. </div>
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Kids need you/us. They will never tell you this. For as much push back as you get as a parent, coach, or teacher the bottom line is kids need you. They may not admit it now but most likely there will come a time and place when they will. They need you to believe in them, hope for them, inspire them, push them, support them, and most of all set boundaries for them. Adolescence is a time in ones life that can be similar to a row boat in the middle of a wavy ocean. Adults can help students navigate their way back to shore and offer sense of security amidst the turmoil.</div>
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This was a great reminder to get out from behind the computer, take some focus of the data, high five a student in the hallway, go out of your way to do something for a kid that no one else would do, and just invest in a student's being well enough to the point that they burst forth from their pad and launch!</div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11927948328480203361noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6597035389092223632.post-47987711025973377752013-03-20T10:00:00.000-07:002013-03-20T10:03:10.426-07:00Hack Your Student's Textbook- #Macul13 sessions on iBooks AuthorOver 4000 people from across the midwest will descend upon Cobo Hall in Detroit, MI over the next few days to attend <a href="http://macul.org/" target="_blank">Macul13</a>. Undoubtedly they will hear dynamic keynotes, learn about cool apps, and get a peek into top edtech teachers classrooms. And, while there are a plethora of excellent sessions to attend, I want to recommend a few "must see" sessions for those of us in an iPad teaching and learning environment.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-iTK5i4drvXk/UUnnifeGcHI/AAAAAAAABe8/3Tmk_KPXIu0/s1600/2013-03-07+15.26.22.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-iTK5i4drvXk/UUnnifeGcHI/AAAAAAAABe8/3Tmk_KPXIu0/s1600/2013-03-07+15.26.22.jpg" height="180" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Your students next textbook is written by YOU.</td></tr>
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The sessions highlighted below pertain to using <a href="http://www.apple.com/ibooks-author/gallery.html#video-interactive-galleries" target="_blank">iBooks Author</a> to create interactive learning modules (think units of a textbook). All are put on by excellent trainers, most of which, will be apart of this summer's<a href="http://bitly.com/ibahack" target="_blank"> iBooks Author Hackathon</a>--a collaborative effort to create K-12 interactive learning mods. Check these sessions out during Macul, they will get you motivated to hack your students next textbook.<br />
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<h3>
Thursday March 21</h3>
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<i><b>iBooks Author For Creating Interactive Books for an iPad - Workshop</b></i></div>
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1:00-3:00 pm W2-70 By: Dave Tchozewski</div>
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Dave Tchozewski <a class="g-profile" href="https://plus.google.com/115859269984922107960" target="_blank">+Dave Tchozewski</a> is the Director of Information Technology for Jenison Public Schools and has a real heart for innovating the classroom. He will be running this two hour workshop to give teachers hands on experience with using this fascinating tool. </div>
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<b><i>iBooks Author- Creating iPad Content for Education</i></b></div>
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4:00-5:00pm O3-45 By: Joanna Montgomery</div>
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Joanna is an expert in iBooks Author and did our training for us at Zeeland Public Schools last summer. She also works for Apple and serves as the DE for the east side of Michigan. Joanna will have you hooked on creating iBooks for sure. </div>
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<h3>
Friday March 22</h3>
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<b><i>Innovating with iBooks Author and Pages</i></b></div>
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8:30-9:30 am D3-17 By: Steve Dickie <a class="g-profile" href="https://plus.google.com/103412747657062364551" target="_blank">+Steve Dickie</a> </div>
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Steve is an incredibly creative and innovative science teacher who is partly responsible for this summers iBooks Author hackathon. He has incredible knowledge of the ins and outs of iBA and is looking forward to leading the east side of the state to author high quality content. </div>
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<b><i>Join the iBooks Author Collaborative </i></b></div>
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11:30-12:30 pm DO-01A By: Anthony DiLaura <a class="g-profile" href="https://plus.google.com/117882663545538188383" target="_blank">+Anthony DiLaura</a> & Steve Dickie <a class="g-profile" href="https://plus.google.com/103412747657062364551" target="_blank">+Steve Dickie</a> </div>
<div>
This is my session, so of course I think you should attend :) Steve and I are hoping to share with you the plans for this summer's collaborative project that is already spreading across the Midwest. Teachers from all over are coming together to create interactive textbooks. If you teach in an iPad environment you should be here as this is the future of teaching and learning!</div>
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<b><i>iPads, iBooks Author, Screencasts, Edmodo & More: New Tools for High School Teachers</i></b></div>
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11:30-12:30 pm D3-17 By: Julie Kindred <a class="g-profile" href="https://plus.google.com/110909564632227472424" target="_blank">+Julie Kindred</a> and Daniel Telgenhof</div>
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If you are wondering what the potential is for iPads and iBooks Author, this is a great session to attend. Julie Kindred, self proclaimed tech-illiterate, created her own AP Statistics book this past summer and is using it to teach her students this year. She will give you the full details of her journey and tell you how it is increasing student engagement and learning. She is a wonderful and charismatic personality that you have to get to know.</div>
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<b><i>Creating Impressive, Interactive iBooks with iBooks Author</i></b></div>
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11:30-12:30 pm Craig Van Ham</div>
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Craig is an incredibly savvy ed tech teacher that cranks out tons of video tutorials on different web 2.0 tools and apps. Craig hosts this wonderful collection of helpful tutorials on <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/institution/michigans-mi-learning/id394006439" target="_blank">MiLearning's iTunesU</a> space. Craig also has created<a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/itunes-u/creating-impressive-interactive/id554159843?mt=10" target="_blank"> tutorials to get you started using iBooks Author</a>. </div>
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<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/7I0C8DSmBUQ?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
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So, I encourage you to check out a few of these sessions, get introduced to iBooks Author. And, if you are teaching in a 1:1 iPad environment, or soon will be, then you definitely want to get involved with the iBooks Author Hackathon going on this summer. For more details and registration check out the website here: <a href="http://mibookexchange.wix.com/ibahackathon">http://mibookexchange.wix.com/ibahackathon</a></div>
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Disclaimer: I am not sure if there are more sessions going on at Macul highlighting this tool, sorry if I missed someone's session. Please add it to the comment section below.</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11927948328480203361noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6597035389092223632.post-36044832455542265442013-03-11T06:00:00.000-07:002013-03-11T06:37:54.205-07:00Reflections on iTunesU Course<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<h3>
I've always wanted to be featured on iTunes...I'm just not musical</h3>
This past week a way cool thing happened to me. Apple listed my <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/course/open-geometry-2nd-semester/id557136810" target="_blank">Open Geometry Course</a> as one of the "<a href="http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewRoom?fcId=602817402" target="_blank">8 Outstanding High School Courses</a>" in the K-12 iTunesU space. I thought I would take a page to reflect on my iTunesU experience and offer some thoughts on how I went about creating my course.<br />
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The journey with iTunesU started last school year when a rep from Apple Education contacted me and invited a colleague of mine, Shawn Jacob, and myself out to Cupertino to work with dozens of other educators from around the nation to develop courses for the K-12 iTunesU site.<br />
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While there, we worked in content area teams to break up the work and start in on the process of curating content for our courses. I had several distinct advantages. First, I had just spent a year teaching in a 1:1 iPad environment. Second, I was equipped with tons of great digital content that my colleagues and I had developed over the year. Third, I had flipped my class and was using my own videos, iBooks Author files, and my own online quizzes that were ready to be inserted into iTunesU. Finally, I was already using an LMS to distribute content to students so I had a good idea of how iTunesU could effectively be used, even though it is not a full blown learning management system.<br />
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<h3>
Thoughts on creating your iTunesU course.</h3>
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<div style="text-align: center;">
<u>Things to know prior to building. </u></div>
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-FnbXOVp-xdM/UT2njKsv7OI/AAAAAAAABPs/8in06Gee1Sk/s1600/itunesu.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-FnbXOVp-xdM/UT2njKsv7OI/AAAAAAAABPs/8in06Gee1Sk/s1600/itunesu.png" /></a>- iTunesU is a great place to host content and help students keep their digital artifacts organized.<br />
-iTunesU is not a place to host teacher-student dialogue and threaded discussions (not yet at least- hoping it will be in the future).<br />
-iTunesU is not a place to collect and grade assignments.<br />
-iTunesU works best with the iPad but content can be found in iTunes.<br />
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1. <b>Pre-requisites</b>. In order to build a course you will need and Apple I.D. and the link to the course manager site opened in Safari. You can use other browsers, however, Apple suggests using Safari. </div>
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<a href="https://itunesu.itunes.apple.com/coursemanager" target="_blank"> https://itunesu.itunes.apple.com/coursemanager</a></div>
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-w9CpIF93S2g/UTzBB8He1nI/AAAAAAAABN4/wnaDYjXE85k/s1600/itunesu+pic.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-w9CpIF93S2g/UTzBB8He1nI/AAAAAAAABN4/wnaDYjXE85k/s1600/itunesu+pic.jpg" height="153" width="320" /></a></div>
2. <b>Create a descriptive course overview and well defined outline</b>. In your course description settings be very clear about your course. Use keywords that will lead searching students and teachers to you. List content standards, learning targets, guiding questions in the outline, and other descriptors that will give an in-depth understanding of what your course is about. There is nothing more frustrating than opening up a course and not seeing the course outline or having a very vague course description. Add a nice graphic to your course profile...you're on your way.<br />
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3. <b>Start small with the idea that you will build your content over the year</b>. Don't feel that you have to have a complete course ready to go at the beginning of the year. Choose to do a course in session as opposed to a self-paced course, this way there will be less pressure on you to post content ahead of schedule.<br />
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4. <b>Curate and create</b>. Remember this is a list of resources that you are pointing your subscribers to. The digital content doesn't have to all be created by you. There is plenty of great content out there on the web already that is licensed under creative commons share-alike code. Be mindful of licensing because you are placing this in your course and if it is public anyone can access it. So, if you're wondering "can I place worksheets from my textbook publisher into my iTunesU course"? I would contact them first and ask. With that said, there are ways to make courses private to your students only and share the class subscription code with them.<br />
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5. <b>Add tons of media-rich interactive learning modules</b>. iTunesU course manager allows you to upload links from the web or iTunes/iBooks/App store, documents such as pdfs and keynote, and videos. Students can download video content for viewing offline. So there are some advantages to uploading the video instead of just pointing at a YouTube link. Apple gives you 20GB's of space so I wouldn't worry too much about running out of room.<br />
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6. <b>Create meaningful posts full of descriptive and action oriented words.</b> These posts will show up on student iPads as assignments so it is best to be very clear about what you would like students to do with what you are sending them. Assignments should start off with action words such as watch, summarize, read, etc. Think about the flow of your posts. Do they make sense for students? Are they organized in a way that is intuitive for students? Do students know what is expected from a particular post? iTunesU is a great place to host and distribute content, however there are no discussion board features for students to post questions and interact.<br />
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7. <b>Leverage the note syncing features.</b> Another nice feature of iTunesU is that if you are linking to any books or videos, iTunesU will sync notes from across all these types of posts into one place in iTunesU called the Notes. This makes it really handy for students to go back and review what they have been watching and reading.<br />
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Overall iTunesU, while not perfect, can be a powerful space to help students organize and access their work. If I were to add features to iTunesU I would want to see the ability for teachers and students to communicate, the collaborative and interactive piece of this platform could certainly be developed. I would also like to see the ability to embed widgets (similar to iBooks Author). This would also allow for students to interact with content right from within iTunesU. Finally, I would love to see the note taking feature support digital inking. While the notes are a great way for students to study, not all information can be captured via text input.<br />
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11927948328480203361noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6597035389092223632.post-78919272346290002602013-03-04T02:18:00.001-08:002013-03-11T02:58:40.253-07:00Achievements are Team Efforts...Thank Yous!Accomplishments are rarely the effort of a sole individual. Even in individual olympic events such as running, swimming, or diving a successful athlete is typically surrounded and supported by a team, well positioned in life to take advantage of their circumstances, and equipped with certain traits to more easily accomplish the goals. This is no different for many of the non-sporting types who find success' in daily wins and accomplishments. We too are typically surrounded and supported by a cast of players; we find ourselves in an advantageous position and possessing the skills that make us right for the task.<br />
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A couple of weeks ago some real cool stuff started taking shape in my life. Some really cool success, similar to winning a medal in the olympics- at least for me. I referred to these things in a <a href="http://adilaura.blogspot.com/2013/03/reminder-to-self-enjoy-life-lead-from.html" target="_blank">previous post</a>, so I will not mention them here but rather I want to take this space to acknowledge those who helped make this happen and say 'Thank You'<br />
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First of all, when anyone is dedicated to accomplishing a task there is usually a huge sacrifice that is paid by their immediate family. No doubt this was the case for me. My wife and kids probably wondered why I was working extra hours sometimes, but never made me feel guilty for doing so. They backed my efforts and saw that I loved doing the things that I was doing and at the same time reminded me about balance and making time for them and myself. Thank you.<br />
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The second group of individuals is our IT department. If you've never gone into your IT department's office before make it a goal to do so, and use that time to say thank you. The one thing that we take for granted on a daily basis is the technology of our classrooms. When I arrived at school in the morning I expected everything to just work and 99.5% of the time it did. Not having the proper infrastructure and resources in place to accomplish daily work would have caused me to abandon my missions. Those guys behind the internet, switches, cables, etc. made it possible to achieve these goals. Thank you.<br />
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The third group is my administration. Administration is so crucial to having the feeling of being empowered to go for it. Building principals who release their staff to be creative and explore new and innovative ways to reach various learners are setting their teachers and students up for success. Thank you.<br />
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The last group is the community. This might sound cheesy in a way but without the community voting to increase the technology resources in our school district none of this personal growth would have occurred. Thank you.<br />
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I feel it is important to reflect and remember those who have helped put you where you are today. These are the same group of supporters who most likely will be there when things aren't going your way. In times of failure they will still be there cheering you on, supplying you with the tools you needs, the space of creativity to explore, and the resources to make it happen. <br />
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So keep tinkering. Keep tweaking. Keep thanking those around you.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11927948328480203361noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6597035389092223632.post-40694228367078030492013-03-02T10:29:00.003-08:002013-03-03T02:39:43.408-08:00Keeping it in Perspective: Leading within the Tension.The last two weeks of my life have been so surreal I have no choice but to get it out... here...and now. Here is the short of it.<br />
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<ol>
<li>I was acknowledged as an <a href="http://ade.apple.com/" target="_blank">Apple Distinguished Educator</a>.</li>
<li>My <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/course/open-geometry-2nd-semester/id557136810" target="_blank">iTunesU course</a> got listed in the Outstanding High School section of iTunesU.</li>
<li><a href="http://bitly.com/ibahack" target="_blank">My project</a> seems to be gaining support and interest from teachers, administrators, and colleges. </li>
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First of all being accepted as an ADE is truly an honor and I am absolutely humbled to be acknowledged amongst this class of educators. However...<br />
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I struggle with how to handle all this- honestly. I am glad I have this blog to write on because I feel like it is between me and the page. Yet, I want to tell others. If I am truly honest with myself, I fight the tension between being humble and being recognized. If I am honest, the selfish person within me wants to be recognized by everyone, I want glory, yet I want to be the same. I know this changes nothing. I don't want to come across as having it all together, cause the truth is none of us do. And adding a label to my resume doesn't make me a different person today then I was yesterday. However, the question I must answer everyday, is how do I lead with me, who I am, what I believe in, how I care about kids, colleagues, and education; and not from the title Apple Distinguished Educator?<br />
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The simple truth is, that a label is just that, few words to categorize an object. Is it fair to say that labels will create change? Bring leadership? Ignite creativity and innovation? I don't think so. Rather it is the heart of the individual connecting with heart of others that will bring about change, leadership, and innovation.<br />
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Wearing this label I must be intentional about leading from the standpoint of a servant. I can't afford to pull out my iPad, hide behind my MacBook, and say do as I do, and look what I know. Rather, I must strive to connect with the passions of others, seek their needs, and put relationships first. I must coach the heart and not the technology. I must see past the devices into the eyes of my students, colleagues, and others around me...I think this is true for all of us, despite the labels attached or positions we hold. However, the label ADE brings one under a finer microscope therefore:<br />
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<li>I promise never to use this label as way of ranking myself or thinking that I am right because I'm a...</li>
<li>I promise to keep learning from anyone; kids, colleagues, ADE's, whoever it is. I must model the behavior of life long learning for others around me. </li>
<li>I promise to use this label for the betterment of education, teaching, learning, and relationships with students, and not for the sole betterment of ME.</li>
<li>I promise to be me. I promise to keep sharing my failures. Keep taking risks. Keep seeking what is best for you, your class, and your students. </li>
<li>I promise to be a servant leader. To seek first your passions, needs, & desires. And let you be you. </li>
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I guess I can start to enjoy this great acknowledgement now. I just needed to make sure I promised to still be me. </div>
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11927948328480203361noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6597035389092223632.post-90477290678660896432013-02-24T03:11:00.001-08:002013-02-24T03:12:46.183-08:00Why #Edcamps are great but I want #Edhackcamps instead. First of all if you have never been to an <a href="http://edcamp.org/" target="_blank">#Edcamp</a> it is an absolute must. Passionate educators from all levels, tech directors, administrators, ISD folks, and of course awesome raffle prizes and food...all for free. I believe the popular saying goes something like "Edcamp-the way professional development should be done."<br />
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Here is a typical edcamp success story from this weekend. Middle school teacher Tara Maynard (<a href="http://twitter.com/tmaynard5" target="_blank">@tmaynard5</a>) invites a colleague Ben Hondorp to attend. Ben shows up and in the first 15 minutes creates a twitter account (<a href="http://twitter.com/benhondorp" target="_blank">@benhondorp</a>). Ben starts tweeting, following, reading others posts and links, his PLN doors have just been blown wide open- success #1. Ben attends sections and hears about flipped learning, web 2.0 tools, and projects that he can get involved in to better his teaching and learning environment- success #2. Amongst his colleagues sits his tech coach (me) who is right there to catch his quotes like "I want to try flipping my class" or "I want to start using <a href="http://www.flubaroo.com/" target="_blank">Flubaroo</a> and Google forms to administer quizzes." Now I can follow up with Ben in the coming weeks and say "Hey, I remember you wanted to start working on integrating Google forms, how about I come over to your classroom this week and help you get started?" -success #3. </div>
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I think this third success is so important because so often we hear about great apps and integration techniques but when Monday roles around Saturday seems like a distant memory that holds very little attainable classroom reality unless there is someone to follow up on it with you. Again, this is how professional development should be done. </div>
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Undoubtedly this is great and truly the purpose of edcamp. However, I also looked around the room and wondered to myself at what point do we need to switch gears from the learning side of edcamp to the collaborating and creating side of #Edhackcamp? What if our time together wasn't just allocated to learning about new digital technologies but rather was aimed at creating shareable digital content that would mutually benefit the people in the room? What if, instead of offering to teach others about LMS's or online assessments we instead spent time helping teachers establish their current classrooms for the use of these things? What if, instead of trying to gulp down the ocean of information being offered at edcamp every hour, teachers could elect to work for the morning to understand and implement just one integration tool or strategy? </div>
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The way I see it, it's kind of like PBL for teachers. In <a href="http://www.bie.org/about/what_is_pbl/" target="_blank">project based learning</a> we set our students loose to learn and create the end product (this is not the formal definition of pbl but you get what I mean?) Of course there is going to be learning along the way, they will need to ask questions, research techniques, Youtube a few tutorials etc. But the point is that there is a very purposeful direction of this time. </div>
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For example, what if on the board it read something like this: Morning: Build a class website, Build a class Moodle, Build a Class Wiki, etc. These sessions could be facilitated by people with experience in creating in these different platforms and the goal would be to have a product usable on Monday. Afternoon sessions could read: Create a Project Based Learning Unit, Create Online Assessment questions, Create System for Digital Portfolios, Create a digital textbook. Again, here the focus would be on walking away with a product or project that is immediately usable. </div>
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Obviously there are huge gains for novice and expert tech users in taking this approach. Again it is learner centered- focusing on the direct needs/desires of the person. It is collaborative in nature and to me that is the best part. When teachers get together and share, not only knowledge, but the creation of digital content this can be a very powerful transforming agent in classrooms today. </div>
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Next year- EDHACKCAMP! </div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11927948328480203361noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6597035389092223632.post-63223002710047684922012-10-06T10:21:00.001-07:002012-10-07T04:17:46.371-07:00iOS6 and Google Drive make it easy for student to submit work. Before the release of iOS6 and the new version of Google Drive there were very options for teacher-student workflow and assignment collection. Now teachers will no longer need to create special labels and filters for their students to email in their work. <br />
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With Google Drives new app teachers and students can create and share documents with a just a few taps. In addition, new features of iOS6 allow learning management systems such as <a href="http://edmodo.com/" target="_blank">Edmodo</a> to grab files from the camera roll of the iPad right in Safari. In the past we have used Edmodo's app for uploading and Edmodo in safari for downloading. Ahh!, now Edmodo from Safari will accomplish it all.<br />
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Below are two brief tutorials outlining the steps that allow teacher and student workflow to totally exist in the cloud...making the planet yet a greener place and the classroom teacher a happier person.<br />
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Submitting student work through Google Drive on the iPad<br />
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Submitting student work in Edmodo from Safari on the iPad.<br />
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11927948328480203361noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6597035389092223632.post-65482976400438320112012-03-03T07:24:00.005-08:002012-03-03T08:07:43.554-08:00Skitch + Clinometer + Keynote = Trigofunetry<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-QUw1d7G7wE0/T1I8jJ-jclI/AAAAAAAAAGU/9IowO0brsX4/s1600/clinometer.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 175px; height: 175px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-QUw1d7G7wE0/T1I8jJ-jclI/AAAAAAAAAGU/9IowO0brsX4/s320/clinometer.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5715697451757957714" /></a>I had no idea what a <a href="http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/clinometer-hd-bubble-level/id364877623?mt=8">clinometer</a> was until a few weeks ago when we started talking about an extension project for our 9th grade math students. We started with the idea of measuring angles with a protractor and a scope- essentially a coffee stirring straw. Then it hit us to search the app store and see what they had available. This just highlights the shift in thinking teachers take on in an iPad classroom. Somehow our thinking needs to make this shift from "what materials do I have in my room" to "how can this device and its apps impact student understanding?" <div><br /></div><div>I understand the danger of jamming the iPad into our content for the sake of using the iPad and calling a it revolutionary device. But honestly this a perfect exampleof how we can take real life measurements using a device that prior to now very few students would have access to.</div><div><br /></div><div>After searching a few apps we discovered the <a href="http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/clinometer-hd-bubble-level/id364877623?mt=8">clinometer</a> and instantly we had our iProject (iPad project). The clinometer leverages the iPads accelerometer and returns the angle of elevation or declination of your line of sight when looking through a scope attached to the top edge of the iPad. In groups of two to three students they were given limited instructions and supplies and asked to use what they know about trigonometry to find the height of objects larger than them. </div><div><br /></div><div>Employing the <a href="http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/skitch-for-ipad/id490505997?mt=8">skitch app</a> students snapped a picture of their angle of elevation and calculated the height of their objects. Overall, it was a really fun project that got students out of their seats and calculating the height of objects using trig ratios. </div><div><br /></div><div><img src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-1xgWBJriff4/T1JBmbCy86I/AAAAAAAAAGg/8VGCyMak3z8/s320/Presentation%2B5-1.008.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5715703005436900258" style="cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px; " /></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11927948328480203361noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6597035389092223632.post-55389571717503462892012-02-26T11:40:00.008-08:002012-02-27T02:12:38.279-08:00Digital textbooks created by Textbook Companies<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-gcCDtVeUOMY/T0tR6wGNd4I/AAAAAAAAAFM/Q34xuAt4GKY/s1600/hmhfuse.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 256px; height: 256px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-gcCDtVeUOMY/T0tR6wGNd4I/AAAAAAAAAFM/Q34xuAt4GKY/s320/hmhfuse.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5713750622034818946" /></a><br />I wish the length between posts could speak cause then I wouldn't have to write this or the next post. Time quickly slips by so I will try to recap because I feel iPads in the class are becoming more exciting to me over the past few months revealing to me their true worth.<div><br /></div><div>Towards the end of the semester we took a break from video lectures to use one of our textbook companies <a href="http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/hmh-fuse-geometry-sample/id433409380?mt=8">free apps</a>. There has been a lot of talk around <a href="http://www.discoveryeducation.com/administrators/curricular-resources/science-techbook/">digital textbooks</a> and if the iPad is great at anything it is great at delivering interactive text, images, video etc. </div><div><br /></div><div>Our goal was 1) to see the app functioned 2) to see how students reacted to using the app and 3) see if it can be used independently for students to gain understanding - in other words we again gave them a roadmap and said we'll help you along the way but meet you at the end. </div><div><br /></div><div>The app was essentially the textbook and its online resource that were made for the iPad, i.e. all the flash content on the website was made into a viewable interactive format for the iPad. So in a sense it was like handing the students the text book and saying read for comprehension. This was actually quite disturbing how many students struggled with this. </div><div><br /></div><div>Overall kids did fine, not great, but not horrible either (except for a few). Given more chapters perhaps students would become accustomed to this learning method and do real well with it, they would use all the features, and better understand the layout and navigation. But it caused me to wonder at $8.33 /year/kid (more costly than a $7.99/yr <a href="http://adilaura.blogspot.com/2011/12/interactive-lecture-delivery-part-2.html">Mathflix subscription)</a> could teachers create the same dynamic, interactive, iPad supported environment for less? After all we have been tailoring their videos to fit their needs, writing online quizzes that provide instant feedback, and supplying homework solutions to guide their work- all equivalent features of the app. </div><div><br /></div><div>My answer to this question and others was answered by Apple in their release of <a href="http://www.apple.com/education/">iBooks2, iBooks Author, and iTunes U app</a>. I can't begin to explain how incredibly exciting these pieces are to education. I have to believe that this opens up incredible possibilities for the iPad in education, teachers as authors, and students becoming mastery learners. </div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11927948328480203361noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6597035389092223632.post-43282928164989998282011-12-07T13:40:00.003-08:002012-02-26T11:38:56.302-08:00The Interactive Lecture... Delivery Part 2<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ebgnf8EmnBI/T0qKRHvnCqI/AAAAAAAAAFA/rTtiSEgvHy0/s1600/deathbyppt.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 154px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ebgnf8EmnBI/T0qKRHvnCqI/AAAAAAAAAFA/rTtiSEgvHy0/s200/deathbyppt.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5713531104014043810" /></a><br />A few years ago I studied <a href="http://classroompresenter.cs.washington.edu/">Classroom Presenter 3</a> and wrote my masters thesis on tech enhanced interactive lectures. CP3 is an amazing piece of open source software that creates a dynamic interactive student centered conversation in the classroom and in my opinion would make a killer app for the iPad (anyone want to develop it?) The incredible thing about CP3 is that it takes a teacher centered static powerpoint and allows for student input, instant feedback, and an ability to diverge from the linear path of a ppt slide show.<div><br /></div><div>I mention this because video lectures are the foundation of <a href="http://www.classroom-aid.com/blog/bid/65071/Flip-Your-Minds-before-Flipping-Your-Classrooms">flipped instruction</a>, a style of instruction that I am very fond of and feel compelled to pursue in light of 1:1 iPads. In addition, I am keenly aware of how, like powerpoint, video lectures run the risk of creating a non interactive didactic teacher centered delivery.</div><div><br /></div><div>This forces many questions. How does a video become interactive? Should video lessons just be explorations that ask questions? Is it best practice to use video to guide students through notes and example problems? How do you ensure students are listening to the lecture and not just copying notes? Are there editing tricks or guided note tricks that make a video more interactive and increase student participation? </div><div><br /></div><div>Being a math teacher I want my students to see mathematical relationships, recognize mathematical patterns, and learn properties of shapes, functions, and graphs. However, I also recognize that it is important to model problem solving techniques by providing examples that the teacher walks through. </div><div><br /></div><div>So where does that leave me? As of today I think I am somewhere in the middle of all this. My notes require students to answer questions based off what was said in the video but they also contain examples some completed for them others only partially completed. Here is a sample of where I am at with my vodcasting I like to call em Mathflix. I don't have an allusions of grandeur thinking that I can offer subscriptions for $7.99/month I just thought it was a fun name. </div><div><br /></div><div><iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/Y_XLie3t8MI?rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>I am interested in your thoughts on how to make videos interactive. Feel free to leave your comments. </div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11927948328480203361noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6597035389092223632.post-28998032981588736032011-12-04T04:01:00.000-08:002011-12-07T13:39:53.187-08:00How the iPad Changes the Learning Environment. Part 1 Delivery<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-2Ei6hZBU4xY/Tt_cwDmc2BI/AAAAAAAAAEU/9j1k9GHh1qk/s1600/photo%2B1.JPG"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 240px; height: 320px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-2Ei6hZBU4xY/Tt_cwDmc2BI/AAAAAAAAAEU/9j1k9GHh1qk/s320/photo%2B1.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5683503972923267090" border="0" /></a><br />Last year at this time the most technological piece of equipment in my room was an overhead projector. Transparencies, wet erase markers, paper towel scraps all over, and blue fingers from quick licking and erasing all add up to equal a pretty static and one-size-fits-all teacher centered instruction. Students typical class consisted of a warm-up, homework check, a lecture, guided practice and independent work time (if there was time left in the hour). If there were still problems from the book left to complete the students were assigned to finish them at home. As far as I know this was a pretty well accepted and wide practiced approach to learning.<br /><br />Since then my learning environment has completely changed. iPads are exceptional at delivering content and personalizing instruction. Being absolutely compelled to check out <a href="http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4168">epub creations</a> I have fully dove into creating interactive notes using video lectures created on my laptop, photos edited by skitch, embedded voice prompts recorded in garage band, and active links to sites that will track and record student progress (more to come on interactive text in future posts). I know there is plenty of room for improvement in this content delivery style but when I think about how this can help personalize instruction and give instant student feedback I can't help but to think this is good and the right direction to move in.<br /><br />This style of delivery is often referred to as <a href="http://vodcasting.ning.com/">flipped instruction</a>. I have lots of thoughts on flipped instruction and personally I have really been excited about this style and what it has allowed for in the learning environment. Here too, there is tons of room for improvement with integrating this approach and making it really effective for my students. However, at this point in it's implementation I can honestly say I will never go back to a static stand and deliver a-one-size-fits-all lecture.<br /><br />The other day it struck me that students were having instruction personalized on many different levels. Some were working ahead watching and listening to future lectures and practicing problems in sections the rest of the class was not. Some were catching up on lectures not yet watched trying to keep up with the class. Some were reviewing concepts via video they had already viewed and some were getting direct personal face to face just-in-time-teaching from me.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11927948328480203361noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6597035389092223632.post-21732375592929139592011-11-18T01:11:00.000-08:002011-11-18T01:15:33.207-08:00Student Conceptions driving InstructionOne of the many great ways to transform our learning environment through iPad integration is in the way of gathering real time student artifacts and using it to direct face to face classroom discussions. Real time response systems, clickers, or <a href="http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ELI7002.pdf">classroom response systems</a> have been around for awhile now and used to be tied to a remote control type device.<br /><br />Since then this instantaneous response system has evolved to web-based response systems and iPad compatible apps. Using these sites and apps gives every student a voice in responding to questions and provides teachers real time feedback based directly on student understanding. Imagine how this can transform our face to face time with students?<br /><br />Consider a few uses: students complete a lecture or video then navigate to a <a href="http://docs.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=151187">Google form</a> and answer five questions based off the content. The teacher can pull up the spreadsheet of responses and see immediately what conceptions students are forming and can scaffold instruction accordingly.<br /><br />Or perhaps students are directed to the teachers <a href="http://www.polleverywhere.com/">Poll Everywhere</a> site at the beginning of class for a 5 question warm up based off of the previous day's content. In real time responses are aggregate on the screen giving the teacher data and understanding of what their students are understanding, from here teachers can regroup their class to spend more time with those who need it and allow those who don't need reinforcing the opportunity to work ahead independently.<br /><br />There are many great ways to collect student artifacts and use them to drive your instructional time <a href="http://try.surveymonkey.com/">Survey Monkey</a>, <a href="http://www.questionpress.com/">Question Press</a>, <a href="http://polldaddy.com/">Poll Daddy</a>, and <a href="http://www.thatquiz.org/">thatquiz</a> are all web-site based tools that offer some sort of free or educational plan. As well there are iPad/iPod apps that provide similar experiences and student data. Try using one of the above sites or find a great app and see what it tells you about your students understanding. Or, even better, show the class results to your students (in a safe way) to allow them to see what they are and are not understanding. Let their conceptions drive your instruction and their learning.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11927948328480203361noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6597035389092223632.post-46741434533404215792011-11-17T18:00:00.000-08:002011-11-18T01:59:17.699-08:00Students using Showme to... well, show me and the World.<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-4JIR6KiTB_g/TsYnhMJMPKI/AAAAAAAAADU/RiQpaClDHcw/s1600/showme.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 191px; height: 188px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-4JIR6KiTB_g/TsYnhMJMPKI/AAAAAAAAADU/RiQpaClDHcw/s200/showme.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5676267831496031394" border="0" /></a><br /><br />My friend <a href="http://kip.hollandanderson.net/">Kip</a> introduced me to the <a href="http://www.showme.com/">Showme App</a> this summer and right away I feel in love with the ability to capture screen annotations and voice narrations as the user is demonstrating something on their iPad.<br />Now in class I can demonstrate solving and graphing an inequality using Showme, and instead of not being able to hear or see that explanation again, the captured vodcast can easily be linked or embedded in a classroom website for later viewing and reviewing.<br />As my familiarity with the app grew I thought "wouldn't it be great <a href="http://ipadmathclass.blogspot.com/2011/09/making-digital-jump.html">for students to use this</a> to help their classmates with difficult problems and demonstrate to me what they truly know." We distributed the free app to students and literally watched and listened as they showed me and their classmates what they knew.<br />However, an interesting thing happened the other day. Being curious about how I could use the showme website to support student learning I started clicking through some topics. After selecting Learn by Topic > Geometry I was blown away by what I saw. Here it is:<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-0M5lGmSG_fM/TsYmwM9_S4I/AAAAAAAAADI/xax2wtfZVZg/s1600/showme-1.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 250px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-0M5lGmSG_fM/TsYmwM9_S4I/AAAAAAAAADI/xax2wtfZVZg/s400/showme-1.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5676266989903891330" border="0" /></a><br />You see up until now students have solved problems for basically two people: themselves and their teacher. But now students are solving problems for an audience of millions. When I projected the website for them the other day and showed them how their works was showing up in just two clicks of the mouse their mouths dropped. They were blown away by the fact that their work was published and freely available for anyone to view and use. I wish I could have take a picture of their faces you could see the sense of ownership and pride in their work take on new meaning.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11927948328480203361noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6597035389092223632.post-5430101977257127282011-09-15T18:41:00.000-07:002011-11-18T01:18:22.893-08:00Making the Digital Jump<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-eMN_akWh3mQ/TnNkkBrrcJI/AAAAAAAAACU/h1j3fl9XXxg/s1600/ipad3.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 240px; height: 320px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-eMN_akWh3mQ/TnNkkBrrcJI/AAAAAAAAACU/h1j3fl9XXxg/s320/ipad3.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5652972527369810066" border="0" /></a><br /><br />One week at it and the fog in the classroom is starting to clear. It feels like I have been a completely gang tackled by a bunch of hardware, software, and webware thugs. My desk is a mess with lose papers, software disks, ipads (students and teachers), styli, pens, pencils, cords, chargers... it is evident that I am in a struggle with a digital/analogue identity crisis.<br /><br />Where are these files? Are they printed? Do they need to be printed?<br />Can students access this file just using the iPad? Can they edit this file?<br />Can they organize their iPad so that they know where to find these files?<br />How do I receive these files back from students with their annotations?<br />How do I grade digital student artifacts? Do I really want 150 emails today?<br />Does doing this analogue make better sense for the sake of best practice?<br /><br />These are just a few of the questions that I find myself asking as I slowly morph from analogue to digital. In an attempt to move to the digital world and connect our learners in a virtual classroom my classes are meeting and communicating on Edmodo- ahhh yes! math class is no longer 58 minutes. In addition, I have built a wiki for just my geometry classes. Biting off more than I can chew is a habit of mine and I don't want to start another project that I don't finish...my wife wouldn't be happy even if it isn't going on the living room wall.<br /><br /><a href="http://edmodo.com/">Edmodo</a> is a social network specifically geared for education. It is not as "academic" as Moodle and not as sexy as Facebook...it could almost be seen as an offspring of the two. Some where down inside of me I am scared that students will reject this attempt to meet them in their own world and see through the "trick"of getting them to learn in a place they already are. But I am quite passionate about engaging students on their turf, showing them that they are learning where ever they are and that together we as a community we construct meaning and knowledge about life.<br /><br />So I feel compelled to push this method of learning...for now. The smallest glimpses of this thing working have been making me giddy... Students will post a question as plain as "what is the homework?" Another student will respond...sometimes with a snide remark like "click on the calendar link above". I smile and say to myself 'look they really do care about one another.' But in reality they are helping, they are directing, they are answering the questions, they are taking ownership...and I am removing myself from the position of sole authority.<br /><br />Today I posted the links to the first set of <a href="http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/showme-interactive-whiteboard/id445066279?mt=8">Showme</a> tutorials geometry students created for our first quiz review. Student created work, created to help students work... ummm I think this could be good. Check out this students first attempt:<br /><br /><iframe src="http://smr.showmeapp.com/sma/embed/?s=38748" height="500" width="580"></iframe>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11927948328480203361noreply@blogger.com0