Home Posts tagged "WP"
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I bought a house today!

Published on March 6, 2009, by in Uncategorized.
Sold!
Image by Azhure* via Flickr

This post doesn’t have a whole lot to do with educational technology, but I really had to let everyone who might care to know that my family is moving into a new house. It is our absolute dream home.

I have toyed with the idea of putting up the video tour that I did in order to show my parents, but I’m not totally sure that anyone that reads my blog casually really needs that kind of a detailed view of where my children sleep. If you truly would like to have that kind of voyeurism in your life, send me a direct message on Twitter.

For now, though, just know that I am happy with our decision, and that I cant wait to move in.

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A list of tags…

Published on January 5, 2009, by in Uncategorized.

The EdTechTalk delicious site has a wealth of relevent tags. It has so many in fact, that it may be THE resource for tags about Educational Technology and learning in general. I love being able to select different tags and find out what other people are categorizing within this rather large community. However, what if you wanted to use those tags somewhere else? What if you wanted to add those tags to the choices in your own blog or search according to those terms?

What if you wanted to categorize all of your ideas according to what the community has deemed worthy of their time? Well, I did want to do that. I wanted to use the common tags of our community, so I have made all of the tags in EdTechTalk (at least up until today) into a comma separated file for easy import into anything I would like to use them for.

Here is the file: edtechtalk-tags

Pedagogical implication: I think that it really makes sense for us to start using the same words to talk about learning. Coming together on a group of tags that we would like to use for aggregation purposes is something that we have neglected too long. The community is far enough along to put get into a discussion about just where we want our folksonomies to go. We need to take ownership of terms like elearning and make them more specific. We also should be teaching our students to come together on terms to use so that all of their work can not only be found later, but also grouped according to topic, theme, or even skill level.

Think about if we had a way to group student work according to a self-reflected score (of effort, of achievement, etc.). What if we could use exemplars and organize them according to the tags that they have self-selected.

Where else should we go with our community of tags?

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Guest Teaching 10.29.08

Published on October 29, 2008, by in 365 Questions, Uncategorized.

Cores 1+4:

  1. Write-on: 
  2. How can we decipher the symbolism of Maus 2, extracting more meaning from only the images?
  3. Frame analysis:
  • Describe- Describe the frame in detail. Make sure you find even the smallest pieces of information that are hiding within the illustration.
  • Explain- Explain the meaning of each of the objects and details in this frame. What do these things symbolize or represent? Why does the author use this image instead of another one? What message is the author trying to convey through this frame?
  • Expand- Show how this frame and its different meanings relate to the rest of the book or to your own life.

4. Use Photo Booth to take a picture of the frame you would like to analyze.
5. Annotate the photo with description, explanation, and expansion using preview (after you have converted it to a PDF)
6. Go to Slideshare.net and upload your file… Make sure that you tag it with maus2.
7. Look at our greatness.

Cores 2+3:

  1. Write-on:
  2. Using a backchannel to discuss and ask questions about Animal Farm (While we read).
  3. Text animalfarm and then your question or comment to 41411.
  4. I also need a google jockey to get images that help to express what is going on in Animal Farm.
  5. Read Chapters 9 and 10 of Animal Farm.
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    Online Learning and Web 2.0: OL Teach 2008 (Secondary)

    Published on August 5, 2008, by in Uncategorized.
    Online learning is not about computers, the internet, or learning from home. It is not about giving kids a different educational option, or even leveraging the power of digital natives. It is my belief that the goal of online learning is to make learning ubiquitous. It is about pushing our education to include everything, from the context of the everyday to the workflow of original thought. This presentation aims to explore this notion of ubiquitous learning. Please, push back at these ideas, it is the only way they will get any better.

    The Presentation:

    Secondary (OL Teach – Take 2)

    The Collaborative Podcast:

    The OL Teach Text Messages:

    Get your own at TextMarks!

    The Backchannel and Moderated Discussion:

    The Voicethread for Sharing Ideas:

    The Links for further learning:
    Preserve the learning links:

    Creation as norm links:


    Authenticity as expectation links:

    Please feel free to leave comments or questions (video, audio, and text) on this blog post, you can also reach me by e-mail at ben@learningischange.com.
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    Online Learning and Web 2.0: OL Teach 2008 (Elementary)

    Published on August 4, 2008, by in Uncategorized.
    Online learning is not about computers, the internet, or learning from home. It is not about giving kids a different educational option, or even leveraging the power of digital natives. It is my belief that the goal of online learning is to make learning ubiquitous. It is about pushing our education to include everything, from the context of the everyday to the workflow of original thought. This presentation aims to explore this notion of ubiquitous learning. Please, push back at these ideas, it is the only way they will get any better.

    The Presentation:

    Elementary OL Teach

    The Collaborative Podcast:

    The OL Teach Text Messages:

    Get your own at TextMarks!

    The Backchannel and Moderated Discussion:

    The Voicethread for Sharing Ideas:

    The Links for further learning:
    Preserve the learning links:

    Creation as norm links:


    Authenticity as expectation links:

    Please feel free to leave comments or questions (video, audio, and text) on this blog post, you can also reach me by e-mail at ben@learningischange.com.
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    The Ripe Environment: Collaboration as Instinct

    Published on June 26, 2008, by in Uncategorized.

    I sat at the over-long table, as I always do on Mondays and thought about the next time I would meet my students for Extended Learning Time (our version of a multi-discipline course without any set curriculum or standards to give guidance or restrict us).

    “Well, it is earth day in a couple of days.”

    Immediately, my colleague and I started a Google Document called Earth Day 2008. We started dropping in links to pages we found.

    “Oh, I did hear something about an event on the National Geographic Channel. Did you hear about it. Something about the human footprint.”

    We were pushing hard now, 25 minutes before kids arrive. Link after link being proposed as a starting point.

    “What is the question we are really trying to get our kids to answer here.”
    “Is Earth Day important and why?”

    And we we started writing out a discussion, a plan of attach. We eventually came to the conclusion that there were others who were interested in asking this same question, experts even. And yet, within 30 minutes we created an authentic question and activity around it. Our instinct was to create and collaborate, rather than offer worksheets as an attempt at lesson planning. This is our Ripe Environment, and the class that the students came into that day was Ripe too.

    They couldn’t wait to see who had the bigger footprint. They couldn’t wait to collaborate on their own weekly or monthly collection of soda cans or milk jugs. This process of not waiting to be told, of instinctively knowing that it is the right thing to do, that makes it truly authentic.

    So, how do you foster this instinct for collaboration. Well, by saying yes to it as often as possible. It is my personal belief that there is never too little time to create, too little time to collaborate.

    If you have only a minute:

    1. Put a request for a resource out on twitter.
    2. Do a delicious search instead of a google search (it is a community of people waiting to help).
    3. Link to someone who is talking about it.

    If you have a half-hour:

    1. Start a google doc and invite a few others to join in.
    2. Search technorati for new blogs, videos, and people who are interested in the same thing.

    If you have a longer:

    1. Start a wiki and get people to contribute.
    2. Start a blog and get people to contribute.
    3. Start a movement and get people to join.
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    Learning Language

    Published on May 2, 2008, by in Uncategorized.

    I don’t usually post personal things on this blog, but I thought that this was just too important to leave unpublished.

    My daughter is learning language at an amazing rate. She knows more words at 18 months than I thought was possible, but they aren’t just any words. They are words that are important for her. They are words that have a meaning and a context for her life.

    Normally I would turn this experience into an educational rant about creating authentic places for our students to learn language and curriculum, but for now I will just leave you with this video.

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    iloveyou

    © Learning is Change