The 544-572 Integration

Hello Terri and TJ,
Here are my thoughts on having 544 and 572 integrated. First, I thought that it was a great idea. Having talked to an Edtec Grads about his experience, his comment was that he thought it was a great idea as well. He agreed that the topics lean themselves to this because they meshed very well together. I'm curious how things were taught without the link between the two classes because it seemed so natural to provide an analysis and plan for instruction and then to build it using new technologies that we've learned.

Second set of thoughts: I wish that there had been more time between when the design doc was finalized and we received feedback and when our instructional design was due. I felt like I shouldn't get to far in the package until I found out if there were any gaping holes or serious problems, so by the time I really started creating the instructional package, I was rushed. Probably I could have done them concurrently, but I'm generally the kind of person that finishes my peas before I eat my carrots.

Third, an idea: I like that we are giving feedback on each other's work because I feel like I'm really getting to know some of my peers by viewing their work. I like having interaction with everyone. So my idea is that maybe it would be cool if instead of creating a design doc and package based on a topic related to our own work that we designed something for a peer as a "client" or if a peer creates a "design doc" and then someone else creates the instructional package. I'm not sure if the logistics on that would work, but I think it would help us get to know each other as a cohort to do a of collaborative project. Or maybe there could be a smaller project like this where we designed for each other. Just a thought...

All the way to 5! Video

All the Way to 5! A counting movie
by Heidi Thibodeau (AKA Heidi Beezley)

Here's a video made for my Edtec 572 class at SDSU. It is meant to teach children age 18 months and older, in particular Orion, my son, how to count to five.

How is the CUE conferences like climbing a cliff?

Got back from a relaxing yet invigorating weekend at the CUE conference in Palm Springs, so I'm going to muse a bit about the experience. By the way, the picture to the right is of a hike in Tahquitz Canyon that I did Saturday afternoon after the conference.

Coming into the conference I felt pretty good about my level of technology use and skill with applying it. Last year when I went to CUE, I went immediately into overload. Every presentation taught me so many new things that I couldn't wait to try out. I went home a year ago and created a SecondLife avatar, started a Blog, set up a Del.ic.ious account, and pulled a bunch of RSS feeds together. It took me quite a bit of time to learn how to use these tools and others that I have begun to learn over the last few years. But coming into CUE this year (2008), I felt like I had fairly successfully scrambled up the technology cliff and I was feeling pretty comfortable.

Little did I know that after a bit of plateu there was a whole new cliff just waiting to be scaled. Once again, CUE has presented me with a whole new array of tools to try out and see if I can use in teaching. For example, I had not realized the tremendous capacity of Google Earth especially in regard to all of the layers that are available for exploration. Thank you Alix Pesheette. I also messed around with Maya in a Digital Media Academy presentation, and I bought, er, won the T-shirt, so I am officially a Maya fan. Also played with Flash and looked into using SCORM with Moodle. So, once again I have a lot of work ahead.

However, one thing comes to mind that is obviously very important, how are these great gadgets to be applied so that they really and truly improve learning, not just provide some amusement to the kids that get to play around with them. I have two people to thank for keeping this in the forefront of my thinking - Jerry Ruiz and Bernie Dodge. I work with Jerry, and whenever we would run into each other in the hallway, we would talk about the sessions that we had seen. Jerry tended to assess his sessions on whether the speaker focused on application in the classroom. In talking to him, I realized that most of the sessions that I had been to had not focused on this obviously critical topic.

Luckily, I went to one talk, Bernie Dodge's, where the entire focus was on how to design lessons (the examples given were webquests, but the idea could, of course, be applied to any type of lesson) that prompt higher order mental processes in students. That is, in teaching we provide some input, expect something to happen inside the student's brain (memorization, summarization, etc.) and then students produce an output that shows what they have learned. Bernie Dodge's point was that the design of our input and expectations for output should cause something exciting to happen in the spinning wheels of a child's mind. They should have to make complex decisions and be the Decider!

Ok, gotta go to bed now. This time change is messing me up, but thank you to CUE, to the speakers, and all of those individuals that were inspirational at the conference!

New Tech Tools!

Hello there,
I am currently taking a class called Edtec 572 - Technology for Course Delivery. We are just over 5 weeks into the course, but already there are way more technology tools that I have been introduced to than I can keep up with, and I love it.

One of the tech tools that I am most excited about using is the suite of Google Docs. I've used the Google Word and Excel equivalent before, but I hadn't ever used the PowerPoint equivalent tool. Also, I've never edited a page at the exact same time as someone else. I really think that GoogleDocs is a powerful tool and though we are using it in a graduate level class, I think it has a lot of potential for k-12. For example, I would love to have students create a multimedia presentation using the presentation software where students are able to collaborate on the project from home because the document itself is online. There would be no worry about access or different versions floating around.

Okay, another great tool that I can't wait to use is wikispaces. I've seen it presented, I know people who use it, I've used wikis in Moodle, but I hadn't tried wikispaces until very recently. I think it is awesome. I can't wait to try it. Once again, I think this is a tool that would be great for use in the classroom. It would be great for a collaborative project where students are asked to synthesize information and present it online.

I am looking forward to more, but I have a lot of catching up to do. The list of emerging technologies has given me a lot of extra homework, because some of the tools look like a lot of fun.

Can Technology Create Reasons to Celebrate

Ok, in my last blog I offered my 2 cents about how school can be a more rewarding place to be for teachers and students and that was that there needed to be clear points where celebration is possible. That would mean that students would have worked hard to reach a clear benchmark that indicates they have learned something significant and demonstrated it clearly. So can technology make it easier to structure instruction so that these high-five moments are possible? I think so.

Here's a quick example, I work with a teacher who is lucky enough to have a 2-1 ration of students to computers. She started having students create a movie project at the end of each unit where the students had a particular topic that they had to teach through their movie. There is a lot of flexibility on how to go about teaching the topic, but that is their task. She noted that before having students create movies at the end of the unit, there would always be at least 5 students that would fail the end of unit test. On the first unit where students created iMovies (a unit on the atom and the periodic table), no one scored below a 75% on the unit test. What an incredible gain! I think that having no grade below a C on an assessment is a great reason to celebrate!

Ok even more about my love affair with technology and how it improves the classroom environment in my next post! : )

Creating a Reason to Celebrate

Years ago, I was watching Finding Nemo and ventured into the extra features on the DVD. One segment showed the animators as they would work through some part of the process. After days of struggling through a very difficult animated scene, the whole crew would celebrate its completion. The champagne would pop open, and you could see the real joy and sense of accomplishment of the animators because they had struggled and problem-solved through a really tough piece of animation.

As I watched this, I actually got a little depressed. I thought to myself...In my profession (teaching), there are very few moments where you can see the impact that you have had on students, very few milestones where you can celebrate with your students and say, "WhooHoo we did it!" Even though there are numerous objectives that we are asked to teach students, I don't think there is ever a moment in time where you can celebrate that you met it. I think that is unfortunate because it seems to me that the kind of celebration that the Nemo animators had is exactly what we need in education. Students need to see that they are learning, recognize when they've really accomplished something through hard work and perseverance. And when they have these moments we need to celebrate with them.

So I propose that educators think hard about how they can create units, lessons, assignments that aren't just designed to expose kids to content but are well designed with clear and measurable objectives that are difficult to attain. Although they must require a journey to that endpoint, they also most be clearly measurable so that everyone will know the moment that they are met. That way, once either each student or an entire class of students has demonstrated mastery, you can all celebrate together and know that what you have done in the classroom is meaningful, fruitful, and fulfilling.

Next post - how technology along with project based learning can help accomplish this goal!

Thank you First Responders

Just now I was driving down the 805 freeway in San Diego when traffic slowed to a standstill. I heard on the radio that there was an accident and that the right hand lanes were closed ahead. It took about 30 minutes to finally get to the accident. What I saw was horrific. A car was mangled and ripped apart, and a large group of firefighters, EMTs, and police officers were crowded around the injured parties doing all that they could to save them. Being the overly emotional person that I tend to be, I immediately started to cry. I realized that I was crying for the individuals who were fighting for their life but also for how proud I was and how reassured I felt because of the heroic acts of the first responders.

I have had very few opportunities, if any, to interact with EMTs, firefighters, or police officers. Pretty much only when I got tickets in my reckless moments as a youth. I should consider myself lucky that thus far I have not needed their assistance, but that also means that I have never thanked them for all that they do and how safe and protected I feel. I admire them all for their heroism in fighting for the lives of those individuals who find themselves in unfortunate situations everyday, and although I have never needed their assistance, I know that if ever I do they will be there as soon as they can, doing all that they can to save me. They will put their lives and well being on the line to help someone they don't even know. That is incredible to me. I wish I knew a better way to thank them, but having my thank you be the first entry to my blog, was the first thing I though of.

Thank you to all of you out there that fight for our lives and protect us every day! You deserve more thanks and recognition than I could possibly give.

Thank you,
Heidi