Thank you to the folks from France for taking the time to review our groups Content Connections websites. I appreciated the fact that you obviously took the time to so completely review them that you were able to offer some great suggestions and feedback. Being able to explain to you the overall scope of the website and the project. I am looking to separate the assignmetns page into a drop down menu format that breaks the entire page into three separate pages. This was a great suggestion to help clean up the current page to create a tiered page with three separate project pages. This will also make it clearer that this is a three stage project.
Again, your feedback was great and extremely valuable. I appreciate your time and opinions.
Thanks,
Keith
I thought the original video was powerful but revamping the video was great. I heard the saying one time from a political host: "The stuff we are selling is still the same, it's the package that we need to change." This is absolutely true. Education is still education and lecture is still lecture. However, the delivery and the presentation matter. I know from experience that it is extremely difficult to get students to sit still through a lecture, no matter how much entertaining I do. But if I could reframe the lecture in a way that would get them to listen the outcomes might be different. I think there is still a place for the "old" way, but there has to be some room for the "new" way as well.
We created a quickfire that focused on creating motivational and demotivational posters that use a single term for both. Here we used Skype as our term and created both posters. As you can see they are extremely different in their messages. This project can be done in 30 to 40 minutes even with the taking your own picutes. This project forces the group to see both sides of the photo and use creativity to produce the product. My middle school kids love to look at the demotivational posters online, so the opportunity to create their own would be This was a really cool assignment that we enjoyed doing.
Cannot say that I was a big fan of this program. The features were very limited unless you buy it. Don't want to buy another program, especially since the demo was not that great. How did others like it?
My Voice Thread Feel Free to Comment
I thought you guys did a great job trying to convince us to use blogging in our classroom. I think that Eric's issue is mine...I have over 160 kids in my classes and managing, creating, monitoring and keeping up with it sounds insurmountable. I would definately be interested in blogging and would love to get any updates on the best program ot use that would address this issue. I thought that it was great that you all did your own arguments and gave us your perspectives on the topic. This was helpful. I plan to introduce blogging into my class this fall and your thoughts were appreciated.
I thought this was a really well thought out and presented today. I like the idea of IPads and their apps for use in class. Being from the tech side like Greg, it is a little overwhelming to have to support several different platforms in the schools and in class. I think that districts are going to have to choose which one they are going to use and support. I do find it overwhelming to sort through the different apps available and finding which one to use. I think it is just important to find a few that are beneficial and helpful to your subject area and USE them. Since we are going wireless and working through our pilot programs through tablet devices, I will be interested to see the results at the end of the year. I am hoping that our technology committee will be able to convince the Board to expand the pilots into one-to-one integration. Your presentation was very complete.
After taking the 21st Century quiz, I realized that the results were reflective of where my district is in the process. We just started last year with a new superintendent after having the same one for 17 plus years. Our new superintendent is yound and very open to new ideas. Technology integration is one of the areas that he is passionate about. The way that we go about technology is changing and I have had the unique chance to be involved with almost all of the planning and discussions about what that will look like, how best can we make use of technology and how will what we do today affect us 10 years from now? This has been a great process to be a part of. I believe that we have taken a path that will put us more firmly on the road to creating 21st century learners. We are going wireless in both our high school and middle schools this year and then in our elementaries next year. We decided on a structure that would allow our students to bring their own devices to school instead of forcing them to use district provided tools. We are using PD time to create collaboration between subject areas and grade levels. There are a ton of different things like this that are taking place that are setting the stage for this 21st century transition. I am excited about being apart of this
Cloud computing is "new" but the concept is not. I find it interesting that this "new" technology is causing such a buzz. I remember the first days of networking and the discussions we had about the idea of storing information somewhere other than on the desktop computer where you had it. Possession seems to be the main concern around cloud computing. This issue is still a hot debate. Our district talked about going to more cloud computing and ended up putting the idea on hold as the main concerns where: who actually has it, is it really backed up, is it secure and how is that security monitored and finally what happens when the cloud site goes down? Cloud computing is still evolving, but as the above questions and more get answered you can almost bet that cloud computing will be the norm in years to come.
