I was in the chat room. I had intended to ‘try’ and keep up with it. When I saw how FAST it actually went, that thought went away pretty quickly. So first things first, I’m going to try and answer some of the questions posed in the chat that I don’t think were covered in the show, so here goes:

• 21:01:52 sendkathy Anyone here going to FECT next month? Kathy…I will be at FETC all three days. I will probably be wearing my Discovery Educator Network shirts (yellow and light blue)
• 21:18:58 SSedro in Singapore Oh Tom, all four tech coordinators in my district feel exactly the same way. We all want to be working with kids and teachers, not fixing things and pushing paper. Ok, though not really a question, a comment worth copy/pasting here. The more and more that I try to get in the classrooms with teachers, the more and more I get sucked into tech. support and what I like to call ‘hand holding’. Frustration at this point happens when I try to empower my teachers to solve issues on their own, yet I find myself failing at this task. I think of it this way, how can we expect our students to seek and discover solutions to problems on their own, if we are unwilling to do so on our own. It’s a double edged sword.
• 21:20:44 WOScholar We went wifi campus wide for PK – 5. Expect to have 6-8 done within the next month. THen we will have a cloud over our district campuses. I was paid a visit by a colleague from another school. They are having a new campus built, as theirs dates back to the 1920’s. The design will be exactly similar to my building. I advised him about activating all the ports available in the classrooms as the wireless is very flaky at times, and not to be trusted. It seems that the district has seen the error in their ways and are not even installing but a few wireless access points in the new buildings. It is IDEAL to have the wireless available, but not to run the entire network over it. Reliability and efficiency IMO goes way down.
• 21:22:36 CathyN @tom do the kids have email accts? Not at this time they do not. Our district is rolling out to the schools slowly use of gaggle.net email for our students. At this time High School accounts have been created. We’ve been told that at the elementary level, they did not purchase all the bells and whistles that gaggle.net has. I will be slowly adding this in, as I said in the show, I’m working one at a time with teachers rather than as a whole getting everyone on board.
  
• 21:24:10 sendkathy I like Tom’s approach, core people Again, I try to appeal to the basic nature of meeting people’s intrinsic needs. To newer adapters, what we might call a tool, to them it is still a toy. It’s like walking into a TV production studio for the first time and just hooting and hollering and having a good time. It’s the same concept. Once they get over the ‘newness’ of it, the true test begins of molding the use of technology into their everyday lessons. My district uses a similar approach to completing levels of technology proficiency. For each of the 3 levels completed, there is an incentive attached to it (1 gb flash drive, scanner, laptop or LCD projector). Again, intrinsic needs are being met, and new technology is being exposed.
• 21:26:01 jepcke Wikis are my ‘easy’ website builder of choice I have to say that I agree. With regards to working with the younger children than I’ve been used to, the wiki has been a blessing in disguise. They’ve picked it up quick, and without many errors. (http://mrflynn.pbwiki.com is what we’re doing in 4th Grade class at the moment).
• 21:28:46 WOScholar What does Tom find the easiest thing to integrate with primary teachers? A variety of things have been quite simple at integrating with primary teachers. My school right now is HEAVY into using ‘Thinking Maps’ within the daily context of learning. Inspiration has been great at utilizing the thinking map concepts along with images and audio files. I will be holding a short 30 minute session this Friday for my teachers on integrating Inspiration with Discovery streaming. So should be a greater use of both tools come next week, or at least I hope so.
• 21:30:44 megormi Tom in a perfect world, what tech support do you feel every building should have? I’m not really sure I answered this question the way you were asking it Meg. I’ve heard of some districts that share one tech person between several campuses. When I took my position about this time last year, the previous tech guy was just a ‘tech guy’ with no educational experience. As I said during the show, I try to resolve almost all calls within 2 hours. Some days that does not happen, then I have to prioritize which ticket comes first. The other thing that I think is a MUST, is that schools need to hire people in my position with some sort of educational background that will TRULY understand the needs of the teachers, rather than just ‘talk down on them’ like so many horror stories that are out there.
• 21:35:45 Art Gelwicks OR…tech administration who will listen to the needs of the teaching staff and find ways to help rather than just fix the tech. Art, I would go a step further and say just Administration in general. Administration in my estimation is stuck in the dark ages, and not willing to invest the time and energy. So I have to tend to agree with your assessment.
• 21:36:21 Durff can we exchange this guy for our IT person like yesterday? That’s not the first time I’ve heard this statement. Not really a question, but had to post this comment from the chatlog.
• 21:36:33 lizbdavis Has Tom been reading my blog – I’ve been thinking the same things about teaching teachers to fish. Finding constructivist ways to do PD. Unfortunately I’ve not been reading very many blogs at all. I will have to remember to click the link in Twitter to get your blog added to my RSS. Also, skype me (tom.turner19) would LOVE to chat with you regarding some other ideas.
• 21:36:49 jeffmason @Tom one person for tech support, one person for educational support Jeff, in the ideal world for me this would be the case. The district in which my wife works (one county over) they have their technology integration specialists and Tech Support personnel blocked off into 2 different positions. Really what it amounts to is funding. I’m caught between a rock and a hardplace in my district, where I’m classified as a teacher, so I have to do ‘duties’ that take me away from what my job description is supposed to cover.
• 21:37:43 Art Gelwicks I’ve worked with some educators with good intentions but not a clue about technology. “Teach ‘em to Fish”…the only way their good intentions will turn into positive results.
• 21:40:51 CathyN @tom why do u love edublogs–ive had beefs How much do I love thee edublogs, let me count thy ways??? Actually a great question Cathy. First, edublogs is not blocked by my district, so if I’m in need of checking something, or beginning a post while at school I have that ability. I’ve been pleased with the level of support that I’ve received from James when I’ve had issues. To the point where he’s emailed me directly to help solve the issues. I’m a loyalist at heart, and until I no longer receive a level of service that I cannot be happy with, I stick with it. I don’t change the theme of my blog that often, so the # of themes available is not that big of an issue to me. Also, the plugins that are available all work wonderful for me. However, I cannot argue against when someone has had problems in the past. With anything tech, each person will have a differing opinion, and they will find what works for them and stick with it.
• 21:40:48 Sue Waters (Australia) Agreed blackboard is not bloging I know that, you know that, but my district doesn’t. However, with anything, I have to abide by the rules laid out in front of me. Change will come, albeit too slow for me.
• 21:43:57 jeffmason @Tom I’m from Pensacola FL. Look into the Florida Master Digital Educator program http://etc.usf.edu/mde/ I’ve applied. I’ve sent my application in for the third year in a row now. Here’s hoping the third time is the charm.

I’m going to go out on a limb here and wonder HOW in the world you guys listen and keep up with the chat at the same time. Amazing !! Please feel free to post any questions that didn’t get asked during the show here and I will create a new post answering your questions. Again, I have to send out a HUGE thanks to the 4 Women of Web 2.0 (Cheryl, Vicki, Sharon and Jen: in no particular order of course) I’ve truly enjoyed the experience and hope to do it again sometime.

Seeking the Wisdom of the Ages…

Tom.

Technorati Tags: WOW2.0 edtech technology education techsupport IT TomTurner

Some cool things going in the next few weeks for me. My wife found a UBER huge deal on a cruise out of Miami. Family of four going to the Bahamas the weekend before Thanksgiving in a mini suite for just over $700.  Too good of a deal to pass up. As is typical with an educator, I’m looking for the best way to get some educational benefit out of this trip for my kids. My son will be way too young to remember any fort we go to or any tour of the parlaimentary building in Nassau. I’ve been trying to find a way to get jump started into the world of geocaching. Trying not to point out the fact that I have no GPS device, it’s just the thing to go out and buy one.

It’s also like living in a bubble. Never knew that geocaching.com existed. Researched and found some that were close to both Port Lucaya on Grand Bahaman Island and in Nassau. When explaining geocaching to my AP and groveling to borrow her GPS device for the trip, she told me to look into buying some for the school. Not a bad deal if you ask me. Just told me to find some ‘justification’ for using it in school. What better way then showing her Ed Warkentin’s “Teach em to Fish” blog post on using geocaching in education from April 15th of this year.

More later, time for sleep.

Seeking the Wisdom of the Ages…

Tom.

Thanks to Darcy out in Arizona, I was able to befriend Diana L. while out on the DEN excursion. It’s always nice when someone comes up to you and says, “Hey, you’re Tom…Darcy told me to find you and hang with you and all would be ok.” Thought that was a good way to start a friendship. Her and I were skypechatting the other day about some free resources to share with my teachers and she ripped off a couple that I have DEFINITELY never heard of. Trackstar being one of them. Here’s a direct quote straight from the Trackstar home page that pretty much sums it up better than I can.

“TrackStar is your starting point for online lessons and activities. Simply collect Web sites, enter them into TrackStar, add annotations for your students, and you have an interactive, online lesson called a Track. Create your own Track or use one of the hundreds of thousands already made by other educators.” (http://trackstar.4teachers.org/trackstar/)

I’ve not created one of my own as of yet, not that I’ve had much time. I asked Diana to pick out one that she wanted to share with everyone. She chose this one that revolves around the Flagstaff Film Festival of 2007. The really great thing about Trackstar is that you can search by Track # or author, even better is the keyword search. As Diana cautioned me, read the terms of use before creating your own. Because there are copyright issues involved with the use of it.

Several implementation ideas I have for it, and will share with my teachers when I do my online resources session. Diana’s pointed out that for her, “it’s a great way to get them focused and into the activity in the lab the second they walk in.” The author of the “track” is doing the research, the students find the results/answers. I think I referred to it as a place to house organized “online scavenger type hunts.” Second would be to have students create their own tracks at the conclusion of a unit. Working collaboratively, give students a list of about 10 vetted and appropriate websites, and let them create their own. I’ve not gone through and searched to see if this has been previously done, and I’m sure it has. Apparently this site’s been around for a while, I think she told me 10 years, so anything is possible.

I’ve had some great conversations with some of my teachers on campus over the last few days. Most revolving around the use of the word ’stealing’ ideas to use in their own classrooms. I’m VERY quick to point out that in my eyes we are all collaborating with each other to make each other’s jobs that much easier. It pains me to see teachers, who are Really good at what they do, hoard great ideas. Support each other! As I’ve been so apt to hear over the weekend, “We’re all in this together”. I cannot really believe I just quoted a lyric from High School Musical. But really, isn’t it appropriate?

Seeking the Wisdom of the Ages…

Tom.

Technorati Tags: edtech Trackstar technology education

• “An update to Second Life’s client server will coincide with a 6 hour outage from 6am-12 noon PST Wednesday and Second Life users are not happy.” Being the gamer that I am, I’ve experienced 24 hour plus outages to World of Warcraft, Ultima Online and Everquest. We’re talking about games that I’ve probably sucked thousands and thousands of dollars into over the last decade. After the downtime, the product was better. Suck it up, enjoy your FIRST LIFE for 6 hours. This is getting into the ‘addiction’ part of this type of ‘tool’. Be warned about what we wish for.
• “The then there is the various police investigations in a number of countries. The FBI recently started investigating Second Life for illegal online gambling. Police in Britain, Belgium and the Netherlands are investigating whether virtual rape in Second Life constitutes an offense, and German Police are investigating pedophilia on a service where virtual “age play” and bestiality are widespread.” And we want to use this as a platform to educate our children on? I don’t think so. Not with such rampant vulgar and obscene places, people and things out there. I’m not trying to be a holier than thou’ist here. I’m firmly of the belief that people have the right to choose where they go on the internet, what they view, and the things they do. Who am I to judge? I’m not. I just choose not to partake in such frivolity. However, without safeguards in place at the client level, we are putting our children/students at a higher risk of the things we strive to protect them from.
  

I will agree that Second Life is a great avenue to get together and have virtual one on one/face to face professional development opportunities. I myself just cannot support going into such a place that allows such things to exist. Again, this is my decision and I don’t judge, nor begrudge those that utilize the service. Until such measures are taken to rid the Second Life world of such things, I think I’m going to take a pass. I know, what a turnaround after blogging about my first Second Life experiences just about a month ago. Opinions change.

As always, I’m…
Seeking the Wisdom of the Ages…

Tom.

Citation:

Riley, Duncan. “Anarchy, Discontent Plague Second Life.” Tech Crunch. 23 May 2007. Tech Crunch. 23 May 2007 <http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/05/23/anarchy-discontent-plague-second-life/>.

Our supposed laid back gathering turned into a full blown Voki session. Each of us created our own characters. Our homework was to put a voice to the avatar. As Steve pointed out, you can use a microphone, call in, have them call your OR type the text in. I found typing in the text, that you were VERY limited on the amount you could say.

Here I am creating my voki character, and WHOA! What type of laptop am I using here??? Can it be a mac?? I personally think it looks ALOT like me. Not bad for about 10 minutes worth of work on the mac.

And for the finished product…look to the left in the widget bar–>

Seeking the Wisdom of the Ages…

Tom.

**portions of this post is double posted on the Discovery Educator Network Florida Blog**

You gamers out there, know what I’m talking about. What’s out there are several variations of this new language. You have your regular IM speak as we refer to it. For example: “Nd 2 bio. BRB”. Ok very basic and all I could muster on a few hours of sleep. But basically “I’m going to be right back because I need to use the bathroom.”

There’s also what’s called dOOd speak that’s out there. This is a hybrid version of IM speak that’s a little more difficult to translate or understand. It uses numbers in place of letters as well as inserting capital letters into words. Some examples would include:

• L33t – elite
• S3kr3T – secret (of course)

Again, that’s all I can muster in my head at this early in the morning, plus I’ve been out of gaming for about 6 months and they really aren’t coming to me as quickly as they used to.

Here’s the main difference between the two. The age brackets involved. Many of the older gamers, and this is going I would say from ages 18 -19 and up to even grandparent age (yes…I have a 70ish year old grandfather that plays in my guild). The dOOd Sp3aK as we like to call it comes from those 18 and under gamers that are usually associated with a guild of people of about the same age. My guild of 500 (The Syndicate) has restrictions on such stuff as we try to portray ourselves as a “Mature and Professional Guild”.

If you are having issues understanding this new language, it is definitely worth the visit to fiddle around on the website. Could also be a neat tool to use with your class to try and decipher a paragraph and have them rewrite it using regular language.

Translation:

I saw DIS on Steve Dembos Media m@Rz blog (frm Discovery Educator’s Network) d othR dA. I had 2 stifle a chuckle wen I saw it. Not so much dat I thawt it wz fune, bt dat d fact I cn undRstNd d lingo. d websIt iz caLd transl8it.com. It transl8z yor wrds in2 IM spk 4 EZ transl8nz. My gaming roots hz put me rght smk dab n d midL of DIS nu lngwij. David Warlick discuSD DIS n 1 of Hs sessNz lst fri. @ d tek 4m hEr n Orlando. Hes also discuSD it n Hs “Connect LernN” podcasts on ocasN.

U gamers out ther, knO wot Im talkin bout. wot’s out ther R sevrl variations of DIS nu lngwij. U hav yor reg. IM spk az we refR 2 it. 4 exmpl: “Nd 2 bio. BRB”. k v basic & aL I c%d muster on a few hrz of slp.

That’s the first two paragraphs of this post. I won’t bore you with the whole thing. You can get the idea from just reading that. Post your comments in IM speak if you wish and let’s see if we can understand what you are saying.

Seeking the Wisdom of the Ages…

Tom.

To that degree I created my own ToonDoo comic to demonstrating a possibility of implementing comic strip creation.

Rajendran from Jambav.com just sent word that they’ve created a blog here at edublogs to demonstrate possible uses by teachers for ToonDoo in the classroom. It’s just been created, but so far he’s demonstrated several ways to introduce vocabulary terms with your students. Would be a NICE way to get a visual aspect to vocabulary into a lesson!

Hope this helps out, to me, I still think it’s pretty cool. Moreso because I was never very artistically inclined. This allows that creativity to come out in students like that.

Seeking the Wisdom of the Ages…

Tom.

The DEN is by far not the only community that I’m a member of. Unofficially I would consider myself a part of the edublogging community. Am I as well known as some of who I would refer to as the ’superstars’ of edublogging? Not by a long shot. But nonetheless, I’m a part of this global community. Just take a peek at some of the CLUSTR maps that some blogsites are hosting, including mine.

One of the catch phrases thrown about with the rise of web 2.0 is ‘collaboration.’ We’re wanting of our students to collaborate with other students to achieve goals or objectives. But, are we as educators really following what we are trying to accomplish in our classrooms and collaborating amongst ourselves? All too often I’ve seen fellow educators keeping ideas and concepts to themselves, not wanting to give their little nuggets away. Who is this really benefitting? A small handful of individuals really when it all boils down to the small of it. Take for example Jen over at Thoughts from a Technospud. It’s only been about a week or so and her St. Patrick’s Day Project has over 435 classrooms involved, reaching out to OVER 11,000 students (This coming directly from a comment by her here on this very blog). Now let’s do the basic math here. A typical elementary K – 3rd Grade class will have about 20ish students in there. IF she were to keep these projects to herself, thinking of herself and her students…that would leave about 10,980 students without the educational benefits these projects contain.

This brings us back to the essential question I’m posing…What do you look for in a teacher community? What features would make it a compelling community to be a part of? I know for myself I look for a clean portal that is EASY to navigate throughout all the features. The ability for teachers to share their created lessons and ideas is a MUST. The ability to ‘network’ is also important. Both in person and via blogs, message boards or a some sort of moderated chat function (either voice or text, but we’re living in web 2.0 voice is the way to go on that!). I’m curious to see what people think about this.

Seeking the Wisdom of the Ages…

Tom.

(I’m hearing people are still having issues posting comments, still not sure what’s going on with this. Try clearing out your cookies/temp internet files and try. If that doesn’t work, feel free to email me at: mithrass@gmail.com)

What in the world does all this have to do with the title “Letterpop!”? We as tech educators need to get the word out on essential questioning/project-based learning. This is the part of my reading strategy called “some sort of activity.” Get your students using higher order thinking/reasoning skills. As my students would call it, “an activity that is going to make our brains cramp at the end.”

For those of you that are not fortunate enough to have Microsoft Publisher installed on your computers (at least non-Mac users because I’m sure you have something in the Ilife suite of programs that you can use to make newsletters and such) I present to you Letterpop. I will not take credit for finding this little gem. I saw it on another blog a while back and meant to immediately trackback to it in a posting. Again, brain freeze occurring here. Letterpop works as an online publishing program. It has a set of templates for you to choose from, along with preset images or the ability to upload your own. The GUI allows a title to be set, along with text to go along with the images added. This is a fun and easy way to have your students convey their knowledge of topics you are covering in your classes.

Seeking the Wisdom of the Ages…

Tom.

Now for the business at hand. One of the things the teachers at my school has been bombarded with this year is a constant reminder to use some sort of graphic organizers in our classrooms. In my monthly Team Leaders meeting with the principal he reminds us to remind our team members about using them. Using graphic organizers is not really an issue for me because I’m CONSTANTLY using Inspiration to organize class discussion, making time lines, and incorporating digital video clips from unitedstreaming. While going through my Bloglines, and having time to add blogs to my list today, I came across this neat table that gives a visual representation for many of the organizers we employ. My apologies to the original finder of this, because after spending all day at school and dealing with a sick daughter when I got home, I’ve forgotten where it came from. I just thought it was too cool of a tool to not share tonight. It can be found here at this link: A Periodic Table of Visualization Methods.

More later…

Tom.