Getting introduced to Second Life
Kathy Schrock has an introductory video for educators interested in Second Life. She is well known for her educator resources. You can see her presentation “Guide to SL for K-12 Educators” by clicking on the title.
Shawn / Tech / Second Life /
Kathy Schrock has an introductory video for educators interested in Second Life. She is well known for her educator resources. You can see her presentation “Guide to SL for K-12 Educators” by clicking on the title.
Shawn / Tech / Field Trips, ISTE, Second Life /
Tonight I had the opportunity to “attend” the presentation in Second Life on Social Studies and virtual environments. The presentation was hosted by ISTE and presented by Spiff Whitfield who leads the Second Life group, Virtual Pioneers. They meet every two weeks and tour together. It began as a small group of teachers in New England and has expanded to include teachers in other countries. They can be found over at the Lighthouse Learning Island (Kathy Shrock).
“Spiff” highlighted several places they have visited:
Check out the Virtual Pioneers video describing their tours and association. They also have a Ning site where you can connect with them.
Troy / MSM, NMSA08, Podcast, Tech / motivation, NMSA08, Podcast, web2.0 /
Items & Events
News:
Seven Skills Students Desperately Need
http://www.eschoolnews.com/news/top-news/index.cfm?i=56127
Teaching to the test is a mistake, Harvard’s Tony Wagner reminded the audience of his Nov. 18 keynote address to the State Educational Technology Directors Association (SETDA), because it interferes with transmitting the seven “survival skills” every student should acquire before graduating.
“A lot of people think the skills that students need to learn for the workforce and the skills they need to learn to be a good citizen are two separate sets. But they’re not. What makes a student successful in the global workforce will make a person successful at life,” he said.
Wagner said the problem is that you can have all the equipment and technology you want, but “if you don’t teach kids how to think, how to think beyond multiple choice, you’ve got a problem.”
“I realize education is a very risk-averse sector,” said Wagner, “but assessments either drive instruction for the better or for the worse, and right now in the U.S., it’s for the worse. If our assessments measured performance and 21st-century skills, like the European PISA assessment, that would be another story.”
According to Wagner, students of this generation are not unmotivated; they’re just differently motivated.
“They’re multi-taskers, they are drawn to graphics, they like instant gratification, they use Web 2.0 tools to create, and they love collaboration,” he said. “If we can figure out how to grab their interest in learning, they’ll become great thinkers and be eager to learn the basics.”
Wagner presented a list of seven “survival skills” that students need to succeed in today’s information-age world, taken from his book The Global Achievement Gap: Why Even Our Best Schools Don’t Teach the New Survival Skills Our Children Need–And What We Can do About It. It’s a school’s job to make sure students have these skills before graduating, he said:
1. Problem-solving and critical thinking;
2. Collaboration across networks and leading by influence;
3. Agility and adaptability;
4. Initiative and entrepreneurship;
5. Effective written and oral communication;
6. Accessing and analyzing information; and
7. Curiosity and imagination.
“We are making [Adequate Yearly Progress] at the expense of failing our kids at life. Something has to change,” he concluded.
Tony Wagner’s Web Site (Note that he has a bunch of articles free for download to registered users – registration is free).
Session 2:
Staff Motivation – Diane Hodges.
US has 2.8 million teachers serving 46 million students
Employee Needs & Motivators:
_____ Good wages
_____ Job security
_____ Interesting work
_____ Full appreciation for work done
_____ Feeling “in on things”
_____ Sympathetic help with personal problems
_____ Promotion/growth opportunities
_____ Good working conditions
_____ Personal loyalty to workers
_____ Tactful discipline
Elements of a staff recognition program:
The techniques that have the greatest motivational impact are practiced by the least number of managers, even though they are easier and less expensive to use.
Motivating Behavior | Rank | Frequency |
Manager personally congratulates employees who do a good job |
1 | 42 |
Manager writes personal notes for good performance |
2 | 24 |
Organization uses performance as a major basis for promotion |
3 | 22 |
Manager publicly recognizes employees for good performance |
4 | 19 |
Manager holds morale-building meetings to celebrate success |
5 | 8 |
Some motivational ideas:
http://www.dianehodges.com/motiv.php
http://playfair.com
Shawn / NMSA08, Tech / NMSA08, tech /
I think one of the statements that made me think the most came out of
Will Richardson’s session the first day. He talked about how he had
his kids take classes via Skype from “teachers” across the globe on
subjects they self-selected. I had to chuckle when he described how
one lesson couldn’t finish because the teacher was a 12 year old in
Sweden and it was past his bedtime, so the teaching had to come to a
close for the afternoon. The opportunity to choose one’s teachers
from a pool of teachers across the globe and move outside the brick-
and-mortar school is a powerful notion in an age of electronic
portfolios. There were a great many things to take away from the
conference, but the potential of that idea has weighed heavy in my
reflection on the conference, especially when considering the places
we could go with curriculum in the future and the variety of subjects
that could be offered if a collaborative community of middle schools
harnessed it. Yes, potentially years away . . .
Troy / Podcast, Tech, Uncategorized / Podcast, tech /
Book Update:
Troy:
Getting to Got It! – Done
Shawn:
Alan November – Done
Wisdom of Crowds – In progress
News & Events
1. Start planning for October’s Month of the Young Adolescent!
2. Ohio Middle School Association’s Annual Conference, February 19-20, 2009 in Sandusky, OH.
3. Institute for Middle Level Leadership. July 13-16 & 20-23
4. Best Practices for Student Success. July 28 & August 6
5. NMSA Annual Conference, October 30 – November 1 (Video sample)
6. Summer Teacher-to-Teacher professional development program registration is open. (free)
7. Canadian National Middle Years Conference, November 5, 6, & 7 in Winnipeg, Manitoba.
Interesting tidbit: “It is crucial that all presenters send a copy of their session handouts to NMSA no later than September 21, 2008. It is our plan to offer ALL session handouts to participants electronically. For this reason, we prefer to receive the handouts electronically, but can accept paper copies as well. Please plan to prepare your handouts accordingly.” – from the NMSA Annual Conference website. It appears that all presentation notes and handouts will be available in electronic form to all conference attendees. One third of my handouts from one of my presentations this year walked out the door without the person taking it hearing the presentation. Its good for more exposure to a wider audience, but at the same time the handout doesn’t contain the visuals and the examples that a presentation gives either. Is this a good balance? I admit, it was nice having Rick DuFour’s presentation on my iPhone so I could look at it whenever I wanted to.
Shout outs:
Reader & Listener questions:
From the net:
SAT Scores: Better indicator with or without a writing section?
Several years ago schools jumped into action because the SAT was adding a writing section to the test. So what has been the impact of the change?
TED Talk – Visual Perspectives – Chris Jordan – Picturing Excess
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/279
Will We Let Google Make Us Smarter?
http://www.kk.org/thetechnium/archives/2008/06/will_we_let_goo.php
Troy / NMSA08, Podcast, Tech, Uncategorized / Podcast, tech /
Podcast #36
News & Events
1. Start planning for October’s Month of the Young Adolescent!
2. Innovative Practices Across the Curriculum, June 24 in Minnesota.
3. Institute for Middle Level Leadership. July 13-16 & 20-23
4. Best Practices for Student Success. July 28 & August 6
5. NMSA Annual Conference, October 30 – November 1
6. Summer Teacher-to-Teacher professional development program registration is open. (free)
7. Transition Practices Research (RMLE Online)
Interesting quotes: “The fact that discipline problems increase upon school transitions suggest that this new school environment poses a challenge to students during early adolescence.”
“The ideal middle school environment engages young adolescents by helping them feel capable of meeting academic challenges, offers them choice and control over their learning, and makes them feel safe and secure in their learning environment (Roeser, Eccles, & Sameroff, 2000). Interventions such as the Coping Power Program—a prevention/intervention program implemented the year prior to and immediately following the middle school transition—can help adolescents meet the new demands associated with transition (Lochman & Wells, 2002).”
Alan November’s Books
YouTube lawsuit test copyright law:
“This would have a profound impact on education, where the benefits of Web 2.0 [technologies] are only just beginning to be realized. These sites offer myriad educational opportunities to reinforce key 21st-century skills, and their diversity offers educators a wide range of choices to include in their lessons and/or practice.”
From eschoolnews.com
Plagarism allegations jolt school
School District 203’s superintendent moved to reassign Naperville Central High School Principal Jim Caudill next school year, while student Steve Su is being asked to return his valedictorian’s medal, after each plagiarized portions of speeches they gave during commencement events last week, the district announced Thursday.
Student Demo uses for Google Phone OS
What do you want your cell phone to be able to do? Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) professor Hal Abelson put that question to about 20 computer-science students this semester when he gave them one assignment: Design a software program for cell phones that use Google Inc.’s upcoming Android mobile operating system.
The 23 Things Wrap up.
Social Bookmarking
18. Learn about tagging and social bookmarking.
19. Set up your account and experience del.icio.us.
20. Revisit RSS and subscribe to new feeds.
Online Video
21. Explore online video sharing sites.
22. Embed and download video from video sharing sites.
Click the link below to listen.
Download: (Note: Please use this link and not the one below)