IT Summit 2013 - Cool Tools Duel - Dean Shareski and Ewan McIntosh

The 2013 IT Summit in Saskatoon was capped off with a "Cool Tools Duel" between Dean Shareski and Ewan McIntosh.

Who will the winner be this year?

Tool #1:

Dean: Popcorn Maker - Create your own pop-up videos - https://popcorn.webmaker.org/

Ewan: P Clock (Presentation Clock App) - allows  https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/presentation-clock/id391324914?mt=8 



Tool #2:

Dean: Haiku Deck - great presentation creation app using photos searchable from creative commons - https://itunes.apple.com/ca/app/haiku-deck/id536328724?mt=8

Ewan: My Script Calculator - helps students play with algebra and math https://itunes.apple.com/ca/app/myscript-calculator/id578979413?mt=8 - WolframAlpha - look up historical data and data to get comparisons: https://itunes.apple.com/ca/app/wolframalpha/id334989259?mt=8 



Tool #3:

Dean: Twitter Archive of your tweets that is searchable - you can go in your settings and request your archive - twitter.com

Ewan: Earthlapse - lets you explore the universe as if you were in space - https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/earthlapse/id522003167?mt=8



Tool #4:

Dean: Aurasma - let's you attach virtual reality overlay to your photo - https://itunes.apple.com/ca/app/aurasma/id432526396?mt=8

Ewan: 360 Panorama App - Create an tour of a room - https://itunes.apple.com/ca/app/360-panorama/id377342622?mt=8



Tool #5:

Dean: Glympse - http://www.glympse.com/

Ewan: Paper Fifty-Three App - https://itunes.apple.com/ca/app/paper-by-fiftythree/id506003812?mt=8



Tool #6:

Dean: instaGrok - http://www.instagrok.com/

Ewan: Story Cube app - https://itunes.apple.com/ca/app/rorys-story-cubes/id342808551?mt=8 Street Museum - http://www.museumoflondon.org.uk/Resources/app/you-are-here-app/noflash/no-flash.html Apps Gone Free - http://appchronicles.com/category/apps-gone-free/

K-12 Online Conference 2010

This year, I was busy juggling too many projects at work and home to attend the wonderful K-12 Online conference live. As I received emails and tweets during the conference, I saved them for a time when I could spend time watching, learning from and thinking about the many ideas shared by the many presenters at this year's conference. If you use iTunes, you are able to look at the sessions as podcasts, which I find quite handy, given my new love for the iPad. There are far too many wonderful presentations to mention. Check out the speaker list and schedule here and discover for yourself the numerous learning opportunities this online conference has to offer.

Here are a few that I found interesting:

Presenter of interest #1: Pre-conference keynote: Dean Shareski, The Moral Imperative
Shareski questions and presents the need as educators to share. Isn't that the moral foundation of being a teacher? He questions: Is sharing an obligation? Does my institution see the value in sharing? How will it help my students? After watching this video, I would like to know what you think. Obviously, if you are a reader of my blog, you will see that I am a very open educator who likes to share what I know and learn with others and provide as many opportunities for my students to do the same. This opportunity to make learning real and connected has made learning authentic for my students. I would love to know the opinions of others on the importance of sharing in education.


Cool tools I learned about in Dean's video that I need to check out were how to use my iPad as a teleprompter using iPrompt Pro and the around the neck microphone.  

Presenter of interest #2: Tony Vincent, Project Based Learning in Hand
This video was very inspiring to me. As a user of the ipod touch in my classroom and a frequent creator of authentic project based learning opportunities for my students, I couldn't help but be inspired by Tony's presentation. He managed to bring two topics together that I'm passionate about and inspire me to pursue new ways to use these devices with my students this year. This is a must see:



Presenter of interest #3: Britt Gow, Teaching Science to 21st Century Learners
As a Science Teacher to students in Grades 6-8, I'm always looking for new ways to incorporate technology into the classroom. In her video, Britt showcases how she integrates Web 2.0 tools into her lessons and includes student perspectives on the use of these tools.


There are many other speakers and topics to explore in the K-12 Online Conference. Check it out! I know you won't be disappointed.

Congratulations Dean Shareski - ISTE Outstanding Leader Award of the Year, 2010

I just wanted to pass on my congratulations to fellow Saskatchewanian and this year's winner of the ISTE Outstanding Leader of the Year Award, Dean Shareski.

I have had the pleasure of getting to know Dean over the past few years by attending his workshops in person and following his contributions to learning online through his blog and on Twitter. His work has inspired me to open up my classroom and network with others by Blogging and Twittering. He also sparked my passion for digital storytelling and I have created many "stories" since I took his workshop many years ago, one summer in Moose Jaw. Thanks for your work and your willingness to "share"ski, Dean! I look forward to learning more from you in the future.

Saskatchewan IT Summit 2010 - Dean Shareski - The Ten Worst Practices in Educational Technology

Dean Shareski's Blog: http://ideasandthoughts.org/

Intro: Curse of the default homepage (default settings on the computer) - Why don't ask what we can do with something? What could we do differently?
It's not what the software does. It's what the user does with them.(Hugh MacLeod)

1.  Interactive Whiteboards: Easy? Transformative? Should easy always be the goal of technology? What are some of the ways we can use IWBs to transform learning?
2. Power Point: Why do we see so many bad Power Points? What strategies have been successful in eliminating bad PPTs? Our table says that images are most powerful. Teaching presentation skills are key and having students talk without reading a screen. The point of a presentation is that you have to be there to give a presentation, telling a story - if you don't need to be there to read out the presentation, then it is a bad use of power point.
3. Digital Cameras: What are your favourite uses for digital cameras? How to go beyond printing out photos for display in the classroom? Our table says: Cameras can be used for documentation of student learning with dialogue to go with it. Reflective learning such as a Voice Thread. Creation: iMovie of Geometry in my environment
4. Walled Gardens: Access Denied (protected websites) - Good discussion about security settings and teaching students how to use the web safely.
5. Computer Class: Do we need them? Access poses a challenge but the need for formal classes (keyboarding, etc.) are not considered necessary.
6. Cell phones: How are we using cellphones in class? Computer power sitting in their pockets that could be used for good. 
7. Keyboarding: Should it be taught? In the world of texting, etc. Do we want to spend our time with computers teaching keyboarding when we could be doing something more creative?
8. Games: Drill and Kill exercises have a place in Education? Check out Sylvia Martinez for more info on useful games.
9. Searching: How to do proper searching to find information properly and the info that we need to find
10. Viewer's Choice: Word processing and excessive printing

Great Session Dean! Thank you!

10 Disruptions that Could Transform Your Classroom by Dean Shareski at IT Summit 2009

My notes on the session:

Dean did his presentation using Cooliris. Definately something I want to check into.

Links to videos and items presented at this session:
http://delicious.com/shareski/disruptions

Inspiration for the presentation:

• Disrupting Class by Clayton M. Christensen
• Horizon report 2009 edition from the new media consortium
• "Experiment of anarchy" Eric Schmidt
• "The future has already arrived. It's just not evenly distributed yet." William Gibson
• Microsoft commercial "How they see the future" video

1. Smart Phones and other mobile devices - video "iphoneu" "tonchidot" "poll everywhere"
   
2. Low cost computing - netbooks (what do you spend on textbooks?, kindle on Amazon
3. Cloud Computing - everything is housed on the web, Google Apps
   
4. Live Streaming - ustream, Brian Crosby: Sparks Nevada teacher to include students using Skype, qik video, Mr. C's Class Blog
   
5. Back Channels and Micro-Blogging - Sharing, public chat, K12 Conference.org for video, Twitter, social networking
   
6. Immersive Environments - video games, teen second life environment, applying new knowledge and allow for collaboration, online engaging environment
   
7. Privacy - idea of privacy is changing (outside interaction between teachers and students)
8. Time Shifting - What is Face to Face good for? - taking lectures out of school time and spending the time working together at school.
   
9. Open and Connected - free stuff online - MIT Open Courseware, online courses how to offer distance learning.
10. Outsourced Instruction - Differentiated instruction and grouping students based on need and interest (ex. Clarence Fisher teaching with a school in L.A.)
    
    

IT Summit mid-day keynote- Telling the New Story Live

IT Summit 2009 Keynote: Telling the New Story Live
with Dean Shareski, Kathy Cassidy, Clarence Fisher, Darren Kuropatwa

todaysmeet.com/newstory
thenewstory.wikispaces.com

Shareski:
The World Is Flat by Thomas Friedman = Great Book!
I like how he is using the Identity 2.0 presentation format with lots of pictures in his slideshow.

Conversation format is interesting. Darren is live on a TV and not here in person and the others are sitting on chairs at the front of the room.

Clarence: making global connections made him aware of the world being a big place and needing to connect with others.

Kathy: started blogging and someone else commented meaning that someone else was reading it. Connected globally with New Zeland. Importance of getting kids getting globally connected.

Dean: nothing like getting kids to talk to other kids about what they are really living instead of learning everything from a book.

Darren: Alan Levine BloggerShop was inspiration for getting active online with students. Now blogs with students and professionally.

Sharing of their classrooms: what a day looks like in their rooms. Tech is integrated as part of what the students are doing all day in the classroom.

Authentic, real learning is done through sharing and world partnerships.

I like the idea of having students "writing their own textbook" that is good enough that learners can educate themselves reading the book. Darren has a "How To" for setting up the online textbook in the class.

How do you find the time? Everything is a choice. Making online learning a priority. You have to give some things up in order to change the classroom.

Thinking Past the Mouse and Outside the Box

In reading other's blogs, I frequently relate to their "rants" or expressions of frustration over what others are doing, or not doing in the world of technology. I didn't think I would start to "rant" after having my own blog for only a few weeks, but now that I see that it can become common on other educators' blogs to vent a little when something is bugging them, I will get a few things off of my chest...

My first "rant" was left as a comment after I read Dean Shareski's post Control is a Worthless Pursuit about limiting the use of Facebook by educators by a Wisconsin school district. The district seems to think that they can avoid legal problems by controlling their teachers in cyberspace. I think that they will end up with more legal problems in the long run. In response to Shareski's post, I left this comment:

"This sounds like another case of a school district not considering their teachers to be professionals. I think it is important to allow educators to connect with their students on whatever level they feel is professionally appropriate. I personally won’t accept friend requests from my students on Facebook because I don’t feel comfortable doing that. I will, however, interact with them by exchanging emails, commenting on their blogs, visiting with them after school in my classroom, by coaching a team or by facilitating a club. The web has added another level to connect with others. It should be up to the teacher to be professional in their contact with students and decide what is appropriate and necessary to foster the relationship required to have that student learn and grow as a person."

My second "rant" is on here after reading Clarence Fisher's post I'm Done with EdTech. After reading his post, I can't help but agree with his point that we need to think past the "mouse" or outside the "box" as educators. I'm not sure what word we need to use to replace the term "EdTech" but after watching the video on Fisher's post about "Shiftables" from TED, I'd like to think that the power of technology in education is the collaboration that takes place from networking and talking to others using the technology, whether that takes place online or in a classroom. Here's the video:

Yes, it would be fun to play with these cubes all day and I can see many applications to using them in my own teaching. But what takes place after the exploration or playing phase with these cubes or any kind of technology for that matter? I like to think that the discussion and analysis of what took place during the exploration phase is where the real learning takes place. It is the role of the educator to facilitate this discussion and learning.

After these two "rants", I leave you with this, my third and final "rant" for the weekend about those who are not ready to change the way they teach. We need to grow as educators and change the way we teach or the 21st century learner will leave us in the dust. Yes, technology can be scary and it takes time and work to reinvent the way we teach. But, if we as educators don't make the effort to change the way we do things in our classrooms and make ourselves relevant to educating the 21st century learner, the real learning will take place outside of our buildings and we as educators will become irrelevant as a 21st century profession. Taking the opportunity to explore new technology and the ability to integrate it into our teaching enables us to become collaborators and mentors. We need to be master learners and be willing to learn with our students in the ever evolving 21st century.

Integrating Technology in Heritage Fair for Teachers and Students

I am passionate about teaching Canadian History and Heritage. One of the ways I share this passion with my students in our involvement in Heritage Fair every year. Most of my students look forward to this time of year. They can't wait to get started in this project based learning experience and start talking about their topic in September. I think it is because they have the chance to explore a topic they are interested in and that they get to choose themselves. Their enthusiasm for the project makes it my favourite time of year as well.

A video I have created and have used in many ways is a promotional video for Heritage Fair. I have used this video in school to get students excited about their projects. I have also used this video to introduce teachers to the Heritage Fair process during the professional development workshop I give to interested Regina Public Schools teachers on Heritage Fair every year. Thank you to Dean Shareski for giving me the video footage of the Moose Jaw Regional Fair to use in my video.

I have also ventured into wikis with the creation of my first public wiki. On this Heritage Fair wiki, I have accumulated a number of documents, links and resources for teachers including a link to the video. It has now been used in a number of schools in my system and it has even been used in other districts for the promotion of Heritage Fair.

Another addition to my Heritage Fair file has been the creation of a custom Google search engine developped with Terry Pon. I was first introduced to the concept of custom search engines by Alan November at the TLt Summit in Saskatoon last year. This was the first one that I have used with my students and it has been quite successful. We chose Canadian websites to send students to such as Historica, the Canadian Encyclopedia and the Government of Canada collection as well as the CBC. By using this custom search engine, I have found their online research to be much more productive this year than in years past. The main problem with online research using regular Google for this grade level (4/5) is that they tend to use the first website that pops up in Google and then they think they are done their research. Because their topics are so diverse, it is hard to just direct them to a website or two.

The other challenge I'm experiencing is having them realize the importance of mainting a list of sources for their project while doing their reasearch (in books, online, etc). I find that I'm constently repeating myself when talking about crediting sources in their projects and that "Google" is not a source. There is always an endless number of opportunities to teach "digital citizenship" when working on Heritage Fair.

Great digital storytelling workshops over the years

Over the past few years, I've been lucky to have had the opportunity to attend a number of workshops on the use of educational technology in my classroom. I have had many favourites, but the ones I enjoyed the most were when I had the chance to produce something I could share with others later. During my workshops on digital storytelling with Dean Shareski, I got to make a number of digital stories I like to use as models for my students. Here are a few of the products produced during two summer short courses in 2006 and 2007...

A MasterCard ad that was made using Power Point slides and PhotoStory:

Using the same programs, I also made an Aboriginal Art Story that is linked to the Grade 5 Saskatchewan Social Studies Curriculum:

English version:

French version:

My friend and fellow teacher, Terry Pon and I created a video for his library orientation using Windows Movie Maker. I hope he doesn't mind me sharing it on here. It got rave reviews from the students:

The following summer, I got to make an "all about me" type video using Google Earth, Powerpoint and Photo Story:

These projects have definately served as inspiration on how to incorporate technology into my teaching. In fact, digital storytelling is not only a professional persuit, it has also become a personal pursuit as well. In future blog posts, I will share some of my students' work and some of my other personal projects. Stay tuned!

New to Blogging

Although I took some great workshops on Social Networking and Blogging from Dean Shareski a few summers ago, I was never motivated enough to start my own blog. I didn't think I had enough to say or anything of substance to share with the world. I have since accumulated many projects that incorporate technology and ideas for future projects with my students. I was struggling with how to keep all of this "stuff" organized so I thought, why not start a blog of my own. Even if nobody is reading it, I will at least have a digital record I can refer to and reflect upon as my technology integration evolves in my teaching. Welcome to those of you who are following my journey.