Teacher Integrating Technology

Another video on this same tangent

2010-12-18T11:16:00.002-06:00

Social Media Revolution 2

2010-12-18T11:04:00.005-06:00

Follow-up on Urban Science

2010-03-08T11:54:00.003-06:00

Back when I was actively blogging at this blog (now I'm more active with my actual class blogs), I was very interested in something I came across called Urban Science. I took an Urban Planning class my last year at UCLA and considered going into this field. It starts with the sense of place that the best studies of geography try to capture. Informed by the history and geography of place, Urban Planning deals with real-life, down-to-earth, practical issues of the use of that space. Some day I would love to venture further in this area. I also designed a webquest for a class project that has to do with urban planning. Urban Science looks to me like a top-notch tool for teaching. I haven't used it so I'm only going by this video and the previous exploration I've done, but the fact that students this age are participating in something that at least appears to be relevant, rewarding, real, etc. gets me excited. Sorry. This video has been removed by its owner. Bummer.

Video: Learning to Change

2008-12-12T14:39:00.002-06:00

eZedia Project- Looking Back

2008-03-30T19:53:00.000-05:00

Check out my New eZedia Project

"Dunky's Doodle" Podcast Episode #1: Google Groups and Blogger

2008-02-01T16:10:00.000-06:00

This podcast is about signing up for Google Groups and using that email address as your BlogSend Address in Blogger in order to notify that group (family, friends) automatically via email each time a new blog post is published.

By the way, I had a very interesting time trying to get this podcast embedded in my blog. A little searching found a great blog, A Consuming Experience which recommended making a video by combining podcast and photo since Blogger allows video. I asked Dr. Candace Chou of the University of St Thomas and she gave me a little snippet of html. Sorry I couldn't figure out how to publish the snippet here. Blogger treats it as code even though I wrote it in compose mode.

Copyright in the Classroom

2008-01-27T18:31:00.000-06:00

Check out this checklist from the Copyright Management Center: Indiana University, Purdue, and Indianapolis at http://copyright.iupui.edu/checklist.htm

And a great list of videos from the Center for Social Media at American University's School of Communication

Baruch College's "Copyright Metro" is an interactive guide to using multimedia in your courses.
It covers using audio, images, and audiovisuals in class or over secure system like Blackboard, and doesn't cover what you distribute over email, personal website, or courses packs. You must agree to not publish it to places like this blog... (I'm not actually publishing it here, this URL just takes you to the intro. In fact, I didn't "purchase a ticket" because "personal research" is not a valid use... boooo!!! And I wouldn't want to violate this agreement. But I leave it to you, just in case you qualify for this narrow set of requirements.)
Check it out at http://www.baruch.cuny.edu/tutorials/copyright/

I found these links at the Digital Ethnography blog from Mike Wesch at Kansas State University: http://mediatedcultures.net/ksudigg/?p=140

Powerpoint Presentation on Blogging

2008-01-26T01:24:00.000-06:00

Web 2.0 Presentation (Invitation)
The idea is a non-digital-native son trying to help his non-digital-native mom start blogging in her classroom. This link takes you to the Powerpoint (converted to html) which is curretnly located on my St Thomas server. Within it are links to 4 videos pertaining to the presentation. I used Jing to record these videos. I wonder about other capturing tools. I've used Camtasia and Snapz Pro but it's been a while. I like that Jing allows you to store them at their site (actually, screencast.com), freeing up space elsewhere. But I'm having a hard time doing other things with it, like embedding and saving to file on my computer. Actually, it has saved the file on my hard drive a couple of times, and not others; and when it does, so far I haven't been able to look at it. Real Player automatically opens, and in small version like it's going to play an audio file. I spent a good chunk of time going to Real Player and installing a new super powered player. Can't get it to work. And it is supposed to be the mac OSX kind (I can't wait for these issues to disappear from the landscape- or at least fossilize.)

Video Must-See: "Web 2.0 ... The Machine is Us/ing Us"

2008-01-24T15:09:00.001-06:00

Speaks for itself
(By the way, I chose to link and not embed this video to save space. This blog is already getting a little blogged down... I mean bogged down)

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This Post Published Using Mail-To-Blogger

2008-01-24T00:26:00.001-06:00

I just found out about a cool tool in Blogger. You can send an email and it will be either saved as a draft or immediately published.
Go to: Settings>Email>the email address is: username+four-or-more-letter-secret-word@blogger.com (but you'll see this when you're there). Piece of cake.

I found the Mail-to-Blogger trick by watching Atomic Learning's Blogging Workshop series of tutorial videos. By the way, Atomic Learning is great. Not free. But great. Worth the price. Short and sweet (1-2 minute) video tutorials on over 100 of the most common software applications mostly geared to educators. Over 30,000 of them. This link will explain what they offer: http://movies.atomiclearning.com/k12/aboutus
Good luck with atomic learning.

Frontline: Growing Up Online

2008-01-22T22:22:00.001-06:00

Just as I'm lately more excited about this stuff, this show almost makes me want to scrap the whole thing (I only watched one chapter- on schools- and a little of the very end). You can see the whole thing online and join the discussion.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/kidsonline/

After seeing class shots of students working and teachers' voiceovers explaining what was going on, I'm back on the fence about tech in the classroom- or at least the degree of it. The technologically-up-to-date class showed students red-eyed keying their computers as the teacher used a smartboard to lecture or demonstrate. A teacher's voice-over talked of the new paradigm, saying that students are switching between several windows and chatting while teacher is demonstrating. Basically the gist is that its either keep up with the pace of students lives outside of school or fall behind and be rendered ineffective. Another teacher (representing the old school, traditional form of instruction) had no computers and her students sitting in their desks forming a circular shape for better interaction. The teacher was saying how her way will inevitably disappear from the scene. That's the part that disturbs me the most as I compare the two class camera shots in my memory. In which is more learning happening? What kind of learning? Learning about what?

Interestingly, the first teacher taught social studies and the second taught Language Arts, so we might be able to say that each was appropriate for their subject matter. Giving both teachers the benefit of the doubt that they are good teachers and using their model effectively, I might venture a guess that in the new-style class, the students could be absorbing a lot more information, and hopefully making it their own. This is great for social studies where the base of facts-to-digest is much larger than that of Language Arts. I personally have spent a good deal of my life digesting these social studies facts-to-digest and don't feel like I've scratched the surface. Language Arts is, as its name states, an art: the art of words. It's about learning the tools of the art and how to apply them skillfully in writing and criticism. Although I can see how technology could facilitate this as well, I just keep playing my mind's comparison of those two classes: bloodshot and tense info-overload vs a calm discussion of a novel. Maybe I gravitate towards the lower-tech version due to nostalgia (for college, really, which is what it reminded me of: college Language Arts). Maybe in the higher-tech version, there is more learning happening. I could probably grant that. And keeping up with the new, fast-paced world, yes. But what is lost? According to my memory, it's something very special. Something we can only get face to face.

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Odeo widget

2008-01-22T19:53:00.001-06:00

I'm going to see about this widget and possibly move it to be a permanent part of my blog. Check it out and see if it works. Annoying that it starts automatically, the podcasts are outdated, and the widget gives about ten podcasts. I tried to change these three issues but couldn't. Any help?

Drop.io Experiment

2008-01-22T18:33:00.001-06:00

drop.io: simple private sharing

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Drop files of any kind in the above widget and then go to http://drop.io/cied690 to see the files that you and others have dropped. No password should be necessary. Hope this works. should be an interesting experiment.

This video explains it better than I can, but basically,
drop.io is a site for free private exchange of files, with no registration required.

Can your smartboard do this?

2008-01-21T20:28:00.001-06:00

Have you ever used a smartboard? I was introduced to them once. Very exciting. This takes it a step further, but I wonder what else is involved? Any insights?
(I found this video through funnyjunk.com which I found though using the me.dium humor widget embedded in my blog- because someone else who was using me.dium at that time was viewing funnyjunk so I went and looked around.

Embedded Video

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Urban Science and Epistemic Games

2008-01-17T15:55:00.000-06:00

I said I would try to look into each of the games in the suite of games being developed by Epistemic Games. The first installment will address the game, Urban Science.

In college, I seriously considered a career in urban planning. I took a course in Urban Planning at UCLA as an undergrad and loved it. I decided to teach elementary in the inner-city instead.... yep...
I wish a game like this existed then (or now for that matter- see my previous post). Last semester (UST- MALT) I did a Webquest as an assignment (using the free WYSIWYG web creation software: Nvu) I decided to focus my project on urban planning. I had not yet heard of Urban Science or Epistemic games. It has similar features but arguably a wider view. The way I understand it, the students in the Urban Science game focussed on three neighborhoods, I asked students in my project to give a Powerpoint Presentation to the Mayor and City Council on the city's unique features, its patterns of settlement and development, its demographic trends, its resources and physical features, its image and reputation, and whatever is found to be interesting and relevant to the goal of understanding the past and present to help create the best possible future for the city. Both had the students present their findings to the mayor. The major difference is the Urban Science game intensive actually happened (and it is at a much higher level, of course).

Urban Science, "the epistemic role-playing game of professional urban planning" (to quote their blog), uses iPlan as its game engine. "Players use iPlan to interact with expert planners and virtual stakeholders, create land use plans using an embedded geographic information system, and build out their plan in Google Earth".
(I did a search for iPlan and this link was the closest to something that could be used for this. Further inquiry into this site revealed that iPlan is actually powered by IPIX : "Immersive imaging technology. Patented IPIX technology produces spherical images that let you feel like you are actually inside the scene". Very cool!)

Back to Urban Science. According to a write-up by Susan Troller of Madison, Wisconsin's Capitol Times, students "do field research in actual neighborhoods, armed with digital cameras and notebooks, under the guidance of graduate students in the educational psychology department".

In Urban Science there were several trial runs of varying lengths of time and age-groups. The one which impressed me the most in the book was a 10-hour intensive by high school students (the fact that huge gains could be made in such a short amount of time). But the one which receives the most press on the website is the 4-week summer intensive involving middle-schoolers. It is the one written about in the article above and in these two:
Wisconsin State Journal, by Alec Luhn and
Wisconsin State Journal, by Sam-Omar Hall
Assuming you read them, you no-doubt see the power in this kind of learning situation. The fact that they gave presentations to the mayor is impressive in itself. The quotes by the mayor seem a little harsh but this is perhaps an indication that these students were taken seriously and treated like real stakeholders.

In a later blog entry, one the game's creators followed up with one of these students. This student had the opportunity to use this knowledge at her school as they were exploring this very subject. She created a project which was head-and-shoulders above her classmates. Unfortunately, and tellingly, her teacher did not give her any feedback or use this as a starting point for discussion. When the game's creator who doing the follow up interview asked if she could see the project, the student said she received an A but then threw it away, a poignant example of how schools often impress upon students to care more for a grade than real learning.
The culture of education must be changed. These games are a step in the right direction.

Want to further explore planning for students? Here is a good pdf about youth planning outreach by the APA. that will help lead you in that direction if you are so inclined.

Epistemic Games Unavailable

2008-01-17T15:51:00.001-06:00

My last entry was about "epistemic games" and a book I'm reading on the subject called, "How Computer Games Help Children Learn: byDavid Williamson Shaffer.
A great book! I'm very excited about the possibilities!
I did a little more looking into the specific games and will report on my findings as I find them ;) I hope for any feedback.

I'm really excited about the ideas in the book. The games themselves, however, I'm a little disappointed in. Why? Because they don't really exist. At least not in the sense that they are available. Check out the following comments on the Urban Science blog (one of the few epistemic games co-created by the author of the book):

Please let me know where I can preview the game, or use it.
Thanks,
Mark
Comment by Mark Derison 01.17.07 @ 11:52 am

Please let me know where I can preview the game, or use it.
Comment by michael 02.04.07 @ 6:06 am

Did you notice the dates? No response in a year's time?
Yes, they exist in a lab or a hard drive somewhere in Madison, no doubt.
And they have been used. And VERY SUCCESSFULLY. So don't get me wrong. I don' mean to be to hard on these folks. I believe they are leaders way out ahead of the rest of us. I'm just really crossing my fingers that they and others find ways to get these games to a larger audience.
Here is another (unanswered) comment on their blog:

Hi David,
I’m about half way through your book now, and finding great material in it to talk to my staff and administrators that I work with about.
Regarding your work (primarily in the summers) with middle school students, has anyone else picked up on this and started running similar summer school classes themselves? I think running classes solely based on engineering/design games with teachers as facilitators that primarily participate in “desk crits” with kids would be very doable in our school district. Are there any tools, guides, or leading school districts in this concept that could give us ideas as to how to make this happen?
Forgive me if these resources are given later in your book - I haven’t gotten there yet! Awesome work - thanks for sharing!

Comment by Tim Goree 05.05.07

This is exactly my point of this entry. These games are not available and yet there are people out there who believe they are doable. People enthusiastic and ready to use them.

And for good reason. The book and the website are very convincing. Here is a quote from a review found on the website:

A must read for anyone who cares about learning.
--Seymour Papert

And while I agree that the theoretical and philosophical ideas in the book as well as the practical demonstrations of using "epistemic games" are very impressive, I care about learning and I read the book, and I want to see these games. Are there others? Well, the games mentioned in the book are all made by the same group of people there in Madison. Used on lucky Wisconsonians, while the rest of us are left to scratch our heads.

So the point is that these games are works-in-progress. They are not available right now. The good folks at Epistemic Games are moving ahead with game designers, etc. Maybe we'll hear something from them soon that we can use. They were used in very experimental ways in a university setting. They require much guidance and materials that aren't software-based, such as grad-student mentors. Sorry to get hopes up by getting on board. I guess we'll all have to wait. More than anything, this book and these ideas are calls to rethink learning and the possibilities of creating epistemic frames similar to professional practicums where we can greatly improve real learning. I'm just a trying-not-to-be-technophobic teacher. But I hope others will get going and make these games. When they do I'll be waiting in line to use them. And I'm sure many others will as well.
http://epistemicgames.org/eg/

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Epistemic Games: "How Computers Help Children Learn"

2008-01-16T16:10:00.000-06:00

"How Computers Help Children Learn" by David Williamson Shaffer is a very interesting book I'm reading on a certain category of video games which facilitate a tremendous amount a real learning in a short amount of time. These "epistemic" games invite players into a virtual world which recreates the epistemological frame of a particular profession such as urban planning, journalism, engineering, and architecture. In one example, inner-city students learned the urban planning trade in a weekend intensive (or at least got closer to it than most of us: they are now well on their way to "speaking the language"- understanding the basic assumptions, skills, ways of looking at the world- of the urban planner). Not bad for a weekend intensive.
Check out this link!!
http://epistemicgames.org/eg/
My wife and I came up with a business called Career Camp which offers high school students intensive forays into various professions using these games as well as interaction in real working situations with real professionals। Anyone want to start this with me? I have a teaching credential and experience. You could help run the business.

Minnesota Learning Academy- again

2008-01-14T20:14:00.000-06:00

I know I'm repeating myself and looping info but no one is reading this anyway.

More about my vision for a perfectly awesome school:
see my other blog: http://minnesotalearningacademy.blogspot.com

and please visit my website in progress (I'm learning Dreamweaver) at

http://personal.stthomas.edu/pcdunkirk/MN-Minds/index.html

...But the original concept was more about student empowerment: small class sizes, student decision-making, real-world projects that would motivate them,etc.; about partnerships with professionals and adults of all stripes to get the students off campus and into the guts of what professionals do. The "project-based departments" organize the school. Each is based on a project: performing arts, visual arts, running the school cafeteria, school publications, running science fairs, running the school finances and a school bank, etc. Technology can tie things together and facilitate things, but the main focus is the motivation of the students and the awesome untapped resource that is the adult world to act as mentors, coaches, guides. I taught in inner-city LA and saw the huge potential that school has- when done right, and this is very rarely the case- to literally SAVE these kids from the crap around them. This is what motivates this idea: getting the most out of this thing we all suffer through called school. Transforming it into something creative, meaningful, engaging, and empowering. The exercise is to dream up the best possible scenario of a school, not based on current modes and models, not based on current restrictions and limitations, but built on the crazy, dorm-room epiphanies of "wouldn't it be great if school was like this..." Using that as a starting point and then saying, "Why not?" And, "OK, let's refine this a little and slowly make it more practical while not losing the original inspiration". Steve Jobs said in an article in Forbes something like, you see these great prototype cars in auto shows but by the time they get mass-produced they've lost most of what was so appealing about them in the first place, and Apple tries not to do that so everybody is involved in every part of the business. Something like that. Point being to not lose too much of the original uniqueness and creative insight and the power of inter-disciplinary structures and transparent operations.

7 year old sings National Anthem

2008-01-12T01:37:00.001-06:00

7 year old sings National Anthem:
This was going to just be a test of how to drag and drop videos from Flock's "Media Bar" into its "Blog Editor". I had never even heard of Truveo which posted this YouTube video. If you activate Flock's Media Bar, there is a strip along the top of photos, videos, etc. so I chose Truveo and "Most Popular" and saw the title of this video. I embedded it here in my blog before I watched it. Like I said, it was to be an exercise and I intended to delete the whole thing. but then I watched it... Wow!! See for yourself!
http://api.searchvideo.com/rd?i=38100277&a=70a7dc249f1af3e321b3e0e9402c6b65&p=3

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Flock Video using Jing

2008-01-12T01:12:00.000-06:00

Using Jing for the first time. I found it very easy to use but am still trying to figure out how to embed using Jing. The best I can do for now is give you a link. This is a very quick snapshot introduction to Flock which will help to kick-off a presentation for my Ed Tech class.

To try flock, go to: http://www.flock.com/getting-started/

The wikipedia page is where I actually discovered Flock through a series of links in Wikipedia, the order of which I don't recall. Here is Wikipedia's Flock page: Note the warning questioning the accuracy of the information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flock_(web_browser)

Flock video

2008-01-12T00:18:00.000-06:00

Me.dium

2008-01-11T23:32:00.001-06:00

Me.dium is a social surfing application. From a window inside your web browser it gives you a personalized map of the Internet based on what you're clicking. You can use it to discover new people and places that are relevant just to you. It also allows you to surf with friends in real-time. It's just like hanging out in the real world, but online.

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Help me create Minnesota Learning Academy

2008-01-09T23:10:00.000-06:00

I'm looking for feedback concerning a model I've been working with. I'm calling it Minnesota Learning Academy, and the idea is that it would be hands-on, innovative, cutting-edge. Classes would be organized by 8 project-based departments. Students would run or help to run most aspects of the school, everything from the finances to the school's cafeteria and clinic, media expressions, and performing arts, and much more. Students learn more generally when they are younger and become more specialized as they move up the ranks of the departments. New computer "epistemic" games and other leading-edge technology is used as are real tools of the trade. Partnerships is a huge part of this school. Students are constantly interacting with professionals both at the school and at job-sites. This aspect will require a full-time position at the school of "partnerships liaison" to develop these relationships and oversee the coming and going of students and mentors alike. The technology coordinator would assist in finding partnerships online- making virtual connections. Each department would have a team of teachers which worked with student leadership in each department to develop and oversee projects and responsibilities of that department. I'll stop here for now. There's more on the MLA blog http://minnesotalearningacademy.blogspot.com/ so check it out and please send your feedback to either blog or email me directly at pauldunkirk@gmail.com
Thanks for your time.