Friday, July 09, 2004
Well it has been another two busy days! Yesterday we got rolling with Web-and-Flow and the theories of Tom March and Bernie Dodge about working the web for education.
Today, we started back in with Web-and-Flow. My plan was to move on to other W&F formats using the Bulling to Buddies project resources on the CD and Janine's page, but later in the morning I decided to move us out of W&F so that we could move more quickly and focus more on the B2B project. We can come back to W&F to create few other resources later next week. We may even develop some ideas during our planning that will lend themselves to creating them.
We divided up all of the B2B resources and explored them individually and then reported findings back to the group. This allowed us to cull out the sites that weren't useful and to focus on the useful material within the sites left. As you reported the findings I recorded that with 3DWriter. I'll send them to you as an attachment when I send this Blog entry to you as an e-mail.
After we discussed the findings we began to look for a beginning point. I think the magnitude of what's ahead of us both excited and concerned us. During these discussions, there were some concern about the lack of focus and the broad range of activities possible.
I completely understand that point of view. It's prompted in part by a learning style. Some of us are comfortable allowing the focus to develop, while others need to see then end point to best chart a path to it. I think both view can be accommodated.
As we moved toward the last hour of the day, we decided on three activities as a starting point and agreed to work in three groups on Monday. One group will develop a survey that we can give to the kids as a pre and post survey. Another group will work on developing a plan to do video tape interviews with students in the beginning of the year and at the end. The third group will develop a set of reading and writing activities to go with a book that will be read to students.
I think it's important for everyone to be comfortable with the direction they are moving with their class. As we move toward Monday, if you are not comfortable with these three activities, please try to come up with something that better suits your needs and feel free to work on that.
Continuing with the thought about the focus of the project and a product, we agreed that the learning outcomes we developed will result in the acquisition of a specific set of values that will produce a changed child. However, that change needs to be demonstrated in tangible ways. That is the product or products we are working for and will hopefully develop in the days to come.
As me move toward that goal I can't help but think it should emerge out of a model give to me and a group of trainers by Alan November. He said that if he had a school, it would be set up like an office. Each day the kids would come in and sit at their desks (more like office desks than school desks) and would have one task before them. They would have to decide how they could make the world a better place and work toward it.
I think we have a general direction for our work. We just have to figure out exactly what we and our student can do to make the world a better place.
We go a LOT accomplished and Janine provided us with a little bit of additional incentive by writing to NJN to see if they were interested in what we were doing. Here's the response she got...
I would love to come and do a story on this program. We spend one full day at a school  1-2 hours taping the classroom activities and the rest of the day conducting interviews with the students, teachers and any other people involved in the project. I am booking shoots for the year and would be glad to schedule something with you now. When you pick a date consider what is the best time to showcase this project. When are the students most comfortable and ready to show what they know.
---------------------------------------------------------
We can book something now if you want .. I do try to avoid September just because teachers and students are still trying to get settled in for the school year.
I look forward to hearing from you.
Wanda Swanson
Executive Producer Classroom Close-up NJ
----------------------------------------------------------
No pressure folks. :-)
Art
Today, we started back in with Web-and-Flow. My plan was to move on to other W&F formats using the Bulling to Buddies project resources on the CD and Janine's page, but later in the morning I decided to move us out of W&F so that we could move more quickly and focus more on the B2B project. We can come back to W&F to create few other resources later next week. We may even develop some ideas during our planning that will lend themselves to creating them.
We divided up all of the B2B resources and explored them individually and then reported findings back to the group. This allowed us to cull out the sites that weren't useful and to focus on the useful material within the sites left. As you reported the findings I recorded that with 3DWriter. I'll send them to you as an attachment when I send this Blog entry to you as an e-mail.
After we discussed the findings we began to look for a beginning point. I think the magnitude of what's ahead of us both excited and concerned us. During these discussions, there were some concern about the lack of focus and the broad range of activities possible.
I completely understand that point of view. It's prompted in part by a learning style. Some of us are comfortable allowing the focus to develop, while others need to see then end point to best chart a path to it. I think both view can be accommodated.
As we moved toward the last hour of the day, we decided on three activities as a starting point and agreed to work in three groups on Monday. One group will develop a survey that we can give to the kids as a pre and post survey. Another group will work on developing a plan to do video tape interviews with students in the beginning of the year and at the end. The third group will develop a set of reading and writing activities to go with a book that will be read to students.
I think it's important for everyone to be comfortable with the direction they are moving with their class. As we move toward Monday, if you are not comfortable with these three activities, please try to come up with something that better suits your needs and feel free to work on that.
Continuing with the thought about the focus of the project and a product, we agreed that the learning outcomes we developed will result in the acquisition of a specific set of values that will produce a changed child. However, that change needs to be demonstrated in tangible ways. That is the product or products we are working for and will hopefully develop in the days to come.
As me move toward that goal I can't help but think it should emerge out of a model give to me and a group of trainers by Alan November. He said that if he had a school, it would be set up like an office. Each day the kids would come in and sit at their desks (more like office desks than school desks) and would have one task before them. They would have to decide how they could make the world a better place and work toward it.
I think we have a general direction for our work. We just have to figure out exactly what we and our student can do to make the world a better place.
We go a LOT accomplished and Janine provided us with a little bit of additional incentive by writing to NJN to see if they were interested in what we were doing. Here's the response she got...
I would love to come and do a story on this program. We spend one full day at a school  1-2 hours taping the classroom activities and the rest of the day conducting interviews with the students, teachers and any other people involved in the project. I am booking shoots for the year and would be glad to schedule something with you now. When you pick a date consider what is the best time to showcase this project. When are the students most comfortable and ready to show what they know.
---------------------------------------------------------
We can book something now if you want .. I do try to avoid September just because teachers and students are still trying to get settled in for the school year.
I look forward to hearing from you.
Wanda Swanson
Executive Producer Classroom Close-up NJ
----------------------------------------------------------
No pressure folks. :-)
Art
Wednesday, July 07, 2004
Table 2
Table 1
Table 3
It has been more than a month between entries. Since that day, we had very successful end of the year celebration. I have it all on video and created a 20 minute iMovie that is available to all of the StarW crew on this summer's training CD. That video is just one of three iMovies on the CD, along with dozens of other files and links we are using in our 80 hours of training over the next two weeks.
Yesterday we didn't have the network ready, so I did a flipfolp of planned activities. We started with Big6 training instead of Web-and-Flow. The Big6 activities focused around the learning and teaching of the Big6 research and problem solving skills. This is a method that would be used even if there was no technology, but is that much more powerful when infused with technology.
Today we wrapped up the Big6 material, previewed some web sited and materials that Marilyn and I brought back from NECC and then began Journal writing with Contribute. It was probably the first time for many of them to log on since the days following the end of year celebration. As many finished their journal entries, they went right to work on their pages, not because it was part of the workshop, but because they wanted to! That's the exciting part of it for me.
One thing lead to another and they really got on a role. The 3rd & 4th grade teachers were doing their pages while at the same time mentoring the new teachers in the program. Then the 4th grade got together and planned a way to pool and share pages through contribute. They were working feverishly and there was no way I wanted to break that creative flow, so the new focus of the day was refreshing, updating, and organizing material on the site so that it can become a much more serious tool for teaching and learning next year.
Think about it,ladies. Last year at this time, you were wondering whether you would have time for technology because of the time commitment and the need to prepare students for the state tests. Now you are developing your own online world for teaching an learning, but the best is yet to come.
In the days to come we will learn Web-and-Flow and Tom March's theories and practices of working the Web for education. This will provide you with some strong pedagogical underpinnings and a new online tool for teaching and learning.
We are also going to look at how we can use AlphaSmarts, HyperCard and iMovie to increase literacy.
...and woven through all of this will be next year's Bullying to Buddies project and ISTE NETS.
I'm curious as just how much you did today. I think I'll investigate if I get a chance...
First, I'm going to post pictures from today...
Later,
Art
Yesterday we didn't have the network ready, so I did a flipfolp of planned activities. We started with Big6 training instead of Web-and-Flow. The Big6 activities focused around the learning and teaching of the Big6 research and problem solving skills. This is a method that would be used even if there was no technology, but is that much more powerful when infused with technology.
Today we wrapped up the Big6 material, previewed some web sited and materials that Marilyn and I brought back from NECC and then began Journal writing with Contribute. It was probably the first time for many of them to log on since the days following the end of year celebration. As many finished their journal entries, they went right to work on their pages, not because it was part of the workshop, but because they wanted to! That's the exciting part of it for me.
One thing lead to another and they really got on a role. The 3rd & 4th grade teachers were doing their pages while at the same time mentoring the new teachers in the program. Then the 4th grade got together and planned a way to pool and share pages through contribute. They were working feverishly and there was no way I wanted to break that creative flow, so the new focus of the day was refreshing, updating, and organizing material on the site so that it can become a much more serious tool for teaching and learning next year.
Think about it,ladies. Last year at this time, you were wondering whether you would have time for technology because of the time commitment and the need to prepare students for the state tests. Now you are developing your own online world for teaching an learning, but the best is yet to come.
In the days to come we will learn Web-and-Flow and Tom March's theories and practices of working the Web for education. This will provide you with some strong pedagogical underpinnings and a new online tool for teaching and learning.
We are also going to look at how we can use AlphaSmarts, HyperCard and iMovie to increase literacy.
...and woven through all of this will be next year's Bullying to Buddies project and ISTE NETS.
I'm curious as just how much you did today. I think I'll investigate if I get a chance...
First, I'm going to post pictures from today...
Later,
Art
