Perspective: Progressive Education in the 40's

Question: How does the philosophy of John Dewey fit into "21st Century Learning?"

Retrospect . . .





John Dewey Resources
Project-Based Learning
Inquiry Learning
Cooperative Learning
Essential Questions

What do you think?

MacBook Help Video

by Kern Kelley

Some of the students in our Nokomis Warrior Broadcasting class are working on a weekly technology help show for students and teachers. This was their first outing where they cover the new MacBooks the High School teachers received.

The Tool: Dominoes

What can we learn from a set of dominoes?






Wikipedia: Dominoes
Domino Math Printable: Activities and Worksheets
(Can create templates from this site)
eHOW: How to Play Dominoes
Illuminations: Do It with Dominoes
The Mathematics of Dominoes
Math Games: Domino Graphs

A Way of Looking at Technology Integration

A handy tool for looking at where we are in using technology in our classrooms is called Grappling's Technology & Learning Spectrum. A one-page version is here. It divides experience into three categories: Literacy uses, adapting uses and transforming uses.

This is just part of the work of Bernajean Porter. Her down-to-earth approach offers many opportunities for discussion and assessment. Good stuff!

Where do you think your school is on this continuum?

PC to Mac Transition Resources

Many educators in Maine high schools are now learning about the Mac operating sytem for the first time. Below are some links that might be helpful:



MLTI - 21st Century High School Teacher Tools and Resources
Free Atomic Learning Orientation to Mac OS 10.4 Tutorials
Mac 101: Getting Started with a Mac
Mac Tutorials
The Tao of Mac - How to Switch to the Mac
Wikipedia: OS X
Apple - MacBook
Atomic Learning: Tiger (Subscription)
Apple - Mac OS X (Tiger) Overview
Wikipedia: Mac OS X
Wikipedia: MacBook
iLife Tutorials and Resources

Technology Tuesdays With Nicole: Water Quality Outside and On The Web

by Nicole Ouellette

This Technology Tuesday is all about drinking water. It’s a great time of year to go outside with students. Sometimes, science labs at schools even have water testing kits for pH, dissolved oxygen, algae, or other water quality indicators. (You can also buy testing strips, which end up being fairly economical and easier for littler kids to read.) Record results for one body of water or several bodies of water. Make observations about what lives by and in the water in addition to taking measurements of water quality indicators. I could go into a little more detail about data collection here but the important thing is to collect as much data as you can so it can be analyzed. And now the technology part.

After you’ve collected water data, you can determine water quality based on the results you found. National standards exist for drinking water contaminants and can be found here. How does the pH of your water compare to the pH the US considers safe, for example? Oftentimes, the same contaminant information is available for individual towns as well. To take the analysis one step further, you can also have students look at aquatic macroinvertebrates as a determinant for water quality in addition to the chemical pollution. Here are some handy photographs to help students identify the insects and which species are more pollution tolerant can be seen here.

So take your class outside before everything freezes and you’re stuck inside for the winter!

Ubuntu Developers Summit Fall 2007

by David Trask


Well, here I am at another Ubuntu Developers Summit (UDS) where folks from all over the world come and work together to prepare and develop specs/features for the next release of Ubuntu (Hardy Heron or Ubuntu 8.04). You may recall from previous posts on my own blog "Ramblings of a Digital Educator" that I have been lucky to have been able to attend past UDS's in exotic locales such as Montreal, Google headquarters in California, and Seville Spain. Where am I now? The wonderful exotic locale of BOSTON. Ok, for me it's hardly exotic. In fact, I get down here several times a year for business, pleasure, and most of all...Red Sox games! Don't get me wrong, I'm honored to be here and excited about the work to be done. I'm here representing all of you as an educator, making sure that features we need such as user management, classroom applications, easy configuration...etc. are discussed and included. I'm not a programmer, but I understand "programmer-speak" or "geek-speak" so I'm able to bridge the gap and help out in that manner. I'm happy to report that Ubuntu/Edubuntu has matured to the point where most of the features with regard to the operating system, are complete...now it's time to focus on creating and implementing GUI tools to make the lives of system administrators and teachers much easier. Tools to manage classrooms, manage users, manage servers, and much more are in the pipeline and slated for discussion and development. It's an exciting time. Linux in education is poised for major adoption. Access to technology will become much more commonplace worldwide...for very little investment. Imagine...kids...showing the world what they can do...regardless of where they are and what their circumstances may be. Very cool.

Getting Started with Monday Too! at Telstar

"If my life was a song, it would be ____________because ______________."

Why are we here? What do we know? What would we like to get out of this?

Getting Started Agenda
Western Maine eMINTS

What Do We Care About? What Is Important?

"Real change begins with the simple act of people talking about what they care about." -M.J. Wheatley (2002) Turning to One Another, Simple Conversations to Restore Hope to the Future, (p. 22)

What do you care about?

Technology . . . Friend or Foe?

The Law of Accelerating Returns ~ Ray Kurzweil

"An analysis of the history of technology shows that technological change is exponential, contrary to the common-sense "intuitive linear" view. So we won't experience 100 years of progress in the 21st century -- it will be more like 20,000 years of progress (at today's rate). The 'returns,' such as chip speed and cost-effectiveness, also increase exponentially. There's even exponential growth in the rate of exponential growth. Within a few decades, machine intelligence will surpass human intelligence, leading to The Singularity -- technological change so rapid and profound it represents a rupture in the fabric of human history. The implications include the merger of biological and nonbiological intelligence, immortal software-based humans, and ultra-high levels of intelligence that expand outward in the universe at the speed of light."

We seem to worship technology. The equation seems to be: More Technology = Improved Lives. Yes, we love our gadgets and our systems and our data. We believe that science and technology will provide the answers to our problems.

Will it?

Singularity
Technological Determinism
Informing Ourselves to Death
Chandler: Technological or Media Determinism
Technological Determinism of Marshall McLuhan
KurzweilAI

What is worth memorizing?

Most of my own schooling over the years has consisted primarily of memorizing material and then showing, at least in the short term, that I could pull it up at will. Let me confess that my abilities in this area have always been rather marginal, but I was good enough at it (read stubborn) to acquire the necessary documents to allow me to be eligible for my present position.

My awareness of this difficulty with memorization started in a high school English class when I realized that my classmates were able to memorize poetry verses much faster than I was. I noticed how many were able to learn lines for a play or lyrics to a song with much more ease. What they learned by repeating a few times might take me hundreds of times along with use of a multi-sensory approach. And yes, I've tried many of the mnemonic devices.

So you see, it is quite natural that this old digital immigrant has become very comfortable with the personal computer. I don't need to keep everything in my head now that I have almost instant access to it through the Internet.

This raises the question: What IS worth memorizing?

In other words, what are those things that, by keeping in my own head, will empower me, or at the very least, allow me to function in an efficient and productive manner?

For example, knowing my home phone number and social security number seem to be handy things to have committed to memory. I still think that having memorized basic math facts has saved me a lot of agony over the years. I'm not so sure that having to memorize the periodic table in 8th grade was particularly helpful, as I'm not a chemist, rarely use it, and can find several interactive representations on the web, if needed.

So . . . what do you think? What is worth memorizing for those of us who have difficulty with it?

Another question: Should we teach students memorization skills?

Memorization Skills Resources
Memory Resources

Cut & Paste Kids

Hmmmm . . . should this be Copy & Paste Kids?



In this time of instant information, how can we take a closer look at student engagement, inquiry learning, essential questions, and good questioning in general?

Other CyberSmart Videos

I tend to be wary of canned programs of any sort, but I've spent some time this morning looking at the CyberSmart site and think I will now be making use of some of their resources.

Why I Love Maine

Jeff Swanson has done a series of short videos called Why I love Maine.



Might these work as an introduction to video creation with students?

Video Resources
iMovie Resources

School Culture & Climate @ Oxford Hills

Oxford Hills School District devoted their professional development day today to student behavior and school culture and climate. All approximately 600 employees, including bus drivers, custodians, cafeteria and maintenance workers, started the day out with an introduction to the PBIS model. Employees later went to smaller groups to hear about ways to identify and deal with harassment and sexual harassment. The day ended with individual building members meeting together to discuss local needs. They had earlier taken a survey using one of the popular free online survey tools.

PBIS Resources

Behavior Management Resources
Rights & Responsibilities Resources
Process Skills
Classroom Management Resources
Character Resources
Bullying Resources

Creativity, Learning & Jobs

Daniel Pink, author of Free Agent Nation and A Whole New Mind - Moving from the information Age to the Conceptual Age, gives us this advice in a McNews interview:

MCNews: One last question: if you were going to give somebody just one piece of advice about how to be successful in this new age, what would it be?

Pink: The best career move is to find what you love to do, what you’re great at, and pursue that. I think you will be more valuable in the workforce. If you love accounting and you’re great at it, you’re going to be okay.

I worry about the folks who pursue careers because their parents, teachers, or spouses give them outdated advice and they’re dutifully marching into careers they don’t really care about because they think it’s the way to make money. Not only is that bad for their individual self-actualization but I think it’s a bad career move, too.

Steve Jobs gives this advice at his 2005 Stanford Commencement Speech:



Sir Ken Robinson at TED tells us this:



Do these views have anything in common?

Little Boxes

I never get headaches . . . but I think this morning might be my first. Anyone remember that song from the sixties by Malvina Reynolds called "Little Boxes?"

"Little boxes on the hillside, Little boxes made of tickytacky
Little boxes on the hillside, little boxes all the same
There's a green one and a pink one and a blue one and a yellow one
And they're all made out of ticky tacky and they all look just the same.

And the people in the houses all went to the university
Where they were put in boxes and they came out all the same,
And there's doctors and there's lawyers, and business executives
And they're all made out of ticky tacky and they all look just the same.

And they all play on the golf course and drink their martinis dry,
And they all have pretty children and the children go to school
And the children go to summer camp and then to the university
Where they are put in boxes and they come out all the same.

And the boys go into business and marry and raise a family
In boxes made of ticky tacky and they all look just the same."

Now originally I'm sure it was simply a lampoon of middle class suburbia and conformist nature of our society. But today, for me, it comes to mind when I think about the NCLB-induced professional time that is top-down with a avalanche of data and an incomprehensible amount of "boxes" and "hoops-to-jump-through."

I would like to argue that top-down system approaches are part of the problem and ultimately will fall under their own weight. I hear talk of professional learning communities and capacity-building, but at times become very discouraged by the weighty bureaucracy, mandates from above, and "blue-ribbon" panels of corporate executives and university officials pontificating abstractions unconnected to the realities of the common people.

We need fewer boxes . . . not more.

Is just doing more, faster, really the solution to the issues of our nation?

What do you think?

Research Brief: Creating Better Writers in Maine

Maine's Middle School Laptop Program: Creating Better Writers - Research Brief ~David L. Silvernail & Aaron K. Gritter, October 2007

University of Southern Maine ~ Center for Education Policy, Applied Research, and Evaluation

Collaborating with the Collaboration at Dirigo Middle

I made a quick trip up to Dixfield today to finalize the plan and contract with the wonderful educators at T W Kelley Dirigo Middle School. DOE now will have their IID MOU as required by the feds, and I will be able to devote considerable time to work with Dirigo teachers who are becoming mentors through the Western Maine Educational Collaborative Literacy Project. I'll be working with Sarah Sirois, eMINTS teacher Tania Clark, and others in supplementing the work of Darlene Bassett . . . although Darlene doesn't know it yet! :) In other words, we will be investigating more ways of integrating technology into the literacy initiative ideas. Let's just call it an augmented professional learning community! :)

See Mountain Valley Literacy Project Information
Literacy Across the Curriculum
Professional Learning Communities

OHMS - Team Planning Time & NoteShare

View Larger Map

I took an hour today to work with a team of teachers at Oxford Hills Middle School on the basics of NoteShare. Every child on their team already has had the experience. Whenever it is presented to teachers, it always brings excitement, and ideas on utilization start to be cultivated. Having the ACTEM NoteShare Server up and running today was very handy in showing what is available out there. Tomorrow, during a professional day, I'll be using the admin password to enable sharing on the teachers' iBooks.

Noteshare Resources

The Smell of Bacon at Climate & Culture Morning Meeting

You gotta love it. I connect with Mountain Valley Middle School as often as I can, being an additional resource for their literacy initiative and building-wide climate and culture focus. It is such a joy to observe the light-hearted social interaction of this staff combined with the serious work of school improvement. Today, as I arrive, a complete breakfast including the smell of bacon drew me to the home economics room where the staff gathers before the professional development meeting. Friendly place . . .nice touch.

This morning's topic was bullying. There's an enthusiastic and well-organized committee that leads the monthly late-arrival meeting devoted to school climate and culture.

Here's leadership that respects the group process, but perhaps more importantly, knows how to do it. The congeniality that comes from working through issues with patience in a collaborative manner shines through, mixing laughter and good humor with the more serious realities of working in a school. Want a model for PLC's? Look no further - they understand the concept at MVMS.

Today's task was to work in groups to try to come to a consensus on the consequences of different types of inappropriate language in the building. The discussion was to the point, relating to the realities. To me, the process was the important thing.

How is discipline and behavior management in buildings used to create a school that is friendly, caring, and encourages the best in each student as well as civility?

Behavior Management Resources
Rights & Responsibilities Resources
Process Skills
Classroom Management Resources
Character Resources
Bullying Resources

Professional Learning Communities