Discipline and Freedom

“Discipline without freedom is tyranny; freedom without discipline is chaos.” ~ Cullen Hightower

Jim Moulton's Edutopia Blog Post: "It's Time to Get Serious about Creativity in the Classroom

Dewey, Discipline, and Democracy

Bertrand Russell: Education and Discipline

Buddhist View: Discipline vs. Freedom

Education Is an Atmosphere, a Discipline, a Life

Discipline in the Montessori Classroom

Play

Play = Learning
The Playful Learning Wiki

Apple iWork Pages Tutorials

NeoOffice Tutorials

Featuring Herbert Kohl

(Not to be confused with the U.S. Senator)

An Open Letter to Arne Duncan on Rethinking Schools Online
Education Secretary Arne Duncan Misread My Book
An Interview with Herb Kohl
The Discipline of Hope: Learning from a Lifetime of Teaching
Wikipedia: Herbert Kohl

Community Schools and Declining Enrollments

Enrollments are decreasing in many Maine schools. In most areas, the community school is very important to the citizens living close to it. The Town of Harpswell is part of MSAD#75 and has two elementary schools, the West Harpswell School and Harpswell Islands School. Enrollments are down, which means something has to give in order to keep costs down. One of the buildings has been selected to close next year, and this has been a very controversial and emotional time for many living in this beautiful coastal town with a diverse population .

Signs along the road voice this concern and disappointment.

























Wikipedia: Harpswell, Maine

A Former Harpswell Controversy:

Cribstone Bridge Spans History and Culture
Wikipedia: The Bailey Island Bridge
Explore Maine: The Cribstone Bridge
Cribstone Bridge Undergoing Repairs

Photo Credit: Pam Kenney, Cribstone Educational Services

"Maine Laptop Expansion Moves Forward"

Article at Education Week's Digital Directions

LD # 1446

An Act To Create the Maine Online Learning Program

This legislation was passed on June 9, 2009. Anyone know anything about it?

Finding Gold

Maine: Diggers Dream of Flashes in the Stream
Maine Geographical Survey: Gold in Maine
Gold Prospecting
Gold Panning Instructions

Maine Gold Panning & Rock Hunting Guide
Wicked Good Maine: Gold Panning in Maine

Augmented Reality

by Kern Kelley

"Any sufficiently advanced technology

is indistinguishable from magic."

- Arthur C. Clark

This quote pretty much sums up how most of us feel the first time we see augmented reality in. If you are wondering what it is, ReadWriteWeb has a great post explaining it while keeping it in perspective of it's importance in relationship to other new technologies. There's even a cool graph of tech-hype vs long term usefulness:

Click here for article

I had the chance to show AR in action to a number of new Google Certified Teachers at the latest GTA in Boulder, Colorado. While it is as cool and magical as it seems, (Wes Fryer said it reminded him of being on the Jedi Counsel in Star Wars.)

How to I set it up?

• Download Google Sketchup, a 3D modeling tool for MAC or PC.
• Then, create a 3D model or download one from the 3D Model Warehouse. Note: The smoothness is dependant on the speed of your computer, so I'd start with a model without a ton of detail. Like this.
• Go to the AR-Plugin page and download the 30sec trial.
• Then download and print the marker needed to display the object.
• Copy the plugin into the plugin folder in Sketchup. The locations will be dependant on your computer, but here are the MAC and PC user guides.
• Turn on your webcam, load a model, click on the AR icon, and let the amazement begin.

The second question to be asked after, "How did you do that!" is, "How can I use this in the classroom?" And like most technologies, it depends on your age level and purpose. All levels will react to how cool it is initially, but like more new technologies, by the 3rd time they've seen it the novelity has worn off. This is how we use it my district. All of our 8th graders build projects for their Integrated Technology class and make Sketchup prototypes of their items before construction can start. This is a way for students to 'hold' the item in their hand and turn it around and see if their model reflects what they were trying to create.

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My introduction of AR at our Student Showcase.

Video by Cheryl Oakes and Alice Barr

Another very cool application of the technology.

"Mac vs. PC will play out in Maine's high schools"

Article in the Journal of New England Technology

IID ARRA Competitive Grants

Link to information on grants to leverage use of OER

A whimsical sandbox of one approach to indexing OER for MLR

Another MLR/OER sandbox using Google Sites

Professional Development Opportunities 2009-10

A page has been created for a collaboration on workshops, conferences, etc. that will be available to educators and others during the coming school year. Please feel free to add, modify, delete, embellish, enhance the page to come up with a valuable source for Maine educators.

Professional Development Opportunities 2009-10 at LIM Resources

Information Overdose

"Having too much information is no better than having too little since neither allows us to act more responsibly." ~ Jason Ohler

"Everybody gets so much information all day long that they lose their common sense." ~ Gertrude Stein, American Writer

“One of the effects of living with electric information is that we live habitually in a state of information overload. There's always more than you can cope with.” ~ Marshall McLuhan

“Information overload is like drinking from a firehose” ~ anonymous

Calculus

Calculus on the Web
Online Calculus Notes
The Calculus Page
Calculus Resources Online
MITOPENCOURSEWARE - Calculus
Calculus Online
Calculus Online Book: Understanding Calculus
Calculus Tutorials

Check out the calculus textbooks from California's Free Digital Textbook Initiative. This is part of CLRN (California Learning Resource Network)

CD-12 Education: CK-12 Single Variable Calculus
H. Jermome Keisier: Elementary Calculus: An Infinitesimal Approach
David Guichard: Calculus
Wellesley-Cambridge: Calculus

Jeff Bailey's New Video Wiki

Jeff Bailey of Mountain Valley High School, formerly an English teacher, will be teaching video production and CAD this coming school year. Jeff's new wiki for his video classes is called MVHSvid and is growing quickly in resources. You might also check out Jeff's Wicked Decent Learning blog.

Additional Video Resources at LIMResources

RSU 10 Summer Learning & Technology Institute 2009

Once again I find myself at Mountain Valley High School for the annual summer institute. The first two days of the week are devoted to an array of half day and full day workshops on various topics. This now includes employees of the new RSU 10 which combines SAD#42, SAD#39, and SAD#21. I've been very impressed with how well the tech staff is doing in making this huge transition in infrastructure. It is a huge job that includes the addition of the MLTI high school laptop program in three separate high schools as well. RSU10 is indeed fortunate to have such a group of highly-skilled technical individuals, with wonderful people skills as well, to make the transition a reality.

My full-day offerings were:

FirstClass RWD
Organizing, Manipulating, and Using Images

These last two days are given to collaborative classroom projects that various teams proposed. Several of us have the job of wandering between groups, acting as resources in applying technology to curriculum goals.

I have done this institute for several years now and thoroughly enjoy the approach. The institute was initially seeded by competitive IID funds, but for the last 4 or 5 years has been funded from a variety sources. Teachers are paid for their summer work time and work in areas that they wish to become more proficient in helping kids to learn.

Immigration

Immigration Resources

Classroom and School Grants

Grant Writing
Maine Grants

A "Periodic Table" of Visualization Methods

Go to Visual-Literacy.org

More Examples from the Web