Student Presentations and Rubric

Covered a number of useful internet sites, including awesomefreeclipart, trackstar and rubricstar.org. Useful discussion that kids when working first time with computer will tend to overuse all the bells and whistles. Animations and music ahbou!!

Major demo was creating a rubric on line. As was referring to another document, really didn't see point of the rubric (at the beginning). Search for 1087332 on rubricstar.

Tried keeping notes, but lost it in the middle. Grrr.

The student presentations were of course wonderful. The one on the triangles was especially good. Given my experience with computers though, I wonder how long that took to make. We had what, 5 minutes of video? I can easily see that taking 10 hours to render. My initial reaction is quickly becoming one of complete overload. As a first year teacher, I have to come up with complete lesson plans for 5 preps (6 if I'm working Alum Rock, and hours of presentation materials, correct work, assess students, differentiate instruction, and, and, and....... AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!! (POP!!! as my head explodes....)

What would be nice is a one stop program for teachers where you put together your lesson plan, supporting "media", worksheets, assessments, notes... THe notes section under PowerPoint is a step in the right direction. But due to problems with portability of powerpoint, I don't feel it is complete enough. No real place for work sheets. Don't know where I'll be student teaching next semester, so no way to prepare.

The other thing I got was the amount of material out there to help teachers put stuff online to let little Johnny's parents know why Johnny isn't doing too well. On line rubrics are also helpful. See, this is what we were looking for, here's Johnny's project. Can you see why his scoring was not A+ material? But this of course leaves all the poor folks in the dust..... They won't have computers and internet access. Grr.... It keeps coming back to a resources issue, which isn't the focus of the class.. Got to get that email out to Jan Grodeon's office. Anyway, its nice that the stuff is out there and free.

Thomas and Sandra Saidak 

Boolean Forever

Tonight's foray into internet surfing was fun and educational. While I've been aware of Boolean searches, I had never seen or noted that "NOT" was a possibility. This combined with the use of Kartoo ended a two year search for what an Elizabethan Ship Hull cost. (The Revenge cost L4000 and was 400 tons. The Ark Royal at 500 tons cost L5000. Kindly notice a rule of thumb of L10 per ton.) Any way, as someone who has tried this search before, I usually got overwhelmed by shops, museums, etc. that were selling models. Being able to NOT "model" cut down the number of hits. Kartoo's mapping of sites enabled me to avoid stores, book stores, and on the first try to point out an interesting website that had the answer to my question! Huzzah! (can you tell I'm still jazzed out that...).

Based on tonight's discussion, I think the first thing I want to do (which I already started)is locate some tutorials for boolean searches so I can find out what all is possible under Boolean. Secondarily, I think I will also be keeping an eye open for tutorials for K-8 students. While I may have a classroom of digital natives, quick surveys of classes that my kids are in show that not every household is connected to the new.

As for what to do for my students is to have the same discussion we had tonight. Discuss boolean operations, and practice (use small group format) doing initial searches, and identifying ways to cut down the number of hits to pare down to what is useful. This would include going over the various search tools. For students in particular, any search engine that shows maps has got to be sweet, not to mention that much more useful for getting to useful info.

Last note for the nite. As of 9/15/4, 321 Studios has officially closed their doors. It is unclear whether or not 321 will continue it's fight against Hollywood. I fear that Hollywood has yet again over run a legitimate right of media owners.

Copy Rights, Use of education

The discussion on copyrights was somewhat interesting. The conversation that would have been more fun is the conversation about the ethics involved in the modern age. On one side, Sharon's $1,000.00 for a powerpoint presentation. On the other side, the fact that I'm paying two to three time's more for a textbook just because I'm buying it in the US. Could get the same book in UK for 1/3 to 1/2 less. Why? Cause the UK prof's aren't as stupid as US professors. On DVD and CD's, why are we paying up to $50.00 for something that costs less then $1.00 to produce? Artists and the notion of money for intellectual property get caught in the middle. What is a reasonable amount of money? What is a reasonable return for the effort? What are the artists/movie studios getting now? What do the movie studio's get for vhs? Pirating is a function of market place vote - people getting charged way the hell too much for a product find a way around it. EBooks will actually face the same problem. If the cost of the EBOOK isn't significantly lower then a paperback, there will be no incentive to go to EBOOK's. If Hollywood's reaction to modern technology is any indication, then EBOOK's will do their damnest to charge top dollar. With the predictable pirating following right behind.

Another thought about DVD's - If I get a DVD recorder for my TV, I can record a DVD quality copy of any movie that I watch on television. VHS faced the same issue in the early 80's. They resolved the issue by adding a surcharge on VHS tapes (I think it was $1.00) that is divided among artists/studios.

Another thing that struck me from last night's class is that the State and University are working very hard to make sure I know how computers work. Despite that in many school settings, I will not have any ability to use said training because schools do not provide the necessary equipment. I am not aware of any local school district that provide's computer projector's for their teachers. I know some do give lap tops and web space, but no one gives out projectors that I have been able to find. Emerging technologies are nice, but of more immediate use to us students would be how to work in poverty stricken environments. Hmm, I would think that as digital immigrants, that would actually do more to convert people into natives by having them work out how to work in such an environment.

Visual Images

To me, the whole point of the classroom computer revolution is to get AWAY from text as the sole means of conveying information. Given that the brain we all have is principally visual, pictures and images should be a major part of any presentation. This is not to suggest that there is no use for text, but that pictures can convey relationships, provoke interest, and define a subject in ways that words alone cannot do. It is one thing to talk about orbits and axial tilt as a way to explain both seasons and phases of the moon. Limited to words, I can easily imagine that students will not understand the corkscrew motion of the moon (which is why we don't have eclipses every 14 days..) and how it relates to the phases, or how the tilt causes the variations in seasons.

To be honest, I appreciated the comments about the use of pictures needs to be sensitive to various cultures. I had not considered that in previous PowerPoint presentations. After the lecture, I'm not sure how I'll carry that out in the future. How do I show soccer if I have to worry about the position of feet? Somewhere in this, there has to be a common sense answer. But right at the moment I can't figure it out. The only thing I can think of is to show any presentation to other teachers, or talk to them about the cultures in the schools and what is known about cultural sensitivities. I could also discuss it with parents of my students.

The presentation part of computers interests me very much and I was debating looking at all the current means and see if there are any future means of getting materials off the monitor and up someplace where the whole class can see it. In the age of school budget constraints, I wonder if there ARE any reasonable cost alternatives in existence, and what is coming down the pipe line that may be cost effective or helpful.

Another key point brought up tonight is the that of layout. I'm curious how one develops one's sense of that. I know how to put flowers in a vase. That does NOT make me someone that can be considered a flower arranger. I'm sure that practice will have an impact in the sense of comments by students, teachers and family. Looking at other peoples presentations will also spark ideas. So far I find that I am competent in my use of PowerPoint, but I don't feel that I am particularly good at it. I'm not even sure that I would consider myself a gifted amateur.