Student Work – Winter 2012

As I’ve done previously (see 2009, 2010 and 2011), I wanted to share some of the best examples of student work from my ECMP 355 (Technology in Education) undergraduate course. These students are all preservice teachers and they range from being in the first to the fourth (final) year of our program. If you have any questions about the work featured here, please comment below or email me. I hope that you will find these projects valuable.

Final Projects: The goal of these projects varied – essentially, they were either of the ‘build a learning resource’ or ‘learn something of significance using the Internet’ variety.

Blogfolios: Students were tasked to create blogfolios in the class as a means to strengthen their digital identities, and experience an important form of alternative assessment.
Summaries of Learning: These summaries of learning are typically a 3-5 minutes reflection/presentation/celebration of what students learned throughout the course.

Student Work – Fall 2011

For the third year in a row (see 2009 and 2010), I wanted to use the last post of the year to share a few examples of the great work that is being done by my graduate and undergraduate students. I am so very fortunate to have creative & hard-working students who are committed to improving their knowledge of teaching and learning in light of our new digital landscape. I hope that some of these examples will inspire you to take up new challenges in your own context.

From EC&I 831 (Open graduate course, Social Media & Open Education):

 Summaries of Learning:

  • Leslie – used stop-motion technique.
  • Tannis – used Glogster, an interactive, digital poster-making tool.
  • Shauna – used Freemind (free & open source mind-mapping tool) & video-editing.
  • Laura – used Xtranormal, a freemium “type-to-create-movies” tool.
  • Gail – used Screenr, a free and easy screencasting tool.
  • Kelley – used Jing, another free screencasting tool.
  • Lorena – used Voicethread, a group conversation and presentation tool.
  • Katy – used TikaTok (a tool for creating books) and Jing.
  • Alison – used Prezi, an less-linear Powerpoint alternative.
  • Kevin – used Knovio, a video-enhanced presentation tool.

Final Projects:

From ECMP 355 (An Undergraduate Technology Integration Course):

Summaries of Learning:

Electronic Portfolios:

There were many other good projects to share, but this represents a good sample of the student work from the semester. I’m looking forward to one more great semester before a 16 months hiatus from teaching as I move toward my sabbatical planning.

Happy New Year everyone!

Edtech Posse Podcast 5.6 With Howard Rheingold

Dean, Rob, Rick, and I had the privilege of speaking with Howard Rheingold for our latest podcast. In this podcast we discussed “twitter, community, and the challenges of creating inquiry-based learning”. It was a great conversation where I think we all learned and reflected quite a bit, and I hope you enjoy.

Howard Rheingold

Why Publish Student Work to the Web?

Here is yet another compelling reason why we should encourage posting student work to the Web. Enjoy this beautiful cover of Fleetwood Mac’s Landslide from elementary students of the PS22 Chorus in New York City.

From the comments, “What does Stevie think of this?” (although I can’t confirm validity – confirmed here).

Just got word from Stevie Nicks tour manager that she was completely blown away by the PS22 Chorus rendition of her song “Landslide!” He said she asked him to replay 2 times afterwards, crying each time she watched! Talk about humbling!! And the kicker?? She invited the PS22 Chorus to sing the song at Madison Square Garden for the upcoming June 11th Fleetwood Mac show!! Holy cow!!!

It will be interesting to see if the RIAA feels the same way.

If you want to know more about this group and their story, I’d recommend reading “Glee Club” from The Brooklyn Rail. From that story …

It’s unusual, but it works. In a school where more than three quarters of the students are eligible for free lunch, the lyrics of the song have resonance, and the performance is haunting, emotive, and delivered with far more soul than one might expect from a bunch of fifth-graders.

Catch this while it is real. Don’t wait for the movie.

Digital Storytelling Resources

I find that one of the most useful features of Twitter is the resource sharing. With a well-established network of educators, it seems easy to solicit responses from educators who are willing to share favourite resources on various topics. Today, one of my undergraduate students Krystal (@tealek) inquired about digital story telling resources. I sent out a tweet, and many good people within my network sent back their responses. I have collected these below (sorry if I missed anyone):

@pcwoessner sent me to David Jakes’ excellent Digital Storytelling resources.

@CherylDoig offered Jason Ohler’s resources.

@lloydcrew sent me to the Images4Education site, and a great article by Bryan Alexander and Alan Levine.

@cheritoledo offered a link to the Center for Digital Storytelling.

@clintlalonde sent me to his long list of Delicious bookmarks tagged as digitalstorytelling.

@plowenthal linked to a techheds podcast on digital storytelling.

@sammora sent me to the resources at Montclair Public schools and their digital authoring initiative.

@MagistraM led me to Langwitches blog and the various resources offered there.

@bcdtech offered her Diigo list/digital storytelling category.

@jorech sent me his Wikispaces page with a long list of resources.

@shyj offered her list of Delicious bookmarks tagged on the subject.

@barbaram sent Krystal her wiki of resources on storytelling and other activities.

MtnLaurel offered her Diigo collections of resources.

Again, sorry if I missed anyone or screwed up any of the links. Do let me know.

This is one of my favourite uses of Twitter. Through the generosity of educators, it can be easy to gather a substantial list of educator-recommended resources on topics like this. And, I’m happy that through this post, I can give back a little to my network.

College IT Index – Class of 2012

Peter Schilling (not this one), IT Director of Amherst College, has crunched the numbers and has come up with some interesting statistics regarding the 438 newly enrolled student population. Here are a few notable points:

    – Percentage of applicants that applied online = 89%.
    – Registered devices (computers, iphones, game consoles) on the University network – 370 students registered 443 devices.
    – 14 students brought desktop computers, while 93 brought iPhones/Touch devices.
    – Likelihood of a student in class having an iPhone/Touch – 1 in 2.
    – 432 of 438 students were involved in the Amherst College Facebook group, and had posted 3,225 posts by mid August.
    – Total number of students on campus this year that have landline phone service – 5.
    – Classes 2009 and 2010 are more likely to own Windows machines, while classes of 2011 and 2012 are most likely to own Macs.

Times are changing. This survey has really made me want to do something similar here on campus.

View the complete Amherst College IT index here. See also the Benoit College Mindset list.

Edmodo Launches

I do not know much about this free tool, but I was just notified that Edmodo has launched.

Edmodo is a private microblogging platform developed for use in the classroom by teachers and students. Edmodo provides teachers and students the ability to share notes, links, and files to foster communication inside and outside of the classroom. Teachers also have the ability to post alerts, assignments, and events to share with their students.

Edmodo looks like a very useful tool, has a clean interface (feels a bit Drupaly), and could be an excellent tool for classroom teachers looking for a private blogging option. If anyone starts using it with their students, please let me know.

THEBLOG WEEMADE

I just came across THEBLOG WEEMADE which is focused on”sharing the artwork and creativity of kids”.

Sample Art

Reasons I like the project:
– Simple interface, and quite easy to submit artwork.
– Moderated submissions (I know because I tried to submit).
– Keeps with my philosophy that student work and creativity should be shared and celebrated with/by others, and not held hostage in classrooms and on bulletin boards.
– A visual archive.
– The no-brainer, RSS.

What it is missing:
– I can’t seem to find any information on the project. Can anyone find an “about” page?
– Lack of visible, appropriate copyleft licenses (e.g., CC).

Neat project, and it wouldn’t take much to create your own version of this for the classroom.

Beloit College Mindset List for Class of 2011

I’ve always found this annual list useful when attempting to relate and better understand my students.

Most of the students entering College this fall, members of the Class of 2011, were born in 1989. For them, Alvin Ailey, Andrei Sakharov, Huey Newton, Emperor Hirohito, Ted Bundy, Abbie Hoffman, and Don the Beachcomber have always been dead.

Check out Beloit College’s Mindset List for the Class of 2011.

Possible Suspension for Student Who Created Proxy Site

This is an interesting story that brings up important questions around school jurisdiction on student activities and on the rights and responsibilities of students. This American student writes that he is facing possible suspension from his school for creating a web proxy service (as part of his job/business) that was used by other students at his school to get around school network restrictions. He is allegedly accused of “violating (his) rights as a student, and intentionally attempting to disturb the learning environment of students in (his) school.”

Worst part is that now I’m tagged as being a ‘computer hacker’ and a ‘potential threat’ to the school system. A mass email was sent out from the administrator who accused me of this to all the teachers, administrators, librarians, etc in the entire school, which basically says I’m a criminal and I need to be watched when getting within a 10-foot radius of a computer.

I find it unfair that Fairfax County Public Schools feels they can impose this kind of totalitarianism on me, I’m now a criminal for making proxies. For making a website. A legal website. On my private server. Outside of school. Great.

Read the article to get a better sense of this situation. Thoughts?

Google’s Highly Open Participation Contest

Google’s Highly Open Participation Contest was announced today at the Open Source Developers’ Conference in Brisbane, Australia.

Following on from the success of the Google Summer of Code program, Google is pleased to announce this new effort to get young people involved in open source development. We’ve teamed up with the open source projects listed here to give student contestants the opportunity to learn more about and contribute to all aspects of open source software development, from writing code and documentation to preparing training materials and conducting user experience research.

If you’re a student age 13 or older who has not yet begun university studies, we’d love to see you help out these projects. In return, you’ll learn more about all aspects of developing software – not just programming – and you’ll be eligible to win cash prizes and the all important t-shirt! You will, of course, need your parent or guardian’s permission to participate where applicable.

Almost any initiative the exposes students to collaboration and sharing while helping them build technical skill is all right by me.

More information.

Student Project in Common Craft Style

One of my students, Veronique, has just completed a mini-project for a first-year undergraduate course I teach. She used the Common Craft format to produce a neat little video on the Angel Hair for Kids program.

We didn’t allot much class time to work on this, but I’m really happy with what she was able to produce in a short period of time. Certainly it’s not perfect, but I particularly appreciate her adoption of this instructional format. I think there is so much potential here.