Education blogs and podcasts are my new best friends!

Wow, it is amazing. I started looking at blogs, and although they were information dense, I couldn't get so excited, or feel like I fad applicability or retention.
Enter podcasts for teachers:http://teachopia.com/teaching-tips.html
This one is smart, fast, and had great ideas: join your local "Friends of the Library" then you can get pre-shows at the book sales and clean up for books for your classroom!
Another one: Now this is really good- Ask for local groups or politicians to sponsor field trips! Brilliant.

This one also piqued my interest, as a way to see what's possible in teaching :Teachers Teaching Teachers Podcast
This one has inspiring stories from the Gulf:  studies of the damages, public service work, student involvement with rebuilding communities.

The reason I use podcasts is that I already am a big consumer of audible material. I am an old school DJ, old school radio person, and probably have more of a leaning toward audible learning vs. visual or physical  or kinesthetic.  I bet many students have  the same and that's why I have to learn to use podcast in my lessons.

Getting field reports from the trenches, and gems of advice

I hope Jeff and Kristen don't feel slighted by our classes' enthusiasm for meeting recant MAC graduates. Although it is interesting to hear about the technology (and to stumble and fumble and mess up the tech), we really were excited about hearing new applications in classes of teenagers. The stories we heard, while not specifically geared to only educational technology, we answered to our long held fears and aspirations. There, in front of us, were three amazing teachers, and they were once as we are now. It remeinded me of the cohort meeting held in April, before we began any classes. It that meeting, 30 or so of us (SMAC-2010), met with about 30 current SMAC students, and we really had no idea what to ask. We were just panning the surface with large nets. It almost came to, "Do you have any advice, anything at all?", without specificity.

On our last Friday, we had a real discussion, with questions that had been building for the 2 months, and fears we needed to be answered. It was disenheartening to hear that new teachers will have such a pay reduction, and I wonder if we as senoir teachers in a union, would attempt to do the same to teachers who would be replacing us. I hope not.

It was very interesting that the three speakers, Daver, Lauren and Kevin, had such different experiences getting jobs, and with the job search process, and very good to know that the on-line applications take 8-10 hours to fill out. I asked if we could use Google to update us when new jobs are posted, but for now it is not available. The only option to look for jobs is to scan district websites, bookmark the new job page, put those bookmarks in a special folder that you open every day. It looks like jobs go very quickly, and there are multiple applicants for each.
The application of technology was very impressive with Daver. He used clickers and wrote programs for clicker tests for the classes, a very good way to assess student learning and attention. He also got into a postition in his new school by being an "early adopter", one who took the time to learn and adapt new tech to classrooms, and as a helper to all of the other teachers. That is a great way to be seen as valuable in a time with high layoffs. Although, he did say, even though he did all that, he was still pink-slipped last year, and only saved by the district-union-county negotiations, nothing to do with his excellent performance. His other piece of golden advice was to not get discouraged. He filled out all the online apps, and got not a single nibble. That he was an excellent teacher was immaterial to the application process. So don't get discouraged, try other avenues, charter schools, etc., because if it can happen to him, it can happen to you.

We also learned about our new projects! Internet filtering! I have a lot to learn, and am very interested in the topic, as I am sure it will be a problem I will have to get around in my placement. Biology, I would imagine, wouild be subject to unnessessary filtering, given the obsession with protecting children from understanding human reproduction.....Arrgh!

Readings for July 30th, and trying to see what I can believe

I spent some time this week with "This I Believe". I think it is fabulous, and hope to be able to get students to use it, with the educators section. Now that I know how easy it is to record podcasts using Garageband, I may not be able to be stopped! I plan to add musical accompaniment, but with records playing in the background, after I figure out how to isolate the background noise. I have so many ideas!

There are applications galore for many english and social studies teachers, but I am not sure about the podcasting for biology. The links we read for calss about the former Secondary MAC students had educators in math and english, and although I am interested in what they have to say, and they are useful (and inspiring!), I am still wondering how I will apply biology and earth science content in a podcast. Perhaps with readings, animal sounds, ...? I know the ability to use images and video links will be of great help. Perhaps I can even have video demos in my podcast of labs, and how to do podcasts!

On the James Paul Gee video

He is quite a good spokesman for the new generation, I wonder, has he been on the cover of Wired? let me check....here is an article he wrote for them-

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.05/view.html

and maybe some more....oh, yeah, a recent one,

http://www.wired.com/gamelife/tag/james-gee/

with a cool pic (but not of him!!- you should ck it out), and a good quote: “We tend to teach science,” he said, “by telling you a lot of stuff and then letting you do science. Games teach the other way. They have you do stuff, and then as you need to know information, they tell it to you.”

Read More http://www.wired.com/gamelife/2010/02/james-gee/#more-21381#ixzz0uYByIlrT

Interesting guy, his article made me feel a bit bad for being such a scoffer, and now I plan to try to see what I can do in his direction, as long as it doesn't have too high of a pricetag for my students.

I can see my relection! 7-23-10

Oh my, it's hot in Ann Arbor. Those vendors are sweatin' it out, and so are we. I will be glad to lose the traffic disruption, but I will miss the lovely art. I am trying to keep away to avoid spending money, but it is hard with so many lovely earrings. and bracelets. and glass. Wish me luck.
I finished my podcast and feel that it's a good one. I really enjoyed it. I think my next podcast will be about tornado formations, since there are soooo many around here. The weather forecast tonight is thunderstorms!!! And tornados!
But first, I am getting used to Grageband, and look forward to using it more. I am getting over the technofear, well only a little, but I signed up for Aviary, and will be comparing the technologies. I noticed on my cohort's podcasts that the Aviary ones often buffered forever, and I clicked off. So impatient, this techno-stuff!

Reflections on Class 7-16-2010

I enjoyed the web viewing with Buffy Hamilton and Kate Conley. They are so enthusiatic about their technology and I would love to see a webinar of them running the class. Maybe just the way the computer work is accomplished, if not able to see how the students are reacting (due to the restrictions from privacy release forms). It has made me think of a way to use my blog and twittert. I plan to bring my typing up to speed over the summer break, and to that end, maybe video my hand movements, edit and post them for public hilarity ( and maybe some helpful hints). I would be able to discuss in a blog how I struggled with certain aspects, and how my fingers are even dumber than I am....if possible!

The technology in the webcast we viewed was so low resolution, I am unsure of it's applicability. Maybe a photo, and them stream the audio. The audio, also, was a bit crunchy, which made it difficult when trying to get through the accents! Wow- what accents! Very interesting, and it makes me wonder what we sound like to them!

On readings for 7-16

I am so excited to have an expert speaker, Buffy Hamilton, tomorrow. Sometimes that really opens up the blocked areas and helps me to see how new things are possible.

I am freaked out by the Christopher Sessums piece about online and brick and mortar college cheating. The image in the piece was shocking, was it for real, or a mock-up? That many students cheating in one auditorium?

His descriptions of the invasive security measures used for online tests (which could still be gotten around, I'm sure), made me reflect on the online and in school tests I'd taken. Yes, assessment is the big problem. Teachers want a measure thats easy to score and a rubric that stands up to scruniny. Don't we all? I fully appreciate that multiple choice tests (scan-tron) are very poor metrics to assess knowledge. And the questions are often ridiculous. Teachers that don't want to work hard and that don't care about student learning use them....everyone (students anyway) knows that! Why is it a surprise to educators? Jeff Sessums said that he could have heard a pin drop. Perhaps they did not know that everyone else knew that the Emperor was wearing no clothes? Impossible.