The Blog of Ms. Mercer

I’ve finished up some general unit plans over the last few weeks. I’ve gotten inspiration from dy/dan » Where Is Your List?

which started out asking what videos we use to teach a specific skills/strategies/concepts (metaphor, etc.) I had seen there was a new video from Chris Brown on my Meebo login page, YouTube - Chris Brown - Forever. Normally not something I would listen to, but I decided to look at it because (a) he is popular with my students, (b) the sixth graders do a report on music stars at the end of the year, so I want to be familiar with what they are listening to. Wow, lots of stop action, nice visually, so I shared that one in a comment. The thing that is great is how I connect with others in the comments section. Christian Long and Sarah in particular on that thread were wonderful in their comments. Even though Dan is not participating, the conversation continued. It really helped me see stuff, and after looking at a bunch of YouTube videos over the last few days, I’m already well on my way to finishing up unit plans for upper grade:

Unit Plan for Perseverance Sixth Grade will do posters and then Photo Story PSA using narrative, and visual symbolism/metaphor. I’ll kick it off with that Chris Brown video.

Unit Plan for Cooperation and Competition Fifth Grade will look at some awesomely funny Campaign ads from YouTube. We’ll analyze them for accuracy, and effectiveness (not always the same thing, I know), then I’ll have them do some political posters on their own, and MAYBE a PhotoStory video (I don’t want to bite off more than I and they can chew).

Here is one of the videos:

Unit Plan for Risk and Consequences Fourth Grade will look at the Cooties PSA (thank you Mathew Needleman), and will do either a motivator or PSA poster.

Lots of stuff on Dan Meyer’s blog, where I’ve found a lot to comment on recently. Dan takes a look at (and aim on) a couple of Web 2.0 tools.

dy/dan » Correct Me If I’m Wrong is about Wordle, which Dan questions the analytical value of in literature studies. Dan’s blog’s strength is not just in the hard questions he asks, but in the responses he gets in the comment section. Many comments offer up lessons and reasons to use this tool effectively.

Previously in dy/dan » Web 2.0: Education’s Accidental Friend he takes a look at the (marginal) utility of Animoto, and had some interesting quotes:

Animoto is wrong for education in every way that it’s right for consumers — and the befuddlement of its creators at its educational market share affirms this directly. Consumers want something that takes the difficulty out of an engaging slideshow but difficulty is essential to learning.

and

Many have come to this conclusion before me, I realize, but I am only now fully struck by the fact that the goals of profit-driven Web 2.0 applications and the goals of educators only align accidentally.

while I agree with Dan’s analysis of Animoto, and have not used it in my lab because it doesn’t provide a key skill I’m looking for (verbal input to develop oral language), I have an issue with the second one. The goals may align accidentally, but that doesn’t mean it never occurs, and that these tools aren’t useful for meeting instructional objectives and standards. Larry Ferlazzo has made a curriculum, a blog, and a following not just on the Internet, but in the academy using these tools.

I think that Dan and Larry are both successful in how they implement technology for a couple of reasons. First, they are both self-described tech skeptics. Many’s the time I’ve run up to Larry with some new, hot tool, and if it doesn’t have an application in the classroom that is standards based, he’s not buying it. Both gentlemen are standards based and not in the blind, teach to the test way, but in a way the involves deeper understandings and gains of long-term knowledge. The difference is in their approach to visual quality issues. For Dan, visual quality is really key, whereas Larry is perfectly happy using cheezy dancing elf flash games. I think there is something to learn from both these educators about how to approach tech in the classroom.

Frankly, these tools may only “accidentally” align with learning objectives, but the stuff we’re paying to do this specifically doesn’t seem to be doing a great job either.

I was out at a local concert in the park, and plurked that I was going. Ken Shelton, as is his want, asked me to microblog it. As I was listening to some great blues (Linda Bracamonte Band opened for Mick Martin and the Blues Rockers), texting, and sending up pics, and hiking through the adjacent oak forest with my son, I thought about the concert and it’s context in my neighborhood.

There was a park full of families and others listening to music. There was a frisbee game, kids running around (the city had a bounce house), and a good time was being had by all. Events like this were rare in Oakland, CA where I used to live. Yeah, we had Festival at the Lake (which was repeatedly being canceled as years went on due to cost, potential for rioting youth, etc.), but that was a not a small, free, community event.  Events like this say a lot about the health of a community. I worry that with the ginormous foreclosure rate, and it’s effect on local funds, events like this may go by the wayside, but for now I enjoy them enormously.

I began to think about schools and the signs of health they have. There is nothing sadder to me than an empty campus. I was talking to a peer about a school site near where I work. No after-school tutoring, no after-school program (funding is rarely an issue for that in Cali as there are dedicated funds for it–the admin hasn’t been happy with any of the programs that have been there and not being able to control them), just a ghost-town after the kids are gone (and make no mistake, they are not allowed to linger–that would be a legal liability would not be tolerated).

I contrast that with the site I work at. The after-school program, the tutoring do not always work together perfectly, but we want to, and try to get along. Lots of evening programs like meetings of parent groups happen. A daytime Adult ESL class is on campus. It’s a happening place, and that says something about it’s place in the community and how healthy things are.

After spending a week being super wired at Discovery Communication’s corporate headquarters, and then another three days in a much less tech-oriented setting, it gave me a great opportunity to think about different kinds of social networks.

First we have online networks. We like these people in part because we have a common interest that is not limited by geography. I have become very close to people I have met and interacted with online, but there is something that changes when you meet folks face-to-face that you have only known online. Sometimes, they are exactly like you expect. Sometimes they do not meet your expectations (for good or ill), but it changes what you know about and how you feel about that person. There is a certain longing most of us have to meet our online friends or professional colleagues in person. I know other people experience it because I hear them going to some effort to meet up whenever it’s possible. So they may be “virtual” but our tendency as humans are to make the real, and face-to-face.

Then, I spent time with the Amish, who eschew most technology from the industrial era, let alone the digital one we now inhabit. They have, however, a very complex social network, and although they are “separate” from their “English” (non-Amish) neighbors, my aunt is a part of that network. How did that happen? How does a non-tech social network work? What did it tell me about how my own networks function?

My aunt has lived in two Amish communities as an adult. When I was in elementary school, she lived in a farmhouse in Western New York in the Conawengo Valley. I visited her the summer between fifth and sixth grade in 1976. It exposed me to a new and different culture. After the Loma Prieta earthquake, her husband (born and raised in the Lake Erie area) wanted to leave California, so they returned to the Eastern United States to Belleville, PA. In both places, she has built ties to the Amish community, who are not always beloved by their neighbors, most of whom come from an Amish background (surnames of Yoder, Peachy, Beachey, etc.) but don’t realize this connection, and are frustrated with Amish “backwardness” and “clannishness”. My aunt builds ties through a system of mutual favors and listening to them. The Amish of Belleville do include some car Amish (ones who have split off from “old order” groups), but most of the high groups, do not. They will accept rides, and a car is quicker than a horse and buggy, so she gives rides.

But, she is more than a taxi service. Many more of the Belleville folks have phones than I recall seeing in Conawengo, but this was a big lesson to me, the advances in technology that the phone brings does not obviate the need for “connectors” like my aunt. People call her because she knows things, or where to find things, and travels about and shares information. So on our trip, she was asked to track down more canning jars and given a price the person was willing to spend. They could have called around themselves, but they knew asking my aunt was probably going to be quicker. How many times do we have a go-to person for information in our own PLN? I know I often operate in that capacity. I know that if I want to find someone online, the first person to ask is Lisa Durff. My aunt is in a position like that in her community.

The other part of this trip was my documentation on my micro-blog (http://mizmercer.tumblr.com) and on Plurk/Twitter. I was putting up posts and pictures about what I was seeing and learning from my cell phone, as we traveled through the valley. People were responding on Plurk and Twitter, and asking questions. My aunt was amazed at everyone’s interest, and that I had people following me, just as I was amazed at the role she played in her community. My new cell made communicating with my community easier, and allowed a conversation to take place as I went along, but both my aunt’s network, and my network have many more things in common than they have differences. The technology is a tool; a great tool, a tool I love, a tool that makes many more things possible, but without the people, it’s just a hunk of plastic, metal, and chips. That story I told was interesting and got a response not because I was using my cell phone but because of the people involved.

Ken Shelton put it best when asked his take-away from the DEN National Institute, “it’s the network.” It’s what I’ve learned from DEN, NECC, and from my aunt and her Amish neighbors. Thanks for the lesson folks!

First, we’re going to start off with the video interviews I did with various from DEN including Lance Rougeaux, Hall Davidson, and Scott McKinney and from the DEN Stars themselves:

The important ideas are about building relationships, and building integration between streaming and Web 2.0 to help us learn, and lead to students being engaged and learning.

This was not a great stream due to me be stingy about bandwidth, and lowering the video quality. This was foolish, as the next day’s video of Steve Dembo shows that I could have gone ALL the way up on video and audio quality with no problem.

I’m also featured on a video from the Art Guy, Aaron Smith, on Academic Aesthetic:

My favorite session so far was the one on geo-caching because it was so new to me. Bridget Belardi did a really great job explaining it to us, then taking us on an expedition to find a cache.
Here is our find:

We were taken on a tour of Washington, D.C. Wednesday night that started with sweltering temps and ended with a thunderstorm.

We had to go to the Kennedy Center since it was an indoor tour, but took a soggy trip up to the Lincoln Memorial to cap the evening.

We went to the “Green Screen”, “Chromakey”, or what Discovery calls the Insertion Studio. Mr. Foley (I know the irony of that is not lost on him) who is the cameraman there shared some fantastic tips for successful green screening (which you can do in Adobe Premiere Elements):

1. Avoid corners or edges to prevent shadows, etc. which make the green background 3 dimensional.
2. Light the screen (green background) and subject separately (2+ stop difference). The background should be lighter. They use fluorescents in the studio.
3. There should be 8-10 feet between the background and the subject.

I took some shots for a new project doing a film on cyber-safety; watch how you are presenting yourself.

Tonight, we saw a preview of an upcoming series on comets. The producer, John Grasse, produced The Human Body, Pushing the Limits. We were all pretty tired, and probably were not as thoughtful as we could have been when he kindly offered up a conversation about how to tell non-fiction stories in a way that is appealing and understandable. The comet series (which started with BBC), used the hook of discussing how humans have viewed comets through the ages (anthropomorphizing things).

We’re working on projects on lessons that integrate Discovery Streaming. The projects, including mine, are here.

I’m having a great time, and meeting some great folks. We finished our last night together by finishing up our projects, and playing Wii bowling. I bowled a 175 the first time, but was pretty tired by the last round, and only did 119.

I did not manage to live blog because we were doing a “hands on project” making a movie for our regional DEN group to the “I Love the Mountains” song that is being used on the new Discovery Channel video. After listening to the song over, and over, it is pretty much stuck in my head. We (the Western States) won the contest with this awesome video.

The big issue for me, is that is seems like there are people at a variety of levels at this institute from intermediate to advanced knowledge of technology education. I’m in the later group. Most of the scheduled sessions are about tools I already know how use. What I’m going to do is a larger project on cybersafety, and developing a plan for the PD sessions that I will be doing in August. I’m also going to do a model unit plan about a use of Discovery Streaming that led to kids learning about linear equations and doing a video about them in stop action.

The best part, as always, is meeting in small groups with folks, and sharing what we know, want to know and what we’re doing. I’m going to be posting video interviews on my tumblog: http://mizmercer.edublogs.org.

I wanted to share a time from NECC and the Bloggers’ Cafe that I think got it right in the mix of “NYFB” and “FBs”. On Monday night (June 29), Lisa Parisi (middle above), and Cheryl Lykowski (right above) did an episode of Teachers are Talking from the Bloggers’ Cafe. The cafe was full, and I was going around trying to get folks to step up and chat with Lisa and Cheryl. It was hard getting everyday folk up there (most seem to be there sucking up wifi and a comfortable chair). It was the end of a frantic first day, there had been a lot of issues just getting into sessions. The crowd was tired.

There were some “famous names” around, and I asked them to come up (actually, I was asking anyone and everyone, I’m not picky). David Warlick, was dapper looking, but clearly done in by the day. Mr. Warlick was definitely within his rights turning me down, as he was obviously very tired after a long day. but he quickly changed his mind, and said he’d do a short bit. If it had just been for my only personal amusement (”Hey, can I talk to you about how important your work has been to me personally, please”), I would have left him alone, but it was important for the community that folks on Ed Tech Talk hear from him and others since although there were ~20,000 at NECC, there were many more who couldn’t make it and might listen to the show. I also tortured Scott McLeod (who was in the middle of a conversation, but said he’d talk after he was done).

Now that you all know how pushy and demanding I can be, I’ll continue. I came across Nancy Pratt, who had attended my Diigo workshop at EduBloggerCon. She indicated in some way that she was shy (although I see she had already attended NECC before), but that she was willing to go “on air”. The lineup ended up having Scott McLeod, David Warlick, and then Nancy. You can see her to the left in the picture above. I can’t tell you how much I admire the fact that she didn’t let that faze her going after David Warlick, and just got up there and started talking.

I want to thank Nancy for taking a chance. I want to thank David Warlick for so graciously participating, and I promise I’ll never nag you into something like that again. I want to thank Scott for being Scott. All of you together made that Webcast more authentic. If it had just been one of you, it would have been just a small slice of NECC, instead, listeners got to connect with a variety of folks–the kind of heterogenous group that keynoter, James Surowiecki, talked about as necessary for good group decision making.

I have freely admitted to “smoking tech crack” when it comes to cell phones to Larry Ferlazzo (who as always is the voice of reason on new technology, thank goodness because I have no sense sometimes). I have really been exploring using cell phones for my own productivity, and connecting with others. I will be going to another tech meeting next week, Discovery Education Network’s National Institute.

There has been some talk of getting together before the meeting, which requires some coordination. I shared how I had started a group tweet here. Steve Dembo is pushing hard for using the new kid on the block, Plurk. Being open-minded, I spent some time there yesterday. My partner in this adventure was Amy Cordova. I can’t believe this woman has FOUR children. She also has an “un-smart” phone, but uses txt/sms a lot. This was good because we discovered that you can post via sms to Plurk, but you can’t view or retrieve from Plurk that way (there is a mobified page for phone browsers at http://www.plurk.com/m). ” Hmm,” I thought. I’ve gotten some great cell phone tips from Liz Kolb, one of which is that you can send an RSS feed to JOTT and it will convert the text to voice. So, I went to my Plurk page, selected Friends and my plurks, then clicked on the magic orange RSS lozenge in the address window, to get the feed url. Copy the url, then go into JOTT. At your dashboard, there is a tab on the right labeled “Feeds”, click on it. Click on “add feeds” , paste in the url, and voila, it’s there. To listen, call JOTT, say, “JOTT FEEDS” and then say the feed name. The speech is not to bad for a synthetic model.

My takeaway is that Plurk may not be great for this application. It’s good for sharing links, and much better for conversations than Twitter. OTOH, for logistics in a large group, and staying in touch on the go, I think Twitter will still be a better choice. My own suggestion is that we use Twitter for meeting up, and Plurk for a back-channel.

Okay, big thanks to Tony Vincent for this idea which he used to create a mobi website for checking up on stuff at NECC. It uses a site called Wire Node, to put in feeds and widgets. The site is easy to use to build pages, and works really well with my cell for viewing and navigating.

I’ve used it to build a page for the upcoming DEN National Institute. You can see the page here: http://DENNI.wirenode.mobi on your cell phone.

There is a lot of planning going on about pre-conference site-seeing. Since twitter is good for that I wanted to figure out a way to use that. I only know a few of the folks at all, and only know of one that I currently have in my twitter list. In addition, this is a smaller group than NECC (only 100). I thought of using hashtags, but it doesn’t seem to be working (no updates since 7/10). I considered summize, but it requires that your tweets be on the public timeline, which I and many others do not do. I remembered an app called GroupTweet. It’s a little hard to wrap your head around, but here is the short version…

Set up an account in Twitter for your group. I chose DEN_NI. Then, add it to GroupTweet by giving the twitter account name and password. Then have group members follow and be followed by the group twitter account. Send direct message (”d DEN_NI wash the car”), and it will be sent out to all the groups followers. If you want things private you can check not on public timeline. I wanted to get an RSS feed, so I’ve made it public.