The iSchool Initiative

Much has been written about the future of smaller, less expensive computing devices in schools. Well, a forward-thinking high school student from Georgia has his own thoughts on how the iPod Touch can be used to reform American education. Take a look at his video!

Thanks to Apple account executive Angela Miller for the link.

New iLearn Ezine Now Online

Technology specialist Kelly Tenkely has published the second volume of her iLearn ezine (online magazine), and it's a good one! Although Tenkely is a devoted Mac user, her  ezines have something for every teacher--Mac or PC--who integrates technology into his or her lesson plans.

For example, the newest iLearn, "Learning Made Mobile," includes a comparison of the four popular iPod models and gives tips on using each in the classroom. And iTouch fans, don't miss Tenkely's list of the best educational apps! Also take a few minutes to read the articles on digital storytelling and 21st Century literacy.

While you're on Tenkely's web site, look around a bit. You'll find many, many great resources for the classroom. In fact, many of the sites that I share with Keystone teachers are first recommended on the iLearn Technology edublog!

Videoconferencing Opportunities

I attended a day-long Videoconference Showcase at IU 6 recently and had an opportunity to participate in videoconferences from several different venues. I will paste my notes below. Please excuse the lack of complete sentences and other grammatical niceties!

Check out the links for more info and to see lists of available activities. Also, if you are interested in participating in any of these videoconferences in the future, let me know. Please note that some are free and some charge a fee. Many send out classroom materials prior to the videoconference.

Mariners Museum
http://www.mariner.org/
http://www.mariner.org/educationalad/teachers/elec_classroom.php

Man’s interaction with the sea
Web content, activities to download, quizzes—try to provide whole package
Programs for every age group

Pirates—difference between what literature and Hollywood have taught us about pirates; program tries to dispel myths; schools use when reading Treasure Island; can be geared to K-12
Civil War—museum is repository for artifacts being brought up by USS Monitor that went down in Hampton Roads area; Monitor vs. Virginia (ironclad); end of wooden war ships; deadliest day for US Navy before Pearl Harbor; web content on their web site; also do beginnings of CW
Native Americans in Mid-Atlantic Region—younger elementary students--tools they used; weapons; canoes; roles of men, women, children;
Sailing into Thanksgiving—K & 1—Pilgrims and Mayflower; 1st Thanksgiving
They send kit so kids can make their own Mayflowers!
Big Winds, Big Waves, Science of Hurricanes—4th through lower HS grades; what is necessary for hurricanes to form; use satellite imagery and other graphics; will follow a certain storm
Life at Sea Program—life at sea during 19th Century; sailors’ jobs, tools, artwork; Why were they going to sea? Why did they go out to hunt whales?
Titanic program—3rd grade through HS--talk about classes of people; communication tools of the time; events of the time the Titanic went down; legacy of the Titanic; why are we still talking about it?
Captive Passage program—older elem through HS—difficult topic to talk about—explanation between African and western concepts of slavery; cramped conditions on ship; what slaves did when arrived in Americas as opposed to the Caribbean area or S. America; Use primary source documents
Age of Exploration—spices, What did the early explorers find? Upper elementary through HS; map study
Chemistry of Conservation—currently developing and testing
Chesapeake Bay
Most are $100; some are $75
Usually 1 hour long
757-591-7748 to book a program or visit web site www.marinersmuseum.org or distancelearning@marinersmuseum.org


Library of Congress
Geared toward professional development for teachers; not programs for students
http://www.loc.gov/index.html
Teacher’s Page: http://www.loc.gov/teachers/

Under resources:
Videoconference workshops: http://memory.loc.gov/learn/educators/video/index.html
America’s Library—for kids http://www.americaslibrary.gov/cgi-bin/page.cgi
Everyday Mysteries--science http://www.loc.gov/rr/scitech/mysteries/
Images on Popular Topics—groups of photos on a variety of topics so teacher doesn’t have to go out and find them! http://www.loc.gov/rr/print/list/listguid.html
Lesson Plans http://memory.loc.gov/learn/lessons/index.html
Portals to the World: Links to resources from around the world http://www.loc.gov/rr/international/portals.html
Thematic Resources—links to resources arranged by themes: http://memory.loc.gov/learn/community/
Webcasts for Teachers—recordings of presentations at the Library of Congress, selected for teachers: http://www.loc.gov/today/cyberlc/results.php?cat=1&mode=a
Young Reader’s Toolkit: http://www.loc.gov/bookfest/2008/toolkit/

Links at top of page:
Ask a Librarian—form to inquire about programs or workshops
Digital Collections—links to all digital resources

Taking the Mystery out of Copyright—for kids: http://www.loc.gov/teachers/copyrightmystery/

Newsletter: http://www.loc.gov/teachers/tps/newsletter/index.html


Hardware Demo—Kevin Simmons
Polycom introduced software (People Plus Content—free download) to allow to share content from laptop over the videoconference
Try to make setup simple so anyone can use without tech staff help
Set up presets

To use Scopia Desktop:

• Reserve space on IU 5 bridge—contact Ken Pruitt or Kevin Simmons
• Gives the capability of joining videoconference without the videoconferencing equipment.
• About same quality as using Polycom.
• Can only connect to videoconference happening on the bridge. Can’t use if it’s a point-to-point videoconference (two parties only)
• Might possibly be able to use at elementary school without hauling equipment over.
• Always do a test first! Schedule two times on bridge so can test prior to videoconference

Carnegie Museum of Natural History
http://www.carnegiemnh.org/doe/programs/DL.htm
Rocks and Minerals
Presenter offered a workshop on rocks and minerals. Showed several rocks/minerals and talked about them.


Ann Arbor Hands-on Museum
www.aahom.org/distancelearning
Great presentation! We did sample activities from their “Slime Time and States of Matter” and “Fractions Interactions” programs.


Videoconference Databases
www.learninpa.org for list


Cleveland Museum of Art
www.clevelandart.org/dl

Arielle Levine—presenter; alevine[at]clevelandart.org

All programs include handouts and/or other materials that are sent ahead of time
Book with at least a 2-week lead; longer for 2nd semester and end of school year

Pricing--$135 for most (45 min-1 hr); We get at $120 since we are Magpi members.
$75 for those for younger children (30 min)
$165 for those presented in a foreign language

A sampling of offerings:
Math Connections in Art—4 sessions—focus on art of Chuck Close; He uses math and grid system in his art; students then do a project—do self-portrait using grid system. (Like our art students do in 8th grade with Mr. Carrow)

Tessellation Exploration!
One session
Look at tessellations from around the world
A type of closed repeating pattern—all patterns must interlock
Show artwork from around the world to demonstrate tessellations

Origami Program
Math program that uses origami and other artwork that relates to math

Harlem Renaissance—popular with language arts and social studies programs
Study African-American artists from Harlem in the 1920’s and 30’s

A is for Animal (K-1)
A is for Apple, A is for Art (k-1)

Gods and Heroes programs—popular with high schools, esp. from Greece and Rome


Center for Interactive Learning and Collaboration
http://www.cilc.org/
—resource for video conferencing programs. Cleveland Museum of Art uses for their bookings.

Are MIni-Notebooks a Cost-Efficient Option?

We recently purchased four HP Mini 2140 Notebook PCs to pilot for possible use with our elementary students. These laptops have a 10.1" diagonal widescreen display and weigh only a little over 2.5 lbs. The keyboards, however, are just a little smaller than a standard laptop keyboard. The computers include a built-in web cam.

Although these notebooks ship with Windows Vista Home, we opted to load the Windows XP Pro operating system. We are connecting them wirelessly to our Active Directory network with an Apple Airport Xtreme Base Station.

The notebooks have been living in Kate Schoeppner's fourth grade classroom for the past couple of weeks. I asked her to turn her students loose on them, and the kids have used these laptops for writing activities as well as for Internet research.

Kate plans to have her students voice their opinions on these smaller, less expensive laptops. (Our students have been using standard-sized laptops for several years.) They will add their comments to this blog entry as they get time. To read what they have to say, click on "Comments" at the end of this post. Those of you who get these updates by email or RSS feed will have to click on the title of the post, which will take you to the actual blog, to see the comments section.

Learning with the iPhone and iPod Touch

Are you a fan of your iPhone or iPod Touch? Then take a look at this list of 100 Best iPhone Apps for Serious Learners. The apps are arranged in categories; choose from Literature, Arts, Foreign Languages, Travel, Science, Medicine, Math, Nature, Christian Studies, and Reference Materials. Some of the apps are free, and others are not.

I wonder how the Stanza app compares to the iPhone/Touch version of Kindle? The more I use my Kindle app, the more I like it! It sounds like Stanza has more features, though.

iPods in the Classroom

The NBC Nightly News ran a story on Grace Poli, a New Jersey teacher who uses iPods to teach English as a Second Language. Her ideas can be modified for almost any subject area, though.

Warning . . . You may have to endure a commercial or two before the video starts!


Image: http://www.theage.com.au/ffximage/2006/11/05/5e_brad_wideweb__470x330,0.jpg

"Fleshing the Bones" Part II

Students held their pictures in front of the camera of the videoconferencing unit, and the video was sent across the Internet to be viewed across the state! Jason from the Academy of Natural Sciences is shown on the screen to the right.

Keystone junior high art students participated in the second part of the "Fleshing the Bones: The Art and Science of Drawing Dinosaurs" videoconference yesterday. The first part of the videoconference, presented by Magpi and the Philadelphia Academy of Natural Sciences three weeks ago, introduced students to the concept of drawing dinosaurs based on skeletons and other clues. Students were given the assignment of completing the skull sketch that they started during the first session to present to other participants during the second meeting. See the K20 Inter@ctions blog for detailed info on the project.

Our students spent a whole day recently with art teacher Fred Carrow while he guided them through the sketching and painting of their dinosaur skulls. Using web sites and pictures from professional artists as their guides, they learned about shadowing and other art techniques as they finished sketching and then applied water colors (tempera paints) to their creations.

During yesterday's videoconference, each student artist from the seven participating schools in PA and New Jersey had an opportunity to share his finished masterpiece. The students simply held their papers up to the camera attached to the video conferencing equipment for viewing across the state! Jason from the Academy of Natural Sciences commented on their work and questioned their choice of colors, their biggest challenges, and the animals that influenced their drawings.

We have some very talented artists at Keystone as evidenced by their creations pictured below! Clicking on the pictures will enlarge them.