November

Adding to Delicious

I've added two bookmarks to my delicious account. The first is a reference to a book I read about on a blog about graphic design. The book, Decoding Design: Understanding and Using Symbols in Visual Communication, by Maggie Macnab, sounds interesting to me and is something I'd like to have in my own library at some point, but it is not yet available on Amazon. By bookmarking the link, I will remind myself to check in on it, so I'll know when to order it. The book explores principles of design found in nature and applies those same principles to visual communication in graphic design. This bookmark may appeal to Tracy, who shares an interest with me in learning more about designing blogs and web pages so that they are visually appealing.

The second is a site called Many Eyes. I think all teachers would appreciate this site because it posts sets of data, allows you to choose a means to visualize the data, and then allows you to customize and publish the data set. In addition, you can create your own data set and choose a "visualization option." Among the choices are: scatterplot, network diagram, matrix chart, word tree, maps, tag clouds, phrase nets.

Not only does this site have immediate application for use with students, it gives the reader an interesting look at the data sets that are being represented by users of the site. One can choose to view the information by date or by rating. For example, Vicki would be interested to have a look at a tag cloud of words used in Shakespeare's Sonnets posted on July 19, 2007. She could then read the comments related to that post, and could choose to register and make her own comments.

I will return to this site, just to snoop around. At some point in the future, I'd like to play with my communicating my own data set.

September/October

As a Redwood Writing Project Coordinator for a school partnership with Peninsula School, I met with the Superintendent/Principal, two teachers, and RWP Director, Sue McIntire, at a staff meeting to discuss the needs of the teachers related to the teaching and learning of writing. Both teachers identified the implementation of writing workshop as a priority. In addition, Linda Stewart, teacher of grades 5-8, was interested in using i-Movie to post student work in a blog. It was decided at that time that work during the first semester would focus on writing workshop (while TC Emily Gibson was available to present) and the second semester would focus on using technology in the writing classroom.

Having just completed a summer of ATI, I was keen to see what Google Apps for Educators would look like set up in a school. I was curious if 5th-8th graders would post to Google Docs and respond to one another's work in the same way we had at our institute. I liked the idea of setting each student up with his/her own e-mail account to use at school. I wondered how students would respond to designing blogs. However, this idea was more appealing to me than it was to the classroom teacher. She was hesitant about privacy/safety issues. Her students were already posting work to a "Shares" folders on her networked computers. She was satisfied with this system.

Instead, we decided to focus on using I-Movie as a platform to publish student writing of some form or another and then post those movies to a blog at the end of the school year. Harriet Watson's digital story workshop would provide the foundation for this work. Linda was familiar with my "Modest Technology Project" from ATI 2007 (Building Bridges to a Healthy World) and was eager to learn the process herself.

For me, it looked like "Modest Technology Project II" would look similar to "Modest Technology Project I." Rather than designing the blog and content myself, I would help another teacher explore and learn the process based on her classroom context.

Monthly Update Questions

1. What has happened?
2. What has worked?
3. What hasn't worked?
4. What do you have now that you didn't have last month?
5. Have your timeline predictions been accurate?
   
6. Are you meeting your goals?
   
7. Do you need to vent? gloat?
8. How can others assist/support you?

Please draft a document associated with your Modest Tech Project (MTP). The document might represent a set of directions for your students, an assignment, a letter to parents, an article for your school newsletter, a mission statement--anything you like. The only stipulation is that the document represents something you need to write for your project anyway.

We will have time during our August session to gather feedback on the document, so please do not feel the need to respond to others' documents (besides, you have enough homework to do without that additional step).

Park the document wherever you want: on your blog, in GoogleDocs, on a wiki page, on a GooglePage, on an actual piece of real paper. Make the decision based on the type of assistance you want from your colleagues in August (generalized response, in-text commentary, formatting/eding suggestions, etc.).

Please describe your current version of your Tech Project (TP). Why have you selected this TP? What technology (hardware, software, access) does it require? How do you plan to launch it? When will you launch it during the school year? How long will it take, and how do you plan to pace it?

I'm interested in setting up Google Apps for Educators at Peninsula School. I need to set up e-mail accounts/passwords and a program to help users learn the platform. I'd like to launch the program early in the school year by working with one teacher first. Then, I'd like to introduce students to the program by forming "tech partners." I'll begin by giving a small, specific assignment like post a picture to a blog, or post a short writing response on Google Docs. The focus of these discrete sessions will be on navigating, rather than on content. Once all students have had a partner orientation, we will view responses whole class using the overhead projector. We'll talk about qualities that are shared by interesting posts. I may consult with the ISTE standards or profiles at this point