Assignments

• Day 1
Read the Horizon Report (2008).

Post a blog on what technological trend you feel will become most prevalent in K12 learning within 5 years and why.

(see Rules of Engagement)

• Day 2
Please watch both of the Sir Ken Robinson videos linked below. Then post two slides on the shared presentation: 1) one way schools kill creativity, and 2) one way schools foster creativity.
Do schools kill creativity?
Creatively Speaking
(see Rules of Engagement)

• Day 3
Assignment 1 - See Blog entry on Web 2.0 Directory below for instructions.
Assignment 2 - See Blog entry on P21 Skills below for instructions.

• Day 4
Assignment 1 - Wikipedia - see post below.
Assignment 2 - Colliding Forces - see post below.

• Day 5 and Day 6
Live Broadcast - post a response to the blog below on Total Cost of Ownership (TCO)

• Day 7 and Day 8 - Surprise.....
Your assignment is optional - you will receive credit whether you email me yes or no, but you do have to email me. I do not believe in zeros, nor in failure as an option. However, you get what you put in, so I encourage you to say yes....;-)

If you email me yes, here's what you are committing to. Give me your email address at work, what grade level or content area you teach, whether you are an administrator, whatever. What school you are at and a short resume/introduction of yourself. I will leave your name and contact anonymous until I find another teacher/educator/administrator in PVUSD who might like to work with you on REACH, and in turn you with them. I will make an intitial email introduction of each of you to the other - from there, you are on your own to put into practice the communication, collaboration and creativity of 21st century teaching and learning, using information technology to bridge time and space constraints.

REACH (Real Experiences Advancing Childhood Humanities) is an initiative our district is implementing with other educators/administrators outside of our walls. We are connecting students/teachers/administrators, from differing classrooms, differing schools, cities, states, countries, using technology to communicate/collaborate/create in whatever ways possible and appropriate to postively impact student learning - totally up to you and your PVUSD counterpart on what you think would be useful - how big, how small, how deep, how thin, is up to you.

It does not have to be high tech, with tons of technology - in fact, the technology is not the point - learning with and about others is, being creative and taking a risk is the experience. One simple internet connection and a Google account can do wonders (you should now know that), to connect students, teachers, administrators, whatever. I suspect your kids, your school will be richer for the adventure and you will cross into something I believe is profound and necessary in education - REACH'ing beyond the walls......

So, if you want to REACH, give me the details and I will personally try to connect you with an appropriate counterpart. Then, you have the opportunity to extend your coursework learning into actual practice - the point of taking a class. Email me yay with details, or nay. What I wish for you is to REACH beyond this ASU class, throw optimism into the wind and see what emerges in your participatory networking experience.

Jeff......

Saturday, November 22, 2008

TEST of Mogulus

Rachel's Individual Final Project

I explored mogulus.com an online video production website. I made an online video lesson on writing myths. I read the book How the Jackrabbit Got His Very Long Ears by Heather Irbinkas. I asked the students scaffolding questions related to 4th grade reading standards.

Writing Myths

2 comments:

Jeff Billings said...

Rachel,

Please post here what you observed from your students as you shared the video - were they intrigued with the video, what was good, what was bad, and what you would do different the next time....

I think it would be interesting the next time you're out to have your substitute go to a live or taped delay broadcast of a small piece of your instruction using Mogulus. It would be interesting to expose young children to this media.

Jeff....

Rachel said...

When I showed this clip of myself reading a book to begin a language arts lesson to my students they were instantly engaged. They were so excited. The good thing was that I could post this video to my website and students that missed class could catch up easily from home. The bad thing is you loose that chance to add in comments from the day on the spot. Example: reading a book about idioms you might throw in that Matt and Lisa had some monkey business going on today and that helps the kids engage. However these comments could also be thrown in by talking about it after the video.

I would definitely use Mogulus to leave a day of sub plans. This could be a recorded lesson that you worked on in the summer; perfect!