26. February 2010 by admin.

At ECSD we have a ton of SMART boards. I like SMART boards they are a good teaching tool. Our Techies don’t like SMART because they roll out too many updates. For a while it seemed like it was every other week we had a new SMART update. This is a pain for our site based technicians because they are the only ones who have install privileges. I wanted to check out this presentation because I thought that it was about Promethean boards. It is always good to know about what else is out there.

New Words for me: Active Air Technologies, Active Votes, Active Studio, Active Inspire PrometheanPlanet.org (free), and Prometheanlearning.com .

Okay, so this is not the intro to Promethean session that I wanted (I still get a free lunch out of it). It was actually more of a vendor selling a myriad of different tech with a Promethean board at the front. Sorry Promethean you weren’t the only belle at this ball. Anyway, here are the features the Presentation Partners Rep’s gave us.

1.       The Active Air Technology for the Active Votes and (I’m guessing) the other peripherals uses a system which automatically switches frequency. Helps to prevent lost signals due to interference and fight the Borg invasion. Not sure how that is different from Bluetooth. Presentor couldn’t explain.

2.       You can import features from SMART notebook files into the Inspire Software. I like this.

3.       Promethean can import animated GIFs. Do we want pretty or learning? I suppose both would be nice.

4.       The Activote has A- F choices plus a center button that looks like it is supposed to start a fire. I think that is the enter button.

5.       He has only used the pen tool to manipulate and create items. Is seems that the Promethean needs to have a pen to do any work. Don’t lose the pen!

6.       Use Real Player to download youtube videos. I will look into this more even though I really like pwn-ing and kiss-ing youtube.com 

Those were the highlights as I saw them. I didn’t really feel as though I learned about Promethean board but I guess I fooled myself since the session was titled “Promethean: Classroom of the Future future future (Insert your own echo here)”. I’ve found a school in ECSD that has a few Promethean boards and I’m going to get some classroom teacher perspective on them. I’m sure that will be more helpful.

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26. February 2010 by admin.

Here are a few tips for all of your SMART LE needs. If you haven’t heard the SMART Tech team has a new lower elementary set of SENTEOS (which are now actually called Smart Response). I have had a huge headache trying to get the lower elementary clickers to work with my software. Luckily I chatted up the Cine rep today and she gave me some answers. I feel a little foolish once I realized how easy it is to make the switch between the different SMART response systems. These Windows OS Instructions will be similar to the the Mac OS ones. If you’re running Linux you’re on your own! Here is what you do.

 1.       Go to your START bar, select All Programs> SMART Technologies>SMART Response>Setup Tool (see picture below left). Your screen will look a little different.

2.       Pay attention to this next part! Select the clicker you are going to use and then hit the ‘OK’ button.

                       If you have any questions about the process please leave me a comment down below and I will help you out.

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26. February 2010 by admin.

1to1alberta.ca

Ralph Luedtke introduced the 1:1 laptop initiative from emerge. Proposals went out in 2006, 20 school jurisdictions were awarded 300,000 dollars to fund projects. The province also gained access for the participating schools to have electronic books through the Teacher Book Depository. Teachers were also given a chance to participate in an online community to help support their growth.

Objectives:

Enhancing teaching and learning for specific populations

Or

Improving students learning in targeted areas.

All had to address 21^st Cent. Skills

1^st year obstacle – Established a community of Practice, Focus on Technology (battery)

2^nd year- Expand the community, focus on transforming teaching and learning.

3^rd year- Share the journey.

Research Questions (Metiri group) Cheryl Lemke- enGauge 21^st Century Skills

1.       What are the potential ed. Benefits of 1:1 laptop learning?

2.       What are the technical merits and innovative practices in 1:1 wireless learning?

3.       What expertise, experience and lessons learned have come from the Emerge 1:1 Laptop Learning Project in Alberta?

4.       What is the lvl of jurisdictional and prov. readiness systemically advancing 21^st cent, learning and effective uses of technology in Learning?

5.       What are the trends and/or variances across indicators over time?

Wordle of EPSB journal entries show students as the most entered word, laptops and projects come in second and third together.

The 1:1 Laptop initiative is shifting the teaching model away from the sage on the stage towards learning facilitators. 1:1 is freeing up students so that they can learn and demonstrate at their own level or pace. Laptops are motivating because they provide students with the means to search out their own learning and understanding. They also allow students to express themselves creatively and more easily with fellow students.

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24. February 2010 by admin.

I am currently an emerging technology consultant with the Edmonton Catholic School district. This really just means that I get to combine two of my favourite things; technology and kids. My first role is that of a teacher, students always come first! In my role I get to teach teachers and students how to use tech tools (software and peripherals) effectively. For the teachers I work on getting them to use the tools along side the pedagogy and curricular expertise they already have. For the students I try to instill in them a strong sense of media awareness. Not all technology is what it is cracked up to be.

The idea for the Casual Teacher site name was given to me by one of my co-workers and it represents two things. First, it relates to my relaxed and uncomplicated way of living. Second, it uses the currently popular tag for the “Casual Games” to draw a link towards digital games as learning tools. I am very excited to have my own site and I hope it draws me into more current and relevant classroom practices.

One of the reasons I am now posting on my own site is so that my message doesn’t get confused with the districts message. I love the ECSD community and I am sure I won’t say anything controversial but I want to move my thoughts away from their property so there is no confusion about what I say and what they stand for. Trust me ECSD is a great place to work and this is really more about protecting them than me.

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19. February 2010 by admin.

This week I’ll be at the Singspiration music camp helping the campers to music videos with computers. To start with though we’re going to take a tour of some websites I’ve found that deal with music.

Musical Mysteries: BBC Schools This is a fun musical mystery game where you need to find musical clues so you can solve the (you guessed it!) mystery.

ArtsAlive - The National Arts Center

DSO Kids (Dallas Symphony Orchestra)
SFS Kids - San Francisco Kid’s Site

Music Notes: Interactive -
Instruments
Games - Check out the interval game. Can you name a Major Six?

LostSounds.com Interesting use of everyday instruments to make some pretty cool music. Check out the html Sounds page to see and hear some of the cool instruments they are using.

EAVB_YDNPECNITN

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19. February 2010 by admin.

Quick post on two virtual manipulative sites that would worl well with any interactive white board.
http://www.fi.uu.nl/rekenweb/en/
http://nlvm.usu.edu/en/nav/vlibrary.html

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19. February 2010 by admin.

Here is the link to the voice draw application.
http://www.zefrank.com/v_draw_beta/index3.html

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18. February 2010 by admin.

I’ve had a lovely three days at St. Anne school. The staff were very eager to learn how they can incorporate Smart boards into their regular lessons. My goals in demonstrating the Smart boards to teachers has changed to fit. Previously I would work my way across the top of the tool bar and shown them a tool at a time. I would show teachers a tool and an example of how I’ve use that tool. Over

The last couple of weeks at St. Elizabeth and St. Anne I have had many teachers ask simply for a demonstration of how I would teach a lesson with the board. I have gotten a lot of positive feedback from teachers of all levels through this form of demonstration. The first thing teachers say to me is “Is that all!? I can do that.” which is combined with a look of relief on their faces. I think that the Smart board has become a monster to some who don’t understand that it is simply another tool.

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18. February 2010 by admin.

Fun word making game. http://club.live.com/Pages/Games/GameList.aspx?game=Chicktionary

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18. February 2010 by admin.

Criteria for evaluating games in education
1. The game has an educationally-accessible context (historical, contemporary, hard science-fiction).
2. Game play has genuinely educationally-accessible content.
3. Success depends on intelligent choices and decisions.
4. Failure exists and teaches when it happens. It is possible to lose.
5. The tutorial is crystal clear, and checks for understanding.
6. There are multiple victory conditions.
7. The feedback model is short - students can quickly see how a decision effects a larger whole picture.
8. The game becomes increasingly challenging and difficult.
Taken from:
http://www.mackenty.org/index.php/site/comments/criteria_for_evaluating_games_in_education/

Websites of note:
http://digiplay.info/
Research papers and other publications on the topic of understanding digital games.

http://powerup.wikispaces.com/ -
Mark Wagner is completing his PhD.

http://www.furl.net/member/ewagner -
A list of educational games.

http://www.socialimpactgames.com/index.php -
Entertaining games with Non- Entertaining goals. (Serious Games)

Games:
Starfall (K- 2)
Multiflier (Gr. 3)
Plupon (3- 6 warm up)
Third World Farmer (Gr. 6-
Games for the Brain (Gr. 7-9)
‘Speare (Gr. 10- 12) password needed
Not a game- Game Maker (Gr. 8- 12)

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