31. May 2010 by MrBall.

Working on 1:1 Laptops with a K-6 school. I want to give the teachers and students sites they can use to collaborate with on projects. I also want to show them the full use of their laptops. Some of the reasources we will be using are…

 MathTask.notebook These are taken from the Puddle Math Tasks book. I merged the tasks I could remember with websites to make them laptop/internet friendly.

ietherpad.com Group sharing

Edmodo.com Secure site for titter like sharing (with extra tools).

grabbabeast.com Fun monster building site.

and SpellingCity.com if we have extra time.

Posted in 2.0, 1:1 Laptops | 1 Comment »

26. May 2010 by MrBall.

I am so blessed to have gotten this email. Please line up at my front door tomorrow morningas I will be handing out million dollar bills to all visitors.  Please read…

Dearest One in Christ,

May our good Lord bless your going out and coming in and provide all your needs through Jesus Christ our Lord Amen.

Dear in Christ,

I am Rev Father Raymond Willis, i am writing you this mail as God has directed me after 1 week fasting and prayers. Be informed that i went for a medical check up, and my doctor called me personally that i will not last for the next 2 weeks due to my heart illness. And i know i will die, of which i have prayed and ask God for a divine favour.

I have decided to donate the sum of $4,500,000,000 USD for a Church or an individual as I do not have a child to inherit it and it’s better I do not die leaving the money here without it reaching to the poor and the lessprivileged ones in the society. As soon as I receive your reply I shall tell my bank to transfer the money to you.

Informations Required from you are:

Your Full Name(…………………….. )

Your Direct Tel & Fax N°:(………………….,)

Your Home & Office addresses(…………………………)

Your Bank Account (………………)

With these informations, I will forward them to the Bank for immediately transferring of the Funds to your Position. Please always pray for me and let God give me more Good health to stay in this World. EMAIL ME ON: ( raymond.willis@hotmail.com ) FOR FURTHER DETAILS.

Best Regards,

Rev Father Raymond Willis.

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22. May 2010 by MrBall.

Yesterday we moved over to St. Peter Learning centre. Our Tech Ed. group will be joining the Learning Support Services group and we will be called Learning Services Innovation.

Yesterday’s activities were meant to bring us together as a team and start us looking towards the future of Catholic Education for 21st Century teaching and learning. One of the major activities we did (not the most important) was to brainstorm around the words Welcome, Wonder, and Witness and how they can be demonstrated concretely. Here is the PowerPoint that I created with my group.

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19. May 2010 by MrBall.

Day three is titled “Find a Non-Specialist Geek”. I really like the idea of making connections with the specialists.

Once, in doing PD with a school for several weeks I found that upon leaving the principal said to me. “What do we do now that you are going?” I had recommended to this principal in the planning stages that a leader from the school be brought forward so that I could train that person on the particulars of that project. I wanted the project to carry on without me not just because of the benefits it would provide to student expression but also because it involved some big $$.

No one was selected and I wasn’t able to coax a leader out of the staff. My new goal in planning with school communities is to find that leader who can champion the projects so that things don’t dry up when I leave.

It is sad for me that things won’t continue when I am gone. The schools have the tech tools and the software. The students know what to do but because the teachers don’t have the know how these things don’t evolve. It is a waste of money and often a blow to the student motivation at the school.

So as you go out to plan make sure there are leaders who believe in the things you are doing and use them and their skills to make things stick. The specialist doesn’t need to be a geek just a leader.

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18. May 2010 by MrBall.

From the post of day 2 I have very little to say. It isn’t that I am trying to be modest but I often don’t feel as though I have had many chances to delegate jobs to others.

As a leader of a summer music camp, back in the days, I had many opportunities to delegate work. I was never comfortable delegating work in that atmosphere. I felt inexperienced for the task and easily not as confident as I now feel. Also I often felt like I was passing the buck. It isn’t that I felt others weren’t competent. I wouldn’t hire people if I didn’t think they could do a good job.

In delegating work more recently I have had only a few chances but it is now easier for a few reasons. First, I have a better idea of the skill sets and interests of my co-worker. We were chosen with skill diversity in mind. Second I am more confident in my role as a consultant and a tech leader.

Reflecting back in the change I think my confidence level is one of the deciding factors in delegating work. Now htat I feel more responsible and more knowledgeable I am able to let go of the total control of a project and give out work to others.

Posted in Management, Reflections | 1 Comment »

18. May 2010 by MrBall.

I just found this blog where they are doing 31 days to Become a Better Ed Tech Leader
and I thought I would follow along  in the journey here. I am behind by at least a week and am quite busy so I probably won’t try to catch up. So here is my reflection on day 1.

SWOT Analysis (very Brief)

Strengths

Broad technology knowledge base

A wife who reminds me that tech has its place.

Weaknesses

Often over confident

Opportunities

My job, my blog, twitter, and a

Threats

reluctant teachers, admin, and other consultants.

Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

18. May 2010 by MrBall.

The school year is starting to slow down for me as a consultant. Teachers are busy finishing off the year and they don’t really want us to get in the way.

I’ve stopped off at a few schools and sent out emails to principals hoping that they can keep me busy before the last day. I want to finish off this year, which has been the best, helping teachers 1:1 with thier planning needs for the next year. Here is hoping I can fill my dance ticket and not be left in the office buying things on Ebay!

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16. May 2010 by MrBall.

Concordia students prefered Facebook as a means of sharing work. I was sharing things with Concordia University Ed students via moodle only to find out that they have created a page for the course. We were even using ietherpad.com to share links to Math resources but that failed for me. I asked them to put together the days assignment on Microsoft Word only to find out that many had actuall switched to Facebook as a sharing tool.

They weren’tall friends with each other but they did all use the page. They posted photos and links and managed discussions all on Facebook before I even knew that the ietherpad was failing for them. Move over Moodle and iEtherpad Facebook is taking your place.

Posted in Management, Reflections, Presentation | No Comments »

14. May 2010 by MrBall.

One of the main worries I have had in my job as a consultant is classroom management. Should I have to manage someone’s classroom while they are in the room?

Usually classroom visits are great. I am bringing in cool tools and the kids are totally engaged in learning about them. Sometimes I deal with the small distractions: use proximity, remind them to focus, give them count downs, help them to cope with me the new person in the class. Sometimes it gets out of control and since I have very little follow up time with students after and no knowledge of many of the school procedures I have to do discipline on the spot.

I have had it happen a couple of times where the students are quite disrespectful and the teacher does nothing. I’ve had teachers leave the classroom (which they should know is a ‘no no’) and I have brought a lesson to a complete halt because there were too many students off task and not willing to listen.

I was thinking about all this yesterday while I was watching a student teacher do a lesson on bullying. The class was disruptive and unruly, basically bullying the student teacher. The student teacher was presenting and the classroom teacher pulled out a newspaper and started cutting out coupons! The kids started to get very disruptive so I started to float around and put out small fires but still it was no good. The student teacher did a fabulous job trying to bring the class back with some Brain Gym exercises and still the classroom teacher just sat as students called out. This was not my lesson and I did not want to intervene but I thought I should help her. In the end I complimented her on her efforts and her patience.

What do you think? Should I take over a class if the teacher is not helping. How much control do I need to take?

Posted in Management, Engagement | No Comments »

12. May 2010 by MrBall.

I was asked recently by another consultant team to give them a tour of the Discovery Education Streaming site so that they could present it to other teachers. Yeah, I know. We’re not going there though.

I quickly grabbed Smart Notebook 10 Software and started planning where I would take them on a screen recording session. I logged into my account and found that they had a professional development section (picture below). So beig the lazy yet efficient guy that I am I simply recorded a 60 second screen cast of where to find those resources.  Thank you Discovery Education! 

Posted in Presentation | No Comments »