Moving My Blog

I'm moving to a new blog address: http://digivues.blogspot.com. Look for new postings there.

MIT and High School Courses

MIT is now offering courseware for High School students and the cost...free! Highlights for High School provides students with coursework to help with AP classes, video demonstrations, lab experiments, competitions and more.

Highlights for High School is the latest addition to the Opencourseware that MIT has been providing for over 6 years. While this new endeavor focuses the magnifying glass on processes and content to help high school students and teachers, it is not the first time that MIT has provided assisstance. Dating as far back as 1956 when MIT professors collaborated with high school physics teachers to help define the best approach to teaching introductory physics or when in 1957 MIT students committed to working with middle and high school students, which is still active today.

Additional Resources:

University Lectures

MIT OpenCourseWare

Open Yale

Open Consortium

Spell with Flickr

I have to admit, sometimes I'm pretty simple and like the shiny objects. Spell with Flickr is a simple but elegant program, written by Erik Kastner, which searches the Flickr database of pictures to spell out any word of your choosing.

You simply type in the word(s) that you want spelled and hit enter. After receiving the initial rendering you can change any letter simply by clicking on it. Once you found a combination that you like, copy the code and paste it into your html code.

Below is my daughter's name created using Spell with Flickr:

I'm still working out how to use this in PowerPoint and other "nonweb" based programs.

Board of Education

Daily Lit

I spent much of my day today participating in continuous partial attention and while endlessly searching for more, I came across DailyLit. "DailyLit lets you read entire books in short, customized installments sent to you by email or RSS."

Creating an account in DailyLit is rather straight forward by following the links from REGISTER, which appears at the top, right of the page. The username that you choose will become your public identity and will show on your DailyLit homepage and on any posts that you make to the site. After creating your account a confirmation code is sent to your email in order to confirm that you want to be a member. Then the fun begins.

You can search for books by Author, Title or Category. I started by searching for "classics" in the category section, knowing that these books would be free for public use as the copyright has expired. I chose a couple to experiment with and added them to my account. I decided to send these installments to my email because my RSS "in basket" is already quite full. You can tweak your settings to enlarge the font size, and to specify when they should be delivered.


I appreciate the graphics and clean display of the email that is sent. Take notice that at the bottom of each email are adjustments that can be made such as, delivering another installment right away, suspending delivery for awhile or discussing the book in a forum.

Maybe this time my New Years resolution to read the classics will actually happen. Technology just keeps making my life easier.

MVU Closing Address

The closing address at the Michigan Virtual Symposium 2008 was a panel discussion moderated by Richard Ferdig. The following is a paraphrased version of the panelists responses to questions:

Panelists:
Michael Flanagan, Superintendent of Public Education, Michigan Department of Education
Dan DeGrow, Superintendent, St. Clair RESA
Jayne Mohr, Associate Superintendent, Traverse City Area Public Schools
Lorri MacDonald, Michigan Online Teacher of the Year; Online Instructor, MVU
Jamey Fitzpatrick, President & CEO, MVU ,
Michael Horn, co-founder and Executive Director of Innosight Institute
Warren Buckleitner, Children's Technology Review

Talking About the Future:
What does disruptive Innovation mean to you?

Michael Flanagan: Where we are right now: State Superintendent can waive seat time. Customizing education with technology can help all kids hit home runs. This is an opportunity to be student based and not teacher based. We need to attach money to proficiency and not seat time.

Lorri MacDonald: "In every crisis there is an opportunity" Schools should be open 24-7

Jamey Fitzpatrick: In the recent past no superintendent was asking for a virtual school, but now its needed. We can get smarter about how we innovate. Danger is thinking that technology is extra with budget constraints.

Michael Horn: We need a common language so that we don't speak over each other. Our solutions and visions might not be exactly right, but hopefully a common language has begun. Most excited about learning.

Warren Buckleitner: Think about mastery learning, its proven and can be done in a variety of ways. Kids are smarter than we think and we need to give them access and get out of the way. All the pieces are there, they've been developed and theory is there and waiting for us to put it to work.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
QA

Micheal Flanagan: not larger schools! Don't need to build them...when we put the for sale sign on it who will buy it? Funding needs to be adjusted and addressed. Early childhood is an important area.

My question: Are the days of ISDs numbered and bricks and mortar schools soon gone?
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Parting comments:
Dan DeGrow: Online education is only going to grow. Our job is to make it successful

Jayne Mohr: Our children are our future the online learning experiences are possible because of the seat time waivers. Blended instruction is an option.

Michael Flanagan: don't limit yourself to what you can do without permission! Not everything requires a waiver.

Lorri MacDonald: If we keep doing what we've always done we will get what we've always gotten. Creativity needs to be encouraged. Look to learn from kids.

Michael Horn: Disruptive innovation is a force that extends benefits to more people by driving down cost. Everyone can have a computer on their desk. Disruption expands benefits...accessibility will come.

Warren Buckleitner: a forest fire fertilizes the ground for new growth, boats rise on the account of water, don't throw out your old shoes until you have new shoes.

MVU Lunchtime Keynote Warren Buckleitner

Exploiting Educational Technology

Warren Buckleitner invites audience to touch his floppy disk, he doesn't even care!

The lunchtime keynote. presented by Warren Buckleitner gave a overview of many of the technologies that are being used today. His vision of one laptop per child is to employ the use of the Nintendo DS. Its affordable and many students already own it. This also capitalizes on the current gaming trend that does much of what good instruction is all about: instant feedback, mastery learning, testing, scaffolding and opportunities for apprenticeships where one gamer tutors another.

Warren also shared the wiki that he created for the keynote and it can be found at: http://rutgerstech.wikispaces.com/MVU

Peter Arashiro, MVU, working the Wii Music program while waiting for the lunchtime keynote. Now that's innovative entertainment.

Acer Aspire One

I'm typing this post on the Acer Aspire One at the MVU Symposium. This is my first opportunity to put this computer through the paces and I have to admit that I like it quite a bit. Although the keyboard is a bit compact and the touch pad seems to be in line with proper thumb placement, it doesn't hamper my use. Mainly because I have a very bad habit of using my right index finger to use the space bar, therefore, my thumbs don't rest on the touchpad.


I quickly connected to the network, accepted the user agreement and got to work opening several simultaneous windows. I opened Microsoft Word 2007, ooVoo, and several Firefox tabs including connecting to the webmail server for my district. So far all is going well. It is very light weight and is even easy to handle when using my lap as a table top. I've install several programs such as Skype, ooVoo, Quest Atlantis, Firefox, Chrome and more and they all appear to be working.

Although the storage space is limited, I don't find this to be a deal breaker because I find that I use remote server spaces for much of my work. This blog is hosted by blogspot, my documents are saved to Google docs and there is always a thumb drive if needed.

I think that this is going to be a holiday gift to myself.

The Best "Cellers" List

Five out of the top ten novels on the best sellers list in Japan started out as cell phone novels. Cell phone novels are are meant to be read in 1,000 to 2,000-word (in China) or 70-word (in Japan) chapters via text message on mobile phones and are downloaded in short installments. This trend began as far back as 2003, when author Yoshi thumbed out the first novel, Deep Love. It has become so popular that Japanese websites have sprung up to help manage the flood of new authors and recent novels have even migrated from instant messages to traditional mass market paperback format.

Although cell phone novels have not yet acheived the enormous popularity in the United States, the increase in gas prices may spike a rise in readership. How are the two connected, you might ask. Much of the readership in Japan is linked to the use of public transportation and from passengers taking advantage time that they have while in route or waiting for their connections. Currently less than 5% of Americans use public transportation, but ridership has risen dramatically in the past year with increase in gas prices.

Paul Levinson, professor at Fordam University, "I think (cellphone novels) will be 100 percent enormously popular here in the United States," he says. "The ideas that novels have to come in books, and that people have to read a large amount at once, is an old-fashioned concept." Digital Directions, Katie Ash, A Novel Idea

If you're interested in reading some cell phone novels check out TextNovel. You can set your preferences to receive updates on your mobile, email or to read the novel directly from their website.

Do You ooVoo?

I've been a fan of Skype for some time. I've used it in a variety of ways from staying connected to my daughter, who is away at college, to collaborating with teachers from around the world. Although I've used only a few of the features that Skype has to offer, such as audio only conference calls, video calls, and collaborative games, I really like the power of staying connected that it affords.

However, ooVoo, the new kid on the block, has caught my attention. I was looking for a tool which allowed more than 1 video connection to be displayed at once and came across ooVoo. The basic, free account, allows up to 3 video callers to be displayed, while the upgrade allows up to 6. I've found the video to be much cleaner than Skype and with a simple click you can transmit a higher quality image.

There are additional features to ooVoo that make the experience quite fun. Sending video messages and altering your image with the webcam max program that can be installed along with ooVoo, is just one example. Sending files and placing free calls to land lines and mobile phones are some of the features that may be "bumped up" to the paid version soon.

I suppose that you have to take the good with the bad and be willing to put up with the advertising window that runs along the bottom of the interface, but to me it seems a small price to pay for such a quality experience. So in short, if you're a fan of Skype, try out ooVoo and make your own comparison.

Z

Animoto offers free educational accounts. Check it out!

Quest Atlantis

I was online the other night for the first of a series of professional development training sessions for Quest Atlantis. Quest Atlantis is one of the newer online virtual worlds that capitalizes on students digital nature and love of gaming. QA combines the rich problem solving aspects of a well written webquest and the virtual environment of Teen Grid. For those of you unfamiliar with Quest Atlantis, you may want to watch the overview below.


Although my colleagues and I are just in the beginning stages of exploration of this international virtual world, we all agree that it has much to offer. While Quest Atlantis lacks in the rich graphic display and flexible use of Teen Grid, it more than makes up for it with the comprehensive, modern curriculum. There are currently over 600 quests from which to choose! Questers are actively involved in solving engaging curricular tasks which explore each of the 4 different worlds created around 7 social committments.

Wisdom

Creative Expression

Environmental Awareness

Personal Agency

Healthy Communities

Social Responsibility

Diversity Affirmation

QA is more open to the outside world as compared to Teen Grid which not only opens the particpants to more opportunities for collaboration, but it also poses some additional challenges. I look forward to using this curriculum with the students and will keep you posted on all the latest developments.