June 27, 2010 – A good list of books to read, on the suggestion of Gary Stager.
June 27, 2010 – A good list of books to read, on the suggestion of Gary Stager.
June 27, 2010 – A good list of books to read, on the suggestion of Gary Stager.
June 27, 2010 – A good list of books to read, on the suggestion of Gary Stager.
June 27, 2010 – A good list of books to read, on the suggestion of Gary Stager.
June 27, 2010 – A good list of books to read, on the suggestion of Gary Stager.
June 20, 2010 – A compilation of summer reading programs for students. Great to share with students.
June 20, 2010 – A compilation of summer reading programs for students. Great to share with students.
June 5, 2010
May 30, 2010 – Dan Meyer talks about giving teachers a break when it comes to learning technology.
I love this quote:
The point is that y’all don’t understand that you’re a bunch of freaks. Someone links up some new online Photoshop knock-off and on muscle memory alone you’re entering in your e-mail address and a password and clonking away at your new toy.
Real people aren’t like that. And you give them too much grief, sometimes, for their unwillingness to sign up for ten different web apps to service ten different nuances in their learning which you have judged to be equally essential.
and:
every time you tell a teacher to download a new application or set up an account with a new web application, the teacher loses a fingertip.
Funny and so true, Dan!
May 30, 2010 – Good notes on what classrooms should look like and what students should be learning by doing.
May 29, 2010 – Very creative way to introduce podcasting to a class. I appreciate how Silvia Tolisano shares her process and the resulting product. Excellent!
May 28, 2010 – Using QR codes, books can become interactive and social. Interesting new development using these codes.
May 27, 2010 – Kathy Schrock is using the power of the network to find out which apps on the ipad will project through the vga cable. Crowdsourcing is a great way to learn new things.
May 21, 2010
May 19, 2010 – Dean shares how an individual has created a huge collection of math videos that students can use to learn math. Dean asks a very important question:
“What are the implications here? Could a student learn Algebra with this without attending a high school class? What does it make us rethink when it comes to school and learning?”
May 15, 2010
May 14, 2010 – A case against the interactive whiteboard. I agree that schools spend too much of their budget on these devices, especially if they sit in rooms unused. Hopefully, as the projectors that have interactivity built into them come down in price, the interactive whiteboard will be affordable and ubiquitous. It’s true you can do all the things without an interactive whiteboard that are explained in this post, but if the price were right, I’d like one. However, at the ridiculous prices they are right now, I’d much rather have more netbooks or other devices to put in the hands of students.
May 14, 2010 – A case against the interactive whiteboard. I agree that schools spend too much of their budget on these devices, especially if they sit in rooms unused. Hopefully, as the projectors that have interactivity built into them come down in price, the interactive whiteboard will be affordable and ubiquitous. It’s true you can do all the things without an interactive whiteboard that are explained in this post, but if the price were right, I’d like one. However, at the ridiculous prices they are right now, I’d much rather have more netbooks or other devices to put in the hands of students.
May 11, 2010 – Dean Shareski reflects on the power of the personal learning network, connecting us with people with whom we’ve never met face to face.
May 10, 2010
The Problem
Those of us in the local district want to share our retreat presentations with others in our local district who will be using these presentations to host their own retreats. The presentations contain many videos. We downloaded those videos (mostly) from YouTube. We can share those downloaded videos, but it would be better if others knew how to download those videos themselves so they could add them into their PowerPoint presentations.
Solution 1 – Use an Online Converter
Zamzar is by far the easiest video converter of them all. Simply copy and past the web address of the YouTube video you want to convert, choose your file type, and put in an email address. (Select .wmv for windows or .mov for mac.) In a few hours, you will get an email with a link to download your videos. The downside of this method is 1) you have to wait and 2) the video quality is not as good as if you downloaded the video and converted it yourself.
Solution 2- Video Download Helper
One of the easiest tools to use is DownloadHelper, which is a free extension forFirefox, a freely downloadable browser that works on all platforms like Windows, Mac, or Linux.
First, if you don’t already have it, download and install Firefox. You can download it from the Firefox website. After you have it installed, open it up and visit the website to download the extension, Download Helper.
Guy McDowell posted an article on some great step-by-step directions on how to download, install and use Download Helper.
This program is easy to use once it’s configured. It’s a little difficult to get everything working just right.
Solution 3 – Real Download Helper
I prefer to use the Real Player Downloader. I don’t use Real Player much, but I really like this application.The only problem with this application is that you need to use a separate program to convert the video (see below). It will temporarily download all videos to a folder. When you want to save one, you simply click on the Download link to download the flash video. The RealPlayer site has some good directions on how to download and configure this very useful application.
The Need to Convert with Real Player Downloader
I usually don’t need to convert Flash videos to play on a PowerPoint on the Mac, but just in case your version of PowerPoint isn’t the same as mine, you might need to convert your media to play inside the PowerPoint presentation (.wmv on Windows and .mov on Mac). I use Handbrake (a free, cross platform converter) to convert videos. It’s easy to use, has some built in configurations, and some online manuals to help you out.
Just Play It!
Sometimes, to avoid the extra step of converting, I just play the video in the .flv flash video format. You can quickly switch between open applications like PowerPoint and a Video Window using the keyboard command, Command + Tab on the mac, and Control + Tab on the PC.
I use a free, cross platform media player, VLC (Video Lan Converter) application, to easily play any video. I’m sure that whether you are using a Mac or a PC, you’ve probably had trouble playing a video at one time or another. The VLC player has been able to play any video I’ve opened with it. This is a very useful free tool.
The Videos
Here are the videos we used in the Retreat presentations. Most of them are blocked by the firewall at school, so you will need to access at home to download and convert them.
Why Teams Fail – Patrick Lencioni from The 5 Dysfunctions of a Team (for the Trust piece)
3 Steps http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPQlu5Vxm28
Education Today: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fnh9q_cQcUE
A Vision of K12 Students Today: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_A-ZVCjfWf8
Ori Brafman and Maria Bartiromo – Starfish and the Spider interview (can’t locate)
Steve Jobs on Presentation – Can’t find the one we used – Search on YouTube for your favorite.
Christian the Lion: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pNv2A4Kfx4k&feature=related (I can’t find the one with the Whitney Houston soundtrack, but there are plenty of others.)
The Crazy Ones: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABJgwsvK1XU
Death by PowerPoint http://www.technicallyfunny.com/videos.htm The one on the original website is of much higher quality than those found on YouTube.
May 4, 2010
May 4, 2010 – Good advice on steps to develop a solid technology plan.
May 3, 2010 – Amen!
May 3, 2010 – Doug Noon makes me think, always. This post has me thinking about what we need to make available for our students to read. Textbooks are reference books, and not intended to be read cover to cover. Amen.
With such rich access to relevant reading material and media, why do we continue to rely so heavily on textbooks?
The links to podcasts and articles in this post will inform my learning on the new digital literacy that we need to make sure our students have access to.
May 3, 2010 – Another book I must read soon. Will this book make a difference? As much as I like Obama, I do not like his current educational policy. It feels like more of the same that we’ve had the past 8 years. When is it going to stop! It seems rather insane.
After reading this post, I am more determined to get this book in my hands this week.
May 3, 2010 – I always like how Bud pushes my thinking about what is happening these days with gizmos and gadgets. These new tools have begun to replace the software fix – craze – of a year years past.
Software was sold a solution to a problem. Buy this software and your students will learn algebra. Spend millions (big district) on this software, and your students will read and write and score better on standardized tests.
Now, often, the media gets it wrong when citing scholarly success with the ipads, ipodtouches,cellphones, kindles, smartboards…
Bud reminds me to think about what this is selling. What we really need to be talking about is the learning. Always.
Still, how do you convince people who think like this that technology is important, but only when used to make that learning more accessible.
May 3, 2010 – Good to have the directions for getting a YouTube search feed. Can’t wait to see the TEDxBANFF videos.
May 3, 2010 – Good to have the directions for getting a YouTube search feed. Can’t wait to see the TEDxBANFF videos.
May 3, 2010 – I want this book. Has to be an exciting read.
May 2, 2010 – Brian shares links to recent research that state that writing improves reading. Seems obvious, but sometimes, we forget the obvious when we get caught up in the moment. Good reading and thoughts to digest.
May 2, 2010 – An excellent post by Dean Shareski on how to deal with the enormous amount of information available to us today. He offers what has worked for him and why he chooses to filter and attend to information in the way that he does.
