A Reminder to Check Out Google Apps and Google Chrome

I hope everyone had a great holiday weekend and continues to rest and relax, getting ready for a new year. I came across a post on The Innovative Educator and I thought it was another good reminder to check out Google Chrome all of the great resources that Google Apps for Education provides.


It is really quick and easy to install Chrome as your browser. It is becoming a very popular browser choice because of its speed and ease of use. As this post explains, it also allows you to add extensions and apps that are tied right to your browser. Many of these have great applications in the classroom. I will be coming to faculty meetings early in the new year and demonstrate why everyone should be aware of Google Chrome and Google Apps! 


Remember that all faculty and students now have a mohonasen.net google/gmail account- just contact Jamie to activate yours. I also strongly recommend creating an iGoogle page and then setting it as your home page on any computer you use. Its kind of like creating a personal "home" on the web where you can keep yourself organized. Play around with these tools this week and see what you think...  


Enjoy the rest of the vacation!

Check out more @ The Innovative Educator

TUESDAY, DECEMBER 27, 2011

Check out the Top 10 Most Read Stories on TechLearning.com

Check out the Top 10 Most Read Stories on TechLearning.com

1. Top 10 Sites for Educational Games

2. 25 Free Resources from Discovery Education

3. Free Education Apps

4. Ten Steps to Transforming Past Lessons for 21st Century Learners

5. Are We Digital Hoarders?

6. The Top Three Most Important Issues Facing K-12 Educational Technology for 2011-12

7. 20 Things Students Want the Nation to Know About Education

8. Sistine Chapel Virtual Tour

9. Technology I use on a daily basis

10. Apps for Reading Standards: Foundational Skills (K-1)

Warrior Summer...

Wow! What a beautiful stretch of weather! Took this picture this morning- Its always really cool to see this place get cranked up and roar to life after such a lazy summer-like weekend.

Take a look at this new initiative by YouTube called YouTube for Teachers . It has some great ideas. Also check out the collection at a related site:  YouTube Education- scroll down to find tons of resources by subject area.

Three BIG Technology Announcements to Start the Year!

1. Secure use of Personal Laptops at school is now possible! We piloted this last year with great success. All that you need to do is fill out this form and bring it and your device to a Tuesday Tech Talk once they start in October(watch Principal's Bulletin for schedule), and you will be set-up with wireless access.




2. Every student 7-12 now has a Mohonasen email address in the mohonasen.net domain (example j_smith@mohonasen.net)! Each teacher also has a mohonasen.net in case you want to keep your email to and from students separate from your mohonasen.org account. It is OK to separate them or to use one email address for all of your professional communication- That's totally a personal preference.


One really nice feature of this is that all of the traffic is monitored and logged so you can be assured that you are communicating with your students in an offical, school sacntioned capacity.


Another great thing about this is that mohonasen.net is not just an email account- It also includes a Google Docs account, a calendar, and a contacts list. This means that every student can share, collaborate, discuss, write, edit documents within the class. You can share out assignments and papers, comment on work that students share with you, etc... it could be a really powerful tool. There are tons of ways to learn more about Google Docs. We will have some classes after school very soon. Model Schools has classes. There are many online tutorials. Please consider using this powerful resource.


At this time, we are planning to notify high school students of their gmail/google docs accounts in the class meetings with Mr. Collins. Middle school accounts will be set up as teachers request them from Jamie or myself.



3. We have subscribed to a really interesting 7-12 Curriculum Resource called SAS Curriculum Pathways.  It is filled with a variety of technology enriched lessons (all tied to the Common Core and NYS Standards, btw) that you can use in class or assign to your students to complete on their own. It covers a wide variety of topics in Science, Math, English, Social Studies, and Spanish. There are 4 basic types of lessons:


     INTERACTIVE TOOLS: An Interactive Tool provides instruction and encourages insights in ways a textbook cannot. These tools enable students to clarify concepts and build skills.
     INQUIRIES:  An Inquiry is a guided, self-paced investigation, organized around a Focus Question. Students answer the question in a three-step process: read, research, and respond. Kind of like a web-quest.
     AUDIO TUTORIAL: An Audio Tutorial is a short lesson addressing core content. Audio and visuals help to solidify student understanding, which is assessed via an online quiz. 
     WEB LESSONS: Lessons are complete learning activities on a broad range of concepts and skills, designed for classroom use or independent study.


Check them out- I think you will be surprised. This is a free resource but you need an account to access these lessons. Kids do NOT need an account, just the district password. Follow this link and select Mohonasen Central School District to sign up for an account!  Click Here. [NOTE: Make sure you choose MOHONASEN HIGH SCHOOL with "Patrick McGrath" as the Primary contact. Don't choose the other ROTTERDAM-MOHONASEN that has "Ellen Sullivan" listed- we are trying to get that removed.]


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Find Ways for Students to Create their Own Content

Like it? Create your own at GoAnimate.com. It's free and fun!


One of the most powerful motivators for anyone is the creation of things that are actually real and valuable to others. As we design new projects and lessons, we should all keep this in mind. The beauty of the internet in 2011 is that every one of us- students and teachers alike- are able to share the things we make with anyone...everyone... in the world. This idea of creating and sharing authentic content crosses all content area lines. Publishing writing and video immediately comes to mind. Students can publish anything as an e-book with sites like issuu.com. Videos can be created for free on some sites, and shared worldwide on others. (Here are some tips on that)... In addition to these more "traditional" ways to publish ( :) ) there are many new ideas for projects out there.

Google Maps and Google Earth offer incredible possibilities. For example, students can use free architectural and 3D drawing software to create scale 3-D models of their homes or our school and submit them to Google Earth. Once excepted they are actually attached to Google Earth as a 3D building for the world to see.

FreeTech for Teachers featured site called Fresh Brain which highlights all sorts of ideas for making and publishing videos, creating FaceBook Apps, or building an original video game.

Students can edit music, learn the programming languages used in software development, start their own radio station or talkshow, design graphics, create cartoons and comic strips and so much more...all for free... Most of this can be worked on in the "cloud" so students could do work both at school and at home. Student products can be displayed on the large screens, projectors, and whiteboards that are increasingly common in our classrooms. Take a look at what is out there as we turn that August 1st corner and it will get you excited about getting back to school.

Two Great Sites for Science and Math

Here are links to two great sites for science and math. They are filled with dozens of free computer simulations. What I really like about them is that are "hands on" and they come with innovative lessons and ideas for turning mathematical and scientific concepts in to real applications that cause students to experiment, read, and write. As you explore the sites, you will see that they come with all kinds of lesson plans and ideas for teachers. I provided a sample from each site.

Interactive Simulations (from University of Colorado)
http://phet.colorado.edu/


Sample

Click here for an example: "Plinko"-style probability tool that you can play and experiment with.




Teaching Math and Computing through Culture (RPI)
 http://csdt.rpi.edu/

Sample

Click here to see how a lesson on Navajo Rug Weaving is used to teach Cartesian Coordinates.

Passion Driven Programs

Michele Whitley sent me these videos over the weekend and they made my day. Check out these kids and their teacher from a Staten Island Public School. There is nothing inherently unusual or special about that school or that neighborhood. I am sure that their Pupil Wealth Ratio is lower than many of the suburban districts around here.  I am not sure how they would rank in the "Capital Area Business Review." But I am sure that there is something special about that teacher. Even in these short clips you can tell that it is his energy and his enthusiasm that have transformed this classroom from "another music class" into a place where kids can absolutely take off. It is within our power to do this here at Mohonasen. Hope your summer is going well.

There is something very, very right about this...

I was walking down the 90s hall at Draper this morning... I heard a cacophony of sounds coming from the Band Room so I poked my head in. Students were getting warmed up and set up... wow...talk about a large class size! 70 students all with "noisemakers"!  A few kids asked me if I was the sub for today (Jay was out in the hallway)... I have to admit, it crossed my mind how funny it would've been if I... with no musical knowledge whatsoever... just stepped up to the center, picked up the baton, and tried to fake it! :) ....... Mr. Varga stepped in from the hallway and everybody quickly got into place. The lesson began. Of course, it amazed me how good they sounded... how 70 kids can come together with determination and skill.. and create a product. They worked on a selection called "Images of Ireland". I recorded a little bit (see below)- [sorry for the audio issues- the distortion at :17 and the silence at :38 is all due to my cell phone... but just give it a listen all the way through.] This is just a typical 30 second unplanned sample clip of what goes on in our music classrooms...band, orchestra, and choir, every single day. As I stood there and listened, I couldn't help but think...there is something very right about this...

The musical (Damn Yankees!) this past weekend was another example... It was absolutely great. The acting, the singing, the dancing... all came together for a moment in time that will live on in the memories of those parents and kids. The cast was so focused and so talented. You cannot walk away from that Band Rehearsal or the Spring Musical without the sense that there is something so great going on in these classes. It restores your faith that kids DO care, they DO want to learn, they WILL work hard, stretch themselves, and  EXCEL... they just need to find something they are passionate about...thats so critical. Congrats to the Cast and Crew of Damn Yankees!  There is something very, very right about all this...

3 Schools/3 Great Student Broadcast Samples from the Past Week...

Three of our buildings have student television broadcasts up and running. These broadcasts are created with a great deal of student participation. They are the product of the dedication of a number of teachers and staff members. Unless you worked in this setting and under the time pressures of a school day, it is sometimes hard to appreciate how much work it takes to put one of these together... and we have them happening in three buildings! Thank you all. Here are a few sample broadcasts from the past week alone....

 The Pinewood Scoop!

(produced weekly with help from Ms. Brousseau, Ms. Ranze, Ms. Spuzy, & Ms. Gallo)

The DMS TV Morning Broadcast 

(produced daily at Draper Middle School with help from Ms. Gallo & crew)

MHS TV

(produced weekly with help from Mr. Martin, Mr. Burega, and HS Live Production Staff)

Special thanks also to the entire Information/Technology Department including Tom Cimochowski, Jamie Dilbone, Frank DiNola, and Katja Schmidt for constant support and coordination of technology efforts. 

Reposted from an Interesting Blog...

I Thought this post was interesting and it contains a great list of resources at the end...

Guest Post from The Innovative Educator...

Educators Can Save Time When They Stop Reinventing the Wheel with OER(Open Educational Resources)

Since my early days of teaching I always wondered why hundreds of thousands of teachers across the globe were working in isolation to deliver the same classes to their students. If teachers everywhere were teaching English 1, World History, Algebra 1, Poetry, etc., why were they all writing their own lessons, searching for their own resources and materials? Hasn’t this all been done thousands of times before? The answer is yes, it has, and requiring teachers to waste their time writing lesson plans that already exist and search for resources that have already been found numerous times before is a colossal waste of time. Furthermore, if teachers were writing all these lesson plans and compiling resources, why on earth were we wasting countless dollars on dry, dull, and painfully BORING textbooks? It made no sense!

As I entered into the world of teaching I found something very disturbing and that was that many teachers preferred doing business in isolation, behind closed doors. Furthermore, I discovered that many teachers were very proprietary and did not believe in sharing their resources. While they may present to others about the work they had done, they were often loathe to turn over materials that others could reproduce with the sentiment that they didn’t want others taking credit for their work. This made no sense to me. Aren’t we all working together to provide the best materials, resources, and experiences for our students? Fortunately as the internet and social media have gained favor with innovative educators, there is much more sharing going on, but not to the extent that I had envisioned where central hubs would exist where materials are shared and used by any educator or learner.  Until now…

If you haven’t heard, there is a new movement in education and it’s called OER which stands for Open Educational Resources. I recently learned about this movement at iNacol’s Virtual School Symposium. This coordinated movement is backed by huge funders like the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and they’re all moving toward a common goal of providing quality courses for learning for free. “At the heart of the movement toward Open Educational Resources is the simple and powerful idea that the world’s knowledge is a public good and that technology in general, and the Worldwide Web in particular, provide an extraordinary opportunity for everyone to share, use, and re-use knowledge.” – The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation.

There are three categories that the resources are currently broken into. 

1) Courses, Courseware, Content Resources

· Carnegie Mellon University (OLI)

· Curriki

· HippoCampus (NROC)

· OER Commons

· Open CourseWare Consortium

· Rice Connexions

· Free Online Course Materials | MIT OpenCourseWare

· 300 Free Online Courses from Top Universities 

2) Open Textbook Projects

· CC Consortium for OER

· CK12

· Flatworld Knowledge

3) Repositories, Referatories, and Specialized Collections

· ActionBioscience.Org

· AMSER (NSF)

· Curriculum Pathways (SAS)

· Digital Library for Earth Science Ed

· GEM Referatory

· ide@s (U of Wisconsin System)

· Khan Academy

· Math Archives

· Mathalicious

· Merlot

· National Science Digital Library

· NOAA

· The PT3 Pathways Project

· PHET

· Wisc-Online

· Top 10 Sites for Educational Resources by David Kapuler 

If you are interesting in incorporating OER into the work you do, here are some resources to get started.

· Connexions online course about working with OER

· UNESCO OER Toolkit

· WikiEducator OER Handbook for Educators

Bradt LipDub and High School Premiere!

Take a look at the video that the Bradt Teachers put together to celebrate kick off an initiative to encourage kids to do one hour of physical activity per day beginning over winter break. What a great job! The video will be played for the kids friday afternoon.  The students will also also see presentations on karate (from parent Bob Esposito) and on Zumba (from teacher Renee Poutre).  The video was made on two takes. It was edited in Pinnacle by Lori Gallo. Great Stuff!

The High School Live Production class premiered their first  Broadcast to the High School Thursday. This show will air weekly as a "magazine" show with stories that inform and interest the school community. The high school production adds to our already outstanding line-up, including The Draper Morning News and the Pinewood Scoop. Take a look!

Have a great vacation!

The 1st Tuesday Tech Talk

Our First Tuesday Tech Talk was lightly attended. Frank talked shop with Vickie DelGallo at the Bradt Lab- he feels he was overshadowed by the LipSync Meeting! Mindy Holland, Cindy Spuzy, and Kathy Klein did some brainstorming with Tom C. at Pinewood, Lori worked with Doug Hallberg on SlideRocket and Doug's teacher webpage, and I had a good talk with Mal Martin and Marc Sullivan at the High School about the benefits of My Big Campus, Blogger/Blogspot, and Tumblr as places where kids want to collaborate and publish in an online environment. Marc has reported that his wife is having an amazing experience using Tumblr with her students. He and Mal are planning to investigate this whole topic further. As you have questions or ideas, jot them down and try to stop by and participate on an occasional tuesday. It would be nice to have a group of 10 or so on any given week sharing and discussing the integration of technology into our teaching.

Marc Sullivan- an English teacher at the High School- Sent me this note today:

Patrick- Here's a link you may find useful, or useful to forward (freetech4teachers is on the list):

Top 20 Websites a Teacher should not Start the Year Without.

btw, I found this as a result of stumbleupon.com, which is really cool. Basically, it is like a Pandora for web-pages...you put in your interests and it generates web pages you (might) like. Then you give them thumbs up or down, and it adjusts. It's fun, it works,...and it can really become addictive (and eat up some time). Marc

Thanks Marc.

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2 Articles Worth Reading this Week:

Mohonasen on a winter evening. I thought the sun on the top of the trees along the entrance looked really cool. This was taken after 5:00 an it was still light!...the days are slowly lengthening...

I read 2 different articles in the past few days that both struck me for different reasons. The first was a passionate rebuttal of Governor Cuomo's claim the New York is "first in the nation in spending and 34th in performance" written by a superintendent from Yorkshire-Pioneer C.S.D. in western NY. It is definitely worth a read. You can access it here.

The second is this blog post- "Why 'Race to the Top' is nothing less than a race back to the Twentieth Century"- at the Innovative Educator. Her post is actually a review/summary of a longer article entitled "The Reformers Are Leaving Our Schools in the 20th Century - Why most U.S. school reformers are on the wrong track, and how to get our kids’ education right for the future" written by Marc Prensky. The article can be accessed in full text through the blog post. Both the review and (especially) the article itself are extremely provocative and exciting. I dont agree with every single thing, and neither will you. If it misses the mark though, it doesn't miss it by much...

Have a great week! I'm off to enjoy the Superbowl!

How to "Follow" a Blog...

In speaking of Spring, the weather guy that I follow at AccuWeather.com (Elliot Abrams) posted a blog this morning saying Spring was "Just around the corner but it's a long way to the end of the block!" I thought that was a great description. It looks like a moonscape around the campuses with 2 feet of snow on the ground! I hope the Groundhog was right...

Yesterday I mentioned that I would send out some ways to follow this blog... This way, whenever I post, you will be notified automatically. Here are 3 easy ways:

1. Subscribe via email. On the left of this blog page there is a "Subscribe via Email" gadget. Just enter your email address, go to your inbox and confirm by clicking on the activation link in the email that you will be sent. Its as simple as that.

2. Put it on your iGoogle Page. Many of you have heard me say that my iGoogle page is without a doubt the most useful, effective, and transformative resource that I have come across. If you do not have one, I urge you to make one and make it the homepage on your browser. You won't regret it. I will do an entire post on it again shortly. If you add Google Reader to your page, you can paste the address of this blog into the reader. Whenever I post a new post, it will pop-up in your reader right on your iGoogle page. Some blogs have their own gadgets that you can add to your iGoogle page. (for instance). Maybe I will figure out how to make one for my blog. If i figure it out, I will let you know.

3. Join MyBigCampus. If you Join MyBigCampus, you can "folllow" me and whenever I post to the blog, you will be notified on your wall. Here is a voice from the past, Keith Rafaniello, describing how to create a MyBigCampus account if you have not already done so.

Hope this helps!

Happy Ground-blog's Day!

After Caleb helped me shovel the driveway, I took the opportunity of a quiet day to do some reading and something really struck me... I often start at a blog (linked in the sidebar to the left of this column) called The Innovative Educator. This blog is provocative and sometimes controversial. I always agree with more than I disagree with, though, and i usually find it encouraging and inspiring. Every time I start reading anything on the web, though, I never know where I will end up. For instance- I began reading a post on 10 Things We Should be doing To help Our Students with more Self Directed Learning. Partway through the post, i saw reference to Zulama.com- a site that bills itself as offering "access to unique courses that students are passionate about...making Zulama a place teenagers want to go to learn." Of course, i had to go there and see what it was all about... this lead to the perusal of their course catalog. They have a strand of high school courses offered through Carnegie Mellon that teaches HS students about video game design. This led me to an interesting blog post someone did about the benefits of gaming... I got to thinking how powerful it would be if we all had the ability to converse daily about the interesting things we read and come across... some sort of place to write down observations and let people comment, share their opinions, grab links to resources, archive thoughts, and... oh yeah- we DO have the ability to do all that...That's what Blogs are for! So I logged on to my Teaching and Learning @ Mohonasen Blog and added the first post I have made in a month! I should be using this medium more...we all should. We need to read and explore and share as a learning community. There is SO much out there to learn and bring to our students. I am going to start trying to post something here every day.

Let me ask you to consider following and commenting on my blog or starting your own. It is so easy. Do it through MyBigCampus (its "Facebook" for Mohonasen)... (or do it through Blogspot.com? Do it through Wordpress... its NOT an official Mohonasen thing, its your professional reflections on education- ("blog" is short for "Web-log") so use what's easiest for you.) Share the name of your blog with me and I will get it out to everyone. Following a blog is simple... every time someone updates a blog that you are following, you are notified. Or how about this: If you find something good... write about it and send it to me and I will post it for all as a guest blog on this blog here... We have to build a connected community. Email me if you need help. I will be following Lori Gallo around for the next 4 Tuesday Tech Talks and I will be more than happy to help you get something started.

Tomorrow's topic: How to Follow a Blog

NOTE: I will be posting my daily reflection to two different blogs for now-my Teaching & Learning @Mohonasen blog and on my My Big Campus.com blog. Follow either one. MyBigCampus is supposed to be making significant upgrades to their blog in the near future so I may consolidate there.

In 2011: SEARCH, SELECT, SHARE!

And so, we begin the second decade of the 21st Century! The more I look, the more I am amazed at the increasing number of resources available for use in teaching and learning. Our kids are digital natives. They have been raised almost entirely in the new millenium. There is honestly no way that a "professional development" program in the traditional sense could keep up with the demand that the learning styles of these kids requires! In this new world of instant information and innovative resources, we need to help each other by scanning for resources, trying some of them out and then reporting and sharing the ones that work. This is the whole idea of building a Personal Learning Network. There are a few important things to remember as you search, select, and share:

1. Search: The only way to find resources and develop innovative lessons is to look for them. Honestly, in this new paradigm, the best ideas won't come to you... you have to go find them. Commit to blocking out several sessions a week for just browsing education blogs or following links that others suggested you you. I will be blogging ideas here. The Mohonasen IT wiki is filled with ideas placed there by our colleagues that you can add to, look at, or comment on (a WIKI is a place where we all can add to and change the web page- just request membership if not already a member). I have suggested FreeTech4Teachers as a great blog created by a social studies teacher in Maine. There are literally THOUSANDS of educational blogs... there are even blogs ABOUT educational blogs! Each of these has ideas... they can be searched and categorized... Blogs are categorized to organize and narrow them down. iGoogle is a great place to organize your approach to the web. Start an account and make it your homepage. Again, you have to browse to find things. There is no way around it. It should be part of your prep time, part of your professional development, part of your approach to teaching students in the digital age. I suggest setting aside 20 minutes a day for browsing resources and connecting with others specifically about your teaching. That's 100 minutes a week....

2. Select: As you search and browse, you will come across some resources that may merit some investigation... try it out, spend some time with it, download it, etc... this is where people tend to get frustrated... it doesnt work, it gets blocked, it's confusing.... PERSIST! Try it from home. Google a question to read about others who had the same problem. Ask a colleague, or a relative, or one of your teenage kids or students! Watch "how to" videos(for example)...Ask your building TA?... put in a Help Ticket... figure it out. Become the expert yourself. There are very few of us in our district that have specialized technology training. I certainly don't. I have never taken a formal class or workshop specifically on technology. I definitely ask for help, search online for answers, etc... Once you get over the initial frustration it becomes easier and easier...

3. Share: As you come across good resources (or even potentially good resources...), figure out a way to share them with others. Oftentimes its as simple as shooting a link out on email to a particular group or individual. If you use Twitter, shoot it out to all who follow you. Twitter could be a really great informal way to connect with each other. If you come across a good idea, Tweet It! My twitter name is PMcGrathJr. (I didn't use Twitter for the longest time but recently became a convert and started following a bunch of great websites and organizations that I value. I highly recommend that you check it out.) Sometimes you want to do more than just share a link or an idea. Maybe you tried something and it worked well...or you found a fantastic resource that you want to call attention to. Consider posting it on the Mohon IT WIKI with a description. Ask your principal if you can share it at a faculty meeting. Consider starting your own blog and publish it so that others can read about it.

SEARCH, SELECT, SHARE. My New Year Resolution is to encourage more sharing and discussion by all of the educators in our District. Please let me know how I can help you. Hope 2011 is a great year!