Happy New Year Tech Tip

Tired of telling others that you can't open a document they sent you? Especially when it has to do with their new upgrade to Microsoft Vista and Microsoft Word 2007? Now all you need to do is go the the website below, follow the directions and ZamZar will convert their document into something you can read.

Zamzar also, allows you to convert YouTube movies so you can play them from your laptop and not have to wait for the stream to slowly download at school.

Good luck,


http://blog.zamzar.com/2007/04/10/convert-docx-files-to-doc-pdf-odt-and-txt/

Happy Holidays 2008 to my Network

What about Google?

Google has been in the outreach to educator mode since 2007, by training 50 educators per session using the train the trainer model. Each training session, called a Google Teacher Academy, is offered for 50 educators and now over 250 educators have been Google trained. Educators must apply by answering a few questions, with a limited number of characters in the response and a 60 second video explaining how they provide "Motivation and Learning" OR "Classroom Innovation". By training educators with Google tools and then asking them to pay it forward with other educators Google is able to spread their tools and ideas around the globe. Currently, the Google Academy has only been held in the USA, but during the last Academy, educators were accepted from outside the USA.

You may all know Google by the Google browser on the Internet, but did you know that Google is also a popular email option, calendar option, blog option, office suite option and more!
You need to know and understand 3 things about Google:
1. Google has free applications online which are part of the ReadWriteWeb, also known as Web 2.0 tools.
2. Google can afford to keep these applications free to consumers by the advertising you see on their search pages.
3. Google is on the cutting edge with various applications and a sense of an all in one suite. Everyone knows Google, oh you mean the search with the cool graphics, gmail, yes! There is even more if you dig deep on the Google Applications pages.

On November 18, 2008, I was one of 50 educators accepted to attend Google Teachers' academy in NYC. I was thrilled to be accepted and represent my school district and my State. I was also pleased to be in the company of Alice Barr, of Yarmouth High School and Sarah Sutter of Wiscassett High School. Once we arrived in NYC we were joined by another Maine educator, Kern Kelley of Nokomis Middle School, who now is a Google Trainer, along with his full time job at Nokomis Middle School. Mainers should be proud that our state is well represented with educators who are using web tools in innovative and collaborative ways.

As part of our acceptance in the Google Teachers Academy, each educator follows a plan to pay it forward and offer training to others not only locally but in some form of a collaborative project.

One activity that I am excited about is a community project to be offered at Wells Public Library in two sessions during January and February 2009. The activity Google goes Viral! is a presentation, for all levels of experience, with some hands on offerings during class. There will be a followup class after the first session in order that people may try out the different Google applications during the week and then come back to the followup session to learn some more about using the different Google applications.

You will leave the session, Google going Viral! with knowledge about :

* creating a gmail account
* calendar sharing
* creating a google document for sharing
* Website for personal use as well as sharing



Stay tuned throughout the year for more Google information!

Resources:
http://www.google.com/educators/gta.html
http://alicebarr.org/
http://web.mac.com/sutterview/SarahWebsite1/Welcome.html
http://thetechcurve.blogspot.com/- Kern Kelley
http://www.cheryloakes.com

Primary Documents and Where to Find them!

This was cross-posted at TechLearning.com/blog 12/2/08
How many of you have used the Library of Congress Collections for your curriculum, content and most importantly your students?

If you have never used the online collections here is the perfect time to begin. No matter what your content area you will find something that you can use. Plus, by introducing your students to the wealth of materials they have available to them, you will be opening their eyes to a place where they can research their own primary sources when the time comes.


The Library of Congress opened their online Internet doors in 1991. I have visited the Library of Congress in Washington, DC, but I have not used the primary sources in any of my classes, nor have I had an opportunity to share this resource with my students. So, to make up for that I am sharing this important resource with teachers.
The LOC, as it is affectionately referred to, has designed a great jumping off spot for teachers. The spot is called the Learning Page and on that page there are menus to use a timeline, lesson plans , features and activities, collection connections, community center and my FAVORITE, professional development. Why is professional development my favorite? Because LOC provides the handouts for you to host your own through a video conference or with something as self serve where you choose a topic and go through the steps yourself or in a group at your school. I chose CREATIVE PORTRAITS:
Using Art and Artifacts to Deepen Historical Understanding
There is something called the facilitators framework,complete with handouts and the primary sources you are looking at and how much time you will need to deliver the workshop.

Thanks to the Library of Congress for all their good information, please share this with your students and staff. Take time right now and go on a Library of Congress tour!

Now to put this idea into practice! I am looking for a librarian to team up with on this venture and offer this workshop afterschool, any topic and any school day. Contact me on twitter cheryloakes50 .

Library of Congress, Primary Sources

Screenshots of Library of Congress Online

FREE for educators!

If you have always wanted an interactive whiteboard in your classroom here is a way you can try this out for FREE for a year. The beauty of this is that there is a plug-in that allows you to set this up in your moodle page for ubiquitous use by your students! The offer is from Elluminate, an online tool you can use with multiple people, audio and video tools along with the whiteboard. Give it a try, or if you would like a demonstration please watch your email for an invitation to a training.

http://www.elluminate.com/k12/

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Back from Google Teacher Academy! NYC 2008

 

The Maine Connection at Google Teacher's Academy in New York City, November 2008. 

Okay, this was just a phenomenal event. More to come.

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This is a Graphic of What I am Saying to Teachers in District

Have you wondered about Fair Use and Copyright for your classroom!

Doug Johnson, author of the Blue Skunk blog, has written a comprehensive post about the lastest ruling. I won't attempt to comment yet, but will send this post out for you to read and relate to your classroom practice. I've also sent it to our librarians and asked for their impressions and interpretations.
You can read his post here:
http://www.centerforsocialmedia.org/resources/fair_use_and_teaching/

There are also supporting documentation and videos:

 at http://centerforsocialmedia.org/medialiteracy

and  at http://mediaeducationlab.com/


It all debuts November, 11, 2008!

http://centerforsocialmedia.org/medialiteracy

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Wonder what you can do?

I love how David Warlick does this! He not only thinks big ideas, but he "does" big ideas. If you are inclined to want to participate, be a prosumer, join in his conversation. We can all have a part. How much do you want change? Yes, CHANGE, that 6 letter word that most of us avoid! But, the time for change is here and we can be part of the change, embrace it and shape it. Join in the conversation. Go to David's site and follow the directions. Do this soon, these links are time sensitive and will require you to act!
Big Ideas 4 Education.
No time to chat, must go and add to the ideas being generated.

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This made me very happy! Click to read the entire article.

UCLA scientists have found that for computer-savvy middle-aged and older adults, searching the Internet triggers key centers in the brain that control decision-making and complex reasoning. The findings demonstrate that Web search activity may help stimulate and possibly improve brain function.
 
The study, the first of its kind to assess the impact of Internet searching on brain performance, is currently in press at the American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry and will appear in an upcoming issue.
 
"The study results are encouraging, that emerging computerized technologies may have physiological effects and potential benefits for middle-aged and older adults," said principal investigator Dr. Gary Small, a professor at the Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior at UCLA who holds UCLA's Parlow-Solomon Chair on Aging. "Internet searching engages complicated brain activity, which may help exercise and improve brain function."

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What does this all mean?

This was cross-posted at TechLearning.com/blog

Often times in these posts you read about new technology tools designed to engage and motivate learners, as well as change the way we provide instruction. Today is an observation about how the technology goes underground and the content takes over in a surprising way.

This month, I have attend trainings in my school about using online tools and data where I have observed some interesting findings. In the past, I have written about how we educators complain that we don't have any more time to learn one more thing in our already busy lives. However, we really do, especially when the tools are integrated and provide substance to our content or mission.

The following examples are mentioned only to put the observations in context, not to endorse any one product over another. It is the integration of and interactivity of the product that is paramount.

Our district has been using Northwest Evaluation Association for the past 5 years for online fall and spring achievement assessments for our grade 2 to grade 10 students. This has been a valuable resource for our students, staff and parents. The fact that the student can take a one hour test on Monday and the teacher can have the results on Tuesday is remarkable. Once the testing window is closed, in district, the teacher and administrators have access to a wealth of information at their fingertips; provided the teacher and administrator have access to the technology tools. All the student, classroom , district and national data are available online for review, for instructional remediation, for instructional and curriculum development and for viewing student growth over time. In the past 5 years, our teachers and administrators have grown in their ability to use the data beyond the score and in fact are using the data to instruct each student or groups of students based on their need to learn a specific skill. NWEA has also grown in their delivery of data. What used to be a static report is now an interactive report display about a student, a group of students, a grade level, a school or a district.

What does this all mean? 5 years ago it would have been the technology integrator running the workshop for teachers and delivering a step by step activity on how to get to the website, how to add a user name and password, how to find a class or a teacher and finally how to find the student or school information. The entire “workshop” would have focused on using the technology to get at the information. Many teachers would have (and did) politely said, “I have this all in my printout of my student scores, thank you very much, and this is way too much work, I'll use my printout instead.” Today, however, the teacher has access to dynamic and interactive information that no longer can provide the depth in the written format.

The next workshop I attended was about myAccess, an online writing program. Our district chose this product to supplement our writing instruction for grades 7-11 and selected groups as a pilot project. This product is about students and teachers logging onto a website, adding written assignments into the database, getting online, immediate feedback based on certain criteria. The critical point here is immediate, online feedback. Your students may already be typing their assignments, then turning them in either in paper format or digital format and waiting for feedback and a grade. Teachers are busy, and teachers want to provide good feedback to students, which is time consuming. However, this product allows for standard assignments, to have standard criteria, and a standard grading process. Any writing prompt that is pulled from the accepted data base will be scored immediately. Any writing prompt that is teacher designed will take a longer period of time for feedback. MyAccess does have the ability to accept teacher designed prompts as well as the myAccess prompts from the data base.

What does this all mean? 5 years ago the technology integrator would have presented this workshop and concentrated on the process of getting online, the step by step activity of finding assignments and adding them to the classroom folder, as well as training the students how to gain access to the site. Today, the students are writing their assignments in class and from home, they are engaged with the assignments, they are choosing some of their own criteria to be scored and they are able to set their own goals. The teachers are looking at the scored data for their students and their class as a whole. The teachers are looking at the data and deciding when to add mini-lessons about certain topics that score low in the class database. The data is automatic, interactive and real time.

Finally, I attended a training about Pearson's online component to the Reading Street series. This product is a piece of the textbook reading series we chose for our grades K-5 students. Pearson has been developing this component for the past 3 years and this year the pieces all came together for our staff. During the training, the teachers received a user name and password to get into the products for their classroom/grade level. The presenter began with the Leveled Readers that our students will have access to from school and home. (We are fortunate that many of our students have Internet Access in their homes and have support to use these materials.) The leveled readers are authentic materials on interesting topics and have the built in tools to read aloud to the students. Then the presenter shared with teachers how to access the online teacher's guide and plan book. There were many gasps in the room as teachers audibly recognized that all the work for the planning of the lessons and themes has been done for them. All the remediation activities have been laid out, and all the enrichment activities have been laid out as well. The presenter demonstrated how teachers have control over the plan book and by simply clicking on an arrow for an activity the teacher can move that activity to the next day or week depending on the class. Finally, the presenter demonstrated how the teacher could view the specific skill levels of the class once the students used the online version of the unit pre and post tests. One teacher said, “You mean that if I use the preset test for my students it will automatically score the test?” “YES.” That sealed the deal. Then all the graphs the teacher has visually to observe student and class progress over time is amazing. Real time data, interactive data and a huge time saver for teachers!

What does all this mean? 5 years ago the technology integrator would have presented this workshop and concentrated on the process of getting online, the step by step activity of setting up the plan book, finding students and adding them to the classroom folder, as well as training the students how to gain access to the site. The technology went underground in this workshop. The teachers were able to concentrate on the content for their classroom purpose. We will still have to instruct students about how to access the site and we will still provide support to teachers to use the site when things change, but the interactivity of the product has offered teachers a real time saver.

What do all these products have in common? A Database.
The other behind the scenes change that has occurred, as a result of these products, is that to benefit from the integrated database there needs to be a system administrator who manages the population of the databases, or uploading of your student population. You don't want your teachers typing in each student name, that will not save time.

What does this all mean for you and your district? When you are looking for a product, ask questions about how to populate their database, ask questions about response time once the data has been logged in, ask questions about how quick the turn around time is to get information back to the student or teacher, ask about how interactive the data is that your teachers will be using. Spend the time finding your product. If you do, your end users will benefit from the structure and the data.

Science images, videos, webcasts. Stop here when looking for content to engage your learners.

The National Science Foundation has opened up their Multimedia Gallery to educators for classroom use. You can check it out here, http://nsf.gov/news/mmg/index.cfm?s=2 
You will find many interesting clips which will explain the unexplainable.  The gallery is searchable by keyword or phrase.

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Virtual Worlds

If you are ready for a virtual world, check out http://www.rezed.org
RezEd is a comprehensive virtual-world resource for educators, students and those interested in learning about using virtual worlds.This site is funded by  MacArthur Foundation's Digital Media and Learning. You will find best practices, research, interviews and podcasts about this new type of learning. Bring something new into your classroom.

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How active are your students? Would they write to "win" a Green Computer Lab for their school?

Win a Green Computer Lab for your School!

INSPIRE your middle and high school students to be leaders in the Green Schools movement--and your school could win a state-of-the-art computer lab!

The "Green Light Contest" essay competition, sponsored by PC Mall Gov, in partnership with HP, InFocus and T.H.E. Journal, is seeking entries from students in two categories: grades 5 - 8 and 9 - 12.

In essays of 1,000 words or less students are asked to describe how they and their teachers can utilize technology to protect the environment, with the grand-prize-winning composition being awarded a 30-seat "green" computer lab for the author's school. Two additional first place winners (one from each grade-level category) will each receive a "green" laptop. Winning essays will be published in T.H.E. Journal and winners will be recognized at FETC, January 21 - 24, in Orlando, FL.

APPLICATION DEADLINE is December 1, 2008. Winners will be announced at FETC, January 21 - 24, 2009, and notified by mail no later than January 31, 2009.

Click here to view essay and submission criteria

This was taken directly from the Project Speak Up promotion.

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Looking for audio books?

Here is a great place I found Wired for Books!
This is just another alternative for your challenged readers. When designing differentiated lessons be sure that you ask yourself, is reading the text the purpose of the lesson or is doing the activity the purpose? If reading the text is the means to the end, then please allow your challenged readers to listen and read along, so they can get to the activity.
If your students are using Safari to research on the Internet, they can use a built in service which allows the text on most pages to be transcribed from text to audio. All they need are headphones to provide the audio without interferring with others who may be reading. These tools help to level the playing field while making the learner more independent.
For more tools for challenged learners check out these blogs for more resources.
Karen Janowski-  Free technology toolkit!
Joyce Valenza- Toolkit!
Beth Goodwin, Cheryl Oakes- Writingtools4all.pbwiki.com
Please share any good sites you have found for assistive technology or Universal Design for Learning.

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Google Sketch Up in Maine

What an awesome session I attended with Google Maps at the MainEd08 , ACTEM conference. Using realworldmath.org  you can use Google Maps and have students figure out real life problems. If you are an educator using Google Maps and lessons, then think about sharing that lesson on the Google Educator site.  Be sure to share the wealth! It is what I call open source learning. There are so many resources at  the Google Educator site. Get a group of educators, each take one tool, learn about it, incorporate it into a lesson, then teach that to your peers. In a matter of one hour, if each person learns one tool and shares, you could have a series of new tools in your educator toolkit!

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ACTEM presentation by Beth Goodwin and Cheryl Oakes

On Friday, October 17, 2008, Beth Goodwin and I presented at the ACTEM08 conference. It was a great opportunity to share some FREE webtools with other educators. The presentation can be viewed online. This is where you can follow the presentation by Beth Goodwin and Cheryl Oakes. You can listen to the audio and follow along with the website. Thanks to all the great participants. Thanks to Beth's students for giving us the photos and good information to share.
http://writingtools4all.pbwiki.com
Here is the link to the article by Bob Sprankle about Wordle one of the favorite tools of the students. http://bobsprankle.com/bitbybit_wordpress/?p=461

What would you share with a guest at your school? Join me for a tour of Wells Junior High School!

What would you share with a guest at your school?

Last week I had two guests visit me at school. After we chatted a bit about our technology and our hurdles we still have to meet, they asked for a tour.

I was thrilled to show them the renovations that had been made at our once aging Junior High School building. That is really an impressive sight! Especially the 3rd floor library where you have Atlantic Ocean views. However, I also shared the natural things that are happening in our classrooms. They are so natural to me and to those in our school that I had lost sight of where we were in the whole scheme of "using technology and 21st Century Literacy Skills.

Our first stop was a visit to a classroom with a Smartboard projector system. It just so happened that the bulb had blown out and was set to be fixed later in the day. The teacher shared how the day before the lesson had happened with students locating European countries by using Smartboard software and that today they continued finding countries with pencil and paper. Great job with a backup plan, but I wonder if the students had a preference, or if the teacher had a preference?

Then we observed a student Skyping into his classroom from the first floor. He had broken his leg and was waiting for his hard cast to be applied before he resumed classes out in the mainstream. Our teachers were using Macbooks to stream their course content to the student who was using a Macbook on his end too. He did not miss one day of class due to this technology. How is this outstanding? Well, we have another student who is also Skyping into his classes and the preparations took over 3 months to make plans for, while this student's plan was almost immediate. Once the principal heard about the broken leg, he offered up that we could have classes streamed by Skyping the course work to the student. Since the process had been initiated, it was simple to replicate. There wasn't much preparation with classroom teachers, it was just an expectation, and it was done with great expertise.

Then we visited a language arts classroom, where the teacher talked about how we had blogged with 116 students the previous year. This year we were going to begin that project in the fall rather than waiting for spring. A natural progression.

Our last stop was to check in on the physical education class. The students were in small groups and participating in a fitness routine on their Wii. What a great way to use the technology in a way that students will use outside of school too.

What kinds of things are naturally happening in your schools? What kinds of things can you envision happening in your schools? Just a little planning will make some small things happen, those seemingly small things will have a much bigger impact once you and your school begin the journey into the 21st Century.

Thanks to the great folks I work with at Wells Junior High School, you are making a huge difference in your students' lives.

Posted by Cheryl Oakes on September 23, 2008 11:07 PM, Posted at TechLearning. BUT, here you can leave a comment! What would you share at your school? What do you wish you could share?

OneTrueMedia part 2

Do you have some students working on a project about the election? Here is a way for them to promote participation. Try OneTrueMedia It is a simple way to create and publish a message. You will need to register. It is free for the basics. Here is my media.

Make photo slide shows at www.OneTrueMedia.com