3 Excellent FREE 9/11 iPad Apps

The anniversary for 9/11 is here. It is not a celebration but a recognition that an event happened one decade ago what has changed the world forever.  I thought that it would be interesting to see what is available as apps for your iPad.

The 911 Memorial: Past, Present and Future  
(Free 9/1-9/12 $9.99 after)

This impressive app explores the construction of the Twin Towers, the disaster of 9/11 and the development of the Memorial Plaza and twin Pools.


This app includes 40 videos (including the 9/11 attack) along with site tours, museum updates, animations and original content. Over 400 high-res photos are used to enhance the story. Links are used to expand the resource to include an ever-current set of resources. This app provides a depth of experience that is beyond anything else I have seen.

Here is the website for 911 Memorial app.

Explore 9/11 - Free

This is the official 9/11 Memorial application has been created by the National September 11 Memorial & Museum as a guide to understanding 9/11 through the eyes of who witnessed the events. This can be used to learn about what happened and what can be found or it can be used to assist a group who is exploring the site. (Given the sensitivity surrounding the events of 9/11, viewer discretion is advised. )Here is a demo of the free Explore 9/11 iPad/iPhone app.  It is short but the site includes a number of resources that you can find useful.


9/11 Memorial Guide - Free

This app will bring the 9/11 Memorial to life for you. Along the bottom it allows you to Search for Names of victims. Once you select a name, it provides you with information and a photo. It will also point you to the panel in the memorial where the person's name is posted. In some cases, there are audio stories about victims told by their loved ones.

Here is a demo of the free 9/11 Memorial Guide iPad/iPhone app.

These iPad apps are educational and intriguing. I learned a great deal about the 9/11 Memorial and about 9/11 that I never knew before.

What are your resources for teaching/learning about 9/11?  What can you share with others about your experience in teaching 9/11?

Digital Portfolio Resources for You!

I have the privilege this week to participate in the University of Northern Iowa's all-day seminar on portfolios, The Learning Portfolio: A Tool for Student Engagement and Inquiry. They have invited John Zubizarreta, author of The Learning Portfolio: Reflective Practice for Improving Student Learning, to share his idea about how portfolios can be used for assessment and support of students' learning.

Dr. Zubizarreta will speak in the morning and then there will be a portfolio panel of UNI faculty. These faculty members include:

• April Chatham-Carpenter, Communication Studies
• David Grant, Languages and Literature
• Patrick Pease, Geography
• Donna Vinton, Office of Academic Assessment
• Leigh Zeitz, Curriculum and Instruction

While I only have 5 minutes to describe how we have been using portfolios in Curriculum and Instruction, I have a number of resources that you should find useful to learn more about using digital portfolios.

Digital Portfolios Made Easy in C&I at UNI

View more presentations from Leigh Zeitz.

• Digital Portfolios Made Easy in Curriculum and Instruction at UNI slideshow - the presentation slideshow that I used during my presentation. This is posted at Slideshare.com.
• Digital Portfolios Made Easy - this is my website that has been up since 2007.  It has a number of Google Sites portfolios templates that can be used to create digital portfolios. 
• Curriculum and Instruction Digital Portfolio Wiki -  this wiki page is the source for support materials for creating digital portfolios in the C&I program. I provides portfolio examples, instructional videos, a link to the UNI Teacher Education Google Sites template (along with a set of instructions), and a list of possible artifacts that might be used with each of the INTASC+1 standards.
• UNI Example Portfolio - an example of the type of digital portfolio that a student creates in our Educational Technology and Design course. This portfolio evolves into their final digital portfolio for their teaching program.
• Dr. Z on Digital Portfolios - interview with Dr. Z by Wesley Fryer in Philadelphia. Dr. Z reflects on his philosophy on digital portfolios.
• Digital Portfolios: Why Do We Do Them? - Dr. Z explores the backwards manner in which most portfolios are designed to fulfill standards instead of sharing what is important to the student or professional.
• Electronic Portfolios - Helen Barrett's website that supports using electronic portfolios and digital storytelling for lifelong and life wide learning.

How do you use digital portfolios? What additional support materials would you recommend for our readers?  

You are Significant and YOU MATTER - Angela Maiers

Angela Maiers is an amazing person. She travels Iowa, the nation and the world working with educators and students. Her message is one of personal empowerment. She recently spoke at the TEDx - Des Moines where she delivered an inspirational talk about the importance of paying attention to others and validating their importance.

I have seen Angela speak and count her as a friend but this talk is quite moving and YOU MUST take 20-minutes to watch it. She shares stories of working with students and motivating them to do their best by acknowledging their genius. This is what we need to do every day to empower others and ultimately make the world a better place.

Thank you, Angela.

What are your reactions to watching this video?  Please watch it and share.
Your opinion MATTERS!!!

TED Talks About Gaming in Our Daily Lives

I was just reviewing the gaming videos on TED Talks and found some jewels. These are videos by leaders in the field that included some observations that opened my eyes.

The Game Layer on Real Life
Seth Priebatsch


Seth talks about building a Game Layer on the world. The game layer is already there. He points out that credit card schemes and airline reward programs are prime examples of a gaming format where citizens/players are rewarded for performing the desired behavior (i.e., spending money using credit cards.)  They are there, but not very well designed.

He says that the past decade has been spent building the Social Layer which is a framework for connections. This framework is done and it is called Facebook.   Now that we have the framework, it is necessary to build the Game Layer.  It is about using dynamics to influence how we behave.

He talks about 4 important gaming dynamics:

1. Appointment Dynamic - in order to succeed, the player must do something at a specific time.
2. Influence in Status - reward actions that will provide a specific level of status.
3. Progression Dynamics - success is displayed and measured through itemized tasks.
4. Communal Discovery - people working together to find a specific set of information.

When Games Invade Real Life
Jesse Schell

Jesse talks about "Beyond Facebook."

He takes us on a long journey which uncovers a number of changes in our world that have been caused by the new gaming culture. He even talks about how gaming can be used to modify our behavior. He even talks about earning points while we brush our teeth in the morning. This supports Priebatsch's idea of layering gaming over our real lives.  It's difficult to explain his presentation but it is a real eye-opener and you should watch it.

These videos really made me thing about what gaming means to our lives.  It isn't necessarily about jamming on Guitar Hero. It's about the ubiquitous reward system that is possible in today's digital world.

What do you think about this? Is gaming changing your life? Do you agree that we are on the threshold of the Gaming Age?

Z

Gaming's Elements Make for Good Learning

ArmyofDarkness.com

"What is gaming but an on-going assessment? "  These words by James Paul Gee in his Edutopia interview on Grading with Games caused me to take a moment's notice. He's right, you know. Gaming is a directional process where a player eyes an ultimate goal and then exhibits the behavior that will result in attaining that final goal. Along the way, the player's success is evaluated by the game and feedback is provided in the form of success (or lack there of.)


A gaming environment can provide a great number of opportunities to improve learning. A 3D GameLab write-up aggregates the list of these characteristics. These characteristics are specifically collected in reference to games but the value comes when we consider how this can be applied to learning situations:

1. Choice
Provide students with an opportunity to select their path through the game/learning situation. This may mean which quests to complete or which media are used to complete them.

2. Failure
Failing is learning. Try something new and see if it works. The key is to create a situation where failure doesn't have long-lasting penalties. Immediate feedback to the success of a new tactic will provide the formative guidance that the player/learner needs to master the skill.

3. Progress Bars
Players/learners need to have feedback on their progress. Tom Chatfield suggests that using something like a progress bar to share advancement with the player/learner can build engagement and motivation. An example of a system that does this most effectively is the Aleks Math System.

4. Multiple Long and Short Aims
Successful games contain both long and short-term goals. I just finished playing Army of Darkness. It is a game with 50 levels. The long-term goal is to ultimately win by "leveling out" (beating all 50 levels.) Each level is its own short term goal and provides on-going feedback about my success in using the warriors and weaponry at my disposal. This holds true with learning situations. The end goal needs to be in mind to provide relevance but the sequential formative goals provide the feedback that makes it interesting.

5. Rewarding ALL Successful Efforts
While the goal of a learning situation is to master the material/skills, getting there is full of failure. Gamers/learners need to receive some recognition for the work they have completed even if it hasn't lead to total success. This can be a difficult thing to design for the typical learning experience but it needs to be considered.

6. Prompt and Meaningful Feedback
All of these characteristics are connected with prompt and meaningful feedback. It should be immediate and provide some sort of direction as to how a failed attempt can be improved.

7. Elements of Uncertainty/Awards
This is an interesting quality. In experimental psychology, we call this intermittent reinforcement. There is no specific "number of times" that something must be correct to receive an award. This can be quite appealing to the human psyche. That is why casinos are filled with humans playing slot machines because there is no certainty when they will "pay off" but the reward is enough to make it interesting.

Games provide such intermittent rewards by having periodic benefits (i.e., helpful wizards or increasing the treasure chest by 5%) occur to help the player. Teachers provide this sort of untimed reward with gold stars or classroom currency that are distributed to good workers at the whim of the teacher.

8. Socialization
 Learning is a social event. It can be an opportunity for like learners to collaborate with peers and mold responses together. When you are working with collaborators, you are receiving the constant feedback and support that we have described as so important to successful gaming/learning.

What do you think is important?  I think that the most important item that can be taken from this list is feedback. Gaming is a self-correcting journey to an identified goal and it is all based upon immediate and helpful feedback so that the gamer can modify his/her behavior to best achieve success.

What is your idea on this? 

*This posting was prompted by an assignment from 3D GameLab.

FINALLY S&P Dropped U.S. Credit Rating from AAA to AA+

It FINALLY happened.

An outside organization has finally spoken out to tell our elected officials in Washington that their infantile battling is leading our country into poverty. Yesterday Standard and Poor's dropped the United States of America's long-term rating from AAA to AA+. (Now our rating matches that of Belgium) They were reviewing our country's administration as they would any company's leadership and they found us wanting.

Their decision and their rationale for this decision was posted in the public domain in an 8-page report. Here it is:

US Downgraded AA+

The problem is that very few people will read this short but informative document. Pundits and politicians are already spinning this into a political decision that is the result of poor administration.  It is your responsibility as an American citizen to read this report to know why this change was made.

Let's take a look at some of the reasons they have become disenchanted with how our politicians are administering our country.  All of these quotes come from S&P's document above. 

S&P says "Our lowering of the rating was prompted by our view on the rising public debt burden and our perception of greater policymaking uncertainty, consistent with our criteria . . . Nevertheless, we view the U.S. federal government's other economic, external, and monetary credit attributes, which form the basis for the sovereign rating, as broadly unchanged."

They were disappointed in our politicians' unwillingness to work together to effect the necessary changes that can deliver us from our fiscal servitude. "Our opinion is that elected officials remain wary of tackling the structural issues required to effectively address the rising U.S. public debt burden."

"The political brinksmanship of recent months highlights what we see as America's governance and policymaking becoming less stable, less effective, and less predictable than what we previously believed. The statutory debt ceiling and the threat of default have become political bargaining chips in the debate over fiscal policy. Despite this year's wide-ranging debate, in our view, the differences between political parties have proven to be extraordinarily difficult to bridge, and, as we see it, the resulting agreement fell well short of the comprehensive fiscal consolidation program that some proponents had envisaged until quite recently."

John Chambers of S&P says that they evaluate countries' strengths in 5 areas: Political Setting, Fiscal Profile, Real Economy, External Situation, and Monetary Policy. The two areas where the U.S. was weak were Political Setting and Fiscal Profile. Their explanatory report identifies upside and downside scenarios. The Upside Scenario projects that the net public debt burden "would rise from an estimated 74% of GDP by the end of 2011 to 77% in 2015 and to 78% by 2021." The Downside Scenario projects that "the net public debt burden would rise from 74% of GDP in 2011 to 90% in 2015 and to 101% by 2021."  Even in the best of projections, this means that in ten years for every $10 in the US GDP (market value of all final goods and services produced in our country) we will have borrowed $8 to help that happen.

Yes, there was a $2 trillion error in S&P's calculations but that doesn't make the difference. It's about leadership. It's about the Political Setting. Please remember that U.S. leadership is not just the President. It involves the House and Senate working with the President in a bipartisan manner that is directed towards the betterment of our country. Roadblocking plans just for either party's benefit in future elections is the type of irresponsible leadership that leads to this loss of confidence.

We have spent the last decade overspending our budget and not paying attention to balancing income and expenditures. We have been in 2+ wars since 2002 and there have been no increases in revenue (taxes, closing tax loopholes, etc.). The cost of the wars weren't even included in Bush's budgets. We have a $14,000,000,000,000 debt ceiling and our leaders believe that we just need to raise the debt ceiling to take care of things? I don't think so.

While I don't look forward to the consequences of this monumental drop in the U.S. Credit rating, I hope that it will finally catch the attention of the irresponsible blockage on Capitol Hill.

What do you think?

Z

Is Gaming "As Real As Your Life?"

                      Michael Perry via WikipediaOnce again, TED comes through with a video that made me think about the future. This isn't just any future, but it is the future brought to us by David Perry where he suggests that our perception and interaction with the world will be moderated or at least affected by simulation gaming. David Perry is a game designer who has created games like Enter Matrix, The Terminator, Aladdin, and Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles,

Perry does a stupendous job of taking us through the evolution of various types of games including game boarding, basketball (from stick figures to life-like player where you can see the sweat rolling off his brow), boxing, StarWars, and 1st-person shooter games. It's easy to see how things on the screen can be mistaken for reality.

The most effective part of the talk was the excerpt he played from Michael Highland's film, As Real As Your Life. Highland explains that he was born in 1984 (the beginning of the Millennial Generation) and his constant involvement with video games has changed his life. The border between his real world and video world have blurred. His interaction in the virtual world is helping mold who he is in the real world. He has driven over 32,000 miles in virtual cars while he has only put 25,000 miles on his real car. 

How will this affect our learning? It has a dramatic effect in who we are and what we do. Does it make us a better or worse person? No. Learning through video games is no different than learning through real life except the learner/teacher has some control over the situations where the learner is learning. This can provide a much richer and more skilled learner because s/he can be experienced beyond his/her years. Look at how this is used with astronauts, pilots, police officers, soldiers and doctors. They have learned to react or proact in situations they have never before experienced in real life. At least when they experience it in the virtual world, there are few repercussions from mistakes that they may experience.

The gaming world can provide a rich experience for learners inside and outside of the classroom. The only problem is that it can be quite complex and more difficult to create such an environment. It is much easier to simply create a lecture with a few poorly-made PowerPoints.  The advantage is that once the gaming environment has been created, it can  reused without much more work on the part of the teacher. It should be continually reviewed and updated as necessary, but it is not like creating a whole new learning situation.

Related articles

• Virtual Worlds Are Scary for Parents, Liberating for Kids (pbs.org)
• Supporting Learning Styles in the Virtual World (gridjumper.net)
• Video games teach kids 'new literacy': Do you buy it? (theglobeandmail.com)
• Video Game Lessons (magwunderlich.wordpress.com)

*This posting was prompted by an assignment from 3D GameLab.

Is THIS Fully Digitalized Classroom Better?

Recently, the Learning Matters blog posted a 9-minute piece that they filmed about a school district in Mooresville, North Carolina that went "completely digital."  All of the students and teachers from grades 4 - 12 have laptops (over 5,000).  This project began 3 years ago and the teachers are describing big differences in their teaching and the students' learning.

Is this any different then other 1-to-1 experiences? Is it really about the computers? What changes do you see in the pedagogy of the school?  It is difficult to answer these questions in 9 minutes, but what do you think?

Watch the video and see what you think? They have had reductions in school problems. They have an active filtering system on the information accessible. They blog YouTube, FaceBook and MySpace.


What do you think?

Z

7 Ways Games Reward the Brain

On August 1, I began a 3-week class through Boise State University entitled 3D GameLab.
This online experience is designed to provide an opportunity where an educator/learner can become involved in a game-based learning situation first-hand. It's a personal journey through the gaming theory that is purveyed by Gee and Prensky.

It's VERY personal and I like it.

The explanation of how this works is rather complicated. It is complex enough to warrant it's own independent posting at another time. The main reason that I am writing this post is because it is part of the quest that I am presently trying to complete. How's THAT for motivation?

We were asked to watch the Ted Talk presentation, 7 Ways Games Reward the Brain by Tom Chatfield, and then reflect upon something that he said.  This talk is about how the complexities of gaming can be applied to motivate people in learning. Chatfield describes (both psychologically and biologically) how game-like challenges engage the human soul.



The interesting part of his analysis is how he describes the process that game designers use to capture your attention and engage your soul. It's not as much about the actual activity that you are completing (he suggested opening virtual boxes) as it is about the reward schedule that the player experiences in the process. Its about "the rate, the nature, the type, the intensity of the rewards in games that keep players engaged over long periods of time."

When I was trying to find another way to describe this, the term, relevance, popped into mind. But this wasn't the proper word. I just finished saying that the activity wasn't as important as the form of interaction that the learner has with the activity. That interaction is personal. The most successful interaction is one that has been personal-ized to meet the needs, wants and desires of the learner. It has been customized to respond often enough with rewards that are interesting enough to maintain grasp of the learner's soul.

As Chatfield explains, the onset of computing has provided a venue through which feedback can be individualized to make such activities infinitely interesting. This is nothing new. I remember first reading about it in 1982 in an article written by R. F. Bowman, A Pac-Man Theory of Motivation.

Watch the video and consider the 7 ways that games reward our brains:

1. Use Experience Bars to Measure Progress
2. Provide Multiple Long/Short-Term Aims
3. Reward Effort - Don't Punish Mistakes
4. Link Actions to Consequences
5. Include an Element of Uncertainty
6. Include Peer Collaboration
7. Engage Players by Doling Out the Rewards at the Personalized Intervals.

Which one do you feel is the most powerful strategy for your learning?

Related articles

• New ways of learning... (whatedsaid.wordpress.com)
• More from Open Tech: Games (juliac2.wordpress.com)
• Game-Based Learning is not about games, it's about mindsets (deangroom.wordpress.com)

*This posting was prompted by an assignment from 3D GameLab.

Dr. Z on Digital Portfolios - Voices of ISTE '11

I was honored to be interviewed by Wesley Fryer at the ISTE '11 conference last week. Wesley did his typical outstanding job of covering presentations at the conference, but what was most impressive was  his recording equipment which just included an iPad2, a $60 iRig mic. He recorded this interview, used iPad iMovie to edit it and insert titles, and it was posted on the web in 5 minutes.  Wes is a media genius.
Anyway, here are some comments I made on my philosophy of Digital Portfolios. You can see the rest of Wes's Voices of ISTE at his website, Speed of Creativity. He has notes and interviews with Steven Covey, Chris Lehman, Scott McLeod and others. At this point, he hasn't indexed them in a single posting so you will have to search around for them.
So what do you think?  What are your philosophical thoughts on creating portfolios for students and professional educators?

Panoramas of the Lunar Surface

Did you know that the US landed men on the moon in 6 missions flown over 41 months (July 20, 1969 - December 11, 1972.) In 1969 we landed on the moon in July and November.  I must admit that I hadn't realized that we sent rockets to the moon with that rapidity.

During that time, 12 men walked on the moon. They walked and drove the lunar landers (are they still up there?)  A little known fact is that each astronaut was fitted with a chest camera. It was a Hasselblad EDC that was specially designed for the trip.  (I wrote about another extraordinary photography tool, the Gigapan in November, 2009)

The photographs that the astronauts took on the moon have been "sewn together" to create Interactive QuickTime VR Panoramas of the moon that are available at Panorama.dk. Not only can you scan the lunar surface while sitting in your classroom, your journey is accompanied with audio tracks of what the astronauts broadcast back to Houston. Admittedly, the scanning is a little tricky and jerky but it is something to see.

You really MUST explore the Panoramas.dk website. It has panoramas a wide variety of travel destinations including the NEW 7 Wonders of the World:  

• Roman Colosseum (been there)  *
• China's Great Wall (been there)  *
• Petra in Jordan (probably go there this summer)
• India's Taj Mahal (would LOVE to go)
• Machu Picchu in Peru (Not yet)
• Christ the Redeemer in Rio de Janeiro (Not yet)
• Chichen Itza in Mexico (been there)  *

Looks like my wife, Kathy, and I have just created a new "Bucket List."

I began this posting raving about shooting men to the moon and ended telling you about my bucket list. Looking at these places in Google Earth can be a good introduction to the locales, but panoramas like these can make it real.

Have you used or created panoramas like these before?

Z

Related articles

• Panoramas are the next level in photographic representation (garry.posterous.com)

19 Digital Storytelling Tools to Explore

flickr.com/vancouverfilmschool

Looking for some innovative tools for creating your digital stories? 


Ozge Karaoglu has shared 19 Digital Storytelling Tools on the Tech & Learning Advisor blog. She shares a plethora of audio, picture and animation tools that include the familiar and the new and exciting (at least they are to me.)

You should go to her posting to see this wonderful assortment. I am quite familiar with some of the standards that she posted including VoiceThread, Voki, Vocaroo, Jing, Animoto, GoAnimate and Xtranormal. But she included a panorama of new development scenery to begin exploring. Some of these tools include DVolver, DomoAnimate, PhotoPeach, Zooburst (3D popup book), Fotobabble and BubbleJoy.  

I can tell right now that I won't be getting much done for the next few days.

I hope that you enjoy Ozge's posting and visit her blog, Ozge Karaoglu's Blog, where she has a wealth of other tools for you to explore.

Is your favorite Digital Storytelling tool included here?  Share it in the comments section below.  It would be good to round this off to an even 20 or 25 or 50 . . . 

Z

The Magical World of the Upcoming Mac iOS

Just wanted to share with you the video of magician and performance artists, Simon Pierro, sharing the "beta version of iOS 5" on his iPad.  While I don't really think that the new iOS will have ALL of these capabilities (smirk), it is fun to see his ingenuity at work.

Thank you, Simon.

Using Social Media to Enhance Your Professional/Personal Development

What a GREAT webinar we held today!!!

This was our opportunity to contribute to the  University of Northern Iowa Hot Topics in Education webinar series. Robin Galloway and I are gave this webinar on May 26, 2011 from 3:30 - 4:30.

Here's the Link to the actual hour-long webinar that you will be able to watch through Adobe Connect (You don't need Adobe Connect to watch this, however):
 
Using Social Media to Enhance Your Personal/Professional Development 

This webinar was our opportunity to explore how today's professionals need to take responsibility for their professional development. We introduced a variety of ways that people can facilitate their own professional/personal development by getting involved in educational learning communities. Some existing online communities were cited and then we shared some tools they can use to create/enhance their own personal learning networks.

Here are some of the resources:

Using Social Media to Enhance Your Personal/Professional Development View more presentations from Leigh Zeitz

Distributed-Learning Communities as a Model for Educating Teachers (Dede) 

Online Education Communities
Classroom 2.0 - An active education community with over 56,000 members.
1:1 Laptop Schools - An education community dedicated to connecting and inspiring educators in 1:1 schools.

Twitter
Twitter for Teachers - Terrific intro video to show how teachers can use Twitter.
Twibes - Search Twitter Groups that fit your interest.
Listorius - Lists of twitter-ers who are sorted by areas of interest. Great place to find people to follow.
How to Use Twitter to Grow Your PLN | Edutopia  - Lists of educationally focused twitter chats.
#edchat   .    #edchat website - An active Twitter chat list.
Tweetchat - This site helps you get involved in Twitter chats.

Blogging
Cited blogs:
Dr. Z Reflects - Blogging for understanding about ed tech, learning and life (Leigh Zeitz)
Cool Cat Teacher - Vicki Davis shares her life and ideas about teaching and learning.
2 Cents - David Warlick pontificates about social media, education and learning.
Angela Maiers - Angela shares her ideas and experiences about working with teachers and students.
Blogging Resources - Resource page on Dr. Z's ActiveWeb20 wiki.

Social Bookmarking
Diigo - Bookmark, share, highlight and notate your favorite places on the web
Delicious - Another bookmarking site.
Social Bookmarking in Plain English - Explained in simple terms.
Social Bookmarking Resources - Resource page on Dr. Z's ActiveWeb20 wiki.

Virtual Events
TED Talks - Riveting talks by remarkable people, free to the world.
Hot Topics in Education: Professional Development Webinars -
K-12 Online Conference - Online conference where presenters submit 20 minute presentations that can be watched anytime. This site has 5 years of videos.
Flat Classroom Conference - Website for the Flat Classroom Conference in Beijing this past February.

Organizing Your PLN
iGoogle in Plain English - 50 second intro to iGoogle
RSS in Plain English - Real Simple Syndication explained in simple terms.
PLN Resources - Resource page on Dr. Z's ActiveWeb20 wiki.

The webinar was attended by a number of teacher, students and life coaches from multiple states.
Please keep in touch with Robin and myself:

• Robin Galloway, galloway@uni.edu Twitter: rgalloway  www.uni.edu/galloway
• Leigh Zeitz, zeitz@uni.edu  Twitter: zeitz   drzreflects.com

What additional sources to you suggest? Add them to our learning community through the comment section below.

Z

100 Best YouTube Videos for Teachers

WOW!!!!

Just when you thought it couldn't get any better, John Costilla shares a list of the Top 100 Videos for Teachers provided by SmartTeaching.org.

This list of videos have been divided into 9 different categories including history, arts, science, language, classroom management, How-Tos and a variety of others.


I can take a tour of the Rijksmuseum or learn sign language or get tips on classroom management.  It even includes The History of the World and The Theory of Everything. The selection is quite varied.

I must admit that some of the videos were inaccessible because they had been removed from YouTube. Some of the links weren't touch and go. I had to copy the link to paste it into a new browser window.  Anyway, it is a useful set of resources that you will enjoy.

White House Webinar Explains Osama Bin Laden Death to Students

How do you explain cheering Bin Laden's death to students?  This is as problem that many teachers are having.  It is difficult to explain the dark world of terrorism, but how do you explain to third grade students when they see people cheering the death of a person?  

Wouldn't it be wonderful to have someone from the White House explain about the Osama Bin Laden's death?  This happened last Thursday, May 5, at noon (CST).  Ben Rhodes, Deputy Assistant to the President, Deputy National Security Advisor for Strategic Communications and Speechwriter, gave a 10-minute presentation on what happened. It wasn't fancy but it was effective. He had a slide show filled with photos that was interspersed with this discussion.

Mr. Rhodes began by explaining the events of 9/11 and how things have progressed since then in trying to find and capture Bin Laden. The broadcaster had been part of the group who were involved in watching the invasion from the White House and was well-informed on the progression of events.

The amazing part of this event is that over 1600 viewers were involved.  While some of them might have been individuals like me in their offices I would imagine that most of them were classes of students. There is a recommendation on the site that suggests that because of the sensitive nature of the webinar, it would be best to limit viewers to middle and high school students.

The best part was the last 20 minutes where the students/viewers were actually able to ask questions. These questions asked about how Bin Laden's death will affect the threat of terrorism in the U.S.; why they buried Bin Laden at sea; how they compared the DNA and a variety of other pertinent questions from the news.

The Discussion on Bin Laden webinar archive is available for you to review.  It has a 10-minute segment of Rhodes' presentation and then they divided the students' questions into 2 10-minute segments.

I haven't been able to find any archives of other White House webinars through Discovery (or anyone else).  Do you know of any archives? This would be a valuable asset for Discovery and the White House to create.

What do you think?  Did you use this with your students?  Will you use this with your students? How do you like the way that they addressed this issue?  

How did YOU address the issue?

Web Tools Adorn 21st Century Bloom's Taxonomy

Richard Overbaugh's image

Bloom's Taxonomy has a new face. Well, actually it isn't so new. If it were a human, it would be old enough to drive.

Back in 1956, Benjamin Bloom and his colleagues realized that they didn't have the common vocabulary to discuss types of questions that would be used on test or in class. Some questions only required learners to recall the capital of Iowa, while answering others involved synthesizing ideas from multiple sources to create a new opinion. It took them a couple of years to finalize on the 6 groups that they used in Bloom's original taxonomy. Would you believe that they were arguing about whether to put Evaluation or Synthesis at the top right up to printing time and that it was answered with a coin toss?

In the mid 1990s, Lorin Anderson and a team of cognitive psychologists updated the taxonomy by changing all of the nouns to verbs, adding Creating on the top, and folding synthesis into Evaluating.

This is a welcome change where they put the emphasis for learning on the individual to create. It has been reflected in a variety of tools include the ISTE NETS-S.  ISTE placed the emphasis of using technology on Creating with technology instead of Operating the computers.

Recently, there have been a few educators who have been aligning Web 2.0 tools with Bloom's Taxonomy. This is a useful tool to show the variety of opportunities with the available online tools, but it is also a wonderful way to help classroom teachers link the tools with their curriculum.

Schrock's Google Taxonomy

Kathy Schrock's Bloomin' Google. http://kathyschrock.net/googleblooms/

My favorite arrangement was done by Kathy Schrock. Kathy is always at the head of the pack when it comes to organizing things.  You know, little things like the World Wide Web or the vast collection of Google Tools.  She creates the wonderful instruments and I sit in Awe (just south of Des Moines) asking myself "Why didn't I think to that?"

Anyway, while the image above is linkless - when you go to her Bloomin' Google website each of the logos links directly to the tool (don't click the image above because it won't take you there.) She also is using this as a means for collecting educators' ideas about her creation.  She has included a Google form below the table where teachers can add their "ideas and justifications for why you might have students utilize apps and tools in the cognitive area they appear on the taxonomy"

Penney's Digital Taxonomy Pyramid

Samantha Penney's Digital Taxonomy Pyramid. http://www.usi.edu/distance/bdt.htm

While Kathy limited hers to primarily Google Tools, Samantha Penney at the University of Southern Indiana crossed Bloom's Pyramid with over 50 Web 2.0 tools. Samantha says that she created this for some summer staff development. It is based upon Andrew Church's concept of Bloom's Digital Taxonomy.  She used Go2Web20 and Cool Tools for Schools.

Once again, the image above has no working links, but if you venture over to Bloom's Digital Taxonomy Pyramid you will find that each of the logos links to an individual tool. I haven't checked all of them out yet, but there are a bunch that I have used yet.

This is a wonderful merging of theory with practical application. These organizers provide some sanity in the ever-exploding world of Web 2.0 tools.

Which tools are missing? What do you use that you don't see included on one or both of these charts?

Do you disagree with any of these categorizations? There is often a murky distinction between these levels.  Seems that only academics worry about the strict distinctions, but what do you think?

I challenge you to make your opinion known on the comments below.

Z

Osama Bin Laden Is Dead!!!

Yes, Osama Bin Laden is Dead!!!

After a long 10 year of war and terrorist attacks, we have finally killed the head of the snake.
Yes, there will be other heads who will be trying to graft themselves onto the top of the Al-Qaeda reptile, but this is a huge accomplishment in the war on terrorism.
Twitter is ablaze with #binladen tweets.  Most of them are celebrating the death of the terrorist leader and some of them are asking if it is too early to tell Bin Laden jokes.

Wondering where he was found?  A cartographer identified the location of the Bin Laden compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, and marked it on the Google Map. Search for Osama Bin Laden's Compound in Google Maps and it will take you to the spot. 

It is amazing to see the immediacy of this identification. The funny part is that as of 12:27 AM CST, people have already posted 180 reviews of the compound.  They are complaining about bed bugs and poor maid service. 

I don't know what to say that is profound about tonight's events. By the time you read this, who knows what will have happened in the world as a result this event. It may be an escalation of the  war or, hopefully, it will mean a reduction in the peril in the world. 

Whatever the change in world, it can be said that the world will never be the same.

How has it affected your world?

Z

Talking with Milo. Amazing Reality in Virtual World Interface

Talk about realistic interaction - - - this Milo video is absolutely amazing!

This is a system where the on-screen boy, Milo, can recognize faces, voices and even emotions in our voices.  The ability for the user to interact within the video world is astonishing but watch what happens when the user "hands" a paper with a hand-drawn photo to the character on the screen and you will be astonished.

Imagine what this could do in learning situations.  Doesn't necessarily have to be in the classroom. This would be even more effective during the non-school hours as tutor, collaborator or even tutee.

Video Games | Lionhead Milo Project | E3 09: Milo Tech Demo

Xbox 360 | PlayStation 3 | Nintendo Wii | PC Games

What do you think?  Where do you think that this will change the educational world?  Will it endanger schooling as we know it today?

Poof! Your iPad Becomes an Interactive Whiteboard

I have never been a big fan of the Interactive Whiteboards (IWB).  We continually cry for more student-centric problem-based learning curriculum and then we introduce these BIG TICKET devices to maintain the teacher's control of the classroom. Where is the sense in that? We need to provide a system where the control is in the students' hands. That IS the definition of student-centric.

IWB proponents say that we can use the Interactive Slates (e.g., Promethean Activslate) but they cost $600 a piece.  What if we could spread them out so that the students have access to these slates?  What if they could help control them from their seats by themselves or in small groups?  What if we could do this with the iPads that we already have along with some modestly priced software apps? Sure, iPads cost $500, but you can use them for so many more things than just controlling the projector screen.

I was reading Wesley Fryer's Moving at the Speed of Creativity blog when I happened upon his posting about Using iPads as IWBs for $5 or $10. In that posting (and I strongly suggest you read it) he introduced us to Dr. Tim Tyson who has created some quickcasts that tell you how to turn your iPads into interactive slates that can control your screen from your seat for a paltry price.



The strategy is simple. You need to have some software that will enable you to share screens between your iPad and your computer (Mac or Windows). This means that when you move things around on your iPad, it will appear on the projected screen. I found such software a few weeks ago when I purchased the app, Air Display, for $10.  It easy to use and you remember that I used it to add a third screen to my laptop (Triple Screens on My MacBook Pro.)

Once you have this capability, your ability to interact with the screen will require some screen annotation and screen capture software. Believe it or not, this is available at a reasonable price.

Screen Annotation Software: Technically, you can't use IWB-specific software to run your iPad. You might be able to download a personal version for free from a commercial website (e.g., Promethean) but it is supposed to me used on a Promethean board.  I did a little investigating and found that Promethean has a SPECIAL SITUATION offer. They WILL allow you to use the Personal version of ActivInspire on a non-Promethean board "solely for the purpose of operating  Resources available from Promethean Planet on non-Promethean hardware."  You just have to apply for a Teacher Consent License.  You apply and they approve/disapprove it in 5 days.

If that doesn't fit your needs, you can purchase some useful software for a reasonable price.  Dr. Tim suggests Ink2Go.  It provides annotation and screen captures for $20.  I haven't purchased it, but the video in Dr. Tim's #3 Quickcast showed it to be pretty good.  I think that Wes is being overly optimistic when he says that you can get this set-up for $10, but you can get it for $30 and that's a pretty good deal.  Wes recommends getting a Pogo Stylus for $15 to improve your accuracy, and that looks like a pretty good idea.

Is this going to work for us?  Kathy Schrock says that she has been doing it for a few weeks at her schools and love it to death. I look forward to going to school and trying this on our Promethean Boards. You will want to watch Dr. Tim's videos and set yourself up to have a personal IWB on your iPad.

What do you think?  Will this fit your needs?

Z

ITEC Student Tech Fair

Students are the Center of Attention this week for the Iowa Technology and Education Connection (ITEC) organization.

Movies, graphics and robots have invaded sites statewide as Iowa K-12 students share their technology projects this week. Sponsored by the Iowa Technology and Education 

This Student Technology Fair occurs as three fairs held this week across the state at Iowa State University (3/12) and Denison High School (3/14). Almost 300 projects will be presented statewide. The projects span seven different categories including multimedia, web presence, programming, video/linear presentation, graphics/publishing, 3-D rendering/non-linear animation, and music/sound design. 

Each of the projects will be reviewed by local judges and those receiving the Judges’ Purple Ribbon awards will be invited to showcase their projects at the ITEC conference in October.

Here is some of the coverage for the events:

Waterloo/Cedar Falls Courier

 Students Show Off Tech Skills at University of Northern Iowa

KWWL Broadcast

KWWL TV covers the ITEC Student Tech Fair at UNI

#ITECtechfair Tweet Feed

#ITECtechfair Tweet Feed - See what Twitterers are saying throughout the week.