Speaking of graduations…I forgot to blog about my very own! The never-ending story of the Thesis has finally come to an end! From March until mid May I was intensely writing the paper with the assistance of my two AMAZING advisors, Dr. Diane Tabor and Dr. Betsy Grady. I most definitely would not have been able to even imagine the finish line without these two mentors. Although at times the stress of daily writing and analysis had me seeing double through tears of fatigue, I really did enjoy the overall writing process. I enjoy writing, but collaborating with such experienced writers and researchers as my advisors clearly eased the pain. So I started with 17 pages and not enough data in March, and ended up with 150+ pages and rich data that revealed significant and relevant findings entitled “Making Media and Making Citizens.” I ended up winning the Dean’s Thesis Prize for Most Outstanding Thesis, and graduated June 11 with the Masters in Liberal Arts Education Technologies program from the Harvard Extension School. I was asked to present my topic at the Thesis forum - it was actually quite challenging to take it from paper to powerpoint!

Graduation Day was a wonderful experience. Although I had to get up “wicked” early to attend the all schools ceremony in Harvard Yard, I am glad I witnessed it. The long list of honorary degrees were “impressive” to say the least. The skies opened up in time for the smaller program ceremony afterwards in which we received our diplomas and prizes. I finished the day off with my family at dinner by the Harbor at the Daily Catch, low-key and delicious!

I am so relieved that it is done and over with, and very proud to have finished so strongly. The question posed to me already is…what’s next? I say: the beach!

I will post the abstract here from home…soon.

GRADUATION DAY

Originally uploaded by msradden

The amazing school choir, the Voices of the Renaissance, perform at the BRCPS 6th grade graduation this morning at the Park Plaza Hotel.

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Originally uploaded by msradden

My first book arrived! wow! Its like all hard covered n stuff. I hadnt seen it before it was submitted to the Harvard Library. Im sure now weeks later I will find typos…

I was a “Choose Your Own Adventure” book junkie growing up, and then it became role-playing computer games. I think the best part was knowing that if you made a mistake, you could always go back and make a different decision. Wish life was like that sometimes! But anyways, Classroom 2.0 is bringing them back:

A message to all members of Classroom 2.0

This Saturday, May 23rd Kim Caise, Lorna Costantini, and Peggy George will be hosting another Classroom 2.0 LIVE web show.  The topic this week is: “Interactive/Choose Your Own Adventure Story Creation–iPods, iTouches and Netbooks” with special guest Tony Vincent, creator of the Learning in Hand website. Please join us for some great information and tips on how to create interactive stories and innovative ways to use handhelds in the classroom. Links for more information can be found at http://live.classroom20.com. We strive to make our shows beginner-friendly although they are designed to be conversations around using Web 2.0 tools in the classroom. If you’ve never participated in a live web meeting, don’t be afraid to come and observe. ‘Dip your toes in’ the conversations until you feel comfortable enough to “jump into the conversations with both feet”! We want to encourage “experienced Web 2.0 users” to join us by contributing and extending the conversation by sharing real-life examples and tips/suggestions.

Date: Sat., May 23, 2009
Time: 9:00am Pacific/10:00am Mountain/11:00am Central/12:00pm Eastern
Location: http://tinyurl.com/cr20live

I never did post my reactions and photos from our 2 library visits, and now I back revisiting these expriences and notes as my team and I kicked off our planning of the new library program this week! Mr. Rolf Erikson, author of Designing a School Library Media Center for the Future and consultant to K-12 library design, joined us on Monday at an informative meeting and helped guide us in our planning. His book is providing the foundation for our approach to designing the layout, equipment, and purpose of the space.

Mr. Erikson had recommended looking at the Robin Hood Fund’s L!brary Initiative (yes that is an exclamation point in there) http://www.robinhood.org/initiatives/the-l!brary-initiative.aspx as their Elementary spaces are similar in size to ours. Wow! The photos alone were inspiring! There is SO much to consider! But what he and his book and the librarians we visited all emphasize is to first clarify the vision and purpose of the library.

Here are my notes (photos to come) from our two visits.

Chelmsford High School Library:

• Serves 650 high school students
• Started the design process in January 2008, broke ground in June 2008 and opened in December 2009
• Hired consultant Rolf Erikson
• equipped with 38 PC desktops and 24 wireless PC laptops (Hewlett Packard)
• One of the common spaces becomes a Coffee Cafe in the morning
• $170K budget that does not include the carpeting and tiling
• Shelves are made by Worthen
• Conducted surveys and held community votes on chairs, carpeting etc
• Got money from donating scrap metal of old shelves
• Current staffing model consists of 4 people, 3 FT, 1 PT
• Clubs meet in the space after school
• 3 projectors and screens in the space
• At the front of the library is an Alumni Author’s Corner
• 1x a month are listening lunches where students perform for their peers on a removable stage such as open mic and poetry slams
• 1 interactive white board is by TeamBoard
• Information literacy skills taught by the Head librarian include plaigarism, citing sources, searching online, and evaluating sites
• 12,500 sq feet
• Bretford desks
• Rounded edges on shelves
• desktops powered by N-computing (1 cpu and 7 monitors), 2 printers
• See chelmsford.k12.ma.us/chs/library/index.htm

The Beebe School, K-8, in Malden:

• 990 kids, sees 2-300 kids/day
• Has a multimedia Telecom room where vcrs and dvds are housed. Teachers request a movie and librarian pops in the tape/dvd and it is sent to the teacher’s classroom TV. The teacher can control the playback of the tape/dvd via his or her computer by logging into his/her Sprint account on the library web site.
• Each kid has their own library card
• Kinder come for 20 mins every 4 days, else come for 40  mins almost every other week
• has inner office, work room, telecom room, and circulation desk
• Has mobile video conferencing cart with a pull down screen in a central open circle
• 24 new Dell desktops
• Places bar codes on top left corner of the book for easy inventory via a scanner
• Multiple activities take place at once in this one space because it is big and open
• Large beautful window but cause glare on screens
• See malden.mec.edu

Man, not only is staying home sick THE worst thing because you are actually SICK, but when you are an educator, the GUILT that comes with it just compounds the pain!! You’re leaving the kids with a sub…a colleague has to cover your duties on their day off…your lessons get off track…It’s not a fun feeling. This week I caught some nasty stomach bug and had to stay home 3 days - I probably should have stayed again today just to be totally rid of it. But then I would have missed seeing the 6th graders eyes light up when they were introduced to Garage Band today on the mini macs! The beats these kids were laying down! They are totally into iLife and are ready to dive into their digital storytelling next week. One malfunction was the mics didn’t work today on any of the stations for the voiceover piece - gotta get that wrapped up by Tuesday. And gotta get myself fully healed by Monday morn for a full week of work.

In other news, the thesis is DONE! Well, it is written and approved - all 98 pages - as of Monday. Now I have to get it bound. So “technically” I am not “officially” done, but I am just glad the content was done before the bug hit! Phew. Graduation is June 4 and I am proud to say that my advisors nominated me for some award. Of course, I have no clue what it is. But it feels good to finish strong. Well, when I am “officially” finished.

Time to get home and relax for the weekend.

“Vacation” ended but man, it was no vacation for me! I am FINALLY finishing up my thesis and this is the crunch time. Phew. More on that later - I am pretty sick of typing!

But just wanted to add that today I made my way over to the Apple Store on Boylston to purchase 2 1-1 training accounts for myself and my tech teacher here. For just $79/year, we receive 1 1-hour training per week each at the Store. There are workshops we can sign up for or we can request specific topics to be covered. The online account neatly organizes the trainings available to register for, and helps you keep track of which skills you want to and already have obtained. Best part I didn’t know is : you can take your students to the Store for field trips and/or workshops upon request! So Mr. Dodson and I are scheming ways to get our 6th graders over there to receive a training in iMovie for their eportfolio project. And we can also request a showcase and celebration of their work there in June before they graduate. I am excited about the possibilities!

So after the Superintendent and I successfully delivered the keynote speech together, (phew!), I was able to enjoy the day’s workshops and meet some of the attendees. In the Math Class, we used wireless HP tablets to answer math problems. The teacher also had a wireless tablet, from which he drove the software, provided by DyKnow, that was projected onto the SMART board. In hindsight, he did not need the SMART board to complete the lesson. Really the combo of the DyKnow software and the touch technology on the tablet did the trick. DyKnow allows the teacher to control what and when students see applications on their machines, and even enables and disables specific students’ controls. You can send an “eyes to the front please” broadcast on all screens, lock out 1 student, or project 1 student’s work on the screen, or allow 2 students to work on one question at the same time.

In science class it was clear that real-time data collection and analysis was a very powerful experience for students and the most true-to-life way in which scientists do it. PASCO sensors were plugged into laptops, and data was collected, and immediately, those data sets could be interpreted in multiple ways visually, such as graphs.

Some nuggets from the hand-outs and the conversations at lunch included :

www.k12blueprint.com : provides plenty of resources and guidance for technology planning

iPass is a robust student management system worth looking into

Rameo Marquis of Learning Curve is a strong resource about implementing Moodle, an open-source app, as a collaborative learning environment.

Intel showed a fantastic video introducing us that really opens your eyes as to what kind of digital world today’s kids are growing up in, compared to what we did. Ill find it…and post it…

So this is super cool : an animation showing the building of the US Space Station and the plans for the future, piece by piece, since 1998.
(via Dad)
Click to check it out : ISS Timeline