Teddy is sorry.

Originally uploaded by BornToRunND00

A test post from my phone via flickr. teddy is sad that nd lost.

If my mom asks me that ONE more time…well, actually, it’s a necessary reminder, because in less than 1 week from today, I will be in Germany with 24 high school seniors and 7 other staff members for a 12 day adventure!!

I set up the blog so you can track our journey through history : http://tbafhao.edublogs.org

I’ll be posting there as well!

Today the publishing company Houghton-Mifflin sent a crew to my school to film a lesson and interview teachers about integrating blogging into the classroom - and, yup, you guessed it! I was one of the three teachers. I was psyched to be asked to help a history and english teacher, who co-teach a Facing History and Ourselves class, integrate blogging into their lesson about genocide in Rwanda. The students had gone on a field trip to the Choosing to Participate exhibit at the Boston Public Library, and were asked to reflect on their experience in a writing assignment that connects to their study of genocide. In an effort to share their reflections with each other, they posted onto a collaborative blog, and were asked to make connections with each other through the process of commenting on each other’s posts.

This was SUPER fun! Not just the part about being filmed (actually that was the least fun part)! I thoroughly enjoy planning with teachers and inventing ways to use technology to enhance the learning experience and understanding of the content. Many teachers are intrigued and/or capable of using web 2.0 technologies in the classroom, but may be apprehensive or simply have no time to do the IT legwork before the lesson. So yesterday, I set up the blog using edublogs.org, set up and tested the accounts, and pulled together the lesson’s walkthrough of the what, who, why and how’s of blogging. The three of us then broke the 1 hour lesson into the parts we were each comfortable with leading and the teachers integrated their history and english standards into the lesson.

It was kind of strange being filmed while teaching. It felt intrusive and surreal at first and I worried that this was more of a show than a class - would the kids actually learn anything?! In fact, I am embarrassed to admit that I was asked to “start again” when I opened up my part! Yikes! But I totally needed to because I was so not comfortable at first…I could feel the eyes of the 26 students and I saw the cameras on me…and then I remembered I was not there to be filmed, I was there to teach, and so I got into the groove of teaching and it all flowed from there. The kids had some great input to the lesson which put me at ease, as we talked about why people blog and the differences between internet lingo and formal narrative. The tool itself worked smoothly, and I think we all got so engrossed in the lesson that we didn’t mind ducking under the boom or having a camera lens shoved in our faces. Well, maybe a little bit!

The crew gave us rave reviews afterwards! One said she almost cried at some of the interactions and conversations going on! It all seems like a blur now to me, which reminds me of the value of capturing those teaching moments. I have to/like to reflect afterwards (usually in this blog), but I have wondered whether recording my own lessons would prove equally or more valuable. But do I really have time in the day to listen or watch every one of my lessons?! Notsomuch. But I think being able to watch yourself or listen to yourself at least once would be enlightening. Some teachers prefer NOT to and adamantly advise against it, though!

I guess I’ll find out how I feel about seeing myself in action when they send us copies in a month or so. We were each interviewed afterwards about the lesson and about the integration of technology in general. The crew said I was “a natural” and that “the camera loves you.” LOL ( : I say, don’t quit your day job, lis.

The lesson will be the case study for the “integrating blogs in the classroom” chapter in Houghton-Mifflin’s nationally distributed Teaching With Technology book (or some title like that). I think that comes out in the fall, along with a CD and online version of the video.

I am super grateful to be in a school and among colleagues who support the co-teaching, interdisciplinary, technology-integrated approach to teaching and learning!

On that note, it’s Friday. Enjoy your weekend!

Last Thursday I was invited into a Flash meeting with teachers and principals in the UK. Here’s a Screenshot :

It was pretty seamless - the live video streamed quickly. When you want to speak, you click on the orange hand to get in line (the “queue”) and then your video appears in the main screen when its your turn. The group had a specific agenda, so I was kindof eavesdropping…just to get a sense of the tool. Thanks Ian! More on the ways in which we are working together soon…

Yes another one bytes the dust.

My ipod, “ET”, died. Despite restoring, resyncing, and whispering sweet-nothings to it, the click wheel is non-responsive. Sigh. And now I find myself wondering, which iPod am I? I have 14GB of music…am I able to make cuts to my playlists for a nano?…I am seduced by the iTouch technology…but what if I drop it?…and the most important question of all will linger until I make a decision…what will I name it?!

Mobile post sent by lisakate using Utterz. Replies.

There are no wallflowers at this social media gathering!
Mobile post sent by lisakate using Utterz. Replies.

I finally got the webcam up and running through my hotmail account! I have connected overseas with a teacher in Yorkshire, who visited my school last year with some of his students. We have since been slowly trying to establish a virtual connection and build a project that bridges our students. The physics department at my school apparently had a box of 10 webcams given to them by the city in 2004, and quite UNsurprisingly and luckily for me, had never been touched! Another case of technology given to teachers with no support for ongoing integration resulted in a money-saver for me and my curriculum! I intend to install the drivers on my 10 lab stations and get my currently unpopulated “Podcasting” class to use them. I think I will penpal them each with a Yorkshire student. The time difference is obviously a factor, but the Prof ensures me he can get his kids to stay after school for the sessions. So we may in fact be good to go…oh wait, I need students on my roster first! The course title is not set in stone either…I am thinking more about “social media seminar”…I am getting excited about it. I am also happy that I have hooked 2 students up after school with some fun projects : 3D Animation Masters and Proramming in Alice. More on that later, and on my f2f networking brunch on Sunday…must head to sleep now…I have a much longer commute starting tomorrow! Sigh.

Google has added icons to its Google Earth map of Darfur in Sudan which highlight detroyed villages and displaced people.

Related article : tectree.org

My juniors made PSA videos last spring and I published them to Google Video after my department hosted an in-school Film Festival. One of the Google videos about teen dating violence was recently viewed by the police force of El Paso, Texas, and they wanted a copy to incorporate into their teen violence training sessions. Cool!

My seniors created an audio time capsule for their class and I posted their MP3s into an “alumni” channel on Garageband.com. You can subscribe to it and have a listen via iTunes but I’ll embed it once I Gcast it. Oh yeah!

Highschooljournalism.org, which hosts school newspapers online (a GREAT tool I set up and introduced to our English department years ago), is now broadcasting school radio shows! A curriculum is provided as well.