PatSine

I've been a fan of Wordle since I first saw it but it's hard to figure out the best ways to integrate it into the classroom. Not to worry! I just came across this Tweet from @tombarrett

A great early years example added to "Fifteen Interesting Ways* to use Wordle in the Classroom"

Which led me to this GoogleDocs presentation.

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I've been asked to meet with a colleague to discuss what a smart classroom should look like in a school of education today. The jumping off question was "What kind of SmartBoard should we get?" That got me thinking about the way to think about the whole design.

The first thing I'd want to think about is how to structure the classroom so that the teacher isn't always the center of the classroom. But I know most higher ed classrooms and most K-12 classrooms still look like the teacher talking and the students listening so how can we rework that model.

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Been having a good time this week really being a geek again!

My project has been to make my own Wii Whiteboard as developed originally by Johnny Lee of Carnegie Mellon and featured at the 2008 TED conference. This let's you use your $40 Wiimote, a homemade <$10 IR Lightpen, and any surface in place of a commercial $1000+ whiteboard system. You bring the computer and the projector and here's the rest of the story.

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For many years I have been a great fan of WebQuests. They were really the hot ticket in the Wild West days of the Web back in the '90's. However, I think the time has come to move on and here's my reasoning.

First of all, the large number of educators who I meet still believe that a WebQuest is an online scavenger hunt. That was never true and the definition from 1995 bears that out.

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I've been asked many times for suggestions on how to stay up-to-date with what's happening in technology. Here is a combination of what I use and what I'd recommend to get started. If these aren't your cup of tea, they will lead you to others that might suit you better.

1. K-12 online conference -- This is a great place to see presentations by educators about how to succeed online. The conference was first held in 2006 and is now accepting proposals for 2007.
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At the beginning of June, I took a trip to Europe for the first time. Now, I'm finally getting my photos organized because I'm doing a session on digital images and education. Continue reading...

Over the past several years, more and more apps are moving to the web. This year, we've seen Google put both a word processor and a spreadsheet on the web. These have gotten some bad reviews because they don't have enough power for business users. For our purposes, though they are just what the doctor ordered! The apps are free; they are always available as long as you have Internet connectivity; and they are built for collaboration. Continue reading...

I just stumbled across the most amazing blog I've seen in quite awhile. This is a team blog known as Smith's 9th Honors Class Blog. What's amazing is that it is used as part of the classroom discussion process. While students are using the fishbowl process to discuss the novel, others are using the blog to post comments and additional questions. Continue reading...

This weekend I uncovered a few shows that might make life a little easier for busy folks. One of the big things we’ve all been pushing for years is webpages for teachers. These are touted as a great way for teachers to stay in touch with parents and to keep parents informed about things going on in the school and individual classrooms. But many of our solutions have been hard or require more regular attention. Continue reading...