Technology Integration

Prezi

McCallum — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 14:46:00 +0000

What is Prezi?
A presentation tool using a map layout and zooming to show contextual relationships which addresses some of the shortcomings of Microsoft PowerPoint. (From Wikipedia)

Prezi instruction manual

This manual is provided by the people at Prezi. If you skip to page 7, it starts getting useful.

Sample Prezi presentation:

Where can I see more examples of great Prezi presneations?

Check out the showcase at Prezi.com, or take a look at a couple of the examples below.

Digital Storytelling

McCallum — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 03:36:25 +0000

New Teacher Workshop

McCallum — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 15:14:27 +0000

An Introduction to technology integration: Edutopia

Intel’s Visual Ranking Activity

Teacher ID: buffalo
Team names and passwords are Identical
Red
Orange
Yellow
Green
Blue
Purple
Black
White

Topics for Discussion

General Q&A
What is Integration and what does it look like?
Daniel Pink’s New Six Senses from A Whole New Mind
“Marc Prensky’s Essential 21st Century Skills“

Dawn of a New Thinking

View more documents from Torsten Hensel.

All Distrirct Technology Day – October 14

McCallum — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 05:12:10 +0000

Please view my presentation site here.

Thank you.

Ethics and Sharing in Web 2.0

McCallum — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 17:04:10 +0000

Disclaimer: I am a teacher, not a lawyer. These are my conclusions after reading and researching for many years on these subjects. Your interpretations may vary. This page was reviewed by a practicing attorney in the field of media law, but does not constitute legal advice.

Mashups and Fair Use: Things All Teachers Should Know

Just days after Billboard released its list of the 25 Top Songs of 2008, DJ Earworm (aka Jordan Roseman), created a single song that featured all 25 songs called “The United State of Pop”. He distributed the MP3 on his site and on YouTube. The Song is a genre of music called a “Mash Up“, which is made up entirely of sampled portions of work made by other artists (there are other forms of Digital Mash Ups involving photography and video as well). The song has been played on the radio (reaching #1 in some markets) and has been viewed on YouTube over 1 million times in six months.

(Watch Jordan Roseman address members of the IDEA ‘08 confence about the art of Mash Ups and his work with the 2007 Billboard Top 25 that sparked his fame).

If his work was entirely made up of other artists’ work, how did DJ Earworm avoid being sued or committing a Digital Millennium Copyright Act violation, and how can this Mash Up encourage teachers everywhere? The answer is Fair Use.

Fair Use gives people the right to use copyrighted materials in their own work as long as it meets two criteria:

1. The work is “highly transformative.” In other words, the artist, teacher, student, etc modified the content significantly from the original work. If that’s the case, they are free to redistribute the content. In the case of “The United State of Pop”, DJ Earworm significantly transformed the work of the 25 artists using small samples of their work and provided analysis of the subtle trends in the year in music along with it. He used his work as social commentary as well as entertainment.

2. The reproduction of the work does a greater social good than it would otherwise harm the original creator. In other words, will the audience gain significant benefit from the reproduction while not taking sales away from the original creator? If the content is used in education with significant emphasis on investigation, critical thinking, cultural analysis, and trends, it is serving a greater good. It’s the difference between showing a movie for a reward and showing a movie to illustrate a point or to legitimately further an educational experience. Fair Use gives educators some right to reproduce work to use to serve educational purposes. Teachers should research and understand Fair Use as it applies to their classroom and their use of materials in their classroom.Not every use of content in an educational setting is Fair Use. To justify the use as fair, a teacher should use it to advance knowledge or the progress of the arts through the addition of something new. A key consideration is the extent to which the use is interpreted as transformative, as opposed to merely derivative.

If students use materials in their own productions in a way that does not do harm to the original creators and substantially transforms the original work, they should feel confident in publishing their work and teachers should be able to feel safe in including their work online, on their own sites and servers.

When directly quoting large portions of content created by others on your own site, be sure it is serving an educational purpose and that the educational implications of the work are made clear immediately surrounding the material. Educators are safe to hyperlink to other resources, but should exercise more caution when making work available on their own servers. Be more careful in uploading content that can be downloaded out of context. In that case, you are not providing any societal benefits or serving the greater good. You’re simply pirating. For example, if you upload “We Didn’t Start the Fire” as an MP3 to provide historical context for an American History class, someone outside your educational context can download it without your teaching or analysis attached. In this case, what works in your classroom does not transfer online. In that case, you’d be better off linking to or embedding from another site, preferably Billy Joel’s (or his record company’s) own site to avoid having the work on your own server.

Wikipedia offers an very deep analysis of Fair Use and has specific sections for common misconceptions, implications for the Internet, and educational use of copyrighted material.

Creative Commons

Creative Commons is a fast-emerging solution for copyright in the digital age. All educators and students should be aware of the Creative Commons logo and understand what the different licenses mean.

The following paragraph is from a flier created by Creative Commons.

How does a Creative Commons license help?
Creative Commons licenses provide a standard way for authors to declare their works “some rights reserved” (instead of “all rights”). If the source you’re quoting has a Creative Commons license or public domain dedication, you may have extra rights to use the content. Licenses don’t trump fair use, but if you want to do more than fair use allows, look at the terms of the license to see what it permits and what, if anything, it requires you to do in return. The attribution license for example, lets you copy, distribute, and display a work so long as you name the original author. Share-alike lets you make derivative works so long as you use the same license for your re-mix. A work in the public domain is no longer under copyright, so you can use as much as you want in any way you like.

Teachers and students should feel free to license their own work under the Creative Commons license and can do so for free at this site. Content creators can decide exactly what rights they want to give to their audience including:

Regular Creative Commons: People can download and share the work as long as they give credit to the original author. Authors can choose to disallow further modifications.

Modifications: Users can modify work freely and distribute it as long as credit is given to the original owner. Sometimes the work can be used commercially if the author gives permission.

Non-Commercial: Anyone can download and use the work as long as they don’t benefit financially from it.

Share-alike: Anyone who downloads a work must in-turn agree to share it after making modifications.

For all questions about Creative Commons licensing, check this out.

Once you license your own work with a Creative Commons license, make sure you display it on your pages. When using work that is licensed under Creative Commons, be sure you use it as the author intended it and give proper credit to the original author.

Google Apps on BHM Schools

McCallum — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 13:28:29 +0000

Google Apps on BHM Schools:

Google Doc Sample

Google Docs in action:

Students turning in drafts and receiving feedback from multiple sources

Students using Google Docs to collaborate on a whole-class project

Students using Google Docs to work together on one spreadsheet

Students using Google Docs’ presentation tool to jigsaw a chapter from a text book

Students using Google Docs to collaborate on an original presentation

The Power of Classroom Blogging

McCallum — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 00:16:40 +0000

Examples from K-12 Classrooms:

Student Blogs

Teacher Blogs

Class/Club Portals:

My homepage -
This is the home page that links students to all of the tools that my classes use and provides parents with basic contact information. It also helps facilitate online yearbook ordering and lets me quickly make announcements for both parents and students.
Mr. Voight’s class portal -
Mr.Voight has created a very advanced class portal, allowing students and parents to have quick access to the tools he uses and news sources that affect his content area. He seamlessly integrates Widgets into his portal, providing even more useful tools for students.
Mrs. Larson’s class blog -
Mrs. Larson expands on the typical class portal by making her blog interactive. While she posts agenda items and daily events, she also engages students in discussions and dialog with prompts. The students react to her questions, but they have the freedom to respond to their classmates as well, creating an ongoing discussion that extends beyond the classroom.
Buffalo High School’s National Honor Society portal -
This is an example of a WordPress blog used as a home page for an activity. National Honor Society has a large number of student members and can only meet for 20 minutes once per week. In between meetings, students use this portal for a number of reasons. It’s maintained by both the advisers and student members of the organization.
Mrs. Cary’s College in the Schools Writing blog -
This is an example of a basic, but extremey effective class portal. The daily lessons and assignments are on the left-hand side of the blog and invaluable resources and links are located on the right side of the page. Mrs. Cary has commented on how easy it is to maintain the site, especially the second time through a class. The site receives over 30 visits every day. Prior to the creation of this site, Mrs. Cary had not maintained a web site.
Mrs. Wahlin’s College in the Schools Literature portal -
Ms. Wahlin uses this site to help her literature students understand their extremely active reading schedule and routine assignments. Students access the site frequently to make sure they’re prepared for class. Ms. Wahlin has integrated a Google Calendar feed with her site to make quick and easy updates to the schedule.

Student Blogging:

My Journalism 2 blogging home page -
This is the home page that keeps students up-to-date on blogging assignments and gives them easy access to my reading log that contains potential sources for their writing. All of my students’ blogs are linked to in the right-hand column.
A sample blog from a Journalism 2 student
Another sample Journalism 2 blog
Student respond to prompts and spark discussions on Mrs. Larson’s class blog at STMA High School
An 8th Grader’s Reading Log
A 9th grader’s blog from Mr. Voight’s science class at Maple Grove Junior High

Get Started:

blogs.bhs.cc -
Sign up for a blog using a sample WordPress Multi User installation (http://mu.wordpress.org). This is the type of software a district could make available at no cost.
EduBlogs.org - Free blogs for teachers and students with step-by-step guides for a number of things, including incorporating video and podcasts.
21classes.com – Designed to get students blogging quickly. Create a virtual classroom and BlogPortal. Instant use, hosted, free.
WordPress.org – Great for creation of a single blog. WordPress is the preimere blogging software on the Internet. EduBlog, 21classes, and WordPress MultiUser and all based on this software.
Blogger.com - A free service for blog hosting.