Hello, and welcome to a special Wednesday edition of Tuesdays.
That's right -- just when you started to get comfortable with the security blanket of a blog that appears every Tuesday, I went and flipped it on you, coming to you a day late this week!
I don't have long to write today, as I'm off to Oak Park elementary school to work with a teacher who is interested in having her students create video projects. The past week, which has been busy busy busy -- as always -- the prevalent theme seems to have been making videos. Since I last wrote, on the day of our video podcast project with the visiting German exchange students, the Academic Integration Coaches have been receiving lots of requests to help teachers and students make videos using the equipment at our disposal. This is partly due to the success of the breakout session on podcasting from the October 11 in-service day for teachers of grades 4-6.
This has been a great challenge for us, because our students and teachers use a wide variety of means of capturing video, from different types of digital cameras and video cameras to video screen capture applications. We have been trying our best to help them use many different types of video files, including .avi, .mov, .mpeg, .wmv, .mp4, and more, bringing them in to the video editor on our district image, Windows Movie Maker, which is very limited in what types of files it can import and export. There have been several roadblocks. Some people record a high definition video that can't be imported into MovieMaker, but can be edited on a Mac using iMovie. Since iMovie is very simplified and limited these days, some people would like to take the videos they create in iMovie and move them into Movie Maker, to take advantage of the transitions, titles, and ability to split clips. Other want to take a video created in Movie Maker and import it into iMovie to use some of the better features of that program, but that has surprisingly been difficult as well. Here I thought I could import anything into a Mac program, but that has not proved to be the case, as Mac applications do not like to use .wma files.
We've found some good online video converters, such as Hamster, but we have not always been successful. It seems the free video converters still lag behind the ability of the free online audio converters right now.
One of the most frequent problems, once we've gotten past the file conversion issues, is that video editing takes a lot of organization. It's not just about planning the shooting of video, having a working script and a sense of blocking and camera angles, it's all the elements that go in to the editing process that can cause a clutter. Videos -- even short ones -- have still images, video clips, transisitons, titles, overdubbed audio tracks, and many more elements that all need to be saved as files. Once a project is finished and turned in to a video, I like to go back into all the folders I used in the project and delete the files. I know it might come back to haunt me if I find a mistake and need to edit it, because then I'd have to recreate the project. But videos and all their assosciated files take up a lot of space. I've found that if I don't clean up after my mess relatively soon after finishing the project, things can get very cluttered.
This digital clutter is not limited to video editing. There is our work log in a spreadsheet that comes to us in email and in a Google form, which constantly needs updating. As we become more and more busy with requests to work with teachers in our district, tracking these requests, taking action on them, logging them as complete or in-progress, etc., gives us a lot of data to sort through.
Since my last entry, the AICs worked with a few dozen teachers during the school day, and facilitated a flex training session called "Stop Showing Videos, Start Making Them" for another 20 teachers. We each co-taught classes where students used Wikispaces, made non-linear PowerPoints, published blogs, linked to audio files, and made videos. Keeping track of the files assosciated with all of this work (let alone logging it for our record-keeping) can become an overwhelming task if the three of us don't work in concert to stay on top of it.
Later today, I will be participating in a 21st Century Learning chat on teaching network literacy. I am hoping a large part of this discussion will center on organzinational strategies for files in a network.
On November 8, Wendy and I will be working with teachers on organizing their files when we present training on Microsoft Office applications during an in-service day.
All of these thoughts came together for me when I made this week's Tech Tip of the Week podcast this morning. Today's topic was reducing digital clutter, influenced by the Inbox Zero movement started by Merlin Mann.
In a nutshell, clutter is distracting. Whether it is literal papers on a desk or electronic files on a desktop, I've found my eye goes too quickly to the clutter when I'm working, and I start thinking of many things not related to the task at hand. If my inbox is filled with old messages I've saved as "reminders" of things I need to do later, I can't avoid thinking briefly about each of them every time I open my mail. However, if I use my inbox as a queue for decision-making instead of a colelction of tasks, the clutter disappears. In other words, I am learning to make a decision about every message as soon as I get it.
That doesn't mean I have to instantly reply, though I often do. But instead of having it languish in my inbox, I decide what to do with the content of the message. Maybe I need to make a task or appointment in my calendar to tackle the task at an assigned time down the road. Maybe I need to save the email or its attached files. Maybe I need to reply. Maybe I just need to delete it. The point is that I make the decision, and clear out my inbox. The same goes for electronic files, which I am careful to place in a clear system of folders, and paper files on my desk, which are thankfully becoming fewer as my colleagues and I learn how to use less paper.
Merlin Mann and many others have been blogging and tweeting about this topic. Just do a search for "inbox zero" and you'll see a lot of interesting discussions and ideas on the subject.
My podcast for reducing electronic clutter can be found here.
Thanks for dropping by. Talk at ya next week!
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Scott Swindells
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
A Tale of Two Tuesdays
I had David Truss' quote from "A Brave New World Wide Web" on my mind this morning, "Learning is messy... sometimes the technology didn't work."
It began with great intentions. Our school has an exchange program bringing in German students from Aalen and Saltzgitter. During a few days of their visit, the 40+ students travel through an eight-period day at the high school, and teachers volunteer to host all or some of the students. I volunteered to host the visitors this morning to show a little of what we do as Academic Integration Coaches, and to let them have a little fun with our tech equipment. The plan was fairly simple: the students would each use video cameras to record a commentary about their visit to America, then edit the videos and post them on a Wikispaces site so their friends and family at home could watch them.
Our planning for this event was considerable. We reserved one of the smaller auditoriums in the high school, procured a cart of 30 CFF laptops from a neighboring classroom, and amassed around 15 cameras, ranging from Flips to Canons to webcams, from around the district. I drove to four schools yesterday to collect the cameras from the buildings that volunteered them for our use ( a big "thank you" to Oak Park, Montgomery, Bridle Path, and NPHS!). Our HS tech department created temporary accounts for the German students to log on to our network, and I made a wiki and, using the "User Creator," created Wikispaces accounts for all the students to use the site.
The students received their instructions, formed groups, grabbed cameras and headed into the nearby stairwells and hallways to record their videos. We were excited by the enthusiasm and creativity they showed as they took turns recording each other's testimonials. But when they returned to the room to plug in the cameras to the laptops to edit and save their videos, we encountered one problem after another. The Flip cameras recorded video that would not import into Windows Movie Maker (we did not have enough MacBooks at our disposal to have them use iMovie or Final Cut, which would have handled the videos fine). The students who shot thier videos on the older Canon video cameras had no trouble getting the video to import to Movie Maker, but the time it took to capture the video from the devices left them little time to edit their work. Jason and I went from group to group, helping them figure out alternative methods for completing the project. Some of the students were able to post their videos on the wiki directly from the cameras, with the intent of later getting the files and editing from a computer at their host families' houses. Other students were unable to even post their clips to edit later because the files were too large to upload to the wiki. Some of these students were able to use a file-sharing site to temporarily host their footage until later.
When the dust settled and it was time for the students to head to their next class, only four of the more-than-40 students had posted videos on the wiki as we had intended. As they powered down the equipment and we said our goodbyes, I appologized to the group for our lack of success. However, the smiles on their faces and the very nice comments from their chaperones quickly lifted my spirits. Though many of the students will end up being unable to share their videos with their friends and families at home, all of them had met the lesson objective. They had all reflected upon their visit, and recorded a narrative telling their stories. They had all had fun in the process. And there was a great lesson in the way we all adapted and collaborated to attempt to get the videos posted. Learning is messy. The technology doesn't always work. That does not mean that some great learning did not take place!
At the end of the work day, I facilitated an advanced training session for Schoolwires Teacher Web Pages. I worked with a dozen or so of my colleagues through an agenda I helped create showing them advanced uses for our district's teacher websites. This time, technology smiled on us. Everything worked well, and the two-hour session concluded with plenty of time left for me to answer individual questions while the teachers got a lot of hands-on time working on their pages. The attendees were excellent. Everyone was willing to help each other find the solutions to things they wanted their web sites to do, and their attitudes made it an excellent working and learning environment. Several times, when I was busy helping one teacher with his or her web pages, I witnessed teachers helping other teachers with a tool, tip, or trick that they knew how to do. The teamwork they demonstrated was an even bigger factor in the success of this training session than the fact that the technology worked. Of course, that didn't hurt!
It was a tale of two Tuesdays in the way the technology "cooperated" or did not, but the constant between both of today's endeavors was a strong sense of collaboration. This is certainly an age where learning needs to happen through collaboration. It can be messy, but out of the experience of working together to solve problems, some really incredible things are possible.
It began with great intentions. Our school has an exchange program bringing in German students from Aalen and Saltzgitter. During a few days of their visit, the 40+ students travel through an eight-period day at the high school, and teachers volunteer to host all or some of the students. I volunteered to host the visitors this morning to show a little of what we do as Academic Integration Coaches, and to let them have a little fun with our tech equipment. The plan was fairly simple: the students would each use video cameras to record a commentary about their visit to America, then edit the videos and post them on a Wikispaces site so their friends and family at home could watch them.
Our planning for this event was considerable. We reserved one of the smaller auditoriums in the high school, procured a cart of 30 CFF laptops from a neighboring classroom, and amassed around 15 cameras, ranging from Flips to Canons to webcams, from around the district. I drove to four schools yesterday to collect the cameras from the buildings that volunteered them for our use ( a big "thank you" to Oak Park, Montgomery, Bridle Path, and NPHS!). Our HS tech department created temporary accounts for the German students to log on to our network, and I made a wiki and, using the "User Creator," created Wikispaces accounts for all the students to use the site.
The students received their instructions, formed groups, grabbed cameras and headed into the nearby stairwells and hallways to record their videos. We were excited by the enthusiasm and creativity they showed as they took turns recording each other's testimonials. But when they returned to the room to plug in the cameras to the laptops to edit and save their videos, we encountered one problem after another. The Flip cameras recorded video that would not import into Windows Movie Maker (we did not have enough MacBooks at our disposal to have them use iMovie or Final Cut, which would have handled the videos fine). The students who shot thier videos on the older Canon video cameras had no trouble getting the video to import to Movie Maker, but the time it took to capture the video from the devices left them little time to edit their work. Jason and I went from group to group, helping them figure out alternative methods for completing the project. Some of the students were able to post their videos on the wiki directly from the cameras, with the intent of later getting the files and editing from a computer at their host families' houses. Other students were unable to even post their clips to edit later because the files were too large to upload to the wiki. Some of these students were able to use a file-sharing site to temporarily host their footage until later.
When the dust settled and it was time for the students to head to their next class, only four of the more-than-40 students had posted videos on the wiki as we had intended. As they powered down the equipment and we said our goodbyes, I appologized to the group for our lack of success. However, the smiles on their faces and the very nice comments from their chaperones quickly lifted my spirits. Though many of the students will end up being unable to share their videos with their friends and families at home, all of them had met the lesson objective. They had all reflected upon their visit, and recorded a narrative telling their stories. They had all had fun in the process. And there was a great lesson in the way we all adapted and collaborated to attempt to get the videos posted. Learning is messy. The technology doesn't always work. That does not mean that some great learning did not take place!
At the end of the work day, I facilitated an advanced training session for Schoolwires Teacher Web Pages. I worked with a dozen or so of my colleagues through an agenda I helped create showing them advanced uses for our district's teacher websites. This time, technology smiled on us. Everything worked well, and the two-hour session concluded with plenty of time left for me to answer individual questions while the teachers got a lot of hands-on time working on their pages. The attendees were excellent. Everyone was willing to help each other find the solutions to things they wanted their web sites to do, and their attitudes made it an excellent working and learning environment. Several times, when I was busy helping one teacher with his or her web pages, I witnessed teachers helping other teachers with a tool, tip, or trick that they knew how to do. The teamwork they demonstrated was an even bigger factor in the success of this training session than the fact that the technology worked. Of course, that didn't hurt!
It was a tale of two Tuesdays in the way the technology "cooperated" or did not, but the constant between both of today's endeavors was a strong sense of collaboration. This is certainly an age where learning needs to happen through collaboration. It can be messy, but out of the experience of working together to solve problems, some really incredible things are possible.
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
You down with AIC? Yeah you know me.
Keeping with the iPad topic, I'm going to try the Dragon app to speak this week's blog to see how well it does with converting my speech to text. I've read a lot this week about the popularity of the iPads for speech/vision/hearing impaired.
Jennifer Valentino-Devries' October 12 article in the Wall Street Journal stands out.
Since last Tuesday, the three AIC coaches have been busy, working with over 40 teachers in two after-school flex training sessions, and logging time 17 teachers during the work day, on topics including Google apps, Schoolwires, MOODLE, wikis, Word and PowerPoint 2007, collaborative writing and blogging, Voki, and the Podcasting topic we promoted at the in-service day.
After Monday's in-service for all teachers in grades 4 - 6, which we coaches helped plan, delivered the five concurrent breakout sessions (with the help of 7 other excellent faculty members and administrators), and ran the end-of-day collaborative work session, we took some time today to reflect on our work. The theme of the day was, "It's not about the technology; it's about learning powered by technology." At many points in the day, the technology played a crucial role, like when instructors of breakout sessions used Skype to bring their two groups together, from separate rooms in the building, for video chats. The tech took center stage in several breakout sessions, where facilitators modelled blogging, collaboration with wikis, and other specific web applications (Wallwisher, Google Forms, Quizlet, Voki, etc.), and demonstrated specific tools, like video cameras, Movie Maker, and the Elmo, to enhance the academic content. At other times, the technology took a back seat, where participants worked in groups to discuss and plan implementation and integration into their grade-level content. Of course, at certain times, the technology even limited our plans, like when presenters linked to sites that didn't funtion properly, or when facilitators had difficulty connecting to chat.
All in all, teachers were engaged with the ideas we shared, got to try a lot of the applications hands on, and we're extremely pleased (and even appeared in disbelief!) that they did not have to fill out a form to say what they did during their collaborative work time. This last part was very important to us on the planning team -- we wanted the teachers to have the time to work on what they were taking away, instead of worrying about what to tell us they were taking away. The exit ticket came on our end, as we traveled from group to group and recorded, with several flip cameras, each group telling us what they had gotten out of the day and what they planned to do with it in the classroom. We are working on combining that video into a webcast that can be shared with all who attended.
OK, that's enough from me for this Tuesday with Swindy. Be sure to tune in tomorrow for a What-up? Wednesday from Wendy and Jason.
:)
Jennifer Valentino-Devries' October 12 article in the Wall Street Journal stands out.
Since last Tuesday, the three AIC coaches have been busy, working with over 40 teachers in two after-school flex training sessions, and logging time 17 teachers during the work day, on topics including Google apps, Schoolwires, MOODLE, wikis, Word and PowerPoint 2007, collaborative writing and blogging, Voki, and the Podcasting topic we promoted at the in-service day.
After Monday's in-service for all teachers in grades 4 - 6, which we coaches helped plan, delivered the five concurrent breakout sessions (with the help of 7 other excellent faculty members and administrators), and ran the end-of-day collaborative work session, we took some time today to reflect on our work. The theme of the day was, "It's not about the technology; it's about learning powered by technology." At many points in the day, the technology played a crucial role, like when instructors of breakout sessions used Skype to bring their two groups together, from separate rooms in the building, for video chats. The tech took center stage in several breakout sessions, where facilitators modelled blogging, collaboration with wikis, and other specific web applications (Wallwisher, Google Forms, Quizlet, Voki, etc.), and demonstrated specific tools, like video cameras, Movie Maker, and the Elmo, to enhance the academic content. At other times, the technology took a back seat, where participants worked in groups to discuss and plan implementation and integration into their grade-level content. Of course, at certain times, the technology even limited our plans, like when presenters linked to sites that didn't funtion properly, or when facilitators had difficulty connecting to chat.
All in all, teachers were engaged with the ideas we shared, got to try a lot of the applications hands on, and we're extremely pleased (and even appeared in disbelief!) that they did not have to fill out a form to say what they did during their collaborative work time. This last part was very important to us on the planning team -- we wanted the teachers to have the time to work on what they were taking away, instead of worrying about what to tell us they were taking away. The exit ticket came on our end, as we traveled from group to group and recorded, with several flip cameras, each group telling us what they had gotten out of the day and what they planned to do with it in the classroom. We are working on combining that video into a webcast that can be shared with all who attended.
OK, that's enough from me for this Tuesday with Swindy. Be sure to tune in tomorrow for a What-up? Wednesday from Wendy and Jason.
:)
Tuesday, October 5, 2010
Using iPads in the Classroom
A topic on my mind this week, as I head to an Apple training on using the iPad in the classroom, is the use of / use for / usefulness of the iPad in the classroom.
My thoughts, before attending, are on the criticisms I've heard and read, that the iPad is not for content creation, but just consumption. However, only having had an iPad at my disposal for one afternoon before attending tomorrow's training, I have only personally used it for one thing, which was in fact content creation, so I am skeptical of the skeptics.
An officer in the high school Ski & Board Club was able to use the iPad to record the names of members that were paying the club dues, as they stood by the door to the room the 200-some club members were entering. The iPad enabled the student to be mobile, while providing us with a list to cross-reference with the Google Form we used to collect membership information. Simply typing names may sound like a pretty small deal, but it was a very important solution to a potential problem that came up today, and one that would have been much more awkward had it been completed balancing a laptop or tied to a desktop.
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