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interview Sara.m4a (4374 KB)

Second interview of teacher reflections on using technology during the school closure at KIS. The high school went out for a week due to H1N1, but several teachers kept the learning going by using technology. Sara Patterson, an English teacher, reflects on her experience in this podcast. Enjoy!

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02 Creation Of The Morning Line.mp3 (1983 KB)

If Education Were a Horse Race...

Today in education the line is as such:

Read the Chapter, 5/4
Answer Questions 1-4, 6/5
Lecture, 6/5
Creativity, 12
Innovation, 20
Freeing the Technology, 30
Fear, 5/4
Movie with NO Educational Purpose, 3
Collaboration, 5
Leadership, 10
Politicians, 6/5
Truth, 30
Reality, 30
Useless & Pointless Rules, 6/5
Vision, 50

If you want a sure thing,
Bet on Politicians, Fear, and Useless & Pointless Rules -- they always
come win, place, and show.

If you want to bet with your heart,
Go with Creativity, Innovation,
Collaboration, and Leadership.
They're bound to be winners someday.

But if you want the real long-shot,
Put everything you got on
Freeing the Technology, Truth, Reality & Vision,
Cause they're the best chance we got to save ourselves.

The Process:
I often wake up in the middle of the night; and although I sometimes lay there trying to sleep, I have learned enough about myself and life in general to not fight that battle, so I try now to be productive. Occasionally I read; often I play with my iTouch; sometimes I get very luck and the idea for a poem comes to me. Last night was one of those evenings where I woke up and a poem showed up. It started with me thinking about a Charles Bukowski poem I have a recording of where he compares life and writing to betting on the horse races. From that I started thinking about education as a horse race. In the original, Bukowski places odds on different parts of the writing process and on concepts about life. (I have attached the original poem.)  I started thinking about education and some of the current trends and topics that are hot. I thought back to the Apple Asia Leadership summit in Hong Kong and some of the things Marco Torres and John Couch were saying about learning and education. Then I threw on some Clay Burell and a poem was born.This is in draft form. I will now put it aside for several days and then come back to it. I'm open to comments from others on this. Please feel free to share this with your students. But bare in mind that the Charles Bukowski poem attached is explicit in natural, so please preview before playing it to students.Thanks for reading,
Tim

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interview Jess.m4a (3316 KB)

As some of you remember, Korea International School's high school was forced to close for a week due to an H1N1 outbreak. During that time, several teachers used online resources to continue there teaching. Although the situation wasn't ideal, many of them continued the learning. I will be posting a series of interviews with high school teachers. They will share with you their experiences both positive and negative. Our hope as a school is to make preparations so that if we are forced to close again in the future, we can do an even better job than we did this time. Enjoy!

Today's lap involved swimming with Glogster again. I came up with this work to share. I hope people enjoy it, the actual focus was not on the content itself, but rather the experience of using the tool. Glogster allows for hours of creativity and messing around, which can be shaped into hours of educational material, if used correctly and with some teacher creativity. One of KIS's art teachers, Sarah Digges, is using it as a reflection tool in the artistic process.

Often times teachers come to me asking for advice about technology and the best advice I can and do give is "Don't be afraid to jump into the deep end of the pool with those digital natives." You will find that the laughs you hear from them are not because of your inept skills, but because of their joy in sharing and learning with you.

In education, Comic Life opens the door to a discussion about photography. My examples have some simply terrible photos, but that was intentional on my part, because I will use them in class to discuss what makes a good photo and how to edit to improve photos with iPhoto. Actually the middle school students at KIS are becoming quite adept at editing and changing photos. I've asked them during classes, how many of them have cropped photos, and most hands go up. How many have used editing tools to manipulate photos, more hands go up. Some of this is due to the wonderful work our computer department does and the rest is simple experimentation on the part of students. Oh, oh, oh to be a digital native, eh? I usually introduce what I have called the Three Methods of Comic Book Communication: Layout, Dialogue, and Image. The students have all read comic books, so they are pretty savvy at applying that natural knowledge base to their own comics, especially after you point to the techniques to them in a short discussion.

I'm continually going on about the wonders of Comic Life and its applications in the classroom, especially for elementary and middle school teachers; but recently Tyler Sherwood, principal of Chatsworth East International School in Singapore, turned me on to a new use for Comic Life -- making yearbooks. I was bemoaning the process my poor art teacher was going through last year making a middle school yearbook on Twitter, when Tyler pointed me in the direction his school went last year with Comic Life. He was even kind enough to send me a copy via old-school snail mail for me to look over with my art teacher. Although she started the process and is locked in to the system she began with, she was very impressed with the Chatsworth Yearbook 2008-09 edition, as was I. She even told me that if she had it to do over, Comic Life would be the way to go. Thanks to Tyler and the students and faculty of Chatsworth East for sharing.

   

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Comic_Life_once_again....zip (20993 KB)

This should be the chant in front of every administrators' door. For those that are in schools where Facebook is blocked; where cell phones and iPods are banned; where the future as been shoved in a closet with a blanket thrown over its head and beaten with a metal bat -- the chant of, "Free the technology" must be heard. Your students are being short changed. They will not be prepared for the future. Share this link with your administration: One Hundred Ways to Use Facebook in the classroom. That's right -- 100! Count them baby! How many way can you use that textbook? Go ahead now, count the ways... Is it 100? NO!

One of the things I love about Korea International School is the freedom given to teachers by the administration. The administration trusts teachers to make wise, professional, educational choices with technology. Because of that trust, our students are learning and growing with technology. When they compete for university acceptance and jobs with other students, they will be ahead of the game, not behind. I have to give a great big thank you to Rich Boerner, Robin Schneider, David Christenbury, Shane Kells, Bruce Roadside and Dan Choi for creating an environment of innovation and collaboration about technology. Without their continued support and trust, our exploration and experimentation with technology would not be possible nor feasible. Thank you gentlemen!

Prezi allows you to develop presentations vastly superior to PowerPoint or Keynote with the added advantage of being stored online so you can edit or present from anywhere with any computer as long as you have Internet access. Prezi allows movement -- zooming and panning, lines and pathways, text boxes, photos, and video clips. The layout is on a giant canvas that you design and control. The final products are visually stunning and make a powerful impact on audiences. Students will love the freedom to explore and experiment placing items on a giant canvas and having the presentation move around to each new location. Teachers who want to get their students attention should try this website.

Glogster is a powerful blogging tool. It also provides a canvas for the artistically inclined to place graphics, text boxes, images, audio files, video players, and links in creative and original ways. You can use a template or build your own from the ground up. (What? Virtual ground, I guess... My metaphors are cliche dangerously outdated.) However, unlike Prezi, the idea here is to post and have visitors, rather than use it for presentations. But now that I'm thinking of it, Glogster could be used for a presentation tool as well. I plan to use it as a blogging platform for my classes in the future, because I will be able to teach elements of layout and design at the same time. Plus, the students will love the freedom of having text, audio, and video to share their thoughts.

Regardless, both websites offer ample opportunities to explore self expression through technology and I hope that educators will start using these tools with their students. One of the joys of working overseas in a private school is the freedom to experiment and grow as an educator. I'm proud of my administration for not falling into the trap of slapping handcuffs on the technology by making silly rules and blocking websites. Teachers need to fight for the right to use these technologies in the classroom and it is high time that the unions back home step up to the plate with teachers and demand the administrators and school boards fund and allow technology in the classroom. Anything less is criminal.

   

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Prezi_and_Glogster.zip (1121 KB)