Flat Classroom Project

I am trilled to share that I am signed up to attend the Flat Classroom Workshop in Mumbai, India at the American School of Bombay February 24-27, 2010! The Flat Classroom Project has been an interest of mine for several years. This project is focused on students in grades 9-12. Participants are paired up and presented with cross curricular lessons that bring students into collaboration with each other in ways not possible in the regular classroom. Here is a link that will provide detailed information about how to get involved: Flat Classroom Projects 2009-2010

I have been wanting to become involved with the project, but I do not have a classroom of my own so I can only promote/support this work. If you teach high school students and are interested in participating please know that I will be willing to provide additional support as needed. Here is a video explaining the project in a little more detail:

School Laptops: Norway versus Philadelphia

June is the time of year when I like to chill out by the pool and read. Recently, I was looking through my Spring 2009 issue of GOOD magazine and found an interesting article. It discussed the observations of two inner city high school classes that are both using laptops. One class was in Norway and the other Philadelphia. The Norwegian students were working on problem solving with the use of freeware that challenges them to build the cheapest functional bridge. Meanwhile; back in the United States, kids were plotting simple inequalities on a number line. BORING!!!

As a frequent participant in school observations, it is sad how frequently I see students who are not challenged or given the intellectual freedom to solve problems in creative and unique ways. For the most part, students in our district are being taught what the teachers believe will help them on standardized test. According to Andreas Schleicher, "The skills that are easiest to teach and test are also the ones that are easiest to digitise, automate and outsource." Is that what the United States is working toward? We all know that in "real life" problems don't come with multiple choice answers. Since life is not a standardized test; I believe we need to either find a better way to test students on how well they can use the knowledge they are gaining at school, or begin teaching in a way that will ensure students can solve problems that require more than multiple choice answers.

Here is a link & image below to the freeware mentioned in the article: http://bridgecontest.usma.edu/index.htm

Create Your Own Avatar

Ok, so I have gone a bit blogging crazy with two post this week. This is just so cool, that I couldn't keep it from you for another whole week! Doppel Me is a free website that allows users to create their own customized avatar which can then be used in blogs, ToonDoo, GoAnimate, and various social networking sites.

We have a teacher who is using this with her students and I think it is a great idea. I can't tell you how many times I have seen students use copyrighted images as their profile photos. This is also a nice way to practice Internet safety because the students don't need to use their own photo to represent themselves.

Check it out when you get a chance, its fun and free!

Animation with Xtra-Normal

Last week I hosted the Spring E-Cubed Showcase and saw an excellent use of this tool. One team used Xtra-Normal in their presentation and I thought it rocked! Xtra-Normal turns your text into a movie!This could be used for school projects such as: news broadcast, announcements, and school projects. It's fun to select sets, create your own dialogue and even use multiple actors. These projects can then be uploaded to blogs, YouTube, podcast, MySpace, etc.

Here is a news release about Xtra-Normal

New Human Computer Interface

TED is the newest Human Computer Interface I have seen. It is composed of small blocks that are computers with the ability to interact with each other when moved. My descriptions won't do it justice. Check out the demonstration of this amazing new technology here:
http://video.ted.com/talks/podcast/DavidMerrill_2009_480.mp4

One True Media and Photoshop Express

Make photo slide shows at www.OneTrueMedia.com

One True Media and Photoshop Express can be found online. Both are free and allow users to upload and share photos. Here are a few examples I quickly created while at Camp Parks, CA this week. The photo quality is not that great because I used my cell phone to take the photos. I had some problems with Photoshop Express when trying to publish a player for a shared album which is the reason I posted the ugly url below:

http://www.photoshop.com/user/sdarby/?galleryid=43ae370fcc5e4c269ece895373d9ebdd&wf=share&trackingid=BTAGC

Picasa Photo Editing

This week I am spending time in Dublin, CA with the Army reserve teaching soldiers to become medics. I know, it is hard to believe that I am actually in the Army. Since I am away from work; I thought it would be the perfect time to introduce one of my favorite free photo editing tools....Picasa. The photo collage you see pictured above is just one of the many features of this google product. It is a great tool for those who are not up to the task of Adobe Photoshop. Picasa allows color corrections, croppping, text, web albums and of course easy blog posting. Next week I will share my other photo editing favorite.

Video Conferencing

Reviewing my delicious account for some interesting content I came upon a video conferencing tool called, ooVoo. I have been a big fan of Skype in the past but this tool caught my interest because it allows up to 6 people to video conference at once for free.

When I signed up for ooVoo this morning I found that I could easily add my contacts from Skype, GoogleTalk, and Gmail. It also allows users to share documents which is a handy feature during meetings. This tool is going to be great because I will soon be able to chat with my sister and my mother all at once. Thanks ooVoo!

Tired of Boring Presentations?

I am finally forcing myself to get this blog going. It is very sad that it's taken me this long to start publishing. For my first post I want to share some great resources I found to help presentation authors keep us all awake. Enjoy!

Four Multimedia Learning Principles that will Improve Your Slides

My favorite slideshow which explains the basics:

Brain Rules for Presenters

View more presentations from garr. (tags: reynolds garr)