Saturday, May 10, 2014

Attending from a far or the value of twitter stalking #edtech #miched

This morning while I was stuck in Michigan there were edcamps in Chicago and Google Apps for Ed (#gafe) summit.  I have a limited travel budget so what's a girl to do?

The Google docs session tweeted the link to their google doc so I hang out there for awhile. Amazing  to be collaborating with teachers that were a whole state away.

I loaded up my tweet deck with #gafesummit and #edcampchicago and # edcampnnyc and watched the tweet fly like code strings falling the matrix.

We have few nice days in Michigan that the sunshine called me outside. But I don't what to miss those links, resources and connections!!! Again "What's a girl to do? "

Hello Storify !

You've been quoted in my #Storify story "Best of #edcampchicago"
You've been quoted in my #Storify story "#gafesummit #gafe best of summary "

Storify is a great tool for curating  from many sources. In my case I am searching a hashtag to pull the tweets that I will find useful. No selflies ( please don't be offended.). I focused on links and resources and mentions of things I want to learn about.  

You can search, sort, and add text. There's a notify button to give a shout out to those that contributed. You can also share on social media. Storify is a create curating. https://storify.com/julieallthat.


Wednesday, May 7, 2014

wow that just happened ( reflect can jump you) #edleadership #edcamp

So reading my twitter feed I found a link to apply attend Tedx. I love TED talk so why not.
Then I get into the questions on the form. They were questions that really made me think about myself and what I believe it.




I think like in that one moment I really had some clear thinking about who I am and what I believe in even though I did not set out to have that deep of a reply. Good stuff so I thought I would post it here too. ( work smarter not harder)

I hope I get in! Back to grading tests.

Apply here 

Attend TEDxGPSHS

TEDxGrossePointeSouthHS will be held at Grosse Pointe South High School in the Auditorium on Saturday June 7 1:00PM





Saturday, May 3, 2014

#edcampdetroit links and take aways

I went to edcamp Detroit at Wayne State today. It's where I connect with the most amazing teachers that inspire me. Ssearch #edcampdetroit for tweets about our learning.


Edcamps are an empowering free self directed PD for teacher. edcampdetroit is the first Saturday in May. edcampOU is in October. There was one at MSU during the winter and edcampWBWL ( West Bloomfield Walled Lake) in March. Be on the look out for these great events.


Here are some of the great tools/site/stuff I learned about:

Free Apps:

http://www.smartappsforkids.com/ lets you know about educational app that are free.

Apps gone free


Flipped Resources

Educanon embed questions into your videos.




Augmented Reality (AR)

 AR uses trigger images to make an image 3D and interactive. You need the trigger image and the app on your mobile device . Erin has a great post about how to use it in your classroom.

Enchantium  has music strings to play with and little fighter guys.

http://arflashcards.com/ makes flash cards that come alive.

DAQRI

Anatomy 4D allows you to explore the human body including going inside organs. 

Tour Washington DC with AR. Kids can look around in 3D

ColAR color the pages and the your colored image goes 3D

Atlas by Traclab creates a robot you can code.

Aurasma Allows you to create your own triggers. Powerful example: Augment homework. Parents hold their cell phone over the math and a video pops of telling them how to help their child with the lesson.

AR Magic Mirror - just for fun. Wear silly things on your face.




I cannot say how much these edcamps inspire and recharge me. I am thankful for all the amazing people I have meet there.


Wednesday, April 30, 2014

Teacher Evalution

4/30/14
Today is the day in the Aspiring Principal's Leadership Academy that we are focusing on teacher evaluation . Here are some take aways.

My personal definition of quality instruction:
Quailtity instruction engages diverse learners in problem soling thinking to create succesful life long learners.
My groups refined definition
Quailty instruction 
* Student Engagement
* Teacher Knowledge 
* Ability to Differential
* Edivence of Learning and Critical Thinking
* Reflective parctice by teacher 

My refined defintion:
Quailtity instruction engages diverse learners in critical  thinking to create succesful life long learners given by a reflective teacher. 

It's interestine to see the evolution. 

We watched a clip of a teacher then were asked to grade that teacher. My insight from this is evaulation happens in context and continum. What you evalution needs to be set by expectation. Leaders need to develop a context for that evalution. What are we working on as abuiding/team/culture? Evalutions are a continum. They should be done many times during the year. with different focuses to create an overall picture of that teacher's parctice. 

 a walk through  is not the place  to make inference and judgement. There's time to collective edivence and descriptions. Not inferences. 


Tuesday, April 8, 2014

Today's Learning: YouTube editing

So my goal for today was to learn how to edit videos in YouTube/editor. Sounds like a good goal huh?

However first you must have videos. I have Google Glass, so there's no shortage of video. It's just getting them uploaded. Long learning shorten for your benefit: the fastest way to do this is to plug Glass into your laptop via the USB cable then copy them to your hard drive then upload them to YouTube. Yes there's a YouTube app on Glass, but this is faster for many videos.

YouTube editor allows the basic functions. I added my videos together, moved them around, edited some down, and put in some transitions. There are caption, audio files, and a few other functions. I'll play with those next time. It does take awhile to process the file - long enough to write a blog entry.

Start at youtube.com/editor
I'll build some infographic as I play more.

I did not hear you is a lie #deeplearning

Yesterday I said to my daughter "I'm sorry I did not hear you. What doesn't she like?" Based on my reading of How to Create a Mind by R. Kurzweil, I now understand what was really going on in my mind.

Background:
My daughter and I were talking about her friend Eva. We talked about their friendship. We were in the car listening to Pandora. Emily was looking at the radio display when she said, "Eva does not like this band anymore."  I was driving so I did not see where she was looking. When she said that I just could not understand what she said that Eva didn't like. I understood the "Eva does not like" and the "anymore".  But the middle was lost to me. Naturally I said "I'm sorry I did not hear you. What doesn't she like?"

Then it hit me. I heard the first and last words just fine. There was nothing to interfere with me hearing the middle section but my mind. We were talking about their friendship so I thought she said her but that did not fit the rest of the conversation so I stopped the conversation.

Your mind stores information in patterns. One of it's greatest abilities is to predict those patterns. This seems up processing and selectively activates pathways of hierarchical patterns that may related to the conversation. We teach predicting skills as part of reading comprehension because good readers can get ahead of the story by predicting so they can process the meaning of the story.

File:Cover of How to Create a Mind by Ray Kurzweil.jpgYou, the reader, had no problem making sense of her comment because I included where she was looking. I was driving so when she made that statement, I did not see where she was looking. It was not that I did not hear her. It was that what she said did not match any of my predictions. Worst then that, for my mind, it was a band I had never heard of so it did not match any of my patterns. So I just simply did not understand.

Kurzweil states that our mind is always predicting. Our predictions are based on our experiences. Experiences are the bases for perceptions. Perceptions influence how we perceive the world around us.

It's not that I could not hear her. It is that my predictions did not match what she said in anyway. Nor did what she say match any know patterns in my mind. My mind hear that as a garbled mess because it did not match my understanding. It was a moment of insight for me into how our mind works based on my reading from How to Create a Mind by Ray Kurzweil. I highly recommend it.

Wednesday, April 2, 2014

How to Create a mind: Pattern based learning reflections

As I read the book, How to Create a Mind I am thinking about how this impacts instruction.
If the mind is structured in hierarchical pattern, how does that impact our teaching?
What strategies build those patterns and connect the hierarchical relationships.

"Will's dying but his mind is a serial of electrical patterns that we can upload" Transcedence Movie trailer.