http://teachersteachingteachers.org A weekly webcast on the EdTechTalk channel of the WorldBridges network Wed, 21 Jul 2010 15:17:08 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.1 en ©Paul Allison, Susan Ettenheim, Thomas (Teb) Locke 2003-2006 allisonpr@gmail.com (Paul Allison, Susan Ettenheim, Thomas (Teb) Locke) allisonpr@gmail.com teaching, k12, writing, blogging, wikis, webcasting 1440 education, skype, webcast, writing, reading, school Keeping it Real in New York City public schools. Skyping, Webcasting, and Podcasting By and For Teachers. Three public school teacher in New York City moderate this podcast that comes from a weekly skype conversation and live webcast. Paul Allison, Susan Ettenheim, and Thomas (Teb) Locke get together, invite their colleagues, and talk about teaching reading, writing, and content with Web 2.0 technologies. Paul Allison, Susan Ettenheim, Thomas (Teb) Locke Paul Allison, Susan Ettenheim, Thomas (Teb) Locke allisonpr@gmail.com No no http://teachersteachingteachers.org/images/KeepItRealSmall.jpg http://teachersteachingteachers.org 144 144 http://teachersteachingteachers.org/?p=264 http://teachersteachingteachers.org/?p=264#comments Wed, 21 Jul 2010 15:14:29 +0000 Paul Allison http://teachersteachingteachers.org/?p=264 http://teachersteachingteachers.org/?feed=rss2&p=264 50:32 br/a href="http://edtechtalk.com/audio/download/4804/Teachers207-2010-06-30.mp3"Download quot;We#039;ve been taken over once again by something that we couldn#039;t stop, can#039;t stop.quot; TTT 207 - 06.30.10lt br/a href="http://edtechtalk.com/audio/download/4804/Teachers207-2010-06-30.mp3"Download quot;We#039;ve been taken over once again by something that we couldn#039;t stop, can#039;t stop.quot; TTT 207 - 06.30.10/abr/This the fourth week of a summer series in which we have focused Teachers Teaching Teachers on the BP Gulf Oil Spill. Our guests included: Matt Montagne, who has been collecting materials, such as: October 28th, 2010 TEDxOILSPILL Talks. The Google Doc that Matt can be found at http://tinyurl.com/voicesonthegulf - And stay tuned! There much more to come under the domain: "VoicesOnTheGulf." (We also eventually agreed on the common tags: "voicesonthegulf" and "edoilspill" Diana Laufenberg, a history teacher from Science Leadership Academy who joined us on this topic 3 weeks ago will try (from her family#8217;s farm) to join us again. Natasha Whitton, one of the three teachers from the Southeastern Louisiana Writing Project two weeks ago, hopes to join us again Andrea Zellner, a biology and English teachers from the Red Cedar Writing Project in Michigan will be with us again! AND NEW to our webcast: Catherine Tibbs, a former high school English teacher who works for the Live Oak Writing Project in Mississippi joined us. (She is also invited colleagues who will be heard on future podcasts. Catherine wrote this on a Monday late in June : I don#8217;t know if you know this or not, but oil reached the MS beaches this weekend. We had been fortunate so far to avoid this mess. From what I understand from the media, the manpower was not coordinated in the Gulf to skim the oil that is now reaching us. Isn#8217;t that always the case? Also new to the podcast is Jeff Mason from Penscola, Florida, a biology and technology teacher. We met a Twitter, and we look forward to a continuing connection. (Jeff came on the webcast last week as well, so look for more from him on future podcasts.) We hope you will be able to join us in this ongoing project. Help us know how to respond as teachers#8212;and with our students#8212;to this monster that will continue to reek havoc for weeks? months? to come! Join us to talk about what's happening in the gulf every Wednesday at http://EdTechTalk.com/live at 9:00pm Eastern / 6:00pm Pacific USA (World Times). Go to EdTechTalk to see a copy of the chat that was happening during the webcast. Paul,Allison,,Susan,Ettenheim,,National,Writing,Project,,students,,Matt,Montagne,,planning,,curriculum,,NWP,,Diana,Laufenberg,,Andrea,Zellner,,science,,edoilspill,,pblcamp,,Voices,on,the,Gulf,,Catherine,Tibbs,,Jeff,Mason,,multidisciplinary,,Natasha,Whi... Paul Allison, Susan Ettenheim, Thomas (Teb) Locke no No http://teachersteachingteachers.org/?p=263 http://teachersteachingteachers.org/?p=263#comments Sat, 17 Jul 2010 14:00:32 +0000 Paul Allison http://teachersteachingteachers.org/?p=263 http://teachersteachingteachers.org/?feed=rss2&p=263 41:57 br/a href="http://edtechtalk.com/audio/download/4802/Teachers206-2010-06-23.mp3"Download Will our students find the oil spill complelling? 3rd in a series - TTT 206 - 06.23.10/abr/On this episode of Teachers Teaching Teach br/a href="http://edtechtalk.com/audio/download/4802/Teachers206-2010-06-23.mp3"Download Will our students find the oil spill complelling? 3rd in a series - TTT 206 - 06.23.10/abr/On this episode of Teachers Teaching Teachers -- the third in our summer series on the Gulf oil failure -- Paul Allison and Susan Ettenheim are joined by Chris Sloan and Andrea Zeller. We talk about building curriculum around the Gulf oil spill and other topics, wondering how to keep student self-motivated inquiry at the center of our work while also introducing topics such as the environment, art history, obesity, AP English, or the earthquake in Haiti and other current events. Chris Sloan teaches at Judge Memorial Catholic High School in Salt Lake City, and he is a member of the Wasatch Range Writing Project. He teaches digital photography, media studies and AP English. Chris, Paul and Susan and their students have been working together on a school-based social network, Youth Voices for the last six years. Andrea Zellner has been a frequent guest on TTT this summer, we are delighted to say! Andrea is a former high school teacher in Michigan, who taught both English and Biology. Currently Andrea works for the Red Cedar Writing Project. Susan Ettenheim teaches at Eleanor Roosevelt High School in New York City. Susan and Paul have been doing Teachers Teaching Teachers together for almost five years. Susan teaches computer arts, art, and digital photography, and she is the librarian as well. This year Susan is also teaching a Caribbean Art History course for the Virtual High School. Paul Allison teaches at the East-West School of International Studies in Flushing, Queens. He is also the Tech Liaison for the New York City Writing Project. Paul teaches English and he started a school/community garden this spring. We hope you enjoy this conversation between four veteran teachers. Just as we build on each others ideas, we hope you build on ours and let us know what you are thinking in the comments below. We invite you to join us each Wednesday this summer to listen to teachers from the Gulf and to hear how teachers are planning to bring these issues into their classrooms this fall. Join us at http://EdTechTalk.com/live at 9:00pm Eastern / 6:00pm Pacific USA Wednesdays / 01:00 UTC Thursdays World Times Go to EdTechTalk to see a copy of the chat that was happening during the webcast. Paul,Allison,,Susan,Ettenheim,,Chris,Sloan,,Curriculum,Planning,,English,,curriculum,,Andrea,Zellner,,Gulf,oil,disaster,,YouthSpill,,science,,Art,History,,BP,oil,spill,,current,events,,edoilspill,,inquiry,,pblcamp,,Project-based,Learning,,Voices,on,the... Paul Allison, Susan Ettenheim, Thomas (Teb) Locke no No http://teachersteachingteachers.org/?p=262 http://teachersteachingteachers.org/?p=262#comments Tue, 06 Jul 2010 11:31:39 +0000 Paul Allison http://teachersteachingteachers.org/?p=262 http://teachersteachingteachers.org/?feed=rss2&p=262 45:36 br/a href="http://edtechtalk.com/audio/download/4799/Teachers205-2010-06-16.mp3"Download Three teachers from Louisiana talk about a dull ache - 2nd in a series - TTT 205 - 06.16.10/abr/Obama seems to have missed ... br/a href="http://edtechtalk.com/audio/download/4799/Teachers205-2010-06-16.mp3"Download Three teachers from Louisiana talk about a dull ache - 2nd in a series - TTT 205 - 06.16.10/abr/Obama seems to have missed another opportunity in a major address that he gave about the BP oil spill last month (June 15). Earlier he was right to call the Gulf Oil Disaster our environmental 9/11. Both are life-changing disasters that have many of us asking where we need to stop compromising. On Teachers Teaching Teachers this summer, we are asking what needs to change in our schools and in our lives as teachers. We hope that Thomas L. Friedmans comments in May 2010 wont be the last word on the 9/11 comparison. Sept. 11, 2001, was one of those rare seismic events that create the possibility to energize the country to do something really important and lasting that is too hard to do in normal times. On this episode of Teachers Teaching Teachers, we talked about what we can do now that we might not have done before this disaster or failure. This is the second of a series of shows we will be doing on the Gulf oil disaster. In the previous podcast (TTT 204), we had a thoughtful, productive conversation with history teacher Diana Laufenberg about responses in our curriculum to the Gulf Oil Disaster. One of her ideas was to set up Skype connections for our students with people in Gulf states to personalize and more deeply understand the impact of this ongoing disaster. To move this idea forward, we were joined by teacher-consultants from the Southeastern Louisiana Writing Project " Carolyn Kirk, Tasha Whitton, and Ellen Steigman " on this podcast. On this podcast, we wre also be joined by teachers Matt Montagne and Andrea Zellner " two of our favorite angry, young environmentalists! Wont you join us too? We will continue our conversations about what needs to change all summer on Teachers Teaching Teachers. We want to know what you are thinking. Join us in the chat room or get ready to join us on Skype at http://EdTechTalk.com/live at 9:00pm Eastern / 6:00pm Pacific USA Wednesdays / 01:00 UTC Thursdays World Times Go to EdTechTalk to see a copy of the chat that was happening during the webcast. Paul,Allison,,Susan,Ettenheim,,Writing,,Matt,Montagne,,planning,,curriculum,,Andrea,Zellner,,Gulf,oil,disaster,,Gulf,oil,spill,,YouthSpill,,BP,failure,,Carolyn,Kirk,,Ellen,Steigman,,Louisiana,,science,,Southeastern,Louisiana,Writing,Project,,Tasha,Whitton Paul Allison, Susan Ettenheim, Thomas (Teb) Locke no No http://teachersteachingteachers.org/?p=261 http://teachersteachingteachers.org/?p=261#comments Mon, 05 Jul 2010 04:28:50 +0000 Paul Allison http://teachersteachingteachers.org/?p=261 http://teachersteachingteachers.org/?feed=rss2&p=261 46:19 br/a href="http://edtechtalk.com/audio/download/4798/Teachers204-2010-06-09.mp3"Download quot;We can#039;t not deal with it!quot; says Diana Laufenberg - 1st in a series - TTT 204 - 06.09.10/abr/This is the br/a href="http://edtechtalk.com/audio/download/4798/Teachers204-2010-06-09.mp3"Download quot;We can#039;t not deal with it!quot; says Diana Laufenberg - 1st in a series - TTT 204 - 06.09.10/abr/This is the first in a series of TTT webcasts that we are doing this summer in response to BP's gushing oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico. We are asking teachers from all over to join us each Wednesday evening this summer to put together a curriculum that will help our students build their own responses to the human, animal, and ecological devestation that has been happening every day since April. Incredibly, this "spill" promises to continue wrecking damage into the fall and winter. Diana Laufenberg, a teacher at the Science Leadership Academy in Philadelphia, started us in this series of shows with a the powerful, clear-eyed stance of a history teacher commited to helping her students find their own answers to "How does this go on?" Diana's descriptions of a project in which her students made infographics this spring will inspire, and her ideas for connecting her students to students in the Gulf will make you want to join us in this endeavor. We also spoke to a math teacher, Matthew, from Pennsylvania. Diana Laufenberg ( @dlaufenberg and Living the Dream ) is a history teacher at the Science Leadership Academy in Philadelphia. On the schools website, she is described as a nomad. Diana is a true life-long learner. She currently works with 11th grade students at SLA. Experiential education is an integral part of her educational pursuits taking students from the classroom to the real world and back again. Before finding her way to Philadelphia, she was an active member of the teaching community in Flagstaff, AZ where she was named Technology Teacher of the Year for Arizona and a member of the Governors Master Teacher Corps. In the second and fourth webcasts in June, podcasts of which will be available later this week, we were privilidged to have teachers from the Gulf join us. We are working to find a place for all of us to contribute resources, connections, and ideas. On this webcast we talk about the possibility of connecting in some way through the Learning Network of the New York Times. (See "The Gulf Oil Spill in the Classroom.") Another possibility is for some of us to work with Suzie Boss and the teachers who have signed up for Edutopia's Project-Based Learning Camp, which will start in the middle of July (although it's now closed to new participants). Also Matt Montagne started this Google Doc to begin collecting our thoughts, resources and plans. Please enjoy to this podcast. Diana gets us off to a great start on this journey! And please plan to join us this summer 9:00pm Eastern / 6:00pm Pacific USA Wednesdays / 01:00 UTC Thursdays World Times. Go to EdTechTalk to see a copy of the chat that was happening during the webcast. Paul,Allison,,Susan,Ettenheim,,planning,,curriculum,,Diana,Laufenberg,,Matt,,Gulf,oil,disaster,,Gulf,oil,spill,,infographics,,YouthSpill Paul Allison, Susan Ettenheim, Thomas (Teb) Locke no No http://teachersteachingteachers.org/?p=260 http://teachersteachingteachers.org/?p=260#comments Wed, 30 Jun 2010 00:07:55 +0000 Paul Allison http://teachersteachingteachers.org/?p=260 http://teachersteachingteachers.org/?feed=rss2&p=260 58:46 br/a href="http://edtechtalk.com/audio/download/4797/Teachers203-2010-06-02.mp3"Download Visualizing information and Envisioning New Schools - TTT 203 - 06.02.10/abr/For this episode of Teachers Teaching Teachers, we aske br/a href="http://edtechtalk.com/audio/download/4797/Teachers203-2010-06-02.mp3"Download Visualizing information and Envisioning New Schools - TTT 203 - 06.02.10/abr/For this episode of Teachers Teaching Teachers, we asked Suzie Boss to come on to help us have a conversation with: an amazing young high school student who has developed his own project-based learning by creating info-graphics. a dynamic teacher who has been working all year to help open a new public school in East Brooklyn. We learned a lot, both about visualizing information and about integrating technology into a new, alternative school. Michael, Amazing Student Chris Sloan joined us with one of his amazing students, Michael, from Judge Memorial High School in Salt Lake City. Michael has a blog called Graph the Info. Click on this image to see a recent post where Michael explains his creative process: Charlie, Dynamic Teacher We were also joined by Charlie Freij a teacher we meet in the New York City Writing Projects Advanced Summer Institute last year. Charlie has been working this year to create a new school, East Brooklyn Community High School, in Canarsie. And his students have been using Youth Voices. East Brooklyn Community High School is a small, academically rigorous high school that is committed to preparing students for college, meaningful employment, healthy personal and family relationships and participation in the life of their communities. East Brooklyn Community High School is a transfer school that is designed to help students who have fallen behind in credit accumulation get back on track and earn a high school diploma. East Brooklyn Community HS is a collaboration between the DOE and SCO Family Services; our curriculum and programs build on SCOs comprehensive range of neighborhood and community based services that sustain families and children. The academic program will utilize innovative and project based instructional strategies that prepare students to pass Regents exams and develop the skills needed for post secondary options. We hope you enjoy this podcast, and that you will join us each Wednesday this summer as we develop curriculum together that will address the BP Gulf Oil Atrocity. Go to EdTechTalk to see a copy of the chat that was happening during the webcast. Paul,Allison,,Susan,Ettenheim,,students,,Suzie,Boss,,change,,Charlie,Freij,,alternative,schools,,teachers,,Visualizations Paul Allison, Susan Ettenheim, Thomas (Teb) Locke no No http://teachersteachingteachers.org/?p=259 http://teachersteachingteachers.org/?p=259#comments Sun, 27 Jun 2010 18:07:02 +0000 Paul Allison http://teachersteachingteachers.org/?p=259 http://teachersteachingteachers.org/?feed=rss2&p=259 68:38 br/a href="http://edtechtalk.com/audio/download/4796/Teachers202-2010-05-26.mp3"Download The 3R#039;s of Gaming: Playing, Modding, and Designing - TTT 202 - 05.26.10/abr/On this episode of Teachers Teaching Teachers, br/a href="http://edtechtalk.com/audio/download/4796/Teachers202-2010-05-26.mp3"Download The 3R#039;s of Gaming: Playing, Modding, and Designing - TTT 202 - 05.26.10/abr/On this episode of Teachers Teaching Teachers, we learned more about playing, modifying, and designing games. One of our guests was Scott Price, a game developer or producer at Gamestar Mechanic. A few of us in the New York City Writing Project, especially Susan Ettenheim and Shantanu Saha " both of whom are on this podcast " have been using a beta version of Gamestar Mechanic this spring with their students. Students or as they are know inside of this game, Mechanics" can do a bunch of fun and interesting things with Gamestar Mechanic, and most of them fall into three categories: Quest Youll start the game playing the Gamestar Mechanic Quest. Youll start out as a new arrival in Factory 7. Along the way, you will play games, fix broken games and even design games of your own. As you complete challenges, youll collect sprites: avatars, enemies, blocks and other tools that serve as the building blocks for making games. Workshop In the workshop, you can use the sprites youve earned to build your own games. You can edit and change games you have created, add content that tells the story behind your game and, of course, play the games youve made. Game Alley If youve created an awesome game, you can publish it to Game Alley. In Game Alley, mechanics can play games created by other users and share the games they have created. You can review and comment on other mechanics games to let them know how much their games rock or what they can do to make them better. On this episode of TTT, we were also priviledged to have a 6 grade teacher who has been using Gamestar Mechanic as well as other gaming platforms extensively with his students, Al Doyle. Al is the Sports for the Mind domain teacher at Quest 2 Learn, a new public school in New York City where students learn to see the world as composed of many different kinds of systems. It is a place to play, invent, grow, and explore. Al Doyle, a native of Brooklyn, has interests ranging from art and animation to set design, digital imaging and most recently, game design. He was the producer and lead animator for the Salvadori Foundations Art of Construction, a web site designed to teach basic architecture and engineering to middle school students. For more than twenty years, he has taught computer graphics and multimedia at leading independent New York City K-12 schools. Al developed a popular course for adults, Learning Photoshop Through Art, at the Guggenheim Museum. Al received a Jerome Foundation Fellowship to create a portfolio of prints at Bob Blackburns Printmaking Workshop which is now in the Library of Congress collection. Al studied stage design at the Polakov Studio in the West Village and was resident designer at HB Studio for several years. In addition, he designed over 100 educational theater productions and over 25 professional designs for ballet, dance, drama, musical theater and opera in off-Broadway and regional theater. As Director of Internet Training at the National Teacher Training Institute for New Yorks Channel Thirteen / WNET, Al traveled extensively in a train-the-trainers model of technology integration for K-12 teachers. Currently, in addition to his role at Quest, Al teaches for the graduate division of Touro Colleges Masters Degree Program in Instructional Technology. We hope you enjoy this episode, and we invite you to join us in our quest learn more about how to understand game mechanics. We want to imagine the different possibilities that Gamestar Mechanic and other sites like this provide to our students as we make room for these new literacies of game play, game modding, and game design! Go to EdTechTalk to see a copy of the c Paul,Allison,,Susan,Ettenheim,,New,York,City,Writing,Project,,Shantanu,Saha,,Al,Doyle,,gaming,,designing,games,,games,in,school,,Gamestar,Mechanic,,issues-based,gaming,,modding,games,,playing,games,,Quest,2,Learn,,Scott,Price,,serious,games Paul Allison, Susan Ettenheim, Thomas (Teb) Locke no No http://teachersteachingteachers.org/?p=258 http://teachersteachingteachers.org/?p=258#comments Sun, 20 Jun 2010 15:29:42 +0000 Paul Allison http://teachersteachingteachers.org/?p=258 http://teachersteachingteachers.org/?feed=rss2&p=258 50:10 br/a href="http://edtechtalk.com/audio/download/4794/Teachers201-2010-05-19.mp3"Download Horizon Report 2010 K-12 Edition, with Rachel Smith, Alan Levine, and Scott Newcomb - TTT 201 - 05.19.10/abr/Cloud Computing Collabor br/a href="http://edtechtalk.com/audio/download/4794/Teachers201-2010-05-19.mp3"Download Horizon Report 2010 K-12 Edition, with Rachel Smith, Alan Levine, and Scott Newcomb - TTT 201 - 05.19.10/abr/Cloud Computing Collaborative Environments Game-Based Learning Mobiles Augmented Reality Flexible Displays After enjoying and learning from the conversation at Seedlings-2010-05-06 with Lucy Gray and the K12 Horizon Report, we thought we would do a follow-up to their inspiring show. (Thanks Alice, Bob, and Cheryl! And double-thanks to Alice for helping to broadcast this episode.) Our guests for this podcast were Rachel Smith @nimah and Alan Levine @cogdog vice-presidents of the New Media Consortium. They are the principal writers of the 2010K-12 Edition of the Horizon Report and they joined us on this episode of Teachers Teaching Teachers. We supplemented their descriptions with examples from our classrooms. For example, check out the work fourth-grade teacher Scott Newcomb is doing with smartphones in Ohio. Are you working on the horizons of change? Wed love to hear your story in the comments below. Rachel Smith NMC, VP, NMC Services http://www.nmc.org Rachel S. Smith is the Vice President, NMC Services for the New Media Consortium (NMC), an international consortium of more than 260 world-class universities, colleges, museums, research centers, and technology companies dedicated to using new technologies to inspire, energize, stimulate, and support learning and creative expression. She is recognized for her work in making new technologies approachable for higher education faculty and staff through talks, trainings, and written materials. A specialist in project coordination, user interface design, and visual facilitation, Rachel leads the NMCs fee-based services units, directs the NMCs involvement in projects such as the open source Pachyderm project, and directs all NMC internal and external publications. She serves as an interorganizational liaison, bringing together NMC members from around the globe to develop new projects. Rachel authors instructional materials, guides, and monographs on the creative and technical aspects of teaching with technology. Alan Levine NMC, Vice President, Community and CTOhttp://www.nmc.org/ Alan Levine is the Vice President of Community and Chief Technology Officer (CTO) for the New Media Consortium, where he leads efforts to research and integrate those cool new 2.0, 3.0, technologies. Before this, he spent 14 years evangelizing technology for the Maricopa Community Colleges, where he hoisted the first web server in the system way back in 1993. Alan was a key contributor to significant efforts such as Ocotillo, a faculty-led initiative that promotes innovation and drives change, created the , a virtual warehouse of innovation that pioneered the use of RSS in syndicating learning object content, and developed Feed2JS, an open source software shared for allowing people to easily incorportate RSS content into web pages. Alan works from home in the tiny town of Strawberry, Arizona, and continues to bark and growl about his work at CogDogBlog. And thats not all! We also invited teachers like Scott Newcomb to join us on this webcast to tell stories from your classroom! Examples of teachers looking for change on the horizon: Scott Newcomb, a fourth grade teacher in St. Marys, Ohio. He and his colleagues have been involved in a Mobile Learning project for the last two years. They have been using smartphones in the classroom. Every student in their school district from 3rd grade to 6th grade has their own mobile learning device! They will be adding seventh grade next year. Their goal is to have a mobile learning device in every students hand from 3rd grade to 12th grade! Check out their schools mobile learning website: http://www.smriders.net/Mobile Paul,Allison,,Chris,Sloan,,Alice,Barr,,Rachel,Smith,,Alan,Levine,,Scott,Newcomb,,smartphones,,cloud,computing,,collabortive,environments,,mobiles,,augmented,reality,,flexible,displays,,game-based,learning,,Horizon,Report,,Horizon,Report,2010,,Horizon,R... Paul Allison, Susan Ettenheim, Thomas (Teb) Locke no No http://teachersteachingteachers.org/?p=257 http://teachersteachingteachers.org/?p=257#comments Sun, 13 Jun 2010 19:20:27 +0000 Paul Allison http://teachersteachingteachers.org/?p=257 http://teachersteachingteachers.org/?feed=rss2&p=257 67:01 br/a href="http://edtechtalk.com/audio/download/4789/Teachers200-2010-05-12.mp3"Download Celebrate our 200th show with a few of our friends - TTT 200 - 05.12.10/abr/Thank you! Go to EdTechTalk to see a copy of ... br/a href="http://edtechtalk.com/audio/download/4789/Teachers200-2010-05-12.mp3"Download Celebrate our 200th show with a few of our friends - TTT 200 - 05.12.10/abr/Thank you! Go to EdTechTalk to see a copy of the chat that was happening during the webcast. 200 Paul Allison, Susan Ettenheim, Thomas (Teb) Locke no No http://teachersteachingteachers.org/?p=256 http://teachersteachingteachers.org/?p=256#comments Mon, 31 May 2010 18:01:39 +0000 Paul Allison http://teachersteachingteachers.org/?p=256 http://teachersteachingteachers.org/?feed=rss2&p=256 69:27 br/a href="http://edtechtalk.com/audio/download/4779/Teachers199-2010-05-05.mp3"Download Bitstrips Creators and Writing Project Teachers Talking Comics - TTT 199 - 05.05.10/abr/On this episode of Teachers Teaching Teacher br/a href="http://edtechtalk.com/audio/download/4779/Teachers199-2010-05-05.mp3"Download Bitstrips Creators and Writing Project Teachers Talking Comics - TTT 199 - 05.05.10/abr/On this episode of Teachers Teaching Teachers, we enjoyed a lively conversation with two guys from the Toronto-based interactive design team who created Bitstrips for Schools, Shahan Panth and Jacob Blackstock. We were also entertained by a couple of Writing Project teachers: Kevin Hodgson from Western Massachusetts and Larry Neuburger from the Ozarks in Missouri. In September 2009, Bitstips launched a new educational site, Bitstrips for Schools! Soon after we launched Bitstrips.com, we found that teachers everywhere were using Bitstrips as a teaching tool, engaging their students with the exciting power of comic creation. So, we decided to build a new version of Bitstrips, tailored specifically for teachers. Bitstrips for Schools has all the awesome tools from Bitstrips, transplanted into a safe and secure environment, with additional administrative features that put the teacher in control. Teachers can create a virtual classroom, where their students can become cartoon characters and then complete activities by making comics. Its an amazing way to promote literacy while having fun. And, to start things off with a bang, weve licensed the service to the Ministry of Education for our home province of Ontario. This means that all 5000 publicly funded schools now have access to Bitstrips " thats over 2,000,000 students! We cant wait to see what they come up with. So, go check out Bitstrips for Schools " learning with comics has never been so much fun! Earlier this spring, the National Writing Project invited their teachers to try Bitstripsfor free until the end of the summer. Have you thought about using comic strips as a new way to engage your students? It seems like a perfect step along the continuum of multimedia use in composition, but the artwork aspect of it may be daunting. Enter: Bitstrips for Schools. Kevin Hodgson wrote a review: I am always interested in the various online, but protected, sites offering students and teachers a way to make webcomics. I use ToonDooSpaces with my students, and I love the variety of artwork and other options at ToonDoo, but I keep an eye out for other sites, too. Recently, the National Writing Project finagled a deal with Bitstrips to let NWP teachers give the Bitstrips for Schools a trial run, so I jumped right in (big surprise) and started up an account, established a classroom and began making a comic. Later, I created an activity that will show up in any student account that I create. Perhaps you do comics with your students, or would like to consider the possibilities! We hope you enjoy this conversation! Go to EdTechTalk to see a copy of the chat that was happening during the webcast. Paul,Allison,,Susan,Ettenheim,,Kevin,Hodgson,,National,Writing,Project,,Bitstrips,,Bitstrips,for,Schools,,comics,,Shahan,Panth,,Jacob,Blackstock,,Larry,Neuburger Paul Allison, Susan Ettenheim, Thomas (Teb) Locke no No http://teachersteachingteachers.org/?p=255 http://teachersteachingteachers.org/?p=255#comments Tue, 25 May 2010 01:53:21 +0000 Paul Allison http://teachersteachingteachers.org/?p=255 http://teachersteachingteachers.org/?feed=rss2&p=255 70:09 br/a href="http://edtechtalk.com/audio/download/4774/Teachers198-2010-04-28.mp3"Download David Niguidula and Bill Fitzgerald Give New Life to Digital Portfolios - TTT 198 - 04.28.10/abr/We asked two of our favorite softwar br/a href="http://edtechtalk.com/audio/download/4774/Teachers198-2010-04-28.mp3"Download David Niguidula and Bill Fitzgerald Give New Life to Digital Portfolios - TTT 198 - 04.28.10/abr/We asked two of our favorite software developers/consultants/activists/dreamers, Bill Fitzgerald and David Niguidula to talk to us about digital portfolios on this episode of Teachers Teaching Teachers. Bill Fitzgerald and FunnyMonkey At an Educon 2.1 session in January, Bill Fitzgerald showed us a Durpal-based digital portfolio system that he and his colleagues at FunnyMonkey had been developing. As always with Bill, it was more than a software demonstration. With this project, he is leading us in a process of Rethinking Portfolios. The promise of the portfolio is that the demonstration of learning remains as close as possible to the process of learning, while allowing individual elements of the learning process to be highlighted and discussed as part of evaluation. This type of assessment creates a nuanced picture of how a person is developing as a learner. Portfolios have been around for a while, yet they are still largely viewed as an alternative means of assessment. What are some of the barriers for adoption that exist? What are the arguments against using portfolios? When used effectively as part of ongoing professional development:] A teaching portfolio shows what and how a teacher is teaching; In conjunction with a student portfolio, organic ties can be made between student learning and the role of the teach The process of creating a teacher portfolio accomplishes (at least) two things it transforms curriculum development from an individual endeavor into a community endeavor; and after maintaining a teacher portfolio for one year, a teacher will have created a fully portable outline of their entire course, which has the potential to eliminate the need for a textbook. We were happy the opportunity in this podcst to learn more about FunnyMonkeys Digital Portfolio project. David Niguidula and Richer Picture Fifteen years ago, Paul Allison and Shantanu Saha were working at University Heights Secondary School in the Bronx when we had the opportunity to begin building a digital portfolio for our school. David Niguidula was the leader of this project with the Coalition of Essential Schools. That project was a life changer for both Paul and Shantanu. It was the experience with technology that would put each of us on our own journeys into educational technology that continue today. Occasionally our paths meet up. Both Shantanus and Pauls students work on Youth Voices, a Drupal site developed by Bill Fitzgerald.We were excited to have this opportunity to catch up with David Niguidula! This is how his site describes their work: Richer Picture products and services help schools use technology to personalize teaching and learning. Our digital portfolios provide a new way for your students to show that they are meeting standards " while celebrating who they are as individual learners. We have the most extensive experience in developing and implementing electronic portfolios in K-12 schools. In the 1990s, Ideas Consulting Founder David Niguidula led the first research project on digital portfolios while at the Coalition of Essential Schools. Since then, we have accumulated over a dozen years of experience working in elementary, middle, and high schools across the country and around the world. We provide both technology tools and the professional development to help you use them effectively. Our software is customized for your school and is designed to fit your needs. Our professional development goes far beyond learning how to use the tools; we help your staff address the essential questions of assessment and school change. These tandem descriptions made us wonder if these tw Paul,Allison,,Susan,Ettenheim,,Bill,Fitzgerald,,change,,Digital,Portfolios,,David,Niguidula,,Richer,Picture,,FunnyMonkey,,Educon,2.1,,Coalition,of,Essential,Schools Paul Allison, Susan Ettenheim, Thomas (Teb) Locke no No