LISD Ed Tech Connection

Last week the Library of Congress announced on its blog that it has joined the Web 2.0 shift with a pilot project that resulted in uploading to the photo-sharing site Flickr more than 3,000 photos from two collections of its vast holdings (over “14 million prints, photographs and other visual materials”). The historic images, in both black and white and color, are from the 1910s, 1930s, and 1940s and include a huge variety of subjects from agriculture to World War II to sports.

 
Delano, J. Going to town on Saturday afternoon, Greene Co., Ga.  Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, Washington, D.C. 1941.

What does this mean to the average person? LoC sees this project as leading to increased access to their informative collections. “No copyright restrictions are known to exist.” This is good news for education, but users still need to cite sources when downloading or linking to the photos. Folks with Flickr accounts can help tag the images with meaningful words or phrases. They can also leave comments about the images or add notes, opening the door to knowledge sharing or questions and answers. Many images already contain many comments, tags and notes.  People can also subscribe to a feed that automatically announces when LoC posts new photos.

Library of Congress Blog:  http://www.loc.gov/blog/?p=233

Looking for a challenge?  Looking to further your knowledge over the holidays?  Want to learn more about Language Acquisition, New Media Literacies, Chinese, or Cognitive Processes?  Check out the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s OpenCourseWare (OCW) web site where you can access course materials like lecture notes, demonstration videos, and problem sets from over 1800 of the university’s courses, all for FREE.  According to MIT, over 1 million learners visit each month from all around the world.  21% of site traffic comes from East Asia/ Pacific (6 million visits since 2004);  19% of the visitors are from Europe / Central Asia (5.3 million visits since 2004); the bulk of the others hits come from North America (39%, 11 million since 2004).  

MIT’s OCW has mainly 3 types of learner-visitors:
Self-learners = 49%
Students = 32%
Educators = 16% 

One student wrote, “I’ve graduated from high school, but I’ve been accessing the OCW since I was in the first year. In a developing country, it’s quite difficult to access good course materials. Thank you very much, OCW has given a lot of advantages in my education process.”
– Grace, Indonesia 

Global access to this kind of learning material supports the idea of the Internet as a flattener of the world.  Valid, relevant, high quality content is ubiquitous.  

Important Notes from MIT:
- OCW does not grant degrees or certificates.
- OCW does not provide access to MIT faculty.
- Materials may not reflect entire content of the course.

The Michigan Moodle Users Group, in collaboration with Washtenaw ISD, Ottawa ISD and REMC 3 and 9, will be holding a full day conference on using Moodle in today’s learning environments.   The conference is scheduled to take place on February 20, 2008 at the Washtenaw Area ISD.  Please see the attached flyer for additional information. 

This conference will be a mix of hands-on lab experience lead by a highly trained presenter as well as traditional lecture presentations by educators using Moodle with their students.  This powerful learning management tool provides educators with the means to expand their learning day beyond the 8-3 school day.  Participants will also earn credit towards the Michigan Online Learning requirement at the same time.

Register Now: http://tinyurl.com/38dczn

Conference sessions are still under development, but some examples include: Introduction to Moodle, Teaching In The Online Community, Managing Your Course, and Designing Course Elements. Wireless access will be available and learners of all skill levels are welcome to attend.  Please see the attached flyer for additional information.

If you are able to bring a wireless laptop, it is strongly encouraged.

The free K12 Online Conference started on Monday, Oct. 8th and is now in full swing. According to conference organizers, “This is a conference by educators for educators around the world interested in integrating emerging technologies into classroom practice. A goal of the conference is to help educators make sense of and meet the needs of a continually changing learning landscape.”

It is not too late to get things streaming. Some sessions are live. All sessions are archived. Check out the conference schedule here. First time attendees will find this section of the conference wiki helpful.

21st Century fundraising

Are you seeking funds in order to buy camcorders and tripods for that new, cross-curricular unit your grade level or subject area team recently developed? Consider writing a student-project proposal and posting it to the Donors Choose web site where the motto is, “Teachers ask. You choose. Students learn.” The site, somewhat like Kiva, creates a place and process that connects public school teachers who need resources to improve student learning with donors who want to give financial help. As of this writing, there are only 6 teachers from Michigan with proposals online at Donors Choose seeking to fund projects that ask for between $378 and $799.

Interested? There are 2 main criteria that submissions (proposals) at DonorsChoose.org must meet:

1. All requested resources must be used by students or directly provide a student experience.
2. The proposal cannot foster discrimination or proselytize a religious or political viewpoint.

According to the Donors Choose site, most successfully funded proposals are under $400. Proposals stay online for 8 months, and if a proposal does not get fully funded, the listing expires. For more information, see the Donors Choose Help page.

Please note: Lenawee ISD is not affiliated with DonorsChoose.org in any way. This blog posting is simply spreading the word about an opportunity.

This blog featured a post about the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) $100 laptop initiative about a year ago. Since that time there has been much progress. The laptop has been named XO and the current working iteration is the B3. The revolutionary user interface (UI) developed for the XO is called Sugar, which interestingly, has been designed in a move away from the traditional ‘desktop’ metaphor to one of community and networks of learners.

(used with permission – http://laptop.org Creative Commons Attribution 2.5)

Must see video: insight into the vision and XO development (Redhat Magazine)

For a good look at the hardware, software, design and user interface, see the laptop section of the OLPC website.

Laptops have been distributed for trial usage by student in places like Nigeria and Thailand. Click on the country names to see and read more about what is happening in these learning communities.

(used with permission – http://laptop.org Creative Commons Attribution 2.5)

Must see video: video about the activities that have been built for use on the XO (Redhat Magazine)

How does this impact education in the USA? One thought – anyone ready to start collaborating with students and teachers in Uruguay?

Links: Official OLPC website and OLPC wiki

The latest edition of Smithsonian Magazine contained a 1-page write up about a new initiative that the Smithsonian is partnering with other organizations on called the Encyclopedia of Life. The project is unique in many ways, some of which are briefly outlined below:

• The goal of the Encyclopedia of Life is to document all known species (some 1.8 million!) each on a media-rich web page including still images, maps, video, text, sound recordings and so forth.  According to the current web site of the Encyclopedia of Life, it has been estimated that the project will take roughly 10 years to complete.  Dynamic content will be authenticated by a team of scientists from various organizations around the world.  Page development started in 2007.  Some parts of the Encyclopedia of Life may be available to the public in mid-2008.

• The site will be interactive. There will be a chat feature and access to experts.  It will feature an interactive classification map of species.  And, importantly, users will be able to contribute content.  Think of the possibilities for classroom studies and projects!

• The Encyclopedia of Life will allow for personalization and customizable browsing. Users will be able to change the level of complexity of the text (think differentiation).  And people who create accounts will be able to bookmark pages, make tags, and take notes.

For an intriguing video, previews of a few species’ pages and more info, see the current web site: Encyclopedia of Life
( http://www.eol.org )

The National Educational Computing Conference put together each year by ISTE recently took place in Atlanta, GA. ISTE has posted tons of great media online from NECC 2007 that you can access for free. Check out the wealth of info and share with other educators:

Video webcasts of various sessions
Highly recommend if you only have time for 1 or 2:

• Thinkfinity (formerly MarcoPolo) overview of free interactive web resources
• Closing keynote w/ Dr. Tim Tyson and students from Mabry Middle School, GA (start at 8:00 min.)

Podcasts
(When I try to play these audio files through the Apple Learning web site, they are making my browsers, Firefox and IE, crash. Try accessing them from iTunes > search: conference connections) Highly recommended: Ian Jukes, Mitchel Resnick

Links to people who blogged NECC 2007

Lastly, you can search for presenters’ handouts

Enjoy! ~ Greg

Frank Miracola is a highly respected educational technologist at Macomb ISD. He often speaks at state and national conferences. Frank has created a new web page to compliment his “Free is Good” PD session. At this time, the site features 10 free video tutorials that focus on free software applications that can be used by teachers or students. They all feature Frank’s genial style. Want to learn how to use Photo Story 3 or Rubric Maker and Citation Creator? Check out Frank’s FIG site.

1. Designing Authentic Online Activities
Learn how to modify your classroom content to create effective activities for use online. As a class, be involved in active participation online to try out these activities led by an experienced online instructor. Walk away with a final project that you can immediately use in your classroom. This course will be delivered via Moodle. Participate and become familiar with this free open-source platform.

2. Blogging for Classroom and Administrative Use
Can Blogs really be used effectively in the classroom or are they only for social purposes? How can an administrator use Blogs to collaborate and communicate with staff? How do I create a Blog? Answer these questions and more by enrolling in this course. This course will be delivered via Moodle. Participate and become familiar with this free open-source platform.

Courses will be led by instructor Miriam Taylor. Courses start September 10, 2007 and conclude October 6, 2007. Cost is $150 for MACUL members ($180 for non members).

To register, download this pdf form: MACUL Online Courses for Fall 07 and fax it to MACUL using the fax # indicated on the form.

Note: These courses have no connection to LISD or its personnel.