Moving through 2019 (it's all going to be okay)

Blogslacker that I am, I drop in here on a Saturday morning to share with you that I'm actually really blogging more regularly at my classroom blog. To see a few things, head on over to the Falcons Tech Lab blog and subscribe to that one if you want to keep up. More and more, I'm focusing on my work at my work, trying to establish a solid learning environment for my ~800 students who cycle through it in the course of a school year in 9 week chunks.
It's a continually changing set of challenges, with 8 good-sized classes each 9 weeks, coming in in alternating A-day/B-day rotations. Our kids are largely in Hispanic-rooted families. Recently I polled a 9-weeks set of classes to see exactly how the language piece breaks down. This was in the way of an end of quarter reflections poll, using Google Forms as its vehicle. Look at this:

from Falcons Tech Lab classroom poll end of quarter 3, 2019

I do maybe have one little announcement. Those close to me may remember that I have been planning to retire at the end of the school year 2019-2020. Well, I'm rethinking that. Although I will have just turned 70 at the end of that May, I think I'm good to continue teaching, I like to joke, until they haul me out of my lab with a toe tag. I absolutely love my work, and now, after persevering through the extraordinarily challenging and frustrating two years that involved teaching in a very difficult inner-city elementary school and then working in two separate buildings with two less than optimal computer setups I am in a lab that is new (albeit with old, wi-fi connected, PCs) and beautiful and which I am making work to everyone's learning advantage. We got into Minecraft successfully this past quarter, and through initial forays into that platform I am inspired to tweak procedures and lessons to really take kids forward in digital citizenship, empathy, conceptual skills, and coding. Of course we will be elsewhere in each 9 weeks journey, but this development is, as I say, inspirational.

The weather over Spring Break, which ends tomorrow night, has been odd, which kept me off my favorite fishing lake, Lake Marrowbone; but that has led to some new organization of curriculum as well as time with my dear son Colin. Today, Saturday, Miranda and Tim are coming over to hang out and have a big vegetable dinner at home with us, then Colin and I will uber downtown to the Mother Church, Ryman Auditorium, to see and hear a favorite indie performer, Kurt Vile, with his band The Violators, opened by The Sadies. It'll be a great time. Tomorrow will be a good day, then I meet my ~200 new students Monday and we are off to new explorations and adventures in the Falcons Tech Lab. I'm good to go.

May you live and learn. Be Good and Have Fun...

Machinima by Students or Teachers? Submit to the Force!

Machinima Submissions are Now Open!

2015 Categories
2015 Submission Form 

It's Machinima mania at the ISTE (International Society for Technology in Education) conference this year! Machinima - it’s a portmanteau of the words machine and cinema. It is the screencapturing and editing of 3D games and virtual environments. Are your students or maybe you making these? They can be made in Minecraft, Roblox, World of Warcraft, Elder Scrolls Online or any other video game or 3D environment.

Here is an example of one of the past winners. Lego Universe- Crumple’s Pet Skunk Tutorial http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=llf1zfk4nmQ See the learning happening there. We’d love for you and your students to submit your Machinima videos. You need not attend the conference to participate. If you or your students are especially prolific in creating Machinima, you can also submit your Machinima channel.

At the 2015 ISTE Conference in Philadelphia, we will be announcing the winners of the 2015 EduMachinima Fest on Monday, June 29, 5:30–6:30 pm EDT (Eastern Daylight Time)

The EduMachinima Fest is a new media Film Festival showcasing games and virtual environment formats combined with cinematic arts to teach, inform, entertain and inspire. The EduMachinima Fest features both Student and Educator entries in a variety of categories including digital storytelling, tutorials, and narrated gameplay. Technical achievements such as editing, screen capture (machinimatography), sound and special effects, are also recognized. Machinima provides students with an opportunity to express themselves creatively and/or demonstrate content knowledge in sandbox game environments like Minecraft, MMO’s like World of Warcraft, and virtual environments such as Kitley and OpenSim. 

Machinima can include real-life video and greenscreen, but always includes some form of digital environment. The fest will feature individual and collaborative works as well as channels with series designed to tell a story or instruct.

If you have any questions, please contact Kae Novak at gamesmooc@gmail.com.

So copied from  http://connect.iste.org/blogs/kae-novak/2015/04/23/2015-machinima-fest By Kae Novak posted Thu, Apr 23, 2015 08:39 PM

Beloit College Mindset List

This came across my inbox today in the Second Life Education Blog, and as a parent with a child just embarking on her first year of college, it strikes me as the type of undertaking educators at ever stage of the game could stand to make tradition. Here's the quote-out from the listserv:

"Each August for the past 11 years, Beloit College in Beloit, Wis., has released the Beloit College Mindset List. It provides a look at the cultural touchstones that shape the lives of students entering college. It is the creation of Beloit's Keefer Professor of the Humanities Tom McBride and Public Affairs Director Ron Nief. The List is shared with faculty and with thousands who request it each year as the school year begins, as a reminder of the rapidly changing frame of reference for this new generation.

The class of 2012 has grown up in an era where computers and rapid communication are the norm, and colleges no longer trumpet the fact that residence halls are "wired" and equipped with the latest hardware. These students will hardly recognize the availability of telephones in their rooms since they have seldom utilized landlines during their adolescence. They will continue to live on their cell phones and communicate via texting. Roommates, few of whom have ever shared a bedroom, have already checked out each other on Facebook where they have shared their most personal thoughts with the whole world.

It is a multicultural, politically correct and "green" generation that has hardly noticed the threats to their privacy and has never feared the Russians and the Warsaw Pact. Students entering college for the first time this fall were generally born in 1990. For these students, Sammy Davis Jr., Jim Henson, Ryan White, Stevie Ray Vaughan and Freddy Krueger have always been dead.

1. Harry Potter could be a classmate, playing on their Quidditch team.
2. Since they were in diapers, karaoke machines have been annoying people at parties.
3. They have always been looking for Carmen Sandiego.
4. GPS satellite navigation systems have always been available.
5. Coke and Pepsi have always used recycled plastic bottles.
6. Shampoo and conditioner have always been available in the same bottle.
7. Gas stations have never fixed flats, but most serve cappuccino.
8. Their parents may have dropped them in shock when they heard George Bush announce "tax revenue increases."
9. Electronic filing of tax returns has always been an option.
10. Girls in head scarves have always been part of the school fashion scene.
11. All have had a relative--or known about a friend's relative--who died comfortably at home with Hospice..."

The list goes on, through 60 clever and sometimes surprising items. Visit the Beloit College Mindset List website for the complete list, and think about considering your own students in order to create your own list. Great food for thought...

Why Let Our Students Blog?

Forgive me if this is old news to you but it's new news to me. Connecting the dots from twitter to email to internet this morning (not an unusual pathway for me) I came across a video I'd like to share. It's from New Zealand teacher Rachel Boyd and I find it rather eloquent. Enjoy:

Academia 2.0 -- Death to the "Lecture?"

Oh, one hopes so, one truly hopes so.

Another video from Kansas State University, via the Best Practices for eLearning Ning, (by way of the Teaching College Math Technology blog)this 10 minute thought-provoker. A gift to you, fellow teacher or learner...