Here’s a trick I just learned:
Javascript Bonus: Curious about when the page you’re on was last updated? Just type javascript:alert(document.lastModified) in the address bar and press Enter to see the date and time in a pop-up window.
And here’s a link (Last Modified) can drag to your toolbar. Once there, you can click on it on any page.
A school in London is using videogames as an reward for their students:
A Birmingham school has found a novel way to motivate pupils to stay disciplined - by giving well-behaved pupils a range of executive perks, including access to a computer-games room and the right to wear a special uniform.
Selly Oak School has benefited 180 students with a platinum award card, which gives them access to a games lounge, where they can play Nintendo Wii, Xbox and other console games.
The rest of the 410 students can see from outside what they are missing.
They also give the top 20 students the choice to wear a different school uniform.
While most schools give house points (shades of Harry Potter), this is more ambitious. Teachers have halved their time spent on discipline problems.
Are there districts in the US doing this?
When we first started recommending Firefox, one of the first features that the students found was the ability to change themes. Unfortunately, changing a theme is a pretty heavy weight process, requiring a restart of Firefox. Mozilla Labs has been working on a different theming process, Personas, which doesn’t require a restart:
Features
- You can select a Persona from the dynamic menus and see results instantly without having to discover, select, download or install a separate bit of software or code.
- Personas can be added, removed or updated by their designers at any time, without requiring a software update.
One caveat, the theme can be changed by the designer at anytime, which means there is a chance that something inappropriate may be viewed.
We are getting ready to roll out Google Apps for Education, and there was a video on Youtube from Google on sharing documents that I wanted to show to the staff. Unfortunately, YouTube is blocked at school, so embedding the video was out. To show the video, I did the following (requirements are Wordpress and the Podpress plugin):
The video is now embedded on my blog, and loading from my blog, so it will no longer be blocked.
One nice aspect of working with technology in education is being exposed to a wide variety of skills and operations outside of the educational realm. Today I stumbled upon a process model of software development called CMM, the Capability Maturity Model.. The acronyms mentioned in the article can get quite thick, but we’re more interested in the 5 levels.
How many schools do you know that are at this level?
Success in these organizations depends on the competence and heroics of the people in the organization, and not on the use of proven processes. In spite of this ad hoc, chaotic environment, maturity level 1 organizations often produce products and services that work; however, they frequently exceed the budget and schedule of their projects.
Success in these organizations depends on the competence and heroics of the people in the organization. I find myself guilty of this. Instead of putting processes in place for technology implementation and integration, I rely on a core group of teachers who are successful to learn how to use technology and how to implement it. My hope is that other teachers will see the successes and wish to emulate them. In reality, too many believe that there is no value in technology and don’t see the value in learning. How often is the hiring process based only on finding the best employees, without spending the time and effort to put procedures in place to help the entire district become successful.
My goal in the upcoming months is to move out of Level 1. Put processes in place on technology literacy and help the staff AND students become successful. This will take time to map out where we are and where we want to go, but I believe that will make us a better district.
I’ve noticed people have a love/hate relationship with Microsoft Word, more hate than love I’m afraid. In fact, when I mentioned to some teachers that we have to start moving off of AppleWorks, I got some from angry reactions. Mostly it’s because Word tries to help the writer a little too much, moving things around or auto-correcting stuff. There is help out there:
You use your browser a lot. You use your e-mail program a lot. But the chances are better than even that you spend a big chunk of your workday in Microsoft Word. There’s no way any application used by so many people for so many different tasks is going to be set up just right for you. Here are the five settings I changed to make Word work my way, more or less.
I’m going to add a few more, getting rid of automatic bulleted lists, automatic numbered lists, and automatic borders. Go to Tools → Autocorrect → Autoformat As You Type and uncheck the relevant boxes. You will probably want to do it to the Autoformat tab too.
The Our Stories™ project helps people share the stories of their lives, no matter where they live or how their stories unfold. We’re providing resources to create and share personal stories from all over the world, starting with children in developing countries who are using One Laptop per Child (OLPC) computers or those who are working with UNICEF radio producers to record and share interviews. Children are asked to record the stories of elders, family members, and friends.
Take a $40 Wiimote, an infrared emitting pen and you have the makings of an interactive whiteboard (No Nintendo Wii required). Johnny Chung Lee has been experimenting with the Wiimote. The Wiimote connects to the computer over bluetooth, and inside it is an infrared camera that can track up to 4 LED sources.
Check out the video of it in action:
Now to find a source for some infrared penlights or make my own and try this out. With projectors costing less than $800-$900 this would be a very inexpensive way to bring interactive whiteboard technologies into the classroom.
Reading over at Slashdot.org and the original article at ScienceDaily it appears that film enjoyment can be contagious:
Over the course of the film, movie-watchers influence one another and gradually synchronize their emotional responses. This mutual mimicry also affects each participant’s evaluation of the overall experience — the more in sync we are with the people around us, the more we like the movie.
Can this research be applied to the classroom? We’ve all taught at least one lesson where it seems like everything clicked. The students were engaged, on task, and excited. Even the most prepared teacher can have a lesson go south, but it appears that a lesson might be saved by “groupthink”. By slowly bringing the class on task, it can cause a snowball effect, not only increasing the enjoyment of the students but also increasing their retention.
I’m reminded of this post by Miguel Guhlin
In my early years of working with adult learners, I facilitated a workshop that was everyone’s nightmare class–a cafeteria technology inservice. In the morning, provide inspiring words about using technology. In the afternoon, hands-on tutorial. The morning went well since we had cooperative grouping, activities, etc. The afternoon was focused on how-to, but I had some physical education coaches that whipped out newspapers. I was supremely irritated and felt powerless. It was my first solo workshop for the Education Service Center, and I wasn’t sure what to do…if I’d been working as a school district facilitator, I know exactly what I would have done–I’d asked them to leave. Instead, I put up with them.
Although a teacher can’t “fire” their students, a teacher needs to be aware of the negative influence those off-task students are having on the rest of the class.
Testing posting from Textmate, along with a picture.