Are You Preparing Your Students for PARCC?

A look at the PARCC models for ELA/Literacy reveals that student will be expected to read more than one reading passage; the main article and the sidebar. Requirements include close reading, finding relationships among key ideas, and comparing information covered by both topics.  Teachers are scrambling to find complimentary resources for student practice.  While daunting, the task is not impossible.  New Jersey ELL teacher Carol Novick  has even included technology in her practice with her ELL students.

Carol found a short video clip on the South Pole Allied Challenge for the students to view on her ipad in a small group. The Youtube transcript feature was not accurate and she decided not to use it. Then Carol paired an edited online article with a short publisher created reader to recreate the assessment task.  The online article was run through the Chrome readability app to increase the text size and remove the ads for some students.  For others, she used readability text tool called http://read-able.com/ to determine the reading level, then ran the text through http://rewordify.com/  to reduce the reading level by simplifiying  the text slightly. Finally, she developed her assessment questions based on the PARCC samples. Carol's strategy of using current events paired with existing educational materials will fill the gap until more testing samples are available.

Screencasting on the iPad.

This interactive thinglink shows some apps for screencasting on your ipads.

Where in the World is Your Classroom?

Connect geography and culture using a Mystery Skype session with another classroom. The Global Classroom project and their partners, Hello Little World Skypers have brought their collective brains together to offer an experience where student use maps, communication skills and critical thinking to solve a geographical mystery. Students take on the roles of Map Keepers and Logical Reasoners in this exercise where they are required to find out the location of another classroom by asking only yes and no questions in a mystery Skype session with that class. For the past few years, many distant classrooms have forged connections and learned from one another. The Mystery Skype founder is a teacher from Holmdel, New jersey, Caren MacConnell or @Carenmac as we know her.

What is An Hour of Code?

Coding is making its way across the face of our elementary classrooms. This month the word is spreading thanks to the push generated by Computer Science Education Week's campaign to introduce one hour of coding for as many as 10 million students. They provide tutorials for students to get them started with absolutely no previous training needed.
The integration of computer literacy, graphics, mathematics and personal narrative allow students to tap into the higher levels of the Revised Bloom's Taxonomy as they create worlds of their own using tools like Scratch and Minecraft. Watching your students as they develop their own robotic friends and make shapes and entire worlds appear on their screens will provide the buy in that you may need as an educator to include an introductory, interactive learning experience that will only take an hour. Mr Tyler Watts, Computer Applications teacher for grades 6-8 at Arrowhead Middle School in Kansas City, KS, "Believes that all children should be introduced to programming to teach them Computational Thinking in order to better navigate our technology-rich world."  He provides a sample of a problem one of his students encountered during their use of scratch to help other teachers who may encounter similar situations.
 

Coach Mentoring

Are you aware that the SRI & ETTC offers coach mentoring?  That is correct, you can use your ETTC hours for a personal learning experience in a one-to -one setting, either in your district or at one of our locations. Teachers and office professionals can request this service. Simply tell us what skills you are seeking and we will select the best mentor to assist you from our retired educators and experienced classroom teachers and trainers.  Topics, content, pace, and scheduling are at the mutual conveience of the participant, the mentor, their organization/school and the ETTC.

Sites for Creative Commons Images

Learn more about the Common Core

Learn more about the Common Core - from faculty at Stanford University - for free!  Have you ever wanted to try a MOOC?  Here's your chance to try this Professional Development delivery model that has been written about, talked about, and made available across the world.   https://novoed.com/common-core. If you do register and complete this online course, please share your experiences with us!

Seven Free Tools for the Creation of Podcasts

If  you are going to create with your class by podcasting, we propose some free tools to achieve them.  Podcast are important resources in teaching, learning and displaying mastery of content. Podcasts are very useful tools for children with specific learning disorders.

Here we provide a list of seven programs, to create and distribute podcasts.

Audacity  

 

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MP3 Encoder: LAME 

Once you create your podcast in audacity, you need to convert it to MP3 format before you upload it to the internet. Converting your audio to MP3 makes the file size smaller and easier for others to download and listen to.

LAME is a program that works with Audacity to convert your audio to MP3.

You can download LAME here.

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MP3myMP3

 

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Podbean

  

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Podomatic

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Odigo

 

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Yodio

 Record audio from your phone, add photos and captions. 

How much is 1 Gigabyte?

by chatsky.
Explore more infographics like this one on the web's largest information design community - Visually.

Bring images to life with Thinglink

So many wonderful projects are being made recently using Thinglink.  It is time to showcase some of them here for you.  Perhaps they will spark a creation of your own! They are embeddable and so much fun for students and teachers alike to work on. We appreciate the ability to integrate formal writing and opportunities for further engagement with images and links that are revealed through mouseovers.



Kelsey Vroomunn uses Thinglink in her High School AP European History and French Language Classes and her blog post "Using Thinglink to prepare for the AP Cultural Comparison" exhibits some student samples.



  History project driven by essential question


Here is some help on getting started using this tool yourself, and you can visit this Thinglink toolkit on wikispaces.com

 

Online Workshops Available at the SRI & ETTC!

Check out our online workshops and learn from the comfort of your home or classroom.

At this time, we have five offerings with very competitive pricing.

Online Workshops

Child Abuse/Child Neglect

Copyright and Fair Use in the Classroom Web-based Workshop

iMovie for the Classroom, Web-based Workshop

Windows Movie Maker, Online Course

iMovie for the Classroom, Web-based Workshop

iMovie for the Classroom, Web-based Workshop

Description:

iMovie is the easiest tool to use to create high-quality video projects. This online webinar will cover all of the necessary techniques that you and/or your students will need in order to make impressive video-based projects. In addition to discussing many of the less obvious uses in the classroom, we will go through: Capturing Video, editing video, working with still images, using titles and transitions, adding multiple tracks of audio, recording narrations and even creating animated maps. Once our projects are complete we will explore the many options that are available for sharing our projects including making DVDs. This workshop is a must for anybody who has access to iMovie and has not been using it or has only used it within a limited capacity.

Audience:

Workshop Code: OD14001

Dates:  This is an Online Workshop - What does this mean?

Cost: $29 OR 1 ETTC Hour(s). For info on membership, call the ETTC.

Instructor: Philip Polsinelli

Location: On-line

REGISTER!

Travel Grants enable women to attend Math Research Conferences

Grant Name:
Travel Grants
Funded by:
Association for Women in Mathematics
Description:
The objective of the NSF-AWM Travel Grants program is to enable women to attend research conferences in their fields, thereby providing a valuable opportunity to advance their research activities and their visibility in the research community. By having more women attend such meetings, we also increase the size of the pool from which speakers at subsequent meetings may be drawn and thus address the persistent problem of the absence of women speakers at some research conferences.
Program Areas:
Math, Science/Environmental, STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math)
Recipients:
Public School, Private School, Higher Education
Proposal Deadline:
10/1/2013
Average amount:
$2,000.00
Telephone:
703-934-0163, ext. 213
Email:
jennifer@awm-math.org
Website:
http://www.awm-math.org/travelgrants.html

Availability:
All States 

Chromecast has landed

A neat little package arrived yesterday, Chromecast was on my doorstep.  The instructions for setup were very simple, though I originally thought the USB charger was optional. It does not work without that USB being plugged in, so be warned.  Luckily I did have a USB port on my tv and didn't have to mess with the power strip buried in the back of my entertainment center. Setup took all of 5 minutes, mostly finding out that the chromecast doesn't work with my 5G wifi, only the slower connection.  It could be my TV or the chromecast, who knows without me delving into the forums.  If you want decent sound, turn up TV volume  PRIOR  to casting. For some reason, this was the only way to get volume control, as my remote failed to work for me after I started casting. Netflix experienced a lot of lag, weird since I have great Internet and no trouble with iPad, surface or android tablets while streaming from that service. YouTube was better, but not by much.  Thank goodness I can get Netflix through Xbox.  I assume the limited amount of castability options will change, as more services integrate.  I do not have Apple TV, so I can only compare to Xbox at tis point. Xbox is a pain, so running chromecast from the iPad or laptop was so much easier, just wish the streaming was better. You absolutely can use other tabs and strema at the smae time, so that functionality is what they promised.  I am going to try it out in a classroom this week and update this review. Since I know I have strong Internet at home, I have no allusions that the streaming will be faster in a school, but there is always hope.  I also know that any new product has bugs that will be fixed. For the price, if it works it will be great value.  I also saw online chatter that I may be able to get netflix free for three months with the chromecast, so I will be checking into that.  I will update as I get information.

Science History Rap Videos on our "What's New in Stem" Scoop.it

These are Science Rap history videos created by students, they are quite comprehensive and full of interesting scenarios that bring science to LIFE!

Literacy Fun with Google Story Builder

Students create narratives in Google Story Builder by plotting their story line through connections they must establish in the text. Simple writing task are elevated with critical thinking skills. The story builder appears as a google doc, where characters appear to be sharing in the writing and editing of a document. You can check out our story, then create your own and share it with us! Some ideas to use with your students include creative writing projects, and  conversations between two characters in a novel  You can share the link to your story or capture it using screencasting software like we did below.

Transferring Large Files

A resource we wanted to share with you is wetransfer.  This is a site where you can quickly transfer up to 2 GB of data just using email addresses.  They hold on to your files for about a week and then the transfer link is no longer active.  This is a site for transferring only, not for hosting files.  We have been using it successfully for the last few years to avoid having to carry around memory sticks large enough to handle big files.  Many school districts have a policy on email attachments and this is a good work around.  One thing we must mention is that the person on the receiving end must download the files as soon as possible because the link will expire after a few days.   Have fun!…

Tracking Trends Through Keywords and Ngram Viewer.

Google's Ngram Viewer allows students to  search keywords in millions of books and find trends over time. The Ngram Viewer has advanced options, such as searching for particular keywords as specific parts of speech or combining keywords. Just in case they ever wondered how popular detectives were in Victorian times, now they can. In the example below, a search for democracy yields results from the 1700's to almost present day.  For examples of how this is used in classroom setting read this quick blog post about the cultural evolution of words: NGram Viewer and five million books reveal hidden evolution of words.

Reflections on MOOCs

This is a guest post from Jen Lee, an aquaintence  of mine from South Jersey who agreed to share her elearning experiences with us:

I took two MOOC courses at Coursera.org in the Fall of 2012, and am currently enrolled in another right now during Spring 2013.

I took "Learn to Program: The Fundamentals" from the University of Toronto, which offered a certificate of accomplishment for those achieving a grade of 70 or higher.

I took "An Introduction to Interactive Programming in Python" from Rice University, which did not offer a certificate at all.

Currently, I'm taking "Learn to Program: Crafting Quality Code" from the University of Toronto. This is a followup to the first Learn to Program class, with the same instructors, and also offers a certificate of accomplishment for those achieving a grade of 80 or higher.

In all of the classes, there were video lectures with the professors explaining things in a very clear way from start to finish.  There were no books required; all the learning was done through video lectures, exercises, and assignments.  There were lots of programming tasks to complete, and quizzes to take. The students took to the forums, talked about everything, asked for help, offered help, set up google and facebook study groups, and generally posted a LOT. The forums were constantly buzzing with activity. Since there were SO many people, types of people varied drastically. There were complainers, there were people who kept asking for extensions on dates, there were people who made fun of those people, there were people who helped everyone out, there were people who asked a ton of questions, there were people who answered a ton of questions. There were people who were obviously seasoned programmers, so much that we all wondered why they would take a beginner class.  There were people who just didn't understand the material who were struggling along the whole time. There were critics and supporters. People who loved the professors and people who hated them. People who thought the course was too easy and who thought it was too hard. The forums were a great source of information, and entertainment. Socially, it was comfortable and familiar. Especially because a good portion of people were taking both classes at the same time.

In the Rice University course, the team of professors (there were 5, though only 2 main ones) encouraged students to make their own videos explaining the course material for that week and post it to the forums. The student with the videos that were the most popular at the end of the course would win an iPad.  I can see that they didn't know quite how popular that contest would be. Lots of students made videos, and a few made videos several times a week for the duration of the 7 week course. In the end, it tied... between a 19 year old girl... and a 12 year old boy. All these adults trying to learn programming... and a 12 year old boy was teaching them how. He was truly an inspiration, even to my kids, who have now taken an interest.

The professors interacted more than I would have expected. In all cases they did have community TAs to help people who needed it. But the profs monitored the forums regularly and commented a LOT. The forums helpfully marked which threads had a professor response included, so that was a nice feature. 

Personally, I learned a lot in those classes. I enjoyed programming so much that I decided to enroll in the local community college to pursue a degree in it, purely because I like it and I would love to have those skills. Currently I am enrolled full time in the community college, with mostly online classes, and I'm still taking a MOOC from Coursera because I love it, and because that programming language (Python) is not offered at ACCC.

The online classes I'm taking at an actual college are jolting, coming out of Coursera. The online classes in programming at ACCC are more like self-taught courses. Here's the book, those are your assignments, these are tests and quizzes, here are the due dates for everything, now GO. It's nothing like Coursera. At Coursera, the video lectures and programming assignments are not released all at the beginning; they are slowly released as the course progresses. So, even advanced programmers can't move ahead and finish the course in the first two weeks. They have to stick around with the rest of us and do what we're doing... which is great, because the forums wouldn't work if only the slowest students were there posting and the faster students had already moved on. The faster students are the ones who have the patience and the knowledge to help the rest of us through the problems that we don't understand.  At ACCC, you ask a question, and there's no one really checking the forums anymore to even answer.

I realize that online classes will likely never fully replace traditional classrooms. However, the model used at Coursera is very efficient, very conducive to learning, and well liked by many. The do-it-yourself model probably doesn't work well for students who are not self-motivated or who do not learn well by reading a textbook alone.

I don't have full statistics for the courses. At the end of the first Learn To Program class, though, the professors did post a summary, which gives some interesting data. Here it is:

The number of people who earned a certificate: 8243



The number of people who submitted each piece of coursework:



E1    38502

E2    25368

A1    18222

E3    17104

E4    14991

A2    13236

E5    12657

E6    10658

A3     9336

E7     9283

Exam   8938

The next two sections count the results only for people who wrote the final exam.

coursemark  how many earned that mark

[0-10)        44

[10-20)       59

[20-30)       92

[30-40)      106

[40-50)      114

[50-60)      167

[60-70)      331

[70-80)      747

[80-90)     1840

[90-100)    4592

=100:        766



exammark      #    # earned cert    # did not earn cert

(0-1)         0             0             0

[1-2)         0             0             0

[2-3)        58             7            51

[3-4)        39             3            36

[4-5)        64             8            56

[5-6)       103            15            88

[6-7)        79            29            50

[7-8)       109            49            60

[8-9)       168            98            70

[9-10)      233           180            53

[10-11)     409           357            52

[11-12)     735           661            74

[12-13)    1360          1278            82

[13-14)    2349          2247           102

14         3152          3055            97

We correlated the Week 3 Workload survey responses with course completion by category. The categories were:

   "I had never programmed before.",

   "I had written a few small programs or tried to take another programming course but didn't complete it."

   "I had completed an introductory programming course."

   "I have significant programming experience."

In the following table, we list:

* the category

* how many people in that category who wrote the survey

* how many people in that category still in the course

* how many people in that category still in the course (as a percentage)

* how many people in that category who earned a certificate

* how many people in that category who earned a certificate (as a percentage)

   category    survey  # done  %       cert    cert %



  beginners     4167    3596   86.3     1386   33.26

     novice     3335    3067   92.0     1666   49.96

       some     2681    2434   90.8     1431   53.38

experienced     1806    1683   93.2     1136   62.90

   everyone    11989   10780   89.9     5619   46.87

We are impressed be everyone who earned a certificate, especially the beginners and novices. You should be proud of yourselves. Well done!


Update on Blog Post

Hi!

Just wanted to update you on some MOOC info...

I finished my third MOOC this semester. Still loved it. This one was shorter (5 weeks as opposed to but it was still full of great information.

I was just browsing upcoming classes on Coursera and I discovered that they are now offering something called "Signature Track". It's a paid option for a MOOC that will run right alongside the regular MOOC offerings on Coursera, but they will be using typing patterns plus a webcam to actually determine that the person that is doing the coursework is in fact the person who has registered for the course. I'm guessing it's one step closer to actually getting MOOCs to be recognized and accepted as credit at brick and mortar institutions.

What I find strange about this much security is that the classes I'm taking online at ACCC don't require any sort of validation like that. It's pretty much "Go buy the book, here's a list of your assignments and due dates, email someone if you need any help." So, to me, the Signature Track at Coursera seems like complete overkill.

But, it is what it is. If it gets us closer to MOOCs being accepted as credit, I'm all for it.

Here's the information on the Signature Track:
https://www.coursera.org/signature/guidebook

ibooks as cross-curricular projects

You can find the class ibooks in itunes U

The cover of the
Digestive System ibook

For an example of cross-curricular learning of biology and language arts as well as technology integration and 21^stCentury Skills, we recently found a third grade class from Charlotte-Mecklenbug schools that used ibooks to create publications on the major human body systems.  Students researched in small groups, pooled their findings, and then created their pages for the ibook that was published on itunes University.  There are engaging voiceovers, videos and fun facts embedded in the book, as well as some original student artwork. The books can actually be opened other apps, such a Kobo, or uploaded to your notebooks, folders, drives and libraries in Evernote, Dropbox, Google drive and edmodo for sharing.  We were able to view the published book in the itunes University app and in Kobo.   The teacher, Mrs. Gallo, includes her lesson plan.  The link to view their books is https://itunes.apple.com/us/course/mrs.-gallos-class-human-body/id646038195?ls=1.

The students managed to embed video and audio
as well as text.

Students Merging Multiple pdfs Into a Single pdf

Drag or select the files you want to merge

Select multiple pdfs you want to merge.

  If you do not have access to Adobe Acrobat Pro, and your students need to merge pdf files into one pdf, there are some free web tools available to complete this function such as PDF MERGY .  Simply put, you select the files using drag and drop from your computer and initiate the merge.  It will put the documents in the order you placed them and upload the file to an unencrypted remote server for a brief time.  You can even use documents from Google Drive and Dropbox. Then you save the merged document to your computer or     Google Drive. 

The order of the documents in the merged
file will match the order you see on the screen.

  Do not use with confidential files, even though they delete the files almost immediately, it is not secure to upload sensitive or classified information. The site is still in beta and can be used with  any browser that supports recent HTML5 standards. Namely: Chrome 7, Firefox 4, Safari 5, Opera 12  and even IE 10,  or any newer version of those browsers. 


 This type of program is a problem solver for collaborative work, many times, students work in small groups to complete a project, if they each make a pdf of their work, they can merge then into a single file to publish.  Most types of documents can be saved as pdfs, including powerpoint files. 

You have the choice of where to save your merged file.