Transparent Learning

A few weeks ago it was Open House on NC State's campus and for the first time I was asked to talk about the technology we have at the College of Education. I dutifully made my "Presentation Zen" style PowerPoint and showed up for the rehearsal. I had completely forgotten that I had taught the other presenters how to make PowerPoint Zen-like and they wanted to know why I wasn't push the envelope! I was even challenged to use "something like Prezi" to make a big splash. Now I already had my presentation finished, so I kept that as my back-up and decided to try out Prezi.

First of all, I found Prezi to be unlike any other presentation tool I had ever used, and I mean that in a good and bad way. For the first time in a long time I found myself going through the tutorials and watching the videos to see how this thing worked. It was almost a blessing that I had already done my PP, because without that organization I would have been lost. Prezi really does force you to have an outline before you start. Once I got going it was fairly easy, but it still took a while to work out the kinks.



My lessons learned are:

1. I tended to use words more with Prezi than I typically do. But words almost as "art."
2. Images that do not have hard edges, or have a white background that matches work better (Think every image of a Mac you've ever seen :)
3. You can group objects utilizing frames, otherwise it just zooms into one object in particular
4. When you rotate an object on your grid, that is what causes the camera to rotate and zoom. In other words, it may be angling to the left on your grid, but during the presentation it will zoom and look upright.
5. The Prezi style doesn't fit every presentation

The last lesson is the most signifigant for me - there are times when Prezi really just won't organizationally work. I really like using more visuals, and that just didn't seem to suit this program. I still want to play with it a bit more, and I do have to say that the "Wow" factor during the presentation did make it worthwhile, but "Wow" factors fade eventually.

On a side note, several furture students and their parents came to talk to me about Prezi, and one student had even made one before! How cool is that!

I have been a bit missing from the blogger and twitter world lately. I'm not sure if I just needed a break, if the begining of the semester was just too much, or if my upcoming trip to Australia (more later) was too daunting. I have had so many blog ideas, but never a time to write them in a timely fashion. I promise upon my return to the States, I will be a better blogger, really, I will!

Now onto the fun stuff - I am going to Australia!!!! The frequent flyer miles of my lovely husband are taking the both of us to Australia for 17 days. We plan on splitting our time between Sydney & Melbourne and everything in between. I *hope* to blog our adventure (depending on Internet access) at :

http://bethanyandbrenttraveltooz.blogspot.com/

Wish us luck and will talk to you all soon!

Although I love my job, and feel that I am extremely fortunate to be in the place that I am, but I miss having a classroom that is my own. Every once in awhile I get the opportunity to work with middle or high school students again, if only for short periods of time, but this summer I had a classroom again for an entire week. It was good for me to experience the good and the bad of classroom management, technology issues, and all around classroom antics.


But mostly what I loved was working with kids to BUILD & CREATE something! I am a creative spirit at heart and find that I learn more about geometry by making a quilt, or more about Physics by making a car. This summer I had students for an entire week (in daily 1.5 hour sessions) and decided to build mousetrap cars. I wanted a hands on project, but also one that required an understanding of science to work well. I found lots of examples on building MouseTrap Cars, or them being used, but found very few sources that were rooted in the scientific process (that I didn't have to pay for). The best video was actually from a John Hopkins University - and worked as a good introduction or inspiration for the class.



As a subscriber to Make magazine, I had known about Instructables, but found their tutorial invaluable. My goal was to make these cars out of everyday household items for as cheaply as possible. I didn't want to go the "pinewood derby" route and have blank kits that are offered by several companies, including Doc Fizzix.

I found that the PBS website Games People Play also gave me a good place to start, but really didn't focus enough on the science, while the Boise State University Engineering project had a bit more than I wanted. In the end I checked out some books from the library, and used the Vernier Logger Pro video software to collect data (I mean I can't do a lesson without technology, now can I :) for acceleration & velocity.

All in all I ended up having a wonderful time, I got to really connect with a group of kids, and hoped I showed them a bit more about what Physics is all about. I created a Wiki page with my lesson plan at http://bethanyvsmith.pbworks.com/mousetrap and have all of my resources linked at http://delicious.com/bethanyvsmith/mousetrap.

I highly recommend you build a mousetrap car, either for class or just for fun!

I missed the Sunday Keynote of Malcom Gladwell, so my first real day at NECC was on Monday. Since I was staying for friends I navigated the metro in from Maryland to the convention center. I was extremely grateful that NECC not only has an online planner, but that I can subscribe to the feed on my iCal & iPhone. I didn't have to carry my program around, I could just look at the calendar on my phone & see where to go. The only drawback is that it doesn't designate who the presenter was - so it was hard to decern where I wanted to go.

My first day was mostly tied up with meeting with the University of Texas at Austin about their College of Education 1:1 laptop program & meeting with my fellow presenters for our Ning presentation the following day. I atteneded about 30 minutes of an Ian Jukes session - but he said "Digital Natives" just too many times for my taste. I missed Scott McLeod's session, that everyone raved about, but luckily it was recorded on http://www.istevision.org/



The best part of the day was getting a chance to meet Lee & Sachi Lefever of Common Craft and talk about their creative process as well as how their videos are used in schools. I also discovered that Lee grew up a few miles from me in Kernersville, NC before moving to Seattle, WA - whereas I was born in Seattle & moved to Winston-Salem. It was great to talk to them about their travels and their process and I hope they enjoyed their first education conference!

One of the reasons I love EBC is getting to meet with the people I follow and talk to on Twitter. Jon Becker is one of the those people I was looking forward to seeing and talking to face-to-face. His Edubloggercon session reminded me of what I wish every graduate course had been like. An informed and honest discussion about the state of education. Specifically his session was titled, "Where School Reform Meets Madonna: Can public schools fundamentally reinvent themselves? (Jon Becker & All the Cool People) [NOTE: anyone who mentions a tech. tool has to stand on a table and sing "Loving Feeling"]"

Because even though technology is what this conference "is all about" - really it is about changing our schools. We had an honest and frank discussion about the changes we wanted to see in education and the reality that it may not come to pass. What interested me is all these pockets of innovation that never really seem to be accepted into mainstream education. That innovation is not a new idea and so many of these ideas about changing the status quo have been around. So why not? Can change come from the inside? Does there need to be an outside event? Do we need another Sputnik? And if so - does that leave educators with our hands tied behind our backs? It was almost a bit disheartening, but then you realize that all the people in this discussion are "Fighting the good Fight," and I like to think we are making a difference, but can we make systemic change - I'm not sure .

Oh and Kristen Hokanson mentioned a tech tool - but didn't have to sing :)

I started out with a discussion on Professional Development which Liz Davis started (and Alice Mercer covered in her blog). We had a great discussion (and commiseration) about how difficult getting teachers to come to PD is, and ways that we can change our strategy for PD. Jeff Utech shared how he puts his teachers on an individualized "tech plan." Although I love this idea, I doubt my professors would be up for it. But I do like the idea of customizing goals with our instructors, and meeting with them one-on-one to tailor tech integration to their needs.

We also had a great discussion about different ways of offering PD, from Open Lab sessions, to planning time, etc. Most of us have found that doing a teaser (such as the Wired Wed I conduct) work as effect teasers, as well as give us an idea of interest before having a full blown workshop. I struggle with the idea of consistency (something every week or every other week) vs. only holding them based on interest. Last semester I didn't host any workshops, only Wired Wed. I'll try to do a bit of both this year, but definitely focus on more one-on-one interactions.

The only down side is that I missed the Web 2.0 smackdown AGAIN! Luckily you can get all the great Web 2.0 tools & UStream Video on http://coolcatteacher.wikispaces.com/Web+2+Smackdown

This year Steve Hargadon once again outdid himself as our "ambassador" to ISTE and arranged for Edubloggercon. Edubloggercon, which I agree with Steve has less to do with blogging, and more to do with subversive teaching, is a chance for educators to get together and share ideas about what technology integration really looks like. For me it is also a chance to connect with those that I converse with online. Face-to-face is still important to me. I get a good deal of info online, and enjoy making friends on Twitter, but I still want to just hangout sometimes :)

Edubloggercon is set-up as an unconference, I like to think of it as controlled chaos. Pick a topic any topic, see if people show up to talk about it, you get an hour and then do it all over again. I made it to about 3 sessions before my brain went into overload, and I needed a mental break - but I did make it into the picture this year :)